458. Walking in the Word, Strength Through Grace

Are you weary? Walking hopelessly through the mundane? Jesus has so much more for you and is calling you to get up and walk in obedience. Pick up your mat and let God, in His grace, supply the strength you need every step of the way. (John 5:1-15) **** Thanks for listening to the Women World Leaders’ podcast! This is our Wednesday edition, Walking in the Word, where we take time out of our busy week to sink into God’s Word and ask Him to reveal His truth and teaching to us. My name is Julie Jenkins. I’m the teaching and curriculum leader for Women World Leaders, and I am pleased to be your host. We are currently walking through the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together as we study the life of Jesus Christ. If you are enjoying our study, I’d like to ask you to take a moment to share it with someone else. My reasoning is simple. See…this podcast was started because a friend came to me in need of Biblical teaching. She is a nurse, and her team of associates had been gathering at lunch and listening to a limited Easter teaching. When they completed the series, she reached out to me looking for a podcast to empower them to stand strong together during the height of the covid pandemic. After searching and praying for an appropriate podcast for her, God spoke to me that He was calling Women World Leaders to begin this podcast series, and I thought, if He is calling, there must be a need. So we are asking you now, to help us fill that need. For us, it isn’t about download numbers, but about reaching those whom God intends to reach. Will you pray and ask Him who in your life would benefit from a weekly bible teaching that they can access anywhere at any time? And then will you share it with them? Your outreach will likely have a ripple effect that will extend further than you can now imagine. Sometimes we just have to respond obediently, even if we don’t fully understand. That thought leads us into our teaching today as we study John’s account of the healing of the disabled man at the pool of Bethesda from John 5:1-15. Before we begin, let’s pray… Dear Most Holy God, I thank you for each person who is listening, wherever they may be. Lord, I don’t know how you drew each individual to this podcast today, nor do I know what they are going through. But you do. You see each listener individually and there is something that you have called them to hear today. God, may the words that come from my mouth not be my words, but yours. Allow this teaching to come from you alone. We give you this time and ask you to infiltrate our thoughts, Holy Spirit, as we read and study your Word. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. John 5 from the New Living Translation begins… 5 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days We have seen Jesus heal many people as we have been walking through the gospels. We have seen Him step out time and again, but today we see Him intentionally step into the territory of the Jewish religious leaders whom He knew would seek His death. He traveled straight into Jerusalem. Scripture says He traveled there for a Jewish festival, although we don’t know which one. And it appears that He was alone as He visited the Temple area. Verse 2 continues… 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda,[a] with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.[b] The Sheep Gate was not an obscure name of an entry into the temple, it was the actual opening in the Temple wall through which the sacrificial sheep were brought. From the Sheep Gate, the sheep would have been taken directly to the pool that John mentions, where they would have been washed before being taken into the sanctuary. Heading through the Sheep Gate, you could walk down a pathway to the pool of Bethesda, a set of twin pools that has now been identified by archeologists and is currently known as the pool of St. Anne. These twin pools were surrounded by four colonnades with an additional colonnade going between the two halves of the pool. I am far from being an expert in architecture, so to get a picture in my mind, I had to look up what a colonnade is. So now I can report that the pool was surrounded by an open hallway made of large columns and covered by a roof. This is where the sick people would lay…under the colonnade that both surrounded the pool and cut through the middle, separating the two parts of the pool. Many translations say that those who lay there were disabled, using the generic term for those who were too weak to help themselves. John further describes them as the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. This must not have been a pretty sight…it was probably actually quite heart-wrenching, pathetic, or even disgusting – depending on your outlook. Perhaps needless to say, this was an area that the upper class and those considering themselves purified for worship, would avoid. But not Jesus. He walked ...