Syncopating the scriptures…<\/p>\n
"I am…I am…I am." Jesus set us up with that bass line each time finishing it a different way but then he adds a surprise on his final use of the phrase in John 15.<\/p>\n
\n"I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener." (v1)<\/p>\n
"I am the vine and you are the branches." (v5)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
In those two statements, Jesus reveals the offbeat of His "I am" sayings. Up until this point in the Gospel of John, the "I am" formula was revealing something about Jesus but in these last two uses, Jesus shows us that each statement also has the potential to reveal to us the Father and ourselves.<\/p>\n
This should send us back to all the other statements asking two questions: What does this say about the father? What does this say about me?<\/p>\n
You’ll want to do this on your own, but take Jesus’ statement about being the light of the world. What does that say about how Jesus views us? We are in darkness. Or consider the implications of Jesus being the bread of life? What does that say about us except that we are hungry? <\/p>\n
Each statement has an offbeat that is meant to be heard and considered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Syncopating the scriptures… "I am…I am…I am." Jesus set us up with that bass line each time finishing it a different way but then he adds a surprise on his final use of the phrase in John 15. "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener." (v1) "I am the vine and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Jesus set us up with that bass line each time finishing it a different way but then he adds a surprise on his final use of the phrase in John 15. "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener." 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}