Dear Kate,

This is the sixth or seventh letter I have written to you so far, and we’ve only just reached the end of chapter 1 in the book of John.  Isn’t it great how much truth you can get out of just one chapter of the Bible?  I think of what Boaz told Ruth in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament.  Ruth is a type, or representative (a symbol) of an unsaved person coming to Israel, to the true God, and becoming a believer.  When she arrived in Israel, she supported herself and Naomi by gleaning wheat (picking up wheat that had been inadvertently dropped during harvest) from a field belonging to Boaz (who is a type or symbol of Jesus Christ).  Boaz came to Ruth and welcomed her, offered her protection, and told her, “Don’t glean anywhere else.  I’ll tell my harvesters to drop extra wheat for you to pick up.”  And that is still Christ’s advice to us today:  “Don’t glean anywhere else.”  Always go to the Bible and to its Author, Kate, for answers to your questions and solutions to your problems.  God will drop extra help throughout its pages for you.  Don’t glean anywhere else.

So what do we see in this last section of chapter one?  We will see Jesus Christ in action, what He says and does and how He treats other people.  We’ve already seen how He responds to those who follow Him, like the two disciples did, and how He reacts to those who come to Him, like Simon Peter did.  We pick up the account in verse 43:  “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.  He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’”  I can picture Christ’s kindness to this man, this Philip.  Christ found him, which implies that He first searched for him, and extended this invitation, “I’m going to Galilee.  Won’t you join me?”  Do you see the trouble that Jesus Christ goes through to invite a single person to be with Him?  He still finds people today, and says to them, with a cheery smile and warm kindness, “Follow me.”  Well, Philip was quite ready to follow Christ, but not without a friend of his.  “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph’” (verse 45).  Now we see that Philip knew his Bible (the Old Testament) well.  When he saw and studied Christ, he realized that everything Jesus Christ was saying and doing matched up perfectly with the Old Testament predictions of what the Messiah would say and do.  And we need to do the same kind of thing in our own lives, Kate.  When we see our own behavior, we need to compare it to the Scriptural model of godly behavior. Do the two match up?  Does my behavior match Christ’s behavior?  But we won’t even know how to begin doing that until we know the Bible well.

So Philip found Nathanael and told him about Christ.  All the people we’ve seen so far, Kate, have come to Christ with little or no hesitation.  But now, for the first time, we see some resistance in this Nathanael.  He has a problem with Jesus Christ.  “Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’” (verse 46).  Here is our first example of a person who objects to Jesus Christ, and the objection is made on the grounds of Christ’s background.  You see, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, but He was raised in Nazareth, a city which had a bad reputation.  It would be like us objecting to someone because he or she is “from a bad neighborhood” or “dysfunctional” family conditions.  And we do this often, I think, even in our Christianity.  We reject certain people because they are from another country—one we do not really like—or from another school—one we may not really know.  We question other people’s worth because of their earthly conditions or situations, and fail to see them as who they actually are—living souls for whom Christ died and to whom we owe kindness and fair treatment.  Fortunately, though, Nathanael had a wise friend in Philip.  Philip didn’t linger there, debating the issue and arguing the point.  He simply said, “Come and see” (verse 46).  Philip invited Nathanael to come meet Christ and find out if anything good could come out of Nazareth.  So Nathanael, with probably a great many doubts in his mind and a predisposition to discard Christ, went to see Him.

And now we come to our main theme again—Christ’s response to this man who has slighted Him.  How will Christ treat Nathanael, who had just maligned Christ’s hometown and insinuated that Christ could not possibly be any good?  “Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’” (verse 47).  Jesus Christ recognized Nathanael even before he had gotten very close, and He accepted him and affirmed something noteworthy in his character.  Christ made no reference at all to Nathanael’s insulting remark, but instead mentioned something positive about Nathanael:  that he was what a true Israelite should be—one marked by sincerity.  You see, Kate, there’s a very interesting verse in Psalm 130:3 that illustrates the lesson here about God.  It says, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”  To “mark” iniquities (our sins) is to notice every single one of them.  If God “marked” our sins, He would be forever sitting in Heaven saying, “There’s a sin!  I saw that!  And that one!  And that one!  There’s another!  And another!”  He would always be jumping on us about every little infraction of the rules, pointing out every time we stepped out of line—even a little bit out of line.  But He doesn’t do that, Kate, because no one could possibly stand under that kind of scrutiny.  Instead, His love covers a “multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).  Jesus Christ patiently overlooked Nathanael’s offense and even went a step further—He said something kind to him in return.  If you think, Kate, that God is ready to pounce on you for every little mistake and sin, then you are wrong, and you need to get to know Him better.  He always shows kindness to you, frequently overlooks your failures, and never forgets your successes.

The last verse I want you to notice is verse 48:  “Nathanael said to him, ‘How do you know me?’  Jesus answered him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’”  This was the first time Nathanael had ever met Jesus, and yet Jesus knew him well.  So his simple question was, “How do you know me?”  Jesus Christ’s answer, basically, was this—“I’ve always known you.  Before Philip ever called you…before you were ever born…before I laid the foundation of the world…I saw you.”  You see, Kate, Romans 8:29 calls all true Christians “those whom he foreknew.”  He has always known you, and He chose you for Himself long before you existed (Ephesians 1:4).  Do you see again His loving attention to a single individual?  He’s the God of the universe—running the world, organizing nations, directing international affairs—and He’s your personal God, the Friend Who sees you when you think no one sees you, just as Nathanael thought no one noticed him sitting alone under a fig tree.

I love you,

Mom