Luke 7:18-23 Blind No More!
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: July 25, 2018 Luke 7:18-23
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
(Understanding the Text) John was Jesus’ most faithful and devoted follower in theory. In other words, John knew the Messiah was coming, prepared the way for the Messiah, baptized the Messiah, and agreed to be diminished in order for the Messiah to advance the cause, but John did not know the Messiah personally. The reality of who the Messiah was contradicted some of John’s expectations. John had been in the presence of the Son, the Father, and the Spirit during the baptism of Jesus and heard the testimony that Jesus was the Son of God. He had already had the Spirit speak to him and tell him the signs to identify the Messiah which came to pass. He believed, but now He was confused by Jesus’ actions. Had John misunderstood something? Jesus was not behaving in the way John had expected the Messiah to behave. The Spirit had revealed to John what he should say and do, but the Spirit had not revealed to John all of God’s plans regarding the Messiah. Thus, John’s knowledge about Messiah’s actions was incomplete and maybe flawed. It was not that John lacked faith. It was that John was confused, and he sent two emissaries to Jesus to ask what was going on. Was there more to the plan that he did not know? Was Jesus the Son of God, but not necessarily the Messiah?
(Revelation of God) Jesus’ response is typical of God. He did not answer with a simple yes or no. Instead, He let the emissaries observe Him in action and then quoted scripture to them. Finally, He sent the message to John that he was blessed if he was not offended by the reality of the Messiah which did not fit into John’s notions of what Messiah should be. God tends to communicate with us by providing real-life evidence combined with scripture and then telling us to trust Him.
How often does God have to feel that we are offended by Him? As Christians we declare loyalty to the Messiah, speak of the Messiah, sing of the Messiah, study about the Messiah, and pray to the Messiah, but at the same time we don’t truly know the Messiah. As we form our relationship with the Messiah, do we start to be offended at times because He doesn’t act the way we think He should? Does He confuse us at times and we have to ask why? God wants our trust even when we do not understand His actions. He wants us to know Him so we are not offended by Him. He knows that if we learn to know Him, we will love Him, but all too often we try to fit God into a mold of our own making and when He does not stay contained inside that framework, we become confused and/or offended. Sometimes, we try to stuff Him back into that mold, but He is God, so He won’t be confined by our limitations.
(Revelation of God / Application) According to the SDA commentary, John had already been in prison for about six months and would remain there for another six months before his execution. Why did John not get to be with the Messiah? Why was he not fully informed about the Messiah’s plans? Because as a human, he was too limited to comprehend the overreaching comprehensiveness of God’s ways. God gave John the knowledge to know his part of the plan and the general framework of the plan, but the details were too much for one man. In the same way, God is not going to reveal everything to me. I am not capable of the faith necessary to deal with the responsibility. Instead, I would allow the stress and worries of my knowledge to overwhelm my faith. I would begin to think that the success of the plan was in my hands instead of trusting God to enact His own plans. This is not an insult to me. It is God taking care of me because He loves me.
(Understanding the Text) I have another perspective on these verses. John knew that Jesus was the Messiah. He did not doubt the witness that he had received at Jesus’ baptism. It was the kind of Messiah that Jesus was that confused him. On the other hand, John’s disciples were not so sure that Jesus was the Messiah, so John sent them to the Master Himself so that they would have faith. They saw with their own eyes and heard the witness of Jesus and believed. This makes sense to me, except for one thing which is that it was some of John’s disciples who were reporting Jesus’ actions to John. Thus, some of them, at least, had already observed Jesus. However, not all of them may have, so the doubting ones may have been the ones who had not been with Jesus. The SDA commentary says “The question regarding the Messiahship of Jesus originated with John’s disciples, not with John himself (see DA 214, 215), and John was disturbed that these men should cherish unbelief with respect to John’s own testimony that Jesus was indeed the Promised One (see DA 216). If the Baptist’s own disciples doubted his message, how could others be expected to believe? There were some things John did not understand–such as the true nature of the Mesianic kingdom, and why Jesus did nothing to effect his release from prison. But despite the doubts that troubled him, he did not surrender his faith that Jesus was indeed the Christ (see DA 216; cf. v. 24). Disappointment and anxiety troubled the soul of the lonely prisoner, but he refrained from discussing these perplexities of his own mind with his disciples.” In other words, John had some doubts about the path the Messiah was taking (which he did not speak of to his disciples), but He did not have any doubts about who Jesus was. John’s disciples had doubts about both who and how. John had already confirmed that Jesus was the Messiah but had no way of answering their other questions as he did not understand what was happening himself, so he sent two of them to Jesus to ask the questions and to confirm John’s own witness. The testimony of these two men would strengthen the faith of not only John but more importantly of his disciples.
What was happening that made John doubt, if he did? Was it being in prison? Was it the delay in expected actions? Was it misunderstanding of Messiah’s mission? What was Jesus not doing that caused confusion? Was John expecting Jesus to take on the Romans and become a conquering King liberating Jerusalem from her foreign oppressors? Instead, Jesus was proclaiming the faithfulness of a gentile Roman centurion and going to out-of-the-way places like Nain to do miracles. Why wasn’t Jesus heading to Jerusalem or raising an army? Jesus answered the doubts by pointing John back to scriptures that he knew but may have overlooked in his eagerness for the restoration of Jerusalem and Israel.
I think Jesus showed a lot of respect to John as a teacher. He did not try to co-opt John’s disciples as his own. Instead, he showed them what they needed to know, referred them to the correct scriptures to study, and sent them back to John with a message of respect for their teacher. Just as John did not mind when many of his followers left him to follow Jesus, Jesus did not mind that these men were going back to John. He was happy to send comforters to His faithful supporter who would become a martyr for Him even before Jesus Himself died. John was a forerunner for Jesus in all things, even suffering and death.
(Revelation of God / Application) God’s rebukes are gentle. Jesus does not condemn John for questioning Him, but neither does He give a direct answer. Instead, He points to evidence and scripture and says that John will receive a blessing if he listens to these two witnesses (the evidence and scripture, not the men John sent). God does the same with me. He does not condemn my doubt but gently points me back to scripture and experience and tells me to trust Him.
Jesus seems to be paraphrasing from several different places in Isaiah, most closely to Isaiah 61:1-3. “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified” (Isa 61:1-3). Another reference is “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see” (Isa 29:18). There are other places in Isaiah. Jesus wanted John to go back to his knowledge of Isaiah and re-examine who the Messiah was and see that Jesus’ actions were according to scripture even if they were not according to John’s expectations. I wonder if John realized that Jesus was going to suffer and die for our sins. Will John be one of the people asking Jesus, “What are these marks upon your hands?” or would he have already realized what the prophecies said before he died?
(Understanding the Text) Why was John imprisoned for a year before his execution? He was still the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He never recanted his testimony that Jesus was the Messiah, so even from prison, John was testifying to Jesus. He was a witness to the powers who ruled the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. When Jesus was brought before Herod, there was no reason to try to keep Herod from making a mistake with God. There was no reason for Jesus to speak or for Herod to receive a sign. He had had the witness of John the Baptist for a year and rejected that witness. No new sign would provide any better evidence than the man that Herod had finally rejected in John the Baptist. John’s faithfulness to Jesus even when imprisoned was the sign to the Jewish nation that Jesus was the Messiah.
(Prayer) I want to be faithful like John no matter what comes, but I doubt so easily and become discouraged so quickly. Give me faith, hope, and love so that I remain true to You and do not spread doubt to others.