I just read Jared Wilson’s book on the parables called The Storytelling God. In this book he becomes the second author that I have ever read that sees the parables of Jesus as more than sermon illustrations for the eastern mind. All 4 Gospels include Jesus referencing Is. 6 when the disciples ask “Why do you teach in parables”. Jesus answer is? So that they won’t repent. Wilson seeks to be faithful to the purposes of the parables as taught by Jesus. Here is a great quote “At the same time, the parables that illuminate themselves to the effectually called obscure themselves to those spiritually darkened. The same sun that melts the ice, as they say, hardens the clay” loc412 It is a great book. His next book is going to be titled The Wonderworking God and will be about the miracles of Jesus. I say that to let you know that you can find some much better work and writing on the miracles of Jesus than this current post. But here, in this post I want to call attention to Jn 6. I want to humbly critique a common idea and philosophy of ministry that comes from what I see as a reductionistic idea from passages like Jn 6.
You have probably heard Jn 6:2 “And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick” taught like this. “Look as the model of Jesus ministry. Jesus was a crowd gatherer. He did signs and wonders and gathered his audience. He was masterful at using shock and awe to captivate otherwise uninterested hearers. So how bout us today? Let us follow in the wisdom of Jesus and use every means possible to draw a crowd and gather those who would otherwise care less. In fact in vs 24 we see that Jesus work was so powerful that it produced seekers. So we need to be like Jesus and do whatever possible to bring people in.” I can not tell you how many times I have heard the miracles of Jesus used like this. But lets take a look at Jn 6 and see what happens with the audience when Jesus starts getting into the “deep” stuff.
First, Jesus tells the people that they are in proximity to him not because of him but because of what he gave them. Jesus had met the crowds felt needs and this is exactly what the crowd wanted Jesus to continue to do. Jesus is simply not okay with that. Jesus then teaches them a Self-Centered sermon from the OT and lets them know that He is the true bread. Life is not about bread it is about the true bread! So what happens to the crowd? Do they hang on his every word and then follow him all the more? Vs 66 “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him”. Isn’t that interesting. In the same vein as the parables, the miracles are more than smoke and mirrors. The miracles of Christ are not the same as a cash giveaway. The miracles reveal the uniqueness of Jesus, the very divinity of Jesus and point us to the work of Christ that does not just call the physically dead Lazarus to life, but spiritually dead people to life. Matt 9:6 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins- he said to the paralytic- Rise, pick up your bed and go home. Certainly the miracles of Jesus are even much more than this. But we must be careful to not understand the parables and miracles of Jesus in ways that are different than Christ taught them and the apostles understood them.
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