If Jesus were here, what questions might you desire to ask him? The Explore the Bible Study: He Sent Me will examine some of the questions asked of Jesus in John 7. You will discover that many times, the answer Jesus gives aren’t what people want to hear.

Google and other search engines are sometimes helpful and sometimes they reveal some of the craziest questions people might ask. A 2018 article from the UK website, Metro, listed the top 25 weirdest questions Google was asked. Here are a few of the funniest: How many toes does a rhinoceros have? Why is your face on your head? Why does cucumber taste like shampoo? What is the length of spaghetti?  How do I get my husband a brain transplant? Who let the dogs out? Where are my keys? How does a giraffe clean its ears? Why don’t duck feet stick to ice?

John 7:14-29 focuses on several questions people were asking about Jesus and the response of Jesus to those questions. The first question relates to the validity of Jesus’ teaching.

Is Jesus’ teaching valid? – John 7:14-18

When the people heard Jesus teach, it was obvious that He had not been trained in the rabbinical schools. The listeners were amazed, implying bewilderment. The people could not understand how He had become so learned. Unlike other teachers, He did not parrot well-known rabbis, and His mastery of Scripture surpassed anything they had heard. A major feature of the divine will was for Jesus to teach the Jews the truth about the Scriptures, freeing them from the bondage of centuries of human traditions that had hedged in and smothered the true Word

Jesus declared God the Father had sent Him on his redemptive mission, and He spoke with God’s authority. There was something very different about His teachings. Perhaps they recognized as others did at other times recorded in Scripture, that He taught as one having authority (see Matthew 7:28-29).

If Jesus were teaching today and we didn’t know what we know today as believers, what credentials would He need before people would listen to Him? 

What does this say then, about how we should validate truth today since we are living in such a celebrity driven culture? 

How would you explain to someone how you know that Jesus’ teachings are valid?

Was Jesus crazy? – John 7:19-24

What makes seeing our own hypocrisy difficult? (PSG, p. 87) How does knowing Jesus was not a hypocrite help us avoid hypocrisy in our lives?

 As believers, we must examine our own lives for such hypocrisy. Modern Christians do not face culture wars over circumcision, but we do encounter other issues just as controversial. 

Jesus was not crazy! He revealed the way one should live perfectly in a world that was imperfect. This leads us to a final question from this passage, “Is Jesus really the Messiah?”

Is Jesus really the Messiah? – John 7:25-29 

By this time, it’s apparent that Jesus was not paranoid and there really were some who were trying to kill Him.  These verses focus on one question: Was Jesus the Messiah or not? Because He had been “speaking publicly” without rebuke, many wondered if the leaders’ silence meant Jesus really was the Messiah. 

Others believed He wasn’t the Messiah because they knew He was from Galilee. Many Jews believed that the Messiah’s identity would remain a mystery until he set them free from the Romans. Neither side really understood Jesus. As a result, neither side could really accept Him and find life in Him.

Their irrational thinking led them to dismiss Him as the Messiah altogether, because it didn’t fit into their theological framework they had created as to what they expected from a Messiah.

Who do people think Jesus is today? How does that affect their ability to embrace Him as Savior?

Answering the Question

Believing in Jesus means we have to look beyond the physical and the present. We have to look to the spiritual and through eyes of faith. This crowd was still thinking in the confines of what they could see. Jesus knew that seeing was not going to be enough.

Knowing that the teachings of Jesus originated with the Father, how much time would you say you spend with the Lord in the Word per week?

The downloadable teaching helps provide more details for this study, along with some tools you can use in guiding a group Bible study. 

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LifeWay Explore The Bible Resources

These teaching helps are intended to be used as a supplement to your study of Lifeway's Explore the Bible curriculum resources. Portions of this material are taken directly from content copyrighted to Lifeway Christian Resources Explore the Bible and is used with permission.  This material has not been reviewed by Lifeway Christian Resources.