Extraordinary Things

Notes:

The bed that once carried him he now carried as he headed home glorifying God.

Jesus was teaching. The Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. It was a regional religious leaders conference.

But they had gathered for a purpose—to hear Jesus. The reports about him had spread and reached even their ears. They no doubt wondered, “Who is this Jesus? Is there any truth to the stories people are telling about him?”

But they had not come to believe Jesus but to doubt him. They were looking for ways to poke holes in his ministry.

They were listening for anything that might be slightly off; anything they could use to prove to the people that Jesus wasn’t to be trust as a teacher and especially not as the Christ.

Verse 17 mentions the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.

The teachers of the law were scribes, experts in teaching and interpreting the Jewish law.

The Pharisees were the most influential of three Jewish groups in Jesus’ day.

Although they were still around, the Essenes, one of the Jewish groups, dropped out of sight before Jesus was born. They chose to live as a network of communes instead. They shared everything, dressed only in white, they didn’t participate in the Temple sacrifices because they felt the priests were defiling the temple, and they strictly observed the Sabbath. Most of the Essenes didn’t marry, so the group grew by attracting converts and some report that they had many converts. Again, however, by the time of Jesus’ public ministry, the Essenes were keeping to themselves. That left the Pharisees and Sadducees to battle for power.