The Disciples: The Questioners

I can’t believe that we all haven’t had this experience in some way or another. There are a few of us like Peter that maybe we always say what we are thinking. But most of us have probably had the experience of sitting in a room where something is being discussed. Maybe in a meeting, maybe in a study, maybe in a class that we’ve been in, and all of a sudden, your mind starts whirling a little bit and you have this question that’s nagging. Like I’m starting to wonder about this and I’d really like to ask this question but we don’t ask it for some reason. We shrink back and don’t put our hand up. We don’t interrupt. We don’t ask the question. And why do we do that? Sometimes we do it because we don’t want to interrupt. Sometimes we feel like it’s not appropriate. But other times it’s because we’re afraid of looking dumb. We’re afraid that people are going to think, well, why would they ask a question like that?? There’s no way possible we tell ourselves anyone else could have this question, right? But I’m sure you’ve also had the experience of asking a question and then someone else saying later, I had that question too. Oh yes, I was wondering that tool Well, those are the disciples we are talking about today.

And there are actually four of them. I’m going to try to cover them as quickly as I can, but I’m calling them the Questioners. The first one was covered in our scripture passage. Nathaniel and Philip actually are two of the first ones. This happens right after we talked when we first started this series. Jesus didn’t have any disciples yet. We started with John the Baptist and he had disciples of this own and he was not a disciple of Jesus. He was a forerunner to Jesus. But some of his disciples ended up following Jesus. One was Andrew.

The next day it says that Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. He found Philip and said “follow me”. Now this passage doesn’t tell us much about Philip, but Philip just gets up and goes to follow, but he goes to find his friend Nathaniel. We get the idea pretty quickly that Philip and Nathaniel are good buddies. That they have a lot in common, and scriptures tells us elsewhere that they were really students of the scripture. They knew the law and the prophets and so they knew what they were looking for in the Messiah. They had a kind of shared language between them and it may have even had something to do with sitting under a fig tree. We think it is just a place and a location, but actually to Rabbis they would say let’s go sit under the fig tree as a way figuratively of saying let’s go study the scriptures. They were nice big trees with cool branches, a cool place in a hot climate. So, they would go sit together under a fig tree and study the scriptures. And this is probably a place that Nathaniel spent quite a bit of time. But he was there when Philip came and told him “We have found the Messiah and he is Jesus of Nazareth.” Well, what was his response? Right? Well, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Now the reason he asked that is that the scripture doesn’t talk about Nazareth. It talks about Bethlehem. It talks about different parts of the Holy Lands, but it never names Nazareth because Nazareth wasn’t a longtime biblical town. It was kind of a popup town that was actually a suburb of this big place called Sepporis. And Sepporis was the big city with big buildings. And if you go to Sepporis now, there are just ruins. But you can even see the mosaic tiles that are built out of pictures of the small mosaic tiles, that are still there from the time they would build the floors that way. They were just big, elaborate and beautiful buildings. Nazareth was created as a little township, a little place where they would live. Many of them would travel to the forest to do the work. It might have been why Joseph was there as he was a carpenter. And both Joseph and Mary were from Nazareth. But since Nathaniel and Philip had been studying the scripture, his question is legitimate. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? So, he asked the question and Philip’s response is not to argue with them, not to tell him the reasons why Jesus fulfills the other things. He just says, “Come and see”. So, they go and meet Jesus. And when he meets Jesus, of course, Jesus tells him, “I saw you sitting under the fig tree.

And that’s impressive to Nathaniel for some reason. And I could just see Jesus smile and say to Nathaniel, “Oh my goodness, you going to see greater things than this. You believe in me, “And doesn’t he? He sees the healings. He sees the miracles. He witnesses for three years all of these things that happened with Jesus. This passage doesn’t tell us very much about Philip. But it tells a little bit about Nathaniel. Now, Nathaniel, if you look at the lists in Matthew, Mark and Luke (this is a sideline) but if you look at those lists Nathaniel is not mentioned but the name of Bartholomew is mentioned and that scholars think that it is the same person. They think that probably Nathaniel was his given name and Bartholomew was his descriptive name. The word bar usually meant son of. So, he would have been Nathaniel, son of someone. Like Rick, son of Eugene. It would just be a name and then a descriptor. And so, Bartholomew was the descriptor. So, they used it in both places, but John calls him Nathaniel. We’re using John today. So, Nathaniel’s the first one.

