John 7:1-24 (2)

Intro

7 After this, Jesus traveled in Galilee, since he did not want to travel in Judea because the Jews were trying to kill him. 2 The Jewish Festival of Shelters, was near. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples can see your works that you are doing. 4 For no one does anything in secret while he’s seeking public recognition. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 (For not even his brothers believed in him.)

6 Jesus told them, “My time has not yet arrived, but your time is always at hand. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it does hate me because I testify about it—that its works are evil. 8 Go up to the festival yourselves. I’m not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said these things, he stayed in Galilee.

JESUS AT THE FESTIVAL OF SHELTERS

10 After his brothers had gone up to the festival, then he also went up, not openly but secretly. 11 The Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, “Where is he?” 12 And there was a lot of murmuring about him among the crowds. Some were saying, “He’s a good man.” Others were saying, “No, on the contrary, he’s deceiving the people.” 13 Still, nobody was talking publicly about him for fear of the Jews.

14 When the festival was already half over, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. 15 Then the Jews were amazed and said, “How is this man so learned, since he hasn’t been trained?”

16 Jesus answered them, “My teaching isn’t mine but is from the one who sent me. 17 If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. 18 The one who speaks on his own seeks his own glory; but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 19 Didn’t Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”

20 “You have a demon!” the crowd responded. “Who is trying to kill you?”

21 “I performed one work, and you are all amazed,” Jesus answered. 22 “This is why Moses has given you circumcision—not that it comes from Moses but from the fathers—and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses won’t be broken, are you angry at me because I made a man entirely well on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment.” 1

1 Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Jn 7:1–24.

Feast of Booths/Tabernacles/Shelters - Celebration, built booths to remind them of their exodus from Egypt. Huge feast, great time to go public with His ministry. Hence, the brothers thinking it was the right time. “The Rev. brings out the defining force of the two articles: the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles. This feast occurred in the early autumn (September or early October), and lasted for seven days. Its observance is commanded in Exod. 23:16; 34:22; Lev. 23:39, 42, 43; Deut. 16:13. Its significance was twofold. It was a harvest-home festival, and hence was called the Feast of Ingathering, and it commemorated the dwelling of Israel in tents or booths in the wilderness. Hence the name Feast of Booths or Tabernacles. The association of the latter event with harvest was designed to remind the people in their prosperity of the days of their homeless wandering, that their hearts might not be lifted up and forget God, who delivered them from bondage (Deut. 8:12–17). Therefore they were commanded to quit their permanent homes and to dwell in booths at the time of harvest.”

Disbelief of his own family - Marian Dogma

Jesus Understanding of Time / Sovereign Plan - Why did He go after saying it wasn’t his time? Jesus is not going to go the feast the way in which the brothers want Him to go to the feast, triumphantly.

The hatred of the world - Because Jesus testified to its evil

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 15

18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. 20 Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they don’t know the one who sent me.

Division of opinions, mixed with fear - “murmuring,” could mean complaining. Continues the theme.

Jesus’ understanding without formal training - The nature of Jesus’ teaching. It possessed an authority. This is due to His being the equal to the Father, more than a prophet, more than a teacher

John 5:30 ““I can do nothing on my own. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”

Anyone who genuinely seeks God will find that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Evangelistic appeal.