{"id":5062,"date":"2014-02-22T00:05:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-22T08:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5062"},"modified":"2014-02-21T16:07:19","modified_gmt":"2014-02-22T00:07:19","slug":"who-sinned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/02\/22\/who-sinned\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Sinned?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tAs he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, \u201cRabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?\u201d <\/p>\n

Jesus answered, \u201cNeither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God\u2019s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man\u2019s eyes, saying to him, \u201cGo, wash in the pool of Siloam\u201d (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. <\/p>\n

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, \u201cIs this not the man who used to sit and beg?\u201d Some were saying, \u201cIt is he.\u201d Others were saying, \u201cNo, but it is someone like him.\u201d <\/p>\n

He kept saying, \u201cI am the man.\u201d But they kept asking him, \u201cThen how were your eyes opened?\u201d <\/p>\n

He answered, \u201cThe man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, \u2018Go to Siloam and wash.\u2019 Then I went and washed and received my sight.\u201d <\/p>\n

They said to him, \u201cWhere is he?\u201d <\/p>\n

He said, \u201cI do not know.\u201d (John 9:1-12)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tWhen the disciples saw the blind man, their question was not one of compassion or concern, but instead a question of blame. According to the prevailing theology of the time, if you were suffering, there were only two possible reasons for it: you\u2019d done something wrong or your parents had.<\/p>\n

\tJesus\u2019 response to the disciples\u2019 question was not what they expected at all. The blind man\u2019s lifetime of suffering was not because he had sinned or his parents had sinned. It was so that God could perform a miracle\u2014which Jesus then proceeded to do by putting mud in his eyes that he washed out in the pool near one of the walls of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

\tWhile one of my wife’s friends was in the hospital giving birth to a stillborn baby, a woman commented to my wife, \u201cyou know, good comes to good and bad to bad.\u201d <\/p>\n

My wife reacted with incredulity: \u201cWhat possible bad thing could she have done that it would have cost the life of her daughter?\u201d Bad things sometimes happen to good people. We won\u2019t always know why. But we can always be confident that God has his reasons. <\/p>\n

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As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, \u201cRabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?\u201d Jesus answered, \u201cNeither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born … 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":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5062"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5065,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions\/5065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}