Day 49: No Know-It-Alls, Please

John 7:40-44

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁴⁰ On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”
 ⁴¹ Others said, “He is the Messiah.”
   Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? ⁴² Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” ⁴³ Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. ⁴⁴ Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

Well, hello, smack-in-the-face #437 since starting this study.

You may not know this, but once upon a time, I was a know-it-all. My first Maywood experience was a miserable one,  owing at least in part to my know-it-all-ativity. This girl in my cabin kept memorizing ridiculous verses from the old testament that made absolutely no sense out of context just because they were short. She wasn't learning anything; she was just collecting points so that she could say she had learned the most verses in our cabin. Well, I couldn't let it go, because I knew that what she was doing was just so wrong. I talked to her about it (over and over and over again), I talked to our counselor (who ignored me, and told the other counselors over dinner, I'm sure, about the 12-year-old know-it-all that was annoying her whole cabin), I fumed the whole week. I was awful, I'm sure. And let's be frank: I'm still a closet know-it-all... at least a little bit. I just try to keep it inside.

The problem with being a know-it-all is, ironically that we don't know it all. None of us do. And sometimes what seems to be cut and dry isn't so. And when start talking as if we know it all, we'll usually end up looking foolish.

Such is the case here, when the people are discussing whether Jesus is the Messiah or no. Jesus was commonly known as "Jesus of Nazareth". He was a Galilean. Clear as day; he couldn't be the Messiah. The Messiah was to be from Bethlehem...

Or could he?

He could. Because there was this one little issue. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Born there by the type of fluke that only the Lord Himself could come up with. his Galilean parents left their Galilean home to go for the census, and lo and behold, she goes into labor. In a stable. In Bethlehem. The Lord always keeps his word.

And we don't always know of what we speak. Sometimes, things aren't as they appear. It's true with people, and it's true with situations. So we would all do well to hold our tongues a little more often, and be a little less hasty in jumping to conclusions. Because when we do, we miss out on really big truths... like the coming of the Savior of the world, for instance.

Nobody likes a know-it-all.