John chapter 20

vs 21

Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. And we know that he commanded them to go into the world and preach the gospel. But this does not fit our more typical model for that. It's interesting to know that our sent-ness is in the same model of the Father sending Christ. So when people talk about Christ as the model missionary, they're not wrong. I mean. how much bigger a cultural shift do you want?

vs 22

Again, this isn't how we imagine the disciples getting the Holy Spirit. We think far more of Acts and Pentecost. John seems to see it differently here.

vs 23

Wait, what now? Now the disciples can forgive sins? I mean, we were all with Jesus when the Pharisees said that God alone could forgive sins, and Jesus is God, so we're happy with that. But now the disciples can too? Sounds almost catholic, doesn't it? Well, these things have to come from somewhere.

I guess what he actually means is that the message of forgiveness is theirs now too, and that they should spread it around. If you think about it in that way, then the responsibility in the second clause is not a power-trip, it is instead a weighty responsibility, because anyone they don't forgive (that is, share the message of forgiveness with) won't be forgiven. Now, some people might have problems with that, especially in the light of the "what happens to people who don't hear the gospel" arguments. I'm just calling it as I see it. I'm a bit like a whale biologist in that way.

vs 24

Poor Tom missed out on this visit. He must've been out buying the beer.

vs 25

Really, he was dumb to say that, wasn't he? Poor guy gets ridiculed for the rest of eternity because he's now "Doubting Thomas". But don't think we're out of the woods. Eternity may start now, but only a fraction of it happens on this earth where people don't know how dumb you are. Imagine eternity up in heaven, where the books have been read out. Are people going to be like "Hey, that's Ben the guy who kept spending money on himself!" or will they say "Hey, that's Ben who went and did some cool thing for God which we all know about now".

vs 26

Jesus is a regular teleporter now. But he waited a week before he revealed himself again. Were they only meeting together once a week? I guess they had to be out making a living somehow.

vs 27

"Remember Thomas? He was the guy who doubted the disciples' words and wanted to poke his finger inside Jesus' holes". I'd really love to stop ridiculing him, but John started it!

vs 28

Thomas doesn't stick his fingers in. He just falls to his knees and gives appropriate praise. It doesn't say anything about knees - he could have hugged him for all I know.

vs 29

And that would include, gee, almost everyone who becomes a Christian from this point forward. Very few of us get to see even visions of Jesus. But we still believe, and we're blessed for it. Especially since we don't get a choice now - it's either believe in Jesus without seeing him, or that's it, no other choice.

vs 30-31

These two verses sum up the entire reason John was written. Some people believe that all the stuff written after this was post-script, and added later. Perhaps. But regardless, this bit states to us what John's purpose was in writing this book. Which is awesome. All people should write such things. He even gives us a bit of an idea how he's framed the book. It's framed around the miracles - of which there are seven or eight big ones I think. And he uses the surrounding situation of those miracles to tell us about Jesus, in such a way that we will believe that he is the Christ, and so that we might then have eternal life. Interesting that this comes just after Jesus' commission to the disciples to tell people about him and give them forgiveness. John through this book has probably directly reached more people than all the other disciples. But then, tradition tells us that some of them went and started some really big church movements, so it depends how you look at it.