Jesus Without Language

The introduction to John’s gospel can read a little abstract and symbolic for many. Who is this ‘Word’ that John is referring to? What knowledge is John building on, and why does he use this convoluted tone as an introduction to a book about a man who talked of sparrows, sheep, and stone? This retelling looks at the reasons why John started the book with these now famous lines

Main Passage : 1 Samuel 16

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

David lived in the town of Bethlehem with his seven older brothers. One evening, David’s father Jesse told the boys that a great man of God was coming to Bethlehem, the prophet Samuel. Everyone knew that Samuel had the job of choosing the king. He had chosen King Saul. But Saul had disobeyed God, and people thought Samuel was looking for a new king. Then, Jesse told them something even more amazing: Samuel had asked to come to their house. The brothers got super excited and started to talk about what they would do if they were king.

The oldest brother suddenly pulled out his sword, “I’ll be a strong king! Samuel will see that I have my sword ready.” A brother laughed and shouted, “You want to protect, not fight. I’ll take a shield!” By morning prayers the next day, all the brothers stood ready to greet Samuel with their chosen object. Jesse looked at his sons, “Tell me, why do you have all that stuff?”

Starting with the oldest brother, they each showed their father their choice.

“If Samuel sees me with this sword, he will know that I will fight for the people.”
“If Samuel sees me with this shield, he will know that I will protect the people.”
“If Samuel sees I have gold, he will know that I will provide for the people.”
“If Samuel sees how strong I am, he will know that I will rule the people.”
“If Samuel sees me sharing food, he will know that I will feed the people.”
“If Samuel sees me with scripture, he will know that I will pray for the people.”
“If I take nothing, then I shall act like a King; for a king does not give but receive.”

Right on the end of the line stood David. He was not dressed in his house robe but in his work clothes. In his hands was his little harp and his slingshot. When Jesse came to David to ask what he would take, the other brothers laughed. David smiled and said, “Today I take my sling and my harp and go to watch the sheep. I will play songs to the lambs and throw stones at the wolves and bears.” Then he opened the door and headed out. But it wasn’t long before somebody was sent running across the fields to bring him home.

When David got home, the prophet Samuel was waiting for him. “Your sons look like kings,” he said to Jesse, “but God has told me that he does not look at the appearance but the heart. This young boy David may not look like a king now, but God has told me to pour my oil on his head, for he has a good heart and will one day be a great king.’ Everyone was shocked! Seven strong, young men and Samuel chose their smaller, weaker, younger brother. The next day, David went back out to the sheep, but everyone could see God was with him. David did become a king, but that’s another story.

The need to be just like those around you is strong and even though the Israelite’s had a prophet leader they wanted a king. Poor Samuel needs reassuring by God as the request leaves him feeling outright rejected. God knows that creating a King of Israel is going to spell trouble, and he’s right, so he makes the pitfalls of having a monarch known and yet, the people are stubborn.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : 1 Samuel 8
(does reference other passages)

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

I wonder – have you ever felt a bit lost on what to do and wished somebody would come and give you some instructions? God’s people started like that in this story.

They saw other people who had kings, and all they had was a prophet called Samuel. Now, having a prophet was awesome. God told the prophet what to do, and the prophet told the people. But sometimes God didn’t seem to say anything, or sometimes the people wished they could hear God’s instructions themselves, and sometimes, sometimes it felt like nobody was leading them. Mostly they missed having a king when they had to fight. Samuel was really good at giving them advice about God, but he wouldn’t lead them into battle like a king would when people attacked.

They went to Samuel and asked if he could choose a king for them. Samuel thought it was a bad idea, a really bad idea.

Samuel thought they were saying he wasn’t enough, that he wasn’t good enough. So, he talked to God about it. God told Samuel that the people weren’t rejecting Samuel as a prophet but rejecting God as their king. Then Samuel went back to the people and told them what God had said.

“You don’t want a king!” said Samuel. “A king will take your sons for his army. He’ll take your daughters for his palace. He’ll take your grain and your wine for his household. Do you really, really want a king?”

But no matter what Samuel said, the people still asked for a king. So Samuel agreed. Who would you choose as a king? What would they be like?

God promised He would send a man to Samuel to be king. When Samuel saw the man God had chosen, all became clear. Saul looked like a king. Saul was big and strong and brave. Saul was a good fighter and good at giving instructions.

Samuel told Saul that he would be king and that God had chosen him. Some days later, all the people gathered and Saul was chosen. He put on his new robe and new crown, and everybody cheered. Saul gathered the army and went out to battle the bad guys, and Saul won the battle. God’s people were very happy.

