An Awful Alternate Reading (John 1:35-42)

This next section in John is one of my favorites. It has had a lot of influence on my own spiritual walk. However, before I get into what is being said here, I feel a need to point something out. The early story of the disciples is quite a bit out of step with current Christianity. Either the church needs to make some changes to line up with what we see in Scripture, or we need a different translation. Something more along the lines of:

35. The next Sunday John was there again with two of his church’s members. 36. When he saw Jesus passing by he said, “Look! There is the Lamb of God about whom I have been teaching. I am excited to be able to teach you more about Him!”

37. When the two members heard him say this, they wanted to follow Jesus. John tried to discourage them because they were not trained in theology and hadn’t spent a lot of time studying scripture, so they weren’t qualified to follow Him without his help. However, they left and went anyway. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They answered, “Teacher, teach us!”

39. “Cool! I have a standing Bible Study Wednesday nights. You are welcome to attend. Also I preach just about every Sunday in area churches. I’ll get you the schedule.”

So they started attending every study that Jesus taught.

40. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two ex-members of John’s church who had left his ministry to attend Jesus’ studies. 41. The first thing that Andrew wanted to do was to find his brother Simon and tell him “We have found the Messiah.” (That is, a churchy word for Christ—which is a churchy word for Savior—which is a churchy word for… never mind.) 42. But he waited until such a time as he felt like he knew enough to talk to his brother. He is still waiting, but is pretty sure it won’t be too many more years!

Needless to say, I am more in favor of changing the way we do things…