Check The Wounds Yo

From the Greek home -work this week: John 20: 19-23. The Sunday after Jesus was crucified John says the disciples got together after the first ‘weekday’ after this horrible weekend.  The doors are ‘already locked’  (strong emphasis).  They didn’t lock after everyone got there.  They were locked at the start; people were cautiously added one by one and the door was immediately locked after each one.  While they were all just sitting there Jesus ‘stood in their midst’ (past tense) and then says (present tense) “Peace”.  The most common Hebrew greeting, said in coming and going was, ‘Shalom’ which means ‘Peace’.

It’s subtle, but the change in tenses here implies a stunned silence.  He stood right in the middle of  the group ….  and then he says, “Hi guys.”

In Greek there is a figure of speech that goes (literally)  “show your hand” and what it means is, show your influence or show your power.  If I have four little boys who aren’t listening to me, I may need to ‘show my hand’ and demonstrate ‘everyone needs to listen to Dad!’

Here in John 20: 20 John uses a pun when he says, “… he showed them his hands and his side”.  Jesus literally showed them the marks on his hands (yes it was me on that cross) and his side (yes, the fact that I am alive is a miracle) but he also, in a figurative sense was showing them His power.  I have power over death.  I have power over life.  I can raise dead people like Lazarus and I can do it to myself too.

I love studing Greek.

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