Daily Read

John 6:1-15 (NIV)

What would it be like to live in a world where there was more than enough?

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1. John opens the chapter with a note about it being Passover and then proceeds to tell a story about Jesus providing abundant bread in the wilderness. What could it mean for Jesus to perform this sign, so close to the celebration of Israel’s rescue from slavery in Egypt?

2. As one of Jesus’ 7 signs in John, this story calls us to come and see what it looks like when God’s space and human space overlap. What kind of space does it create in this passage? What does it look like, feel like, sound like, smell like, and taste like when heaven and earth come together?

3. Jesus knew that he was going to perform this sign, but he is intentional about including his disciples in the work. How does this story expand the boundaries of what you see as the things that God can use in your life to create spaces of abundance, generosity, and hope?

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John 5:31-47 (NIV) 

Read by: Karissa Bodoh

In the very beginning of this Gospel, John lays out some key themes meant to guide us through the narrative. If you don’t have time read the first 18 verses in John chapter 1, here are some highlights that are important for today's passage.

First is that Jesus came from the Father to his own but will not be recognized by them. Second is that those who do believe will have the right to be born of God. And third is that while we have seen Moses, we haven’t seen the Father. But He has been made known to us in Jesus.

At this point in the story, John is asking us as the hearers: can we recognize him? Do we believe? Do we know him?

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1. What word or phrase stood out to you in this passage?

2. Jesus tells the Jewish leaders he’s speaking to that even though they study scripture and set their hopes on the Torah, they are missing the very thing it all points to. In what ways might people do this kind of thing today; knowing scripture, but missing Jesus?

3. What about you? What could cause you to miss Jesus? Is it not being able to see past the light of people talking about Jesus? Could it be the way you read scripture? Or maybe desiring the glory and praise of others? What might hinder the life Jesus offers you?

John 5:16-30 (NIV) 

Previously in John, Jesus has been performing signs and wonders, and some on the Sabbath. Sabbath was and is an absolutely central part of Jewish life. On the 7th day God entered his rest, so on the 7th day of the week His people enter into rest. They do this in remembrance of the LORD and in anticipation of the age to come.

And with that anticipation was a growing conviction by Jesus’ day: a belief that God the Creator would raise the dead, bringing people back to bodily life to face the consequences of evil done or to share in eternal life. In this passage Jesus signals that this work has begun in him.

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1. Jesus says that because the Father is working, he’s working. What would it look like for you to say: "Because Jesus is working, so are we."? What would need to change?

2. What would it mean for you to honor Jesus today?

3. "Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me HAS eternal life and will not be judged, but HAS crossed over from death to life," says Jesus. If you believe, eternal life starts now. In what ways might you still live as if this gift of life is only for the future? What would it look like to live in it now?

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John 5:1-15 (NIV) 

Read by: Derekah Kingery

Healing shrines were common in the ancient world. Someone in need of healing would show up, purify themselves in the adjoining fountain or source of water and then go make their supplications for healing at the shrine.

Up to this point in John’s Gospel, whenever Jesus and water show up together in the same story, you find these eternal upgrades. Think back. Chapter1: Being baptized with water upgrades to being baptized with spirit. Chapter 2: Jars full of water are now full of wine. Chapter 3: Being born of a woman becomes born again by water and spirit, and chapter 4: Water from a well is surpassed by living water. And now we come to Jesus meeting a man at the edge of the healing pool...

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1. This man had been sick for so long, it would probably have been hard to imagine restoration. Is there anything in your life that’s been hurt or broken for so long that it’s hard to imagine being whole?

2. The Jewish leaders overlook this man’s obvious restoration as they worry about his breaking Sabbath regulations. Jesus sees beyond this man's immediate restoration and exhorts him to yet a deeper restoration by saying, “do not sin any more…” He cares about both. Take a moment to identify the additional deeper, perhaps less obvious ways you need restoration.

3. Jesus is more effective than the pool at healing, and hints at being more effective than the temple at dealing with sin. As the third sign in John, what does this story teach us about what it looks like when heaven & earth come together?

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John 4:43-54 (NIV) 

Read by: Eric Peterson

Today’s passage tells the story of the second sign that Jesus performs in John’s gospel. Now remember, these signs are clues that remind us to think back to chapter one, when Jesus was calling people to come and see, and telling them that they would see what it would look like when Heaven and Earth overlap!

But there’s a problem that happens when those who’ve come to see have really only done so for the wrong reasons. They want to witness wonders, but withhold belief. They are missing the whole point. But then there is this royal official.

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1 - The people of Galilee welcome Jesus because they want to watch a performance. The Royal Official takes Jesus at his word, without seeing. What’s your tendency: do you come to Jesus to see signs, or do you come prepared to take him at his word?

2 - The royal official is anything but passive in this passage. He begs, he trusts, then he sees a miracle. But he also remembers, he remembers when he asked Jesus and connects the dots. Take a moment to remember the ways that Jesus has been true to his word in your life. Can you connect some dots?

