Category: New Testament – Gospels

Jesus’ Discourse on the Bread of Life

~ MD Harris Institute ~ 2 Comments

Jesus’ most controversial discourse stuns, shocks, offends, and has lots of other signs of good teaching. 

Jesus has often been called a master teacher, and the book of John illustrates the truth of that label.  Good teachers do not merely tell their students the material; they show them.  John 6 begins with Jesus teaching a multitude of people on a hillside on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in spring.   He taught for hours and when the disciples advised Jesus to let the people go to find food, He miraculously fed all of them, possibly more than 15,000 people.  The parallels between Moses giving manna to the Israelites (Exodus 16:1-21), Elisha’s feeding of 100 men (2 Kings 4:42-44), the Lord hosting a magnificent banquet (Isaiah 25:6), and Jesus feeding the multitude were striking to the Jews, hungry as they were for a political Messiah to lead them out of bondage to Rome (6:14). As a result, they tried to make Him king (6:15).  Jesus escaped and allowed time for the fervor to abate.

The next morning Jesus gave His famous, to some infamous, Bread of Life discourse.  With the amazing miracle of the prior day, Jesus had shown the people, and His disciples, that He could provide bread for those who followed Him.  Now Jesus intended to teach them about greater bread. The greater bread is not the bread that perishes with the eating, but that which lasts forever.  It comes from God, and ultimately the bread, that which nourishes the people of God for eternity, is Jesus Christ Himself.  After showing the people His ability to provide physically for those who followed Him, He had then described how He Himself was the ultimate bread.  Finally, Jesus finished the lesson telling His listeners that they needed to “eat His flesh” and “drink His blood” to have eternal life (6:53-58).

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The Sanhedrin

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No study of the New Testament is complete without a study of the government of Palestine in the first century AD, and no study of the government of Palestine in that period is complete without a study of the Sanhedrin. The term Sanhedrin is derived from the Greek phrase for “gathering place” and is not found in Jewish history prior to the periods of Greek domination under Alexander, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids.

History

Though the term came late in Biblical history, the idea of a Hebrew or Jewish ruling council came early. In the time of the Exodus (around 1400 BC), God told Moses to bring together 70 elders of Israel to receive His spirit and lead the people (Numbers 11:16). During the reign of Jehoshaphat in Judah, the king assembled priests and heads of families to discern and convey the judgment of the Lord and to handle controversies (2 Chronicles 19:8).  After the exile (during the Persian period), Ezra (5:5, 6:7, 10:8) and Nehemiah (2:16, 5:7, 7:5) made extensive use of ruling councils to legislate and judge.

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Jesus, an Example of Mentoring Leadership

Mentoring leadership
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How did Jesus mentor His disciples? How did He mentor others? How should we mentor those who look to us for leadership? Discover mentoring leadership.

By Mark D. Harris

Institutions from business to government to the military decry poor leadership throughout the world. Examples of poor leadership are legion, as are examples of poor followership. Library shelves groan under the weight of leadership books, and millions of words about leadership spew from audio files into waiting ears every month. And yet, during my 27 years in uniform, the situation never really seemed to get better. The faces changed from 1989 to 2016, but the message did not. Is leadership a dead art? We will look at the example of Jesus.

Teaching as mentoring

One of the greatest strengths of mentoring leaders is the ability to teach.  To reproduce himself, a man must teach, by words and by actions, those who are learning from him.  Jesus taught large groups and the people marveled at the wisdom and authority of His words.  He was doing His most important work, however, when He was teaching small groups of His disciples and other followers (Luke 24:32).

Mentoring leaders also use gifts of exhortation to mentor those entrusted to them.  Exhortation includes encouragement and instruction to do the right and wise thing.  After Peter’s proclamation of faith in Matthew 16:16, Jesus encouraged him.  After Peter denied Jesus in Matthew 26:69-75, Jesus encouraged him again (John 21:15-17).  Many times in the gospels Jesus exhorted His disciples.  Such gifts as exhortation and teaching are evidence of excellent communication, in this case sharing leadership principles and examples to the next generation of leaders.

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What does it mean to abide in Christ?

abide in Christ
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We abide in Christ like a branch abides in a tree, but how do we do that in day to day life?

By Mark D. Harris

Paul Brand, the hand surgeon renowned for his discoveries in leprosy and his vibrant Christian faith, wrote often about the parallels between the church as the Body of Christ and the human body.   The metaphor Jesus used in John 15 about the relationship between Him and His people, that of a vine, is another powerful illustration of the intimate, dependent, and fruitful relationship we have with Christ our Creator and Sustainer.

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On the Physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ

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No one on earth or even in mythology defeated Death, except Jesus. Life finally conquered death. Can you feel it?

By Mark D. Harris

Jesus physically rose from the dead.  This statement, if true, is the most radical statement in human history. If there is one thing that seems certain about the human condition, even more so than taxes, it is death.  This event separates Christianity from all other religions, and makes Christ unique among religious leaders. Islam does not claim that Mohammad rose from the dead, nor Judaism for Moses nor Buddhism for Siddhartha Gautama, better known as the Buddha.  Yet the Bible makes that claim for Jesus Christ.  Not only does it make the claim but stakes the truth or falsehood of Christianity, the religion founded by Jesus Christ, on that event (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4).  If Jesus physically rose from the dead, Christianity is true.  If not, it is false.  The most widespread religion in the world is thus founded on the most preposterous claim in the world.

This question is important for people who call themselves Christians as well as for people who do not.  Three acquaintances of mine, calling themselves Christians:

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On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ

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Jesus died, there is no doubt. What happened next, is what the Gospel is about. 

Christianity is unique among the religions of the world for many reasons, but one of the most important is that it can be disproven. The fundamental event of Christianity is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4). There is no claim in the Koran that Mohammed physically rose from the dead after his death; neither is there a similar claim for Moses, the Buddha, or any founder of a major religion in the world today. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, if they actually happened, separate Christianity from all other religions, and make Christ unique among religious leaders.

Anyone who wants to refute Christianity and make the Church wither and die simply has to prove that Jesus Christ did not die, at least not in the way that the Bible records, and did not physically rise again. In the two millennia since Jesus’ life, many skeptics have tried to disprove the Bible on this issue. None have succeeded thus far, but there are many theories about how Jesus did not really die as the Bible suggests.

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