Philip is next. This passage doesn’t tell us much about Philip, but another passage tells us a little bit more about Philip. It’s in the feeding of the 5,000 in John chapter 6. The 5,000 people are there on the hillside. Jesus is preaching to them and they are getting hungry. And so, Jesus goes to find Philip, and he says to Philip “where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” And Jesus asked this, John says, only to test Philip for he already knew what he was going to do. We see this response in Philip as he immediately began to calculate every thing logically. And he says, it would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. Watch carefully for you’re going to see something you didn’t know you were going to see. Philip calculated immediately the impossibilities. So, we get the idea that he’s a thinker, that he analyzes things and situations. He relied on human reasoning and then he witnessed the power that Jesus had to feed those 5,000 people. Now the passage doesn’t tell us what Philip’s actual response is, but in verse 14 it tells us that the people say “surely this is the prophet who has come into the world”. So, Philip started to see a little more truth, about who Jesus was. This is two of the four disciples.

In the children’s message we talked about the third one who is Thomas. He received the nickname of ‘doubting Thomas’. But there are other places in scripture where he spoke up and was very brave especially when Lazareth died. And the disciples are saying, “We can’t go back there, Jesus. It’s not safe for you.” Thomas spoke up and said, “Let us all go, that we might die with him.” He was too brave also besides having those questions. It’s almost as if those that were closest to him still had questions, right? They still had things that rose in their minds. The fourth one that I’m going to talk about is Thadddius. Thaddius also goes by the name Judas. So, if you look in the list in Matthew, Mark and Luke, he’ll be named Thaddius, but John calls him Judas. And then he’s very clear to make sure he’s Judas, not Iscariot. So, Thaddius, Judas, we’ll kind of call him today, is this fourth one. And what’s really interesting about him is that there are some of the 12 disciples that we know almost nothing about. In fact, they appear so briefly and there just are no other stories about them except for we know they’re in the 12. So, we know they’re there when Jesus feeds the 5.000. We know they are there when he raises Lazareth from the dead. We know they see those things. All of them in that scripture passage about Thomsas are there the morning that Jesus appears to them after the resurrection except for Judas and Thomas. We know that Thaddius is there. We know some things about him. But we actually know more about Mary Magdalen for instance than we do about Thaddius. We know more about Mary, Martha and Lazarus, the siblings, than we do about Thaddius. But Thaddius appears in this passage that I really wanted to cover today. It’s just so interesting, because it’s just so interesting how these questions in one conversation pop up.

So, it’s in John Chapter 14, actually John 13-17 on the night that they’re in the upper room, the night we call the last supper, the night before Jesus died. And in Chapter 13, Jesus washes their feet and he starts to explain what is going to happen. And in Chapter 14 is a pretty famous passage, especially used at funerals. Chapter 13 begins “Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God believe also in me. My father’s house has many rooms.” Or the King James in the original text, it says, “Many mansions.” We get this idea because we’re human that all we deserve is just this little tiny closet-sized room in God’s heaven. But the scripture promises us mansions that we’ll have there. Jesus tells us that we will have mansions. So, if it were not so, would have I told you that I’m going there to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. Now, Thomas speaks up first and asks the first question. I love this about Thomsas. he speaks up and asks “Lord we don’t know where you’re going. So, how can we know the way?”

Don’t you know they were all kind of wondering? They had these questions in their mind. And then Thomas speaks up and says, “You know, Jesus, I, I’m not getting it. I’m just not getting it. I’m not quite understanding it. I know you’re saying that you’re going someplace and that we’ll know the way. And we’re to follow you. Maybe you’ve told us to follow you, but I just don’t quite understand it. Well, it gave Jesus the opportunity then to answer one of the best answers that Jesus gives to us. I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through me. What he’s telling them is it’s not a pathway. It’s not a certain step of things you do. It’s belief in Jesus and belief in following him. He is the way. The way is a person. It’s not a set of things or a pathway that we follow. And so, Thomas asked the first question and Jesus answers him there. And he goes on to say, “If you really know me, you’ll know my father as well. From now on, you do know him and you have seen him”.