3 - The signs in John’s Gospel work so that it’s us who come and see. And this sign, like the others, shows us what the world can look like when heaven and earth overlap. In this case, an innocent boy lives and does not die. In what ways do you long heaven and earth to come together today?

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John 4:27-42 (NIV) 

On today’s episode of Daily Read, we pick up on the third and final section of the story of the woman at the well.

When John first introduces us to the woman at the well through this tense cross-cultural moment with Jesus, what with her being socially ostracized with a complicated marital status, you don’t get the impression that this would be the first evangelist to the Samaritan people. But you’d be wrong.

For most of us, the agrarian life of the 1st century is extremely difficult to imagine. But there is a reason that most agrarian cultures in the world hold celebrations at harvest time. Imagine the waiting, imagine that your very sense of time is based on where you are in relationship to harvest. In this passage, John’s gospel is telling us that harvest time has come! Not just for the Samaritans, but for the whole world.

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1. You can almost image the disciples scratching their heads when Jesus tells them to look at the fields. In what ways do you struggle to see the harvest fields today?

2. This Samaritan woman doesn’t really have the credentials one might expect in a representative of Jesus, but her testimony transforms her town. How does this story challenge how you see who’s fit to represent Jesus?

3. Up until now in Chapter 4, Jesus is talking about water that doesn’t come from wells and food that we don’t know about…. What would it look like to bring your thirsts to Jesus and ask him for a drink? What would it take to become satisfied by the food that he eats?

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John 4:16-26 (NIV)

As we continue on in the story of the woman at the well, we have to hold in our minds the tension present already in the social realities between Jews and Samaritans, men and women. But then we have to layer onto that the story particular to this Samaritan woman. Her showing up at the well in the heat of the day was no accident. It was a clear signal that she was probably a social outcast. Typically you’d go in the morning or evening to get water. But we’re about to discover why she didn’t. And she’s about to learn something that would change everything.

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1. This woman’s shame caused her to change the subject with Jesus. How does shame impact your relationship with Jesus?

2. In the midst of talking about mountains with a woman that probably hadn’t been able to worship for a long time because of her status, Jesus signals that she would soon worship the Father, and suggests that she could be a true worshiper. What social outcasts among you need this kind of invitation?

3. Even the Samaritan woman has a longing for Messiah, trusting that he’ll explain everything. You can almost imagine the questions she’s holding deep down. What are some of those deep questions for you? What is it that you are desperate for Jesus to make sense of?

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John 4:1-15 (NIV) 

In the time of Jesus it would have been socially risky for a man to be alone with a woman other than his wife. If it was unavoidable, it would be all the more scandalous to actually talk to her. In today's passage Jesus obliterates those boundaries. 

And what’s more, he does so with a Samaritan. Jewish exiles returned from Babylon to find a group of people occupying the central section of their territory. These were the Samaritans, who, claiming to be the true descendants of Abraham, wanted nothing to do with Jews. Likewise, Jews avoided the Samaritans at all costs, traveling way out of the way so as to not have to travel through that part of Judea.

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1. Jesus gladly risks his reputation to associate with a Samaritan woman. How has Jesus risked his reputation to associate with you?

2. How might following Jesus require you to risk your reputation for today?

3. As we’ll see in the next half of this story, this woman was ashamed to come to this well each day. In what area of your life do you long to drink of living water so that you’ll never be thirsty again?

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John 3-22:36 (NIV)

As we move to the next passage in John’s Gospel, it’s as if the camera pans over to a scene when John the Baptist, who we’ve met before, is faithfully doing his work of baptizing repentant Jews. The difference is that this time Jesus is not an unknown figure; rather Jesus himself is baptizing somewhere else and his popularity is growing.

John alludes to a Jewish wedding tradition where the friend of the groom would wait at the gate and announce the coming of the groom. If we let it, this passage can challenge our desire to be the main event, when perhaps, we’re called to play a supporting role in a bigger story.

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1.  Have you ever felt like the disciples in this passage? Have you ever felt obsolete?

2. Consider where you are in your life. In what ways are you and your community called to play a supporting role to the work of Jesus?

3. We can also tend to want to be the main event in our own lives… What would it mean for you to live today in light of the Father placing everything in Jesus’ hands?

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John 3:1-21 (NIV)

In today’s passage we meet a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Pharisees were a sect of Jews who responded to the oppression of Israel by doubling down on Jewish regulations and identity markers like food laws, circumcision, and ritual purity… all in an attempt to separate the truly faithful Israelites from those whom they saw as the the unfaithful compromisers.

In this passage Jesus names a new identity marker and redraws the lines of belonging to include the whole world. In fact, the Greek word for world in this passage is the word COSMOS. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that He has come to redeem and restore not just one small well-regulated sect in Israel, but the entire created order.

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1. What word or phrase stands out to you in this passage?

2. If you’re a Christian, it can be easy to forget the irony of following a crucified servant king. Like the serpent and Moses’ staff, reflect on the strange gift of the crucified savior being our source of redemption and renewal.

3. Consider the implications of Jesus' words, "For God so loved the COSMOS." How does that affirm your understanding of God? How does that stretch your understanding of God? 

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