Here are four specific examples of situations in which the disciples didn’t “get it,” listed in probable chronological order.1 We could cite many more.
- In John 4:31-34, the disciples encouraged Jesus to eat, and He replied, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” Jesus’ closest followers thought their Master was referring to physical food, so He explained to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.”
- Matthew and Mark report that Jesus taught His hearers that certain things coming out of an individual defile him or her, not specific, forbidden foods that enter into a person or failing to perform a ritual such as hand washing. The disciples asked for an explanation. Jesus gently rebuked them and explained real problems arose from “evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” Every one of “these evil things,” He said, “come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:21-23).
- The first two Gospels also indicate that when Jesus warned His closest followers of “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” they thought He was speaking of literal bread rather than of their teachings.
- According to John 14:1-11, after Jesus told His disciples that He was the way, the truth, and the life, Philip asked Him to show them the Father. Jesus replied, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
1Based on Steven L. Cox and Kendell H. Easley, eds., Harmony of the Gospels, Holman Christian Standard Bible, (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007).
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