Losing students—and keeping the good ones.

John 6.66-71.

Growing up, I’ve heard many a Christian claim the worst verse in the bible was John 6.66. I suspect most of that is because of the address. Plenty of Christians are superstitious about the number 666, forgetting it’s only a hint of what the Beast’s name is; it’s not an inherently evil number. And there are much worse verses. But here’s how that verse goes:

John 6.66 KWL

Because of this,

many of Jesus’s students are going back,

and are no longer walking with him.

You remember a crowd came to Jesus hoping he’d give ’em free bread, and maybe overthrow the Romans, and instead he tells them he’s living bread who wants to save us, and expects our response to be a deep commitment—we gotta eat this living bread. And no, this isn’t actually about holy communion; Jesus is not making statements about how eating and drinking the communion elements literally work. He’s talking about abiding in him. Jn 15.4 About being one with him. About really following him.

He didn’t just weird out the crowd; this was too much for some of his own students. And if this freaks you out, Jesus pointed out, wait till you see Jesus get raptured.

Jesus had already pointed out the people didn’t trust him, Jn 6.36, 64 and the radical stuff he was saying—much of which affirms he’s actually God. It broke them. So they quit. They followed him no more.

Christian apologists love to point to this, and claim it’s part of the “trilemma,” John Duncan’s claim (which C.S. Lewis popularized; no, he didn’t invent it) that Jesus is either a fraud, self-deluded, or divine. Or, as Josh McDowell rephrased it, a liar, lunatic, or Lord. (Pagans typically choose a fourth option: Jesus never said any of these things, for overeager Christian fanboys made ’em up.) So the students who quit figured Jesus was either phony or crazy, and the students who stayed figured Jesus is Lord. In other words a good old-fashioned di-lemma: Jesus is either wrong, or right.

As for those who stayed:

John 6.67-71 KWL

67So Jesus tells the Twelve,

“You² don’t want to leave too?”

68Simon Peter answers Jesus,

“Master, to whom will we go?

You¹ have the sayings of life in the age to come,

69and we trusted you

and knew you¹ are God’s saint.”

70Jesus answers them, “Don’t I choose you² Twelve?

And among you is an accuser.”

71Jesus is saying this

of Judas bar Simon Iscariot,

for Judas is about to betray him,

despite being one of the Twelve.

There are not only 12 left—but this is a good 12.

The gospel kinda makes it look like Jesus cleared the synagogue of everybody but the Twelve—who, I remind you, are Jesus’s first apostles, a select few of his students whom Jesus sent to evangelize the Galilee. They include Jesus’s best student, Simon Peter, who earlier in this very chapter walked on water with him.

Peter gets knocked by Christians a lot for being impulsive—and of course he is; Jesus movies make him look the same age as Jesus if not older, but in the gospels he’s still just a kid. Jesus is probably old enough to be his dad—a really young dad, but still. You can tell Peter looked up to him like that, and Jesus likewise loves him like a son. So Peter is gung-ho for Jesus, and regularly steps out in faith in crazy ways. Walking on water, obviously. Declaring Jesus is Messiah and Son of God Mt 16.16 while the other Eleven are still slowly figuring this out.

And here, Peter’s clever response: Whom else would we follow? Jesus’s living-bread talk was all about how we gotta abide in him, and he in us, if we want life in the age to come, the kingdom of God. Well, Peter had been abiding in him. He quit his job to follow Jesus. Nothing Jesus said was even close to too radical for Peter. It’s one of the many reasons Peter was Jesus’s best student: He was quick to say stuff like this.

Peter, and the rest of the Twelve, were fully aware Jesus is authentically God’s man, and fully aware he’s the only one who could accurately explain God to them. Jn 1.18 Or to anyone. You wanna know about life in God’s kingdom? You go to Jesus. Nowhere else.

Jesus was fully aware his lesson in synagogue was gonna polarize people. Either they, like the Twelve, were already aware they need to stick with Jesus, would follow him anywhere, and listen to him no matter how weird he got. Or they were already aware they wanted no such thing, and Jesus’s “Drink my blood” lesson is just the excuse they needed to declare him crazy and flee.

Still true. Plenty of us Christians are just as willing to follow Jesus wherever he leads. Plenty of other Christians will follow him so long that he never actually challenges us.

