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More Than Enough!
John 2:3-4
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"And
when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no
wine. [4] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine
hour is not yet come."
The
Gospel of John includes 7 of Jesus' 35 recorded miracles, less than any
other Gospel, yet this miracle is not recorded in any of the Synoptic gospels.
Why? The fact that John included it in his seven makes it seem important,
but the fact that the other three gospel writers overlooked it makes it
seem less significant.
John's gospel is different.
The other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called "synoptics"
because you can lay them down beside one another and you basically have
the same material. Sure, each has its distinguishing characteristics and
is written from a definite point of view, but by and large each are substantially
the same or at least similar to the others. Not so with John's gospel.
It has a different agenda that John identifies in the book's conclusion.
He wrote: "but
these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name."
(John 20:31 NASB) This gospel is written with a significant purpose. That
the reader may believe and continue to believe (the verb tense indicates
the continuous action) that Jesus is the Christ, God's son and that believing
will result in new life.
Everything in the Gospel
of John is there for that purpose: to encourage belief. The gospel writers
used two different words for miracle. The most common word is dunamis,
(doo'-nam-is;).
Our word dynamite derives from this Greek word. It is a word that puts
the emphasis on the power that brings the miracle. It is a word that connotes
force or power it took to perform the miracle. The other word is semeion,
(say-mi'-on;).
Unlike dunamis, it places the emphasis on what the miracle means. It is
best translated as "sign." This is the word John uses.
The reason John includes
a miracle, excuse me a sign in his book, is not to draw attention to Jesus'
miraculous power, but to serve as a signpost to point the reader in the
direction of believing that Jesus is the Christ.
Driving southbound on Interstate
5 in Valencia, CA, the home of Six Flags Magic Mountain,
is a large Disneyland billboard with a single word dominating 75% of the
space. The word? Believe. That's the simple message of the Gospel of John:
Believe. It is the same word, but with different meanings. Disney is asking
the public to suspend their disbelief for a time and enter into their enchanted
Kingdom for a day of recreation. They want us to pretend, for a time, that
"make believe" is worth believing in. (Fresh Illustrations http://www.freshministry.org/illustrations.html)
That is not John's message. John doesn't call on his readers to believe
what isn't true, rather, he wants us to believe what he's come to know
as truth. And he wrote about the miracles that give the reasons why we
should believe.
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