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by Brian Shilhavy
As we follow the story about the life of Jesus Christ in John’s gospel written in the New Testament portion of the Bible, we come to a very interesting passage in John chapter 7 which documents how the brothers of Jesus Christ turned against him, and mocked him.
To understand the events of chapter 7, however, we need to first look at what happened in chapter 6, where Jesus was addressing a huge crowd of over 5000 people, and miraculously turned “five small barley loaves and two small fish” into enough food to feed everyone, with plenty left over.
Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick.
Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip,
“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him,
“Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up,
“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”
There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them.
Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples,
“Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.”
So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say,
“Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. (John 6:1-15)
As John writes at the beginning of this chapter, the news about Jesus was now starting to spread fast, because he literally healed everyone who came to him.
And now, with this miraculous way of multiplying food to feed the masses, they wanted to make him king over Israel.
But Jesus’s kingdom was not of this world. Satan offered it to him, but he refused.
So Jesus had to literally hide from the masses who actually liked him, but for selfish reasons. But Jesus’s problems with his new-found fame were only beginning.
Eventually the crowd found him, which led to Jesus’s next encounter with them later on in chapter 6. Jesus made it clear that he was not like Moses, who gave their forefathers “manna”, bread from heaven, so that the nation could live in the desert for 40 years.
Jesus tried to teach them the difference between physical food and spiritual food, while also prophesying about his own execution which would result in his body being killed, and his blood being spilled into the earth.
Once the crowd understood that there were no more free lunches coming, most of them abandoned him.
At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said,
“I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
They said,
“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I came down from heaven’?”
“Stop grumbling among yourselves,”
Jesus answered.
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’
Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.
But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves,
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”
He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. On hearing it, many of his disciples said,
“This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them,
“Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.
The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
He went on to say,
“This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. (John 6:41-66)
Jesus’s problems were just beginning. Not only did he lose most of his disciples, the ruling Jews also saw him as a threat, probably due to the way he could draw such large crowds through his miracles, and they began to plot his murder, as chapter 7 begins.
After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. (John 7:1)
Were members of Jesus’s family among the disciples who stopped following him and turned against him?
The text does not say, but what follows gives us some insights into his “family” who began to oppose him.
Now, as I wrote last week, the English word for “family”, which today means mostly a “nuclear family” of a father, mother, and their children, is a concept that did not exist in biblical times. See:
Jesus probably belonged to a large household that revolved around the family business as “craftsmen”, probably stone masons and carpentry.
That household probably included blood siblings of Jesus, but most likely others who were also part of the business.
So when his “brothers” oppose him in the text, it is very possible that they were more than just his biological siblings. “Brothers” was also a term that Jesus used for his disciples, none of whom were his blood relatives.
But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus’ brothers said to him,
“You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”
For even his own brothers did not believe in him. (John 7:2-5)
Jesus’s goal was clearly NOT to become a “public figure.” This is why he hid himself from the crowds when they tried to force him to become king.
And when he had to hide himself from the Jews who were trying to kill him, his own family criticized him for hiding.
Here is how Jesus responded to their criticisms:
Therefore Jesus told them,
“The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right.
The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.
You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.”
Having said this, he stayed in Galilee. (John 7:6-9)
Jesus explained a very important principle here for himself, and his true disciples. The world loves its own, and as long as you do the things that are approved by the world, which, by the way, includes the Christian religion today, then the world accepts you and protects you.
But if instead you expose the evil of the world, which I have done for decades now, such as exposing the pedophiles and sex traffickers within Christianity, both the pedo Priests in the Catholic Church and the pedophiles also among pastors in the non-Catholic churches (Mormons, Protestants, Evangelicals, etc.), then they will hate you and seek to destroy you.
For much of my life I have had to live in anonymity, because powerful people have wanted to destroy me, and lock me up, even in recent times.
My family thinks I am crazy for not using the same methods of communication that they do, such as cell phones, the “free” emails like Gmail, Yahoo, and others, which take all of your communications and add them into their huge databases that power their AI models.
It’s a difficult and hard life, as Christians and family members attack you and criticize you for not being part of the “community” that Christians insist everyone has to belong to.
But I take great comfort in knowing that the world treated Jesus the exact same way, because he exposed their evil deeds.
So when the right time did come, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem in secret, and confronted the crowds. He states a very important principle about those who serve Satan by bowing to the world system, and those who oppose Satan and suffer for it.
However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.
Now at the Feast the Jews were watching for him and asking,
“Where is that man?”
Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said,
“He is a good man.”
Others replied,
“No, he deceives the people.”
But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the Jews.
Not until halfway through the Feast did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach.
The Jews were amazed and asked,
“How did this man get such learning without having studied?”
Jesus answered,
“My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me.
If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.” (John 7:10-18)
Who are the ones who are people of truth, and who are those who oppose the truth?
I highlighted the word “false” in the passage above, which is the opposite of “truth.”
The Greek word is ἀδικία (adikia), which occurs 25 times in the New Testament, with the most common translation being “unrighteousness”, at least in the older English translations, but it is also translated as “wickedness” and “injustice.”
It is primarily a legal term.
This is the entry in Thayer’s Greek Definitions:
1) injustice, of a judge
2) unrighteousness of heart and life
3) a deed violating law and justice, act of unrighteousness
Is this not exactly what we are seeing in the world today in “modern” society?
Those who, like Jesus said, are seeking “to gain honor for himself” will pervert justice to try and gain benefits for themselves.
But those who seek to honor God and expose injustice, are people of truth, who are then attacked by those whose evil deeds are being exposed by that truth.
This is the spiritual food that Jesus was talking about in John chapter 6: a hunger and thirst for righteousness, opposing injustice.
The day is coming where our hunger and thirst for justice will be fulfilled.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matthew 5:6)
Comment on this article at Created4Health.org.
This article was written by Human Superior Intelligence (HSI)
See Also:
Understand the Times We are Currently Living Through
The post When Jesus’s Own Family Turned Against Him first appeared on Health Impact News.
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