But he will challenge us. The Holy Spirit kinda specializes in challenging us. This is why there are so many churches which hide from the Holy Spirit, and claim he doesn’t do miracles anymore. Who spend all their time denouncing all the people outside their congregation, but never once instructing and correcting the people inside. Who water down, or explain away, everything Jesus confronts us with till the weirdness—and the power!—is all gone. Everything Jesus teaches is dismissed as impractical, as “old covenant thinking,” or are pushed forward into End Times lessons. “What would Jesus do?” is no longer based on what he did in the gospels and currently still does, but on an imaginary, idealized, soft ’n fluffy Jesus who just wants them to be happy and wealthy—who conveniently thinks just like they do, and shares their politics.

The Twelve had already made up their minds about Jesus long ago. They saw for themselves who he was, and were fully aware there’s no going back.

Well… a good 11.

Other bibles translate Jesus’s statement in verse 70 thisaway:

John 6.71 NRSVue

Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.”

Jesus didn’t use our word “devil,” but the Greek word διάβολός/diávolós—and if John is actually translating a conversation Jesus had with his students in Syriac, he’d’ve used the word ܣܳܛܳܢܳܐ/sutonó, which corresponds to the Hebrew שָׂטַן/satán, “attacker, accuser, adversary, resister.” We immediately think of שָׂטָן/Satán, the Hebrew word for devil; the word we use as the devil’s proper name. But I don’t think Jesus was trying to be this obvious—“One of you is Satan! I decided to put Satan among the Twelve!” Such a statement would freak out the kids, and maybe trigger a witch-hunt. Instead I suspect Jesus was simply saying, “Even though one of you just keeps pushing back at me.” He had a particularly resistant kid in his class.

Maybe John knew at the time this was Judas Iscariot. After all, he already knew Judas was dipping into Jesus’s moneybelt. Jn 12.4 But maybe not; maybe he just knew Judas was a bad apple, but had no clue Judas would eventually rat Jesus out to the Judean authorities and get him killed.

“Iscariot” isn’t a last name; it’s like Nazarene or Magdalene, indicating which city Judas bar Simon came from. That’d be Keriot, Judea. Some have claimed Judas was the only non-Galilean in the Twelve, but we can’t rightly make this claim, since we don’t know where every person in the Twelve came from. The reason the scriptures keep calling him Iscariot is because there are multiple guys named Judah/Judas/Jude in the bible—including another Judas in the Twelve. Jesus also had two Simons and two Jameses in the Twelve—plus he had brothers named James, Simon, and Jude. Ancient Israelis kept naming their kids after family members and people in the bible. (Today’s Israelis often don’t name their kids for living family members, so as to cut down on the confusion.) So you kinda had to refer to people’s hometowns, dads, or nicknames.

Judas began following Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, and Jesus grew to trust him enough to put him in the Twelve. But by this point, Judas had become one of those Christians who—like many hypocrites today—stopped believing, but never stepped away.

Why? Likely money. Plenty of other Christians have likewise sold out to Mammon. I’ve known Christians who stopped believing what they were raised with long ago—but would never admit it, because they worked in Christian ministries, and might lose their jobs. Knew ’em in seminary; knew ’em before and after; know a few now.

In a few cases, it was actually the Holy Spirit stretching them beyond their childhood faith. He’ll do that. Problem was, the Spirit took ’em farther than their bosses, board members, or church members were comfortable. And rather than challenge people with their new ideas, and risk their jobs, their comfortable income, their nice houses with the big mortgages… they stifled the Spirit. Which has a tendency to ruin your relationship with him. And your Christianity. It can shrivel and die quickly.

Judas likely had more of the Mammonist problem. Jesus let him be in charge of the moneybag, and Judas grew far too comfortable with dipping into it from time to time. Why leave Jesus when there’s free money in staying?

Yes, Jesus is fully aware there are such people in his church. People who would leave him, but won’t because their church membership gives them standing. Or all their friends go to that church. Or their job depends on their attendance and leadership. Or their family would disown them. Whatever reason keeps ’em from leaving, and hypocritically pretending they still believe.

Why’d Jesus permit Judas to stick around, instead of outing and booting him? Determinists like to imagine Jesus was manipulating Judas: In order to get himself crucified, he needed someone to turn him in, and Judas would do. In fact Jesus needed no such thing. He could’ve turned himself in, or been in some other easy-to-find place where the cops could nab him. Jesus kept Judas around because—devilish or not—he loved him, and wanted to save him. And there was always a chance Judas might come around. Pity he didn’t.

How about us? Any chance we might come around? There’s still hope, y’know.