13. Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to something and tell me what I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just messenger."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended."
And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."
3 comments:
The parallel synoptic passage is when Jesus asks his disciples (students): "Whom do you say that I am?"
They replied, "Some say Elijah" and so forth, but Peter replied, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!"
Jesus then told Peter that this revelation had come directly from God the Father. He renamed Peter "Cephas" (the rock) and said, "Upon this rock I will build my church."
Some think the "rock" means the rock of faith.
Just a few paragraphs later, Jesus, addressing Peter, said, "Get behind me, Satan" when Peter was answering in his human strength only.
Caution: I pulled the above comment from memory.
Also: I have added a second comment to the "heaven and earth shall pass away" item below.
"Fire will come from the rocks and destroy you."
Perhaps this means that when we commit violence (stoning Thomas) we sow the seeds of our own destruction. (The fire destroys us.) Thus, out of compassion, Thomas will not repeat what Jesus told him, so as not to cause the others to destroy themselves. It also hearkens (sp?) back to the beginning of the Gospel, where we learn that these are the secret sayings of Jesus, and I guess the intimation is that Thomas was privy to sayings that the other disciples weren't ready to hear.
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