“BARTHOLOMEW”
TEXT: JOHN 1:43-51
Sunday, February 15, 2004
We are halfway through a series on the disciples. If you are visiting, we are going through the twelve disciples and we are halfway already. It is amazing to me that we are halfway. In looking at the first two years of my ministry here, we looked at the life of Jesus twice. I thought this year we would look at those who walked with Jesus. There is a sense that some Christian people feel that Jesus is hard to relate to. He was divine. He was the Son of God. I am just an average Joe. What can God possibly do through me? In addressing that, we are going to look at the twelve disciples. They are ordinary people. They are people just like us. They have great triumphs and they have huge flaws as well. Bartholomew is one of those and is who we are talking about today.
I have more points than I have time for, I know, so I am not going to give my snazzy introduction this morning. You know introductions are designed to make you say I want to listen. Will you promise me that you are ready to listen so I can get to the text? Are you with me? Alright let’s get straight to the text because there is good stuff in here. We are looking at John, chapter 1, verses 43-51, which is the only picture we get of Bartholomew, and Bartholomew is not named Bartholomew; his name is Nathanael. What is interesting as you study this, is that you notice that Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts all say Bartholomew is one of the twelve. John doesn’t have Bartholomew, but John is clear that Nathanael is one of the twelve. What do you do with it and is someone wrong here? Well, no. Bartholomew is not even a name. Bartholomew means: Bar is the Hebrew word for son and tholomew is the word for Tolmai. John is the person who gives us his first name. His first name is Nathanael. Now I don’t know why he didn’t go by his first name but I am betting it is because of the mission that he had. Nathanael is a Greek name. He is the only disciple that has a Greek name. All the rest of them have a Jewish name. But Nathanael is Jewish by his lineage, son of Tolmai. It is a Jewish name.
Their initial ministry was to Jews first so it probably was in order to keep people from thinking, “What’s that Greek doing on the ministry staff?” They decided to just avoid that and just tell people that “I am the son of Tolmai. I am Jewish. I am fully Jewish.” I have a Greek name because my parents probably liked it. It means given by God. It probably was a nice name same as when I named my children. I liked the name. They are pretty names so we chose them. So I don’t know why, but Bartholomew in John is referred to as Nathanael. His full name was probably Nathanael Bartholomew. Nathanael Bar Tolmai, the son of Tolmai. Here is what we know about him (and this is the only text that tells us anything about him beyond the fact that he is listed). Here is what it says. John 1:43-51:
The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’
Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was form the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’
‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked.
‘Come and see,’ said Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.’
‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.’
Then Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.’
Jesus said, ‘You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.’ He then added, ‘I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’
What do we learn about Nathanael, or Bartholomew, if you want to go by that name, in John 1? Well, a lot things. One, there is a sense where you see that Nathanael is a man who really has a seeking heart. He really wants to know God and the truth, and you kind of get this picture. Philip is coming to him. He is excited. Man, we found the Messiah. Wow! How does Nathanael respond? Like us. Like us when someone is trying to sell us something. We become a little skeptical. He is not ready to bite. He is not ready to be sold yet. He has some questions. He is like us when someone tries to sell us something. Like when you get a vacuum salesman. I watch Fox’s Bulls and Bears. They try to sell you some stock and you say well, is it the truth? How can you know? Nathanael responds this way.
In his response you discover Nathanael knows the Bible extremely well. Philip says we found the Messiah, Jesus, and he identifies him as Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Well, the son of Joseph is not the problem because everyone referred to who your physical parents are or who your human parents are (the human perspective, who your parent might be -- it is not a denial of the virgin birth), but the Jesus of Nazareth part- that is what got Nathanael. Nathanael knows there is no scripture in the entire Old Testament that connects the Messiah to Nazareth.
There are 456 Old Testament prophecies and, what’s amazing is that he knows every one of them to the degree that quickly he makes a snap judgment. Philip said ‘Nazareth’ and in Nathanael’s mind he is thinking ‘Nazareth-there is no connection with the Messiah and Nazareth.’ Now, how would he know this? Well, he has been studying it. It was a hot topic then, which is not surprising. I mean, isn’t it true; the second coming is a hot topic today? People just love studying about it. You have a class on the second coming; boom, it’s filled! You have a class on the Book of Revelation; boom, people would love to come. Well, if that’s true today, how much more true was it about Jesus’ first coming? Did people study it? Was it really a hot topic of the day? Well apparently it was, and Nathanael knew that Nazareth and the Messiah had no connection; it is not possible.
