John 6:3-5 3Then his brothers said to him, “Leave from here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see your works which you are doing. 4For no one works in secret and he seeks to be in the open. If you do these things, reveal yourself to the world.” 5For not even his brothers believed in him.
John chose to tell the story of the reaction of Jesus’ own brothers to his ministry. The brothers referred to here would have been the younger half-siblings born of Joseph and Mary. All the Gospels record the disbelief of Jesus’ family (Mark 3:21, 31–35). The brothers give several suggestions to Jesus. They confront Jesus with a challenge. Their motive is not clear, but verse 5 suggests they were giving Jesus a form of test.
First, the brothers want Jesus to go to Judea. They may have seen or heard about how many people had left him in Capernaum. They had a famous brother, so they wanted to help him in his popularity. If Jesus was popular, and they were his brothers, it would help their own positions in society. The Feast of Booths was a great time to impress people and gain more followers because so many people would be present in Jerusalem. The more people who saw and heard Jesus, the more impressive the whole situation would become. If this thinking was their motive, they were in it for themselves. The deeper problem is that they could also see and hear Jesus, which should help them come to believe. They had a choice to make between remaining in their selfish disbelief or humbly coming to believe that their brother was the Messiah. They faced the same crisis as the disciples at the end of chapter 6.
Second, the brothers want Jesus to do his miracles so that as many people as possible could seem them. They wanted the whole world to know about Jesus. That in itself is not a bad thought, but their reason for saying this was not good, as verse 5 follows up with. Jesus needed to go to Jerusalem and show himself so everyone would take notice. Galilee was the backwoods of Judea. If anyone wanted to be anything, Jerusalem was the place to go.
Jesus would go to Jerusalem several more times. With each time, he revealed himself more, but also the situation got more intense. Here were people who should have known Jesus the most yet would not believe in him. Something blocked their thinking. Sadly, there are people who know about Jesus and even study about him but have not come to the place of committed faith. The evidence later is that his family did come to believe, with James and Judas, Jesus’ half brothers, writing two books in our New Testament. Disbelief does not need to be permanent but can be replaced with committed faith.
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