John 3:27,  “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”

Too often this verse is taken out of context and used to mean that everything we have comes from God.  Although this is a true statement in itself as God is indeed the creator and the giver of all good gifts, that is not the intent of this verse when you consider the context. Note the preceding verse 3:26, “And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all [men] come to him.”  The disciples or followers of John were reporting to John that one of the men that he himself had baptized was stealing his thunder.

Now you must remember that John was quite popular and even came to the notice of the king. When anyone becomes a celebrity they usually end up with a lot of groupies.  Even pastors and teachers face this dilemma.  There will always be people in your congregation or class who want to be the pastor’s favorite or the teacher’s pet.  That person in authority usually has some power to bestow upon their favorites, which is usually sharing a bit of that power with someone who is loyal follower.

To put it in the basic terms, they are not following this person in authority out of any great love or respect, they are hoping that by showing themselves a loyal follower and supporter they will be rewarded with some the fringe benefits that comes with this position of power.  We call it politics. The easiest way to spot these hanger ons’ is for the person in authority to be suddenly removed from that position. Suddenly this person who once hand a position of power and was surrounded by all sorts of admirers is left with only those who were his true friends, those who care for him regardless of his position, these tend to be few.

This was the situation with John.  He had many followers who were capitalizing on his popularity who suddenly became concerned that their gravy train was about to be derailed by some upstart who was becoming more popular than their master. Suddenly their role as worship leader or head elder was being threatened.   Christians are people like anyone else and people can be fickel. When I was a Baptist pastor I was one bemoaning the difficulties of trying to keep a church together to a friend who was the pastor of the charismatic church.  My friend said, “You think you have it rough, try being the pastor of a charismatic church. One week you have a full congregation and the next week some new charismatic preacher with some new revelation comes into town and suddenly your congregation disappears as they are all across the town at this new church getting a new experience.

It is in this background that we come to John 3:27 where John is basically saying, “Hey, I am not in this for the fame or fortune like you guys.” Only he put it in more decisive terms, “A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven.”  John is referring specifically to ministry. Any true ministry you have comes from heaven, no some slick PR campaign.  If it is a true ministry of God it will minister to maybe one or two people or to thousands, that is God’s decision not the decision of a wall street marketing campaign.

I recently read about some famous preacher/teacher.  As a young man he dreamt of making the “big time” in religion. He worked and worked at it but remained an unknown, until one day three men walked into the store where he was working as a clerk to support himself. One of these men was a man who is now the former host of the Price is Right, one of the most successful TV game shows in history.  The other two men were his king markers. They had noticed his style and his showmanship and they were ready to make him an offer he could not refuse.  He did not refuse and the rest is history, through their skills in showmanship, media and marketing they turned him into a world class evangelist.  That is not the ministry that John was talking about here.

When I read John 3:27 in the Aramaic I found it read a little differently than in the Greek. In the Aramaic it reads, “A man cannot receive mn tsevutha naphsha  except it be given him from heaven. Keep in mind John is addressing his ministry, the ministry of Jesus and all true ministries. The word mn is a preposition which means of, according to, apart from, out of.  Tsevutha is an interesting word in the Aramaic, it means desire and business affairs.  It comes from Semitic origins meaning to shine or be prominent. The very root idea and most likely why John chose this word was because it expressed the idea of one who has an occupation that brings him into public notice or a position of authority or prominence.  The word naphsha means the physical life or world.   Now we must keep this in the context of what John is addressing and that is the origin of his prominent ministry.  So he is literally saying, “A true ministry that brings you prominence or position of authority in this world comes only from heaven. If heaven chooses to decrease your ministry you must allow it to decