July 23, 2000
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Philip
Common Men, Uncommon Calling: Phillip
Next we meet Philip. We don't know a lot but the word "Philip" is a Greek word, it's a Greek name, it means "lover of horses." Don't know why he got that name, where it came from, but that's what it means. He must have had a Jewish name because all Twelve Apostles were Jewish. We don't know what his Jewish name is, we don't know what his Jewish parents named him. They wouldn't have named him with a Greek name, but maybe the equivalent in Hebrew, lover of horses, we don't know that. But he did have a Jewish name, we only know him, however, as Philip.
He lived in Bethsaida. That is he grew up in the same town with Peter and Andrew and must have been acquainted with James and John so that here is Jesus, amazing, you would think if He was going to choose twelve Apostles for this formidable task, He would scour the earth to find the best guys. He finds one little group of fishermen, just some buddies who knew each other and said, "That will do...that will do." Somebody said, "All He really needs is availability, that will be enough." So He went back in to the same little village, same little non-descript place called Bethsaida up on the north end of the Galilee area. There was Philip.
He probably was a close friend of Peter and Andrew because in that small place they went to the same synagogue and because they were God-fearing Jews and looking for the Messiah, they probably had a lot in common. It's probably true that Philip was a fisherman because in the twenty-first chapter of John, second and third verse, when Peter takes the disciples back into the fishing enterprise after the resurrection, he gets a little discouraged, he doesn't think he can do what God wants him to do, what the Lord wants him to do so he goes fishing. And Philip and Andrew go along. So perhaps he was a fisherman too, like the rest.
Let's see how we first meet him in John 1:43. "The next day He purposed to go forth into Galilee," that is Jesus, "and He found Philip." Now Peter and Andrew had kind of found Him, and even James and John sort of found Him. This is the first time we actually read "He found" somebody. He went after Philip. That is not to say He didn't sovereignly before the foundation of the world predetermine all the rest, but it is language unique to Philip. He is the first one to whom Jesus actually said, "Follow Me." He did have to say that to Peter, but that was at the end of His ministry, at the end of the gospel of John. Peter still being a little recalcitrant in his following. But from the outset, He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, I want you in My group, you follow Me."
In verse 44, it tells us Philip was from Bethsaida, that small town where Andrew and Peter lived. Philip then found Nathanael, Nathanael/Bartholomew, with whom, as I said, he's always connected in the listings. "And he said to him, 'We have found Him.'" Isn't that interesting? People always ask...what's the resolution between sovereign election and human choice? How do we resolve those things? Well here's a perfect illustration that both exist. The Lord found Philip but Philip felt that he found the Lord. "We found Him." No, no, bad theology, Philip, He found you.
From a human perspective this was the end of his search. He had been a true Jew. He had been a true seeker. He had been committed to the Old Testament. Look at verse 45, "We have found Him." Who are you talking about? "Of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote." He was a student of the Old Testament. The law and the prophets is shorthand for the Old Testament. We've studied the Old Testament. We know who we're looking for. We're looking for the Messiah. And we found the Messiah and you'll never believe it, it is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.
Bethsaida was north of Nazareth, up in that Galilee area, not very far away. Nathanael can't believe it. He said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" You've got to be kidding. That's a ridiculous thing for Nathanael to say because he came from Cana, that was worse than Nazareth. I've been to both places. Nazareth by all measures would have been a more significant place than Cana, a little local rivalry there.
Philip had studied the Old Testament, studied Moses, the law, the prophets. And he was waiting for the Messiah and he was at the end of his search. "We found Him." No one brought Philip to Jesus, he was like Simeon, he was one looking for the consolation of Israel. He was waiting for the Messiah. No one had to bring him to Jesus. Jesus found him. And, of course, in truth He finds everybody who comes to Him, right? "No man comes to the Me except the Father draws him." But the Old Testament had prepared Philip's heart.
He was a student of the Old Testament, the law and the prophets, looking for the Messiah. And when it came time in the sovereign purpose of God, Jesus planning to go to Galilee put His finger on Philip and said, "Follow Me." And Philip, so excited, found his buddy, Nathanael, and said, "We found Him." What a great beginning, without reluctance or disbelief. He just was so elated, so thrilled that he just followed. He got caught up in the emotional fulfillment of the moment. I think his faith was real, but very weak, as the later passages about him tell us. But it was a good beginning. He didn't make any effort to find more information to check things out, he just embraced the fact that the Messiah was Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Just didn't seem like that's the way it should be, but it's okay if that's the way it was. This was the end of the search.
In John 6 we're going to get from the spiritual side of things. We know he was an Old Testament student. We know he loved the Old Testament scripture. We know he interpreted it literally, believed in a Messiah. When Messiah came up and said, "Follow Me," he gladly embraced Jesus as his Messiah and followed Him. So we know the spiritual side, his heart was right, he had a seeking heart and the Lord never can call to follow Him one whose heart is not already opened.
