Making Connections

For all the good they do, the English Bible’s chapter divisions often break up the text in ways that don’t much help the interpreter in his task. One of the things I have learned to do over time is to back up from the first verse of the chapter I am trying to understand to the beginning of the “scene” in which it takes place, which may be a chapter or more earlier. Then I continue from the end of the passage to the end of the “scene”.

Sometimes these fall on chapter divisions, and that’s great. Often they don’t.

Following the thought flow of the writer helps me see his main emphasis, placing high value on the things he considers of primary importance. Understanding the subject matter of a passage also helps us avoid misinterpreting verses that might appear to mean something quite different in isolation than in the context in which they fall. For all his age and experience with the word of God, John Piper (among others) makes this error repeatedly, dispensing proof texts like aspirin with little or no attention to the context from which he has taken them.

Blowing Through the Red Lights

John 8-10 is one of those passages that benefits from blowing right through the red lights at the beginnings and ends of chapters. Chapter 7 is all about Jesus at the Feast of Booths. The tail end of the narrative is in verses 37-52, the last day of the feast, and ends with Jesus prophesying the coming of the Holy Spirit, then leaving for the Mount of Olives in 8:1, while his listeners debate whether he is really the Christ.

The second verse of chapter 8 brings on a new scene, early morning at the temple, where Jesus is teaching and the scribes and Pharisees show up with a woman taken in adultery. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I believe that story belongs in the gospel of John, notwithstanding a lack of attestation in what scholars take to be the earliest manuscripts of the book. If you remove 7:53 through 8:11, the narrative resumes in verse 12 without establishing that Jesus is speaking to a different group of people on a different day. It is certainly a different subject, though not entirely unrelated. So many of these conversations with the religious leadership involve debates about his authority, which this incident establishes. Confronted by the Lord about their own moral authority, the woman’s accusers depart without a word while he occupies himself writing on the ground with a finger.

A Good Deed at a Bad Time

At the end of chapter 8, Jesus leaves the temple as the Jews prepare to stone him for blasphemy. We would expect the average accused heretic to make his exit from the temple premises with some urgency — people are trying to kill him, after all — yet we find no hint of a panicky flight or scattering disciples in the text. Possibly a miracle was involved. (How does a wanted man “hide himself” in the temple exactly?) As we turn the page to chapter 9, we find John’s narrative is continuous. “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” Probably not sprinting down the Temple Mount then. The pace is sufficiently casual that curiosity has occasion to grip the disciples: “Rabbi, who sinned?” they ask him. “Neither,” replies the Lord. This man was born blind to serve as a living illustration that Jesus is the light of the world.

Thankfully, the poor fellow need not wait for relief any longer. Did he even ask for help? The text does not tell us. Jesus simply anoints his eyes with mud and tells him to go, wash in the Pool of Siloam. The man obeys and finds his vision completely healed. He “came back seeing”. His neighbors recognize a miracle has taken place and escort him back to the Jews, who have presumably given up trying to murder Jesus at this point. Time to provoke them further …

Did I mention this took place on a Sabbath day? Of course it did.

Sinners and Signs

The Pharisees now begin to grill the poor fellow concerning the manner in which his sight was restored, and to dispute among themselves. “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” At this point, it becomes evident the healed man’s allegiance is not to his teachers and religious superiors, but to the unknown prophet of God who had changed his life. “Do you also want to become his disciples?” he inquires. He has already chosen his side. “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” The furious Jews summarily excommunicate him, but as it turns out, this particular healing has only served to enforce and illustrate the point the Lord was making dialectically in chapter 8.

Jesus hears the news about his new disciple, and reappears to test his faith. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” he asks. “Lord, I believe,” comes the answer. He adds, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some nearby Pharisees wonder if he is talking about them. “Are we also blind?”

Agree and Amplify

Time to agree and amplify, but first, yet another unfortunate chapter break that might make us read what follows in isolation. No, when the Lord launches in to a familiar discourse about sheep and shepherds, he is responding to all these events that have just occurred: the question from the Pharisees about their status before God, the blind man’s ejection from Judaism, even his own attempted murder. So he says this:

“So Jesus again said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

“All who came before me are thieves and robbers.” Who came before him? Well, they did. Not only are they blind, they are would-be murderers who climbed in over the fence of the sheepfold to kill and destroy. They are not shepherds but hired hands. This is why they throw the sheep to the wolves and try to murder the shepherd.

The Authority of Christ

But it all comes back to Christ’s authority. He is not just the good shepherd but the door of the sheep, something else altogether. There may be many shepherds of varying quality, their presence optional at night provided the flock remains protected by the walls of the fold. But there is only one door, without which the fold is incomplete and forever vulnerable. No wonder the sheep would not listen to anyone else.

All of this is related, and each part of the story establishes the Lord’s authority in different ways and with subtly different implications. But we only see these connections if we begin and end our story where John does.