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Gospel: John 10: 31-42
The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
The Jews answered him,
“We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.
You, a man, are making yourself God.”
Jesus answered them,
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods”‘?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power.
He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said,
“John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true.”
And many there began to believe in him.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Ironically, Jesus’ greatest critics today consider him to be nothing more than a man. Perhaps a good man – and a great moral teacher – but only a man.
Meanwhile, the critics in Jesus’ time wanted to stone him – not for claiming to be a man, but for claiming to be God!
“We are not stoning you for a good work, but for blasphemy,” they say. “You, a man, are making yourself God.”
To which Jesus responds, “If you do not believe me…then believe the works.”
No one other than God could bring sight to the blind, healing to lepers, or Lazarus back from the dead. The proof is in the pudding.
Still, some people remained skeptical and hard of heart. So, they raised their stones to kill him.
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This Gospel passage presses all of us into deciding – “Is Jesus just a man? Or is he God?”
He is or he isn’t. There’s no middle ground. As he himself says, “I AM.”
If Jesus is God, then how does that affect our desire to know him?
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In this age of rapid scientific development and the relentless pursuit of knowledge, perhaps we could all use a little reminder:
If you want to know anything about life’s mysteries – from the creation of the world to the purpose of your own life – turn to the One who’s behind it all.
Jesus.
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Image credits: (1) Medium (2) Bible Study Media (3) Quora
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