They may have a new king, but they still had a prophet. Soon, the two would fall out as Saul started to listen less and less to God’s instructions. That kingly robe would be torn, and Saul would not get to choose who wore the crown next.

It’s the churches birthday! It can be tempting to rush to the good bit of this story where there are tongues of fire and the gift of tongues. However, we must start with Jesus’s words to his disciples; otherwise the events would have made no sense to the believers.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Acts 2

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

Jesus had left. The apostles gathered every day in Jerusalem, waiting. Jesus had told them to wait.

Day one: They were stunned, sitting around excited and confused.

Day two: They started whispering, wondering, what was the Father’s promise, what was the Holy Spirit, that Jesus had said would come.

Day three, then day four: People returned to work. Meals were cooked. Life continued, but the disciples waited. They knew it would be something special.

Day five, then day six: People started to prepare for the upcoming feast.

The Shavuot feast was a chance to celebrate the harvest. It happened seven weeks after Passover, 50 days, and so it was sometimes called Pentecost.

Day ten: Pentecost came. Slowly, the rooms the disciples were in grew fuller and fuller as everyone came to spend the celebration with the apostles. Outside, people rushed back and forth. Many had stayed in Jerusalem since Passover for this day.

It was nine in the morning when the talk in the rooms was silenced by a loud noise. It was the sound of a rushing wind filling the house. The disciples looked around confused. Was this what they had been waiting for? Alongside the wind came flames that seemed to float in the air around them. The flames slowly rested above each of the disciples’ heads, and someone at the edge of the room breathed a quiet “Hallelujah!”

Suddenly everyone realised what was happening. This was God. This was God gifting them, each and every one of them, from Peter the Rock to the forgotten faces. This was what Jesus had told them to wait for, and they couldn’t hold back the praise any longer. They opened their mouths, and the noise was amazing; words of praise to God filled the air. Words they knew well and words in languages they didn’t know they could speak as God gifted them.

The doors flung open, and those passing by were astounded to see a crowd and hear their own languages spoken. “How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” they asked. “What does this mean?”

Peter stood up and quietened the crowd. He told them about Jesus. He told them about the gift God had given them of the Holy Spirit. Many joined the believers that day, and the church was born.

Numbers are of such massive significance to the scriptures that it’s not surprising the apostles felt unsettled by being 11 and not 12. Clearly they decided to do something about it, though later passages will show their number would soon be persecuted and replacements no longer were an option to choose. It is noted that although Matthias is selected, Justus went on to become a prominent bishop, and so his story does not end with not being picked.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Acts 1

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

Why did Jesus choose twelve apostles? Do you know?
I wonder if you have a favourite number? In many cultures around the world, seven is considered a lucky number; some people think thirteen is unlucky. The Bible has lots of numbers that appear many times.

The number three is often used to mean complete. Many things are in sets of three. I wonder if you can think of an example? Numbers became special to the people who studied scripture. The numbers three, seven, twelve and forty appear in stories again and again.

So when Jesus chose apostles, it wasn’t surprising that he chose twelve. That number had often been used to represent everyone. There were twelve tribes of Israel, and so twelve was often used to represent a fair government. Even today, you often have twelve people on a jury in court. The problem was that there weren’t twelve apostles anymore. Judas had betrayed Jesus, and now there were only eleven. The twelve were incomplete.

We often think of Jesus travelling with just twelve men, but that’s only part of the picture. Jesus travelled with a whole crowd of people. Men and women who didn’t get chosen to be apostles, all people who had met Jesus and whose lives had changed forever. Around 120 people were in the crowd after Jesus left the disciples and went up to Heaven to be with his father.

Peter stood up and talked to everyone. They had all heard what had happened to Judas, how he had died. Peter asked if there was anyone there who had been with the group since John baptised Jesus, anyone who had travelled all the places Jesus had travelled, heard all the teaching he had shared, and seen Jesus after he came back from the dead. Peter asked if someone could complete the number by being the new twelfth apostle.

Slowly the people started to whisper; “When did you join the crowd?” “How about you?” “I think I missed that bit!” Eventually they found just two men: Justus and Matthias. The disciples prayed; then they decided they would cast lots.

Casting lots could mean a lot of things. Sometimes it meant rolling a dice or flipping a coin or drawing sticks to see who gets the shortest. It may seem like a strange way to decide something, but they believed God would make sure of the right outcome.

The lot fell to Matthias; he was named the new apostle. The twelve were complete again and ready for the next stage of their great Jesus adventure.

