Faith to fighting in less than a chapter

Tonight during my quiet time I read John 8.  I'm not sure if John's writing style is strange, the translation from the original language to English is awkward or if Jesus was just kind of hard to understand sometimes.  But reading tonight, my eyes seemed to open to a section of scripture that I don't really think I've ever paid attention to before.

John 8:31-59

Before this section of scripture Jesus is talking with the Pharisees (as usual) and through his conversation it says in verse 30, " Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him."  But Jesus then turns to these Jews who believe and start to really let them know what they'll learn when they follow him and how they'll be free.  The Jews, in return, reply that they are Abraham's descendants and were never slaves to begin with.


How often are we like these Jews who put their faith in what Jesus says, but then they think that they're all good because of the fact they are descendants of Abraham?  I think that I have fallen into this trap at times in my life.  I grew up in a Christian home, and sometimes I feel like I've got it all together simply because of the way I grew up, following rules and whatnot.  But I think I'm more like the Jews in this chapter than I want to realize.

I say I know how to live because I'm a part of my family, but Jesus calls us out saying, NO. You're living your life the way your "father," the devil, does. We're sinful people.  We're part of that group who was plotting to kill Jesus. But the blessing is the fact that we have these Jews' story to look at and learn from. They didn't understand what Jesus was saying but because we have their story in the Bible we're able to learn from what they did. How awesome is that!?

I encourage you to read John 8, the whole chapter, so you can get the whole context of what is going on around this dialog with Jesus and these Jews.  It's pretty amazing to see what happens over just the course of just one chapter.  They go from putting their faith in him to picking up stones to try and kill him. Crazy.