But here's his personality starting to show through. Jesus, verse 5, "Lifts up His eyes and sees a great multitude," John 6:5, huge crowd. Well we know how large the crowd was, there were five thousand men, which means at least five thousand women and fifteen thousand kids, who knows? Huge crowd. He lifts up his eyes, sees this great multitude coming at Him. And He said to Philip, this is interesting, "Where are we to buy bread that these may eat?" Why does He ask Philip? Maybe Philip was the apostolic bean counter, the administrator. Maybe Philip...this is speculation...but Philip was the guy who whether officially or unofficially was the guy who always worried about the possibility of everything. He was the guy who in every meeting said, "I don't think we can do that." He was the master of the impossible, and most everything fit into that category for him, maybe.
In verse 6, "Jesus said this testing him." He wasn't testing him so that He could find out what he was like, He was testing him so that he would reveal to himself what he was like. He knew his thinking. All of a sudden He sees this massive crowd, He says, "Philip, you're usually in charge of arrangements, in charge of administrating things, could you tell us where we're going to get bread to feed this crowd?" He knew exactly what he was thinking, he had already started counting heads. When the crowd started moving, he was...one, two... It's late in the day, this is a huge crowd. They're going to be hungry, you know. I mean, essentially life was eating, wasn't it? And eating in those days wasn't an easy thing, there wasn't any fast-food. And He says this right out of the blue, "Where we going to buy bread that these may eat?" Philip in verse 7 answered, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them for everyone to receive a little." Jesus knew he had already calculated that. He had been thinking that the whole time. Here you are, Philip, standing there watching this huge crowd. Instead of thinking...oh what a glorious occasion, Jesus is going to teach the crowd, whoa what a tremendous opportunity for the Lord.
He had been there when the Lord created wine out of water. He had seen miracles of healing, casting out of demons. Those kinds of things. And he sees this great crowd and he's already beginning to feel the impossible. Oh boy, it's dinner time and if we could collect two hundred denarii, we couldn't feed this crowd a snack. We're in big trouble. The supernatural escapes these kinds of people. They're just material in their thinking. So Jesus wants to give him a test so he'll see what he's really like. And he responded with open unbelief, it can't be done. A denarius is one day's wages, two hundred days wages, eight months work, that's a lot of money for this group of essentially meager apostles in terms of money. "Nah, if we could somehow collect, you know, eight months wages, we couldn't feed this crowd even a snack." It can't be done. You know, his calculations would have gone like this, "One denarius would buy twelve wheat biscuits, one denarius would buy 36 barley biscuits, barley's cheaper...if we get the biscuit the size of a hand and one and a half inches thick...nah, it can't be done. It can't be done." Pessimistic, analytical, pragmatic, sad isn't it, who wants to live like that?
An essential of leadership is a sense of the possible, certainly if you're hanging around Christ. Philip had a great dealing for the impossible. He knew too much arithmetic to be adventurous. He should have said, "Lord, You want to feed them, feed them, I'm just going to stand back and watch how You do it. You can do it, Lord. Do it. We'll tell everybody to get in line, You just make the food." That would have been great, wouldn't it? Man...can't be done.
On the other hand, you have Andrew, verse 8, and every time we see Andrew, what's he doing? He's bringing someone to Jesus. Here comes Andrew. "Simon Peter's brother" always has to be added there, poor Andrew, he lived in that shadow his whole life. I don't think it will say that on the foundation stone of his gate in the New Jerusalem. I think it will just be ANDREW, big letters.
Anyway, "He said to Him, 'There's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many?'" Now Andrew had a glimmer of the possible. I couldn't find much but I found one guy and he had already seen Jesus turn water into wine, who knows what He can do with two little...well essentially what he's got here is two pickled fish and five crackers. Boy, Andrew's little faith was honored. Philip lost the opportunity and a little boy brought by Andrew seized it. Philip was a materialist. He was the man of practical things. He was the common sense guy. He was the measurements guy. He was the methods guy. He was the mechanical guy with little understanding of the supernatural and he was more interested in facts and figures than faith.
John 12:20, "Now there were certain Greeks, Gentiles, among those who were going to worship at the feast." There were some Gentiles who were coming to worship God at the Passover, this was the final Passover in Jesus' life. And so here are some Gentiles, there were many Gentiles, you know, who were proselytes to Judaism who worshiped the true God, God-fearing Gentiles. And they came to worship at the feast. If they were converted to Judaism would have been very interested in Jesus. So verse 21, "These therefore came to Philip." Now I don't know why they came to Philip except that maybe Philip was sort of the administrator, he was sort of the arrangement guy, right? He was going to arrange for the food and maybe it was his deal to count the beans and figure out where you're going to go and who can do this, he was the guy who had the little manual and he was in charge of operations. "They went to Philip who was from Bethsaida of Galilee and they began to ask him, saying, 'Sir, we wish to see Jesus.'" Not a hard question. "We want to see Jesus. We have heard about the Messiah, we've come into town from Gentile lands, we've come into town for the Passover here in Jerusalem, we would love to meet Jesus."
