We are entering John Chapter 2; a new chapter; new material, right? Wrong! The early Bible was not divided into chapters. It was not divided into verses. It was not even divided into words. All the letters were run together in a continuous series of letters. In 1550 Robert Estienne divided up the Bible into chapter and verse. He numbered each verse. Before Robert Estienne, you couldn’t look up John 3:16. There was no John 3:16. Many say jokingly he did the verse and chapter division on horseback. Their point is that the divisions seem so haphazard that he must have been sitting on a horse and randomly stabbing at the page to make the chapter break. Sometimes they seem so totally arbitrary. You should read across chapter boundaries to gain the full sense and flow of the text.
Eugene Peterson deliberately gave us The Message version without verses in his second edition of that translation so that you would read it in flow, in large chunks. People reacted and became frustrated with The Message version because it didn’t have the verses in the text. They missed the point of his reason for doing it.
Tip: Read across chapter boundaries.
Now let’s look at John 2 in the light of John’s theme and connect it to John 1 as we should. We should expect the flow of ideas to cross chapter boundaries and pericopes (the little story segments that have been given titles in your Bible). Learn to connect up the flow of thought.
Remember John has said he wrote these things so that you may (continue to) believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God/Son of Man. At the end of John 1 he told Nathanael, “Hey if you think me telling you that I saw you having your quiet time is amazing, hang on to your hat. You will see even greater things than that.” (Ian’s translation) Then John tells us about the wedding at Cana of Galilee. John uses the miracle stories to convinces us that Jesus is the Messiah and does Messiah-like things. Then notice how he closes this little story. . .Go look for yourself before looking below.
This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed His glory. And His disciples believed in Him.
John 2:11
See his theme building; he hasn’t gone on to a new thought or action. He is still on the same theme and he is reiterating the glory theme again. This is his first recorded miracle to prove who Jesus is.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
Anon
Billy and his granddad went into the bush cabin, they kept the lights off till they were inside to keep from attracting insects A few fireflies followed them in. Noticing first, Billy whispered, “It’s no use, Grandpa, the mosquitoes are coming after us with torches.
Anon