Did you know that? Did you know there is no connection between the Messiah and Nazareth? How well do you know the Bible? Nathanael knew the Bible. Nathanael is a pastor’s dream really -- Jesus’ dream. A person who knows God’s words extremely well. It’s praised by Paul as well. Paul praises the Bereans for this very quality, that they are people of the Word. Actually, Calvin notes that Presbyterians were referred to originally as the people of the Word, people of the book, because we love this book. Paul says in Acts 17:11, “now the Bereans were more noble of character than the Thessalonians for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true or not.” That is the very thing that Nathaniel did. He saw something that wasn’t true. He said, “Wait a minute, that doesn’t ring true with Scripture.” He wants to go and check it out.
That is an important thing for us to do. I have heard people say, “You know what? Everything pastors say are subjective interpretations so how do you know anything is true?” Well, how you know it’s true is by checking it with the objective truth of God’s Word. What a minister says from the pulpit is a subjective interpretation unless you go to the scriptures and discover that what he is saying is true. It fits with Scripture. Scripture is God’s objective witness to us. It is a standard for us. It’s objective because it comes from God, and if a preacher contradicts something from scripture, than you know its subjective, but if it fits exactly what the Bible says, then it becomes an objective word for us and it is God’s word to us. That is what Nathaniel did and that is what the Bereans did. That is what God calls us to do as well. Fortunately for Nathaniel, he did not allow Jesus’ origin to keep him from pursuing a better knowledge of who Jesus was. It didn’t dissuade him from checking out whether the claims about Jesus being the Son of God, the Messiah, were true or not.
Now note, though, that the information he received is faulty. Philip said he is “Jesus of Nazareth.” Philip is making a claim that he knows exactly where Jesus is from, but in the communication he communicates something that is false. We know it is false because we know the Christmas story. We know Jesus’ origin is fitting with Scripture. He is actually from Bethlehem just as the Bible’s Old Testament’s prophecy said. He grew up in Nazareth, but he is not from Nazareth. His origin is Bethlehem. That is something that Philip doesn’t know and he passes on some bad information to Nathaniel, and it almost keeps him from getting to know Jesus in a personal way, which is a lesson for us.
It is important as Christian people that we really understand our faith, because if we have a shallow understanding or a misunderstanding of it, and we pass that misunderstanding to other people, what happens? We could become a barrier to other people’s faith. I can’t tell you how many young people and college age people are turned off from the faith when people do not answer their hard questions. When you brush off young people and college students, in particular, with “you just got to believe, you just got to have faith,” sometimes, it is hard for the heart to accept what the mind cannot believe. It is hard for the heart to accept what the mind cannot believe. So often if we just address the issues of the mind, the heart then becomes open to what God has to say and who Jesus is. So it is important for us as Christian people to address the hard questions, and if you do not know the answer, go find it or at least be honest to say, “I don’t know but I will get back with you next week,” instead of becoming a barrier and passing out false information.
The worst barrier I have ever heard -one example- is at a funeral- how people would say (maybe you’ve said this, and shame on you if you did), “Oh, God wanted a wonderful flower for the garden so he took your daughter to be part of his garden in heaven.” Well, you know what? One, God would not be that cruel and, if God wants a flower, he doesn’t need your son or daughter or your spouse to take home. He has created the world of flowers; he can create some himself. It is a bad thing to say. It is a misunderstanding of the Christian faith. Death is always an enemy. God always confronts it. When we say things like that, which is a shallow understanding of faith, it becomes a barrier for those who have come to know God in a personal way.
This happens in Philip’s case. Fortunately, Nathaniel doesn’t allow Philip’s misinformation to keep him away from Jesus. I think the reason why is because Nathaniel has what I call intellectual humility. He concludes, “Well, maybe Philip, and I know Philip - he is not very bright, [and that is true, Philip wasn’t very bright]. Maybe he got the information wrong, so I am going to go see, I am going to go see who Jesus is.” He is very wise in doing so. He has a searching heart - you find this phrase in both the Old and New Testaments. Proverbs 18:15 says this, “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out.” Hebrews 11:6: “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” So if you are here this morning looking for answers, I applaud you because you have come to the right place. You are seeking the right source. The answers are in Jesus Christ, but be patient. Be patient in your search and keep seeking God out. Don’t make the mistake of basing your faith upon all of us in here because all of us are flawed people. We are people just like you trying to overcome the sin in our lives. We are all in recovery here, and if you base your faith upon a human being, you will be disappointed. Am I right? If you base it upon who Jesus Christ is and the evidence of who he was, then you won’t be sad.
