I ran across a passage in John that I had read many times but this time it really wowed me....in Chapter 6 it talks about many disciples leaving Jesus after he taught about eating His flesh and drinking his blood. A little too graphic for them I guess. And then it references that He was left with the twelve.....So, how many disciples did Jesus have before they deserted Him? And why did that just hit me? It's like I've totally ignored that passage as I've cheerfully read about the twelve disciples as if that's all there ever were.
By disciples I'm referring to the passages in the gospels where at the start of His ministry Jesus collected twelve disciples who then dropped everything and followed Him around for three years after which he was crucified. Now it turns out He apparently collected a bunch more somewhere along the way who eventually deserted Him leaving Him with twelve. It's like there's a Bible elf that waits til I'm asleep to insert new stuff into passages I've been reading since I was a child, not counting a 21 year side trip into alcoholism during which the last thing you'd have caught me with was a Bible in my hands.
And that's just the start of my complaint. Turns out Jesus was a stealthy guy, constantly slipping away from mobs that wanted to kill Him, with no explanation about how he escaped other than it wasn't His time. Am I the only guy who thinks it would be interesting to know how He did it? He's there one minute and POOF, He's gone!! How cool is that? What were the miracles that John left out of His gospel because there were too many to list?
Wouldn't it be cool to know that? The more I read the gospels the more I suspect that there was so much more in that three year ministry of the Lord than what got written down.....
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