Listen and Learn

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

LISTEN AND LEARN

John 6:41-51

41 At this, the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."  42 They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"

43 "Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 

NIV

Remember he is still talking to the crowd that is looking for more bread because they had just been fed on the mountainside and had followed Jesus across to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He has told him that he was the bread of life that came down from the Father. Now they are really a little confused about this because from their human knowledge all they see is the person who grew up in the house of Joseph whose mother is Mary, known by some of this crowd. Jesus is teaching them a spiritual truth and all they can see with is their physical minds. He tells them to stop grumbling among themselves and listen, hear, what the truth is. Isn’t that just like all of us today, grumbling among ourselves? It has been said that if you get two Jews together there will be three opinions. Not sure how that came about, but it certainly holds true about Christians. If it is one thing that is clear, we all have a different interpretation of the scriptures which is evident by the hundreds of denominations available to choose from, each with their own doctrine. That has to fit the grumbling Jesus was talking about. In fact, the next words spoken by Jesus are one of the large points of grumbling between those who agree with Wesley and those who agree with Calvin. Jesus says that no one can come to him, unless the Father who sent him draws that person to him and that he will raise that person up on the last day. There it is, the Calvinists would say, it is only those God elects, he draws to Jesus. While, the Wesleyans would say God draws all men, those the convicting of the Spirit, who was sent to convict the world, which implies everyone, not just the few God draws to Jesus. Grumbling has been going on and on and it is likely it will never stop while we all just listen and hear what Jesus is saying. Jesus tells the crowd it has been written in the Prophets that all will be taught by God. It is a matter of listening and learning. If we hear what God teaches, then we will come to Jesus. God teaches all his creation, he does not pick just a few people to teach, Jesus says that everyone who listens and learns, that means everyone is able to hear the teaching of God and learn the truth. Does that mean Calvin did not learn from God? Did that mean Wesley did not learn from God? Then again we never were much for taking the sides of men. Instead, we choose to listen and learn from God and having done so, we have come to Jesus. We believe in Jesus and as a result, he has given us everlasting life. He is the bread of life, and we have eaten of him.  We know the next grumbling we will see from the crowd is about how they are going to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Before we get to that, we simply know Jesus is not talking in the natural, but in the spiritual, or metaphorically. He knows full well his words are not about cannibalism, actually eating his flesh. We would think the crowd was not thinking the same thing, but still, they could not grasp his meaning. The purpose of bread, as food is to eat and digest, or be used for life. A person cannot survive without food, which the bread represents, such as the manna from heaven which sustained Israel for forty years. When we accept the bread of life, Jesus and ingest him into our inner being, he gives us life, but not just for forty years. He gives us eternal life. We may have complicated this simple truth, and grumbled among ourselves. But the fact remains if a person wants eternal life, listening and learning from God, that person will come to Jesus, it is that simple, God so loved everyone, the whole world, excluding no one, that he sent his Son to die on the cross for everyone, so that whosoever believes in him, whosoever hears and learns from God, will not perish, but have everlasting life. We cannot be sure about others, but we do not choose perish, we choose Jesus, we choose life, for we have listened and learned from God.