We may consider this is a minor story, but it’s one that every generation of the church has been challenged to live out. For Peter and the apostles, it was totally logical that the Jewish messiah would be a message for the Jews. That God would include every man, woman, and child into his great family irrespective of birth was totally revolutionary. So hard was it to imagine that the potential converts were quite literally speaking in tongues before Peter called for water to baptise.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Acts 10:44-48

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

Peter was in Joppa. A man called Cornelius had been told by an angel to invite him and here he was. It had been a strange few days. First, he’d had a vision about eating food that he’d always been told not to eat, and now he was speaking to a load of Gentiles!

Long ago, God had promised Abraham, and then Isacc and then Jocob (who was also called Israel), that from their family would come a great nation of God’s people. The nation was called the Israelites or the Jews, and they called everyone else Gentiles. There were lots of rules about Gentiles. Even if a Gentile came to believe in God, they were still seen as not as good as those born into God’s family. Good Israelites would not even enter a Gentile’s house! So you can imagine it was quite an unusual place Peter found himself in.

The house belonged to the centurion Cornelius. For many years, Cornelius had been a friend of the Jewish people. He’d learnt about their God and began to pray to him. Perhaps one day he would ask if he could join the Israelite nation and become a Jew? Now, God had sent an angel and told him to invite this man called Peter into his house. Cornelius had been excited. He gathered all his family and all his servants. He invited the neighbours. He invited everyone he met. It wasn’t everyday God sent an angel; so this was going to be an important event!

Peter stood before the crowd and paused.

“I see now God does not have favourites,” he said, and the crowd went quiet. It had always seemed like God had favourites; the Israelites were God’s favourites, weren’t they? “In every nation there are people who do what is right in God’s eyes,” Peter continued, and then he went on to tell them all about Jesus, about how Jesus had brought his message to God’s people but told them to tell the news everyone. The Jesus who had died and returned. The Jesus who had spoken to Gentiles. The Jesus who had eaten with people the Jewish rules said you should avoid. The Jesus he still followed.

As Peter was speaking, God came and joined them though his Holy Spirit. Those who had travelled to fetch Peter were amazed because the spirit of God did not land just on the people who had become Jews but on Gentiles too.

Peter looked at the crowd. “Bring water!” he shouted. “Let us baptise these people. If God has baptised them with his Spirit, we should also baptise them with water.” So the church grew, not with just the Jews but with Gentiles too, because God really does not have favourites!

Peter had healed a man using Jesus’s name. Nobody was going to say the healing was bad, but the authorities really didn’t like the mention of Jesus of Nazareth. This story of Peter and Johns arrest and the defence that Peter provided gives us a glimpse into the strange place the early believers inhabited, part of the Israelite nation but not an accepted part. This story uses the technique of repeating part of the last story as a recap before adding the next part.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main passage: Acts 4
Additional Passages: Acts 3

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

The lame man had reached out his hand for spare coins, but Peter had replied, “I have no silver. I have no gold. But what I do have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Peter grabbed the man’s right hand and pulled him up. The man’s feet and ankles became strong. The man was standing.

Well, you can imagine the chaos when he got into the temple and people started to recognise him. Everyone started shouting about how powerful Peter must be. Eventually, Peter stood up and put them straight. Peter wasn’t powerful. It was by using Jesus’s name that Peter could heal the man. It was power from Jesus, not Peter. The crowd was amazed. Many believed Peter and started their journey to get to know Jesus.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Not everyone wanted the teaching of Jesus to continue. The temple police and the priests were outraged to hear what Peter had said. They arrested Peter and John, who was with him.

The next day, all the religious leaders met, not just the temple priests but Annas – the high priest, – and the important members of the priestly families. They called the man who had been lame to come too. Peter and John were brought before them to answer their questions about what they had done.

“Peter, by what power or in what name have you done this?” they asked.
Peter took a deep breath. They wouldn’t like his answer. Many of these people had been the ones who had Jesus crucified. But Peter had something to help him; he had God’s Holy Spirit inside him.

“You question us because we did something good? This man who you now see standing before you healthy was healed. But so we are clear and you know with no doubt, it was by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead, that he was healed.”

The Psalms talk about Jesus when they say; “The stone rejected by you builders, has become the cornerstone.”

Only by Jesus can we be saved. There is no other name but the name of Jesus by which we must be saved.”

The religious leaders looked shocked. This rough, uneducated fisherman stood before them and spoke with a boldness they did not know how to respond to. The healed man stood there too. What could they say? They talked for some time and then ordered Peter and John to not speak of Jesus again. Peter Peter chuckled and shook his head. How could he not speak of what he had seen?

Jesus had left, the Holy Spirit had come, and with Peter at the lead, the new group of Jesus believers were growing rapidly. Signs and wonders abounded, but this is the first one fully written out for us. The lame man isn’t asking for healing, Peter is gifting it to him. This is part one of the story, the next lesson completes the narrative of what happens after Peter and John are arrested.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Acts 3

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

It was hot again, but it was still the best time to go to the temple because it was the time of afternoon prayer.

