Bible Study Moment: John 15

By the end of this story I’ll get to John 15.

In the middle of my freshmen year in college I learned of others in the dorm who were actively seeking to follow Jesus, including the 2 guys in the room across the hall. I went with them to the Bible study/Fellowship group they attended, The Mustard Seed.

This group was a charismatic group, with speaking in tongues, prophecies, and the other charismatic gifts. This went counter to what I had been taught; that those gifts had passed away when the perfect came, 1 Corinthians 13:10, with the perfect being defined as the entire Bible being written.

I had learned that the main teaching about tongues is in 1 Corinthians 12 & 14, so I prayerfully read 1 Corinthians 12, 13, & 14, wanting not to take anything out of context. I decided to pray for one of the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12:10 – the distinguishing of spirits.

A couple of weeks later at the Mustard Seed one guy gave a “prophecy” which I recognized as being a rewording from John, either chapter 14 or 15. He was speaking about Jesus being the vine and we are branches, and that we should abide in Jesus; John 15:1-8.

I also strongly sensed that he had probably recently read this passage and felt compelled to share with the group but he didn’t remember the reference, so he shared it through a prophecy instead of within a prayer or some other way.

And I also had the sense that that was kind of sad, to be embarrassed that he didn’t remember exactly where in the Bible a scripture is. After all the author of Hebrews quotes scripture with references like “someone said somewhere” and “in another place”.

Mark Phillips