Seek him out and get to know him – be patient. Read the Bible for yourself. Ask Jesus to reveal himself to you. Ask the hard questions, don’t avoid it, and then avoid snap decisions based on pop literature. I get this all the time. People hear something on T.V. Well I heard there are some scholars that say there is no historic proof for who Jesus was so I don’t have to believe in this junk; it is all bunk. Well, that is an absolute lie. There is more historic evidence for Jesus being a real historic person than there is historical evidence that George Washington ever existed. There is more historic proof. Time magazine had an interesting article about the DaVinci code. People are reading it and saying, ah, this whole Christianity stuff is a conspiracy. Constantine made it up. Well, it is a fictional book. He made it up that Constantine made it up. There is not a single source of historic proof that the Bible has ever changed over 2000 years. There are thousands and thousands of manuscripts from every period of time, but it is interesting how people accept writings from 2000 years ago that people didn’t see, and take those as more truthful than those who were right there, who saw and then wrote about it. The New Testament is not a religious book. It was first and foremost a book of history where people saw what happened. I mean talk about objective standards; they saw it, they witnessed it, they wrote about it, they spread the word.
For believers, I think Nathaniel produces a great pattern for how you become strong in your faith so that you can seek answers in truth in your life and get the answers. Well, what does Nathaniel do? It says they find him under a fig tree. What in the world does that mean? We don’t have fig trees. Most people’s homes were a one room apartment and when you cooked the smoke went everywhere. You could barely breathe and your eyes would water. When you wanted to get away from things, if you wanted to get into a quiet place, you went to a tree. One of the best trees of that time were fig trees because they were huge, bushy, 15 feet tall and produced tremendous shade and cool. It was, in that day, the place where people wanted to go when they wanted to read the Bible and meditate, and that is exactly what Nathaniel was doing. He knows God’s word extremely well because here he is. He is out there. Jesus sees him at the fig tree. He is having some quiet time. He is meditating. He is reading God’s word. He is praying and that is how you become strong in your faith.
You know, we live in a culture where productivity is so important. We think that devotional life or taking time away to feed our soul is unproductive when it is not. We are just being productive in a different aspect of our lives. It is good to be productive in the pursuit of material provision for your life. That is part of our responsibility, but it is just as important to be productive in the work of your soul and your heart. Your soul is the hub of your character and personality. It is the hub of who you are. If you do not nurture that, things begin to die in your life, and you begin to lack a personality and character. I think that is a problem in our culture. You see it in your workplace. You see it in schools. You see it in the mall – people that are mean-spirited. They lack character, they lack heart. It is because we are not nurturing our souls. We are not becoming unproductive, and productive in the nurture of our spirit (we are half spirit). Nathanael avoids that and he takes care of his soul. He is a good example for us.
As a result, he has a tremendous character, the very thing Jesus notes. Of all the disciples, Jesus praises Nathanael’s character above everyone elses. Nathanael receives the highest praise over any of the other disciples and the phrase is, “here is an Israelite in whom there is no guile” or is no falsehood. Actually, literally, it is a play on words. He is saying here is a Jacobite. You know how Jacob became known. Israel takes her name from the patriarch Jacob, in whom there is no Jacob. If you know who Jacob is in the Old Testament- he is a scoundrel, he deceives people to get what he wants - what Jesus is saying is here is here is an Israelite who is not like his patriarch Jacob in that he is not a deceiver, he is a genuine believer. He is a Jew inwardly. And more than that, or included in that, is he is a genuine person. There is no falsehood in him. What he says, he does. What he thinks about you, he tells you. But he tells you with tact, which is the integration of the genuineness of the faith he has, the genuineness of his communication, and who he is. What you see is what you get and he is very up front about this. “Jesus, you don’t even know me, what are you talking about.” But he doesn’t label Jesus. He doesn’t call him a liar. He is honest in his communication, but tactful. He does what I think Ephesians 4:15 calls us all to do -- speaking the truth in love. What conflict, what divisiveness Christian people could avoid, we all could avoid, if we take this quality and make it part of our lives. What we think is what we communicate in love. Let me go over that again. What you think is what you communicate with love. If we were to do that, there would be no grapevine in the church. There would be no parking lot meetings because what you believe is what you say, and when you say it you come in a dialog and you ask questions. Nathaniel has a misunderstanding of Jesus so what does he do? He comes in dialog; he asks some questions, he gets answers. The relationship is open. It becomes healthy. We need to do that as well.
Now I know I am out of time, so if you want to learn the last point, you have got to come to Bible study. The last point is good. I actually have two more points, but I know I can’t do it and that is true of everything. There is so much to this word; there is so much to the Bible. I encourage you to do what Nathanial does, take it and read it. Note the promise that Jesus has for his life. He remains in there, persevering in faith, that he will constantly have God’s spiritual presence. It will be as though angels ascend and descend and God will be part of his life, and God will be part of your life as well, as you continue to seek him.
[Let’s pray.]