Philip speaks up and asks the next question. Lord, show us the father and that’ll be enough for us. I’m not sure, Jesus that I’ve seen the father. Can you explain this to me? Show me the father. If you show me the father, that’ll be enough. But right now, I have all these questions. I’m not so sure. Well, what you’re explaining to me? So Jesus goes on to explain to him, Philip, you’ve been with me for three years, all this time. Anyone who has seen me has seen the father because I and the father are one. If you see Jesus, you’ve seen the father. When you see Jesus in action, that’s God in action. When you see Jesus revealing to us who God is, that is because Jesus is God. He’s God in the flesh who has come to be among us and live among us. Show us wo God the Father is. And he goes on to say, “Truly I tell you, anyone who believes in me will do what I’ve done, and they’ll do greater things than these because I’m going to the father.” He talks about the Holy Spirit that is to come next, and I’m going to send an advocate to be with you. And so there, right in that passage, we have all three aspects of God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all one. And they’re all together. And he goes on to explain that. And that’s when Thaddius speaks up. Judas, John says, Judas not Judas Iscariot, speaks up and I think he asks the million-dollar question. I think he ask the question we all want to know. He says, “Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”. And Jesus answers him too. He says, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My father will love them, come to them, and make our home with them. Any who does not love me will not obey my teaching. Any who does not love me or obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own. They belong to the father.” See, this is the million-dollar question because in this world, that’s what the world is asking today. Why can’t we see what you Christians can plainly see, and we can’t see him.

Jesus tells us kind of the answer. Here it is, that he didn’t reveal himself when he died on the cross, and when he was resurrected, and he came into his full glory. He revealed himself, but the world didn’t recognize him. That wasn’t part of the intent because Jesus didn’t want people who believe because he tells you that he saw you under the fig tree. He didn’t want people that believe because he feeds you fish and bread. He didn’t want people that believe because they see the miracle happen. He wanted people who believe because they know Jesus. And the way we know Jesus is to seek after him and discover who he is and to discover what he has come to do and what he us to do. And we do that, I think, by asking questions. Well, we can learn from these four disciples a lot about questioning, about doubting, and even about skepticism. Following Jesus doesn’t require that we have all the answers, or that we know everything before we follow him. What it requires is a willing heart that gets and says, “I’m going to do this now.” Jesus says, “Follow me.” These people I love are following. Jesus. I’m going to do this now. I’m going to follow Jesus. It’s a willing heart. You don’t have to have all the answer to your questions. Questions are not the sign of a weak faith. Doubts about faith are common. We all have questions about faith, about the Bible, about life, about God. Every one of us. We all wonder things like why bad things happen to good people, and why certain things have to exit, and why the body has to break down into illness and why those things happen have to happen. How prayer works, what heaven’s going to be like. We can’t imagine it. What God wants from us. We all have those kinds of questions and those kinds of wonders. Every one of us.

The difference though between skeptics and doubters is that skeptics are defiant. They don’t want the answer. They don’t really want to seek the answer. They don’t really want to know. They want to defy the answer that you give them. But doubters are different. Doubters are desperate. Questioners are seeking answers. And as long as we keep seeking the answers, it doesn’t mean that we have a weak faith. It just means we’re trying to work it out and find and find our faith. These four show us that we don’t have to have everything figured out to follow Jesus. We don’t have to pretend and that we never have any questions or doubts. It’s fine in church Sunday school class to say, “I’m not quite so sure I understand that.” In fact, that’s the way we help each other is when we do that. God values honesty. He values curiosity. We see that in these four disciples that got that Jesus picked to go along with him. Sometimes it’s as simple as admitting that we have questions or we have doubts and then seeking those answers and sometimes seeking them together. Jesus isn’t disappointed when we’re curious or when we ask questions. He just meets us where we are and helps us to get the answer to the next step.

So, all four of these questioners, followed Jesus’ command to make disciples to all nations, to the ends of the earth. Literally they went all of them to distant lands. Philip it’s thought went to modern Ukraine and Turkey and that he died in Turkey on a very tall T-shaped cross and usually a T is represented for him. Nathaniel or Bartholomew went as far as Asia Minor and India. The Armenian church claims Bartholomew as their founder and it’s thought that he died there as a martyr. Thomas went to India, took the gospel to India where it’s thought that he, by church tradition, that he died by the spear as a martyr for the faith. And Thaddius or Judas may have been a zealot. We’re going to talk about the Zealots in a couple of weeks, but he took long trips as a missionary, and it’s thought that he was beheaded in Persia. These men all followed Jesus. They had questions and doubts even though were with him for three years. They were with him all the time. They witnessed so much more than we’ve witnessed. Remember what Jesus said to Thomas. Blessed that because you have seen me, you have believed, Thomas. But blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed. And that is us. We’ve not seen and yet we believe. Sometimes we need Jesus to help us in our doubts and our questions. But our honest questions bring us closer to him. And they bring others closer to him, too, when we are willing to admit that we have them.