(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
The Feast of Tabernacles
- And Jesus was walking in Galilee after these events, for He wasn’t wanting to walk in Judea because the Jews there were seeking to kill Him.
- Now, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near.
- So His brothers told Him: “Depart from here and go into Judea, so your disciples there will also see your works that you do.
- “For no one does something in secret if he himself seeks to be known in public. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.”
- (For not even His brothers were believing in Him.)
- So Jesus tells them: “My time isn’t come yet; but your time is always ideal.
- “The world isn’t able to hate you, but it hates Me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
- “You go up to the feast; I’m not going up to this feast now because My time hasn’t been completed yet.”
- And having said these things to them, He remained in Galilee.
- But when His brothers went up to the feast, then He also went up. Not openly, but as in secret.
- Therefore, the Jews were seeking Him at the feast and were saying “Where is He?”
- And there was much grumbling about Him in the crowds. Indeed, some were saying: “He’s good.” But others were saying: “No, but He misleads the people.”
- Yet no one was speaking about Him openly for fear of the Jews.
Jesus teaching
- And it already being midway through the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and was teaching.
- Therefore the Jews were marveling, saying: “How does this man *know the scriptures, not having studied?”
- So Jesus answered and told them: “My teaching isn’t Mine, but from the One who sent Me.”
- “If someone wants to do His will, he will know about this teaching; whether it’s from God or if I speak from Myself.
- “The man speaking from himself seeks his own glory. But the One seeking the glory of the One who sent Him; He is true, and unrighteousness isn’t in Him.1quotation/allusion to Psalm 92:15
- “Hasn’t Moses given you the law, and not one of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill Me?”
- The crowd answered: “You have a demon; who seeks to kill you?”
- Jesus answered and told them: “I did one work and you all marvel.
- “Moses has given you circumcision because of this, and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man (not that it’s from Moses, but from the fathers.)
- “If a man receives circumcision on Sabbath so the law of Moses might not be broken, why are you angry with Me because I made the whole man healthy on the Sabbath?”
- “Don’t judge according to outward appearance, but judge with a righteous judgement.
The People’s reaction
- Therefore, some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem were saying: “Isn’t this the man whom they are seeking to kill?
- “And look, He speaks openly and they say nothing to Him; not ever. Have the rulers truly recognized that this is the Anointed?
- “But we *know where this man is from. But when the Anointed comes, no one knows where He is from.”
- So Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying: “You *know Me and you *know where I’m from. And I haven’t come from Myself, but the One who sent Me is true, He whom you don’t *know.
- “I *know Him because I’m from Him, and He sent Me.”
- Therefore they were seeking to seize Him, and no one laid a hand on Him because His hour hadn’t come yet.
- And many of the crowd believed in Him and were saying: “When the Anointed comes, He won’t do more of the signs which this man did, will He?”
- The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about Him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers so they might seize Him.
- So Jesus said: “I’m still with you for a short time, and then I go to the One who sent Me.
- “You will seek Me and won’t find Me; and where I am, you aren’t able to come.”
- So the Jews said to themselves: “Where is He about to go that we won’t find Him? He isn’t about to travel into the Dispersion2“The Dispersion” refers to the Jews who were spread across – i.e. dispersed – throughout the Roman Empire. among the Greeks and to teach the Greeks is He?
- “What’s this word that He spoke: ‘You will seek Me and won’t find Me, and where I am you aren’t able to come’?”
The last day of the feast
- Now, on the last day — the great day of the feast — Jesus had stood and he cried out saying: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
- “The man believing in Me will be just as the scripture said: “Streams of living water will flow out from his inner man.”3“inner man” This Greek word literally refers to organs in the abdominal cavity, like the stomach and the womb. It metaphorically refers to the “inner man”
- (And He said this about the Spirit, whom the men who believed in Him were about to receive, for the Spirit wasn’t given yet, because Jesus wasn’t glorified yet.)
- So having heard these words, some from the crowd were saying: “This is truly the Prophet.”
- Others were saying: “This is the Anointed.” And others were saying: “No, for can the Anointed come out of Galilee?
- “Didn’t the scripture say that the Anointed comes from the seed of David and from Bethlehem, the town where David was from?”
- Therefore, a schism happened in the crowd because of Him.
- And some of them were wanting to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him.
- Therefore, the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to those officers: “Why didn’t you bring Him?”
- The officers answered: “A man never spoke like this; [not as this man speaks.]”
- So the Pharisees answered them: “Have you also been misled?
- “None of the rulers believed in Him, or any of the Pharisees, did they?
- “But this crowd not knowing the law is accursed.”
- Nicodemus – the man who formerly came to Him – being one of them, he says to them:
- “Our law doesn’t judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he does, does it?”
- They answered and told him: “Aren’t you also from Galilee? Search the scriptures and see that the prophet isn’t raised out of Galilee.”
- [
Note: To read John 7:53-8:11 (the story of the woman caught in adultery, which most scholars believe wasn’t written by John) click here; link opens in new tab.
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