Nathanael, a True Israelite

NATHANAEL
A TRUE ISRAELITE

BARTHOLOMEW, HERO.
GOD CAN TAKE THE MOST UNLIKELY PERSON AND MAKE HER OR HIM A HERO: HE CAN BRING OUT THE EXTRAORDINARY EVEN IN ONE WHO SEEMS ORDINARY.

HOW BARTHOLOMEW CAME TO KNOW JESUS.
• The passage is John 1:43-51.
• Bartholomew was his last name: “Son of Tholmai”.
• He is none other than Nathanael, but you have to look deeper to see the hero within.
• Everything changed when Jesus came to Nathanael’s hometown of Cana, for a wedding. With him was Nathanael’s old friend, Philip…

PHILIP: THE PASSIONATE FRIEND.
• John 1:43-44.
• Philip was a boyhood friend of Andrew and Peter.
• Philip is the only person Jesus specifically asks to follow him in the Gospel of John.
• Philip seems a lot like Peter, and he often is in situations “over his head.”
• He is a person of action, the stuff of heroes, but friend Nathanael is definitely a thinker.

JESUS (not Philip) FINDS NATHANAEL.
• John 1:45-46.
• Nathanael is “under the fig tree.”
• Nathanael is doing the traditional Bible reading there; may be a rabbi or aspiring rabbi.
• He has definite ideas about Messiah; he will not be easily swayed.
• Nathanael is reading Genesis 28.
• He is reading and thinking about Jacob in Genesis 28…

JACOB’S LADDER, GEN. 28.
10 Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran.
11 And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep.
12 And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring.

JACOB’S “GATEWAY TO HEAVEN.”
14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

WHAT HE PRAYED.
• To the rabbis, Genesis 28 was about the will of heaven revealed through an unlikely hero, Jacob.
• Jacob is most impressed that he “stumbled into” the gateway to heaven.
• As he meditated on this Scripture, Nathanael wanted, like Jacob, to meet God.
• He longed to know God more intimately and wanted God to change his life.
• Nathanael also realized that he was ordinary—faithful, without flair, but wishing that he could know where to meet God.
• He had his own idea of what kind of person God could use to make a hero.

JESUS, THE GATEWAY TO HEAVEN.
• John 1:47-51.
• A true Israelite in whom there is no guile: Jesus saw him for who he was.
• Nathanael’s confession: You know what I was meditating upon.
• Jesus says he himself is the one who reveals the things of heaven. You can always meet God in Christ.

TRUE ISRAELITE, GOD’S HERO.
• Prejudiced.
• Scholarly.
• Spiritual.
• Adaptable.
• Jesus can overcome our faults and use our strengths to make us heroic.