Upcoming Sunday Scripture Commentary - March 9

Sermon (March 9) – “Who Were the Twelve Disciples of Jesus? Bartholomew & Simon”

John 1:43-51

Why would we choose this scripture passage that talks about Nathaniel and Phillip instead of a passage that is about Bartholomew or Simon which is the focus of the sermon? There are no specific stories about a disciple named, Bartholomew even though he appears in all three lists that name the twelve disciples. Bartholomew and Nathaniel were probably the same person. There are no scriptural stories regarding the disciple Simon.

Phillip, who is already a disciple, invites his friend, Nathaniel to meet Jesus. He does a simple thing but it becomes a life-transforming thing for Nathaniel who ends up becoming one of the twelve disciples. How can we introduce people to Jesus?

This scripture is about how Jesus called Nathaniel (Bartholomew) to be his disciple. It’s one of the more humorous stories in the Bible because there’s a sense that both Nathaniel and Jesus took turns at jabbing each other with some 1^st century humor. Nathaniel refers to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth in a sarcastic way and Jesus gives Nathaniel a dose of his own medicine by claiming that he is perfect and without any sin.

The highlight of this story is what Jesus tells Nathaniel toward the end of the passage. “You will see greater things than this.” Jesus was referring to how he was able to see Nathaniel under the tree before he had even met him. The thinking is that if you thought that was incredible, you haven’t seen anything yet! The greatest thing that Nathaniel ended up seeing was Jesus after his resurrection. It doesn’t get any more impressive than that!

Jesus’ reference to God’s angels going up and down is a reference to the Jacob story from the Old Testament when Jacob who was running away from Esau had a dream one night where a ladder was set up between heaven and earth for God’s angels. What a dream that was. That place where the dream took place ended up being named as Bethel where it was known for a central place of worship in Israel. Bethel became a symbol of God’s presence in the world. In a similar way, Jesus has become the presence of God in our world.

What do we learn from this scripture? Jesus meets us at the level of where we are in our faith journey just as he did with Nathaniel. We also learn to anticipate the great things that God is doing in the world through Jesus Christ. And finally, like Phillip, all we need to do is invite people to come and meet Jesus. Those encounters can lead someone to experience transformation and salvation.