Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?
There are three very distinct groups of people identified in this verse
The disciples of John
There are some believers who get started right but never grow. John said that he must decrease and Jesus, increase. These people loved John so much they could not love Jesus. Good preachers and teachers are a gift from God, but they are never to be elevated to the place of our Lord. To do so will certainly prevent one from knowing Christ as he should, even if the preacher he follows urges him to come close to Christ.
The Pharisees
These are disciples of religion. Once again, they would have started with a good foundation, the Word of God. But they moved from that to teachings about the Word of God which were not the Word of God and made the Word of God of no effect. Religion is very likely the most devastating thing there is to a real relationship with Christ.
The disciples of Christ
There were multitudes of people who followed after Christ. His disciples in fact were a very small handful of people who knew they had no place else to go but to Jesus.[1] He had the words of life.
Notice that Jesus said eventually all three groups would fast. The trouble was that the Pharisees did it because they thought they were righteous in the act. The disciples of John did it because they thought they had to. Thus, they were jealous of Jesus’s disciples. The disciples of Jesus did not fast while He was with them. They took up the practice after Jesus ascended to heaven. We do it in anticipation for His return and to seek closeness to Him.
[1] John 6:66-69 (KJV)
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
To my readers:
Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.
Donate to Bible Baptist Church every time you make an Amazon purchase through this link, https://smile.amazon.com/ch/91-1265824
For this and, more than 5600 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.
If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.
For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.
My books are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org
No comments:
Post a Comment