John 12 opens back at the house in Bethany. Do a Bible study of the amount of time Jesus spent with this family. It is interesting. John is NOT chronological in what he gives us. The synoptic gospels are. You have to watch John carefully. John has missed some action between John 11 and John 12. Some days later, after Jesus’ encounter with the very dead and stinking Lazarus’, He is back at the house again. What did He do in the interim? Use the synoptic gospels to track what happened in those missing days. Go and do it now. I will wait here.
John has departed from the parallel line with the other gospels and we only find them together again in Bethany before the Triumphal entry. John has been giving us some spectacular insight behind the scenes. Many sceptics question as to why only John mentions the story of Lazarus. Why don’t the other gospel writers mention something so spectacular? One would think they would all include something so dramatic. I don’t have an easy answer for that. You go ponder it and tell me your findings.
Next Gem I will list for you what happened in those missing days. Of course I am hoping you will go and find out for yourself. Learn to use Scripture to fill in the gaps of Scripture.
Imagine Mary and Martha’s feelings and response at having their brother back with them. Jesus comes back to the family home before he heads off to Jerusalem for THE Passover (His final one). In following Gems we will focus on the action of the anointing in Bethany and its significance in John’s gospel. We will look at the differences between John and the others in this account. There are lots we could do in Bible Gems. I only choose some of them. If I didn’t do that, Bible Gems would end up being a traditional commentary on every word of every verse and I don’t want to do that. I am hoping to spur you to dig for yourself. Many of you have told me you like me doing this – telling you what we are going to do next so you can do it before I get to it. That is what my Greek Professor did for the class and me. He would point out to us where there was gold to dig and leave us to go dig it.
Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. Jesus
John 13:17
I can live for two months on a sincere compliment.
Mark Twain
Next I tried working in a muffler factory but that was too exhausting.