Philip wasn't real sure about this, got to check the manual on Gentiles and Jesus. A little concerned. Now, Jesus said on occasion when He sent the disciples out, "Don't go to the Gentiles and don't go to the Samaritans," right? Matthew 10:5-6, "You just go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Now is that a fixed prohibition from ever introducing a Gentile to Jesus? No. It simply identifies the priority the Jew first and also the Greek. Jesus Himself first revealed that He was the Messiah to a Samaritan woman. But the general pattern is going to be to evangelize the Jews, but general patterns don't usually work very well for these kinds of people, they just go by rules. So, I don't know, it's not in the manual.
But he's got a good heart. So he goes to Andrew, ecause Andrew brings everybody to Jesus. There's something in the heart of Philip that knows that's right. But he's just not decisive. He has what we call passive aggressive characteristics. He only gets aggressive to stop something. He will never lead the parade, he's not that kind of leader. He will just try to stop it. He only gets aggressive to prevent because he fears it can't be done. But there's a little something in his heart that says they should meet Jesus, He's so incredible. But it's not in the book, I'll take him to Andrew and then nobody can say to me, "You didn't go by the book." Andrew did it, and you know him, he's always bringing everybody to Jesus.
So Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus. "There's some Gentiles to see you, Lord." The text doesn't say but I think it's fair to assume He saw them. He said Himself, "Whoever comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." Philip was analytical, skeptical, by the book and if he was going to bring anybody to Jesus that didn't seem to be according to the rules, he had to get somebody else involved. He couldn't find any official precedent for letting the Gentiles see Jesus, couldn't get pass the rules.
Finally we see him in John 14. This is kind of sad, honestly. We would hope by the time you get to this point, this is two years after he's been chosen, this is two years after he's been in the process of being trained. This is two years of teaching by Jesus, two years of miracles by Jesus, two years of healings, two years of casting out demons, two years of intimate day in and day out, 24 hours a day seven days a week fellowship with Jesus has gone by and here we meet him and Jesus says in verse 6 of John 14, this is in the opening of the upper room discourse, the night of His betrayal. "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but through Me." You can't come to God except through Me, He says to the twelve that are with Him there, actually Judas is still there, he leaves later that evening. "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also, from now on you know Him and have seen Him."
Then Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us." What do you mean, show us the Father? Where have you been? "Jesus said to him, 'Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father." How can you possibly be saying...show us the Father? This is very discouraging. What do you think has been going on these years? Three of them, three years? Two years of intimate association, what do you think has been going on? What do you think's been going on with all of this? Verse 10, "Do you not believe I'm in the Father and the Father's in Me?" Don't you believe there's no difference? "The words which I say to you I don't speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works." The words that I say, they're from the Father, the works that I do, they're from the Father, I am to the Father what you are to Me, I am the Father's shaliac, I act with His full power of attorney.
More than that, I am the Father in essence. The Father is Me. We share the same divine being. He says in verse 10, "Do you not believe?" In verse 11, "Believe." I can tell you don't believe...believe I'm the Messiah, fine, you believe I'm a miracle worker, but somehow you're tendency toward skepticism has allowed you not to make the ultimate conclusion that you are in the presence of the living and eternal God Himself. So He goes from "Do you not believe," in verse 10, to "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me. And please believe on account of the works." There's no other explanation. You don't need further miracles. Show us the Father.
What are you saying? What do you think I've been doing? For three years this man, Philip, had gazed into the only face of God that he would ever see...and it wasn't clear. His materialism, his skepticism, his small-mindedness that shut him off from a full apprehension of whose presence he had enjoyed. He was a man of limited ability. He was a man of limited faith. He was a man of imperfect understanding. He was skeptical, analytical, pessimistic, reluctant, unsure, wanted to go by the book all the time, facts and figures controlled his life, never got the big picture of divine power, person and grace. Slow to understand, show to trust, it seemed like his life was limited by circumstances, money, rules, proof. Yeah, I know it...if you were interviewing Philip and you looked at this you would say...he's out, can't make him one of the twelve most important people in the history of the world.
Well, Jesus said...exactly what I'm looking for, and I'll make him into a preacher and I'll make him into a founder of the church and I'll make him into a ruler in the Kingdom and I'll give to him eternal reward in heaven for the work that he does. The Lord uses people like him, lots of them. Tradition tells us that he was so faithful to Christ, so devout, so loyal that he wouldn't recant Christ under the Roman persecution. And because he wouldn't, they stripped him of his clothes, they put steel rods through his ankles and through his thighs and they hung him by those upside down. And he said, according to the tradition, that when he was dead he did not want to be wrapped in a linen garment, because he wasn't worthy to be treated the way his Lord was in His death.
