People who lived in Jerusalem did not understand why Jesus was
speaking publicly.  They knew that the Jewish leaders wanted to kill
him, and so surely Jesus would know as well.  He seemed to be immune
from arrest.  “Perhaps,” they said, “our leaders have decided that
this is the Messiah.”  They brought up the idea only to dismiss it [...]

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About six months have passed between the events of chapter six and the events of chapter seven.  The time for the Feast of Tabernacles is at hand.  In this chapter, Jesus travels to Jerusalem and finds hostility and misunderstanding there.
His brothers were convinced that he is a powerful person, and they believed that he should [...]

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It is not possible to be an uncommitted follower of Jesus Christ.  Either you are for him or you are against him (Luke 11:23).  There is no middle ground.  Jesus has just proclaimed to be a suffering Messiah who would die on behalf of his people.  Though the crowd might not have understood everything that [...]

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Last week we said that Jesus’ popularity was going to diminish quite a bit in northern Israel due to the events in chapter six.  Some of the crowd left him after he refused to be their king and departed and went up on a mountain.  Nonetheless, some of the crowd still tried to find him; [...]

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