{"id":7099,"date":"2015-11-10T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7099"},"modified":"2015-11-09T15:27:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T23:27:33","slug":"hope-and-change-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/11\/10\/hope-and-change-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope and Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

The disciples of John reported to him about all these things. Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, \u201cAre You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tWhen the men came to Him, they said, \u201cJohn the Baptist has sent us to You, to ask, \u2018Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n

\tAt that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many who were blind. <\/p>\n

\tAnd He answered and said to them, \u201cGo and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.\u201d (Luke 7:18-23)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tJohn had spent his last few years like limo driver at an airport waiting for his passenger near the baggage claim, holding up a sign with the name \u201cMessiah\u201d scrawled on it. John\u2019s question about Jesus was not just a consequence of discouragement from being locked away in prison. His question grew out of what people in the day believed about the coming of God\u2019s kingdom. <\/p>\n

\tThe \u201cExpected One\u201d was the Messiah. According to Jewish tradition, there were two Messiahs coming, a \u201cMessiah son of David\u201d who would rule and reign as king and a \u201cMessiah son of Joseph\u201d who would suffer and die. The idea of two Messiahs grew out of the two pictures of the Messiah in the Old Testament: one reigning, one suffering and dying. So John\u2019s question was not to wonder so much about the reality of Jesus\u2019 messiahship, as to wonder which of the two he might be.<\/p>\n

\tJesus responded to John\u2019s question by healing the sick, casting out demons, and restoring sight to the blind. Then he sent John\u2019s messengers back to report what they had seen. <\/p>\n

\tWhy did Jesus end by telling John that the one who didn\u2019t take offense at Jesus would be happy? Because the Pharisees and other religious leaders were seeing the same thing that John\u2019s messengers saw, but they only criticized what Jesus was doing. Jesus believed that John\u2019s reaction was likely to be something different than that of the Pharisees. <\/p>\n

\tSo will we respond Jesus\u2019 answer like a Pharisee\u2014or like John the Baptist?<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The disciples of John reported to him about all these things. Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, \u201cAre You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?\u201d When the men came to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7099"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7101,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7099\/revisions\/7101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}