Daddy blog

I started this blog when I was following the Life Journal Bible reading plan on YouVersion. (I've since completed that plan.) At that time, YouVersion didn't provide any way for people to respond to my notes, other than to "like" them. So this blog is here to remedy that problem. You may comment on my notes here in the comment section.
I also have a general blog.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Water to Wine, Cleansing the Temple

John 2 is very interesting - it has what appears to be Jesus' first miracle, instigated by Mary - turning the water to wine at the wedding in Cana, followed by overturning the tables of the merchants in the temple.

The synoptic Gospels also tell of the cleansing of the temple, but put this incident near the end, not long before the crucifixion - while John puts it very early. The synoptic Gospels don't mention the water into wine miracle.

It's interesting that Jesus had thought his time was not yet, but he gave in to Mary. What do we make of this? Did Mary see that it was time, when Jesus hadn't yet realised  it was time? Luke 2:52 points out that Jesus grew in wisdom - he wasn't born with the full-fledged wisdom of God even though he was God in the flesh.

And the cleansing of the temple? It's true that the people of the time didn't expect narratives to have a strict temporal sequencing, so it could be that this was the same cleansing of the temple from near the end of Jesus' ministry that John is relating here to set the tone for Jesus' ministry in opposition to the status quo. Or it could be a separate incident, though the similarity of the incident with the one near the end in the synoptic Gospels suggest otherwise.

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