Good Israelites, like Peter and the other apostles, would pray three times a day. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once at sunset. They would often remain in the temple courts afterwards with the others who believed the teachings of Jesus.

It wasn’t just “Jesus followers” who turned up; Israelites from all over the city would come to the temple for the afternoon prayer service. Some would see the new believers and ask questions. That was one way God added to the number of believers each day. Others would come too. People who sold things would gather outside the gates of the temple, and beggars would line the road by the gateway.

This hot day, a lame man had just been carried to his usual begging spot -beside the temple gate with the nickname “beautiful” – when he saw Peter and John approaching for the service.

He reached out his hand, with his head bowed, and asked if they had any spare coins. Most people walked right past or dropped their smallest coin for him to pick up, but Peter and John stopped.

Then Peter said, “Look at us!”

The man lifted his head. Would they want to see the face they were giving to or would they spit at him? He really hoped this would end well.

Then Peter said, “I have no silver. I have no gold. But what I do have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

There was no time to think, no time to respond because Peter grabbed the man’s right hand and pulled him up.

The man wasn’t sure if he was angry or scared. He held his breath, waiting for the crazy man to let go. Every time someone had stood him up, his legs had buckled, bent, and he would fall. It always left him with cuts and bumps and bruises for days.

But not this time. The man’s feet and ankles became strong. Peter let go, and the man was standing. No, he was more than standing. He was walking. He was jumping! He was dancing! He was going into the temple for prayers instead of watching everyone else go.

Well, you can imagine the chaos when he got inside and people started to recognise him. Everyone started shouting about how powerful Peter must be. Eventually, Peter stood up and put them straight. Peter wasn’t powerful; Jesus was. “It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as they all could see.”  What happens next, is next week’s story.

We’ve over-spilled the lectionary this week to bring you an introduction to a face that is very familiar in the acts narrative -that of Barnabas. While his name is not really Barnabas at all, it’s Joseph, it seems this new moniker of Barnabas is something the Apostles bestowed upon him, suggesting a close familiarity in the burgeoning group. He is described as a Levite from Cyprus, so no rough fisherman, and was probably highly respected y means of birth. That his fields’ sale is enough to be mentioned in scripture shows it was almost certainly significant.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Acts4:32-37

This is part of a single lesson pack, all ready to print and go.

 Joseph, who everyone called Barnabas, had joined a new Jewish group in Jerusalem. It was lead by the apostles of Jesus from Nazareth. Jesus had not been an ordinary Jew; he’d been the Messiah, God’s own son that the Jewish people had been waiting for. He’d upset a lot of people because he wasn’t the type of messiah they wanted. Jesus didn’t lead an army or throw out the Romans; instead he told people to love their enemies, to care for those who were overlooked, and to be a servant to all. The authorities had killed Jesus, but death was no obstacle for Him. Jesus came back to life. Meeting Jesus’s followers had totally changed Barnabas’s life.

Those who believed in Jesus shared everything. Absolutely everything. They gathered together every day to pray, praise God, and find out how they could serve each other. The apostles would teach the truths they had learnt from Jesus, heal the sick and provide for the poor. Some of the women would cook huge meals and feed anyone who was there. For example, a man got a new job but had no shoes, and the next day a shoemaker brought him a pair. It was that kind of group; everybody shared everything.

One day, a man walked up to the apostles and laid a small bag of coins at their feet. He had sold something and wanted the apostles to give the money to those who needed it. The next day there was another gift laid at the apostles’ feet, and the day after that too! Barnabas prayed he would have something to give. He wanted to help the community of Jesus followers. It was a servant’s prayer, a good prayer, a prayer he hoped would make Jesus smile.

A few days later his prayer was answered. A man asked Barnabas if he would sell his field. It was a large field that had belonged to Barnabas’s family for many years. The man was really surprised when Barnabas joyfully shouted ‘Yes!’ straight away. He was so surprised that Barnabas had to explain that he hadn’t even thought of selling his field but God had answered his prayer.

The next day after work, Barnabas went to meet the other followers, unable to stop smiling. As soon as he arrived, he ran to the apostles so fast that he almost tripped… twice!. Then, he gently placed the bag of gold at their feet. Peter picked it up and tipped the contents onto his hand expecting a few small coins. As the bright gold coins rained over his hand and onto the floor, the apostles stood open mouthed.

Barnabas could have kept the money, but he had understood what it meant to serve even when it cost you. God had plans for Barnabas, and this was just the first step.