Taken another day off from writing and another day sitting back and enjoying the commentaries of someone much wiser than I. Arthur W. Pink is most likely my personal favorite author and he has an excellent comprehensive Expository on the Gospel of John. I would properly do well to just copy from it directly on a weekly basis but to make it personal I will continue to interject my ignorance on occasion. I pray God keeps us focused and searching His Word for ourselves and guides us, and no matter the pen that it is His message.
Extra credit reading: Continuing this Pink theme, I found this article just fascinating and truly applied to today’s lesson of searching for worldly acceptance. This was his response to an offer of Doctor of divinity ”Doctor or Brother”
Jhn 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Discussion Form : Was it necessarily a bad thing not to be accepted by the people?
“The connection between this and the previous verse should be carefully noted: the beggar was "cast out" before he knew Christ as the Son of God. The Nation as such denied this truth, and only the despised few on the outside of organized Judaism had it revealed to them. There is a message here greatly needed by many of the Lord’s people today who are inside man-made systems where much of the truth of God is denied. True, if they are the Lord’s, they are saved; but not to them will Christ reveal Himself, while they continue in a position which is dishonoring to Him. It is the Holy Spirit’s office to take of the things of Christ and to show them unto us. But while we are identified with and lend our support to that which grieves Him, He will not delight our souls with revelations of the excellencies of our Savior. Nowhere in Scripture has God promised to honor those who dishonor Him. God is very jealous of the honor of His Son and He withholds many spiritual blessings from those who fellowship that which is an offense to Him. On the outside with Christ is infinitely preferable to being on the inside with worldly professors who know Him not. The time is already arrived when many of God’s people are compelled to choose between these two alternatives. Far better to be cast out because of faithfulness to Christ, or to "come out" (2 Cor. 6:17) because of others’ unfaithfulness to Christ, than to remain in the Laodicean system which is yet to be "spued out" by Christ (Rev. 3:16). Whatever loss may be entailed by leaving unscriptural and worldly churches, it will be more than compensated by the Lord. It was so with this beggar.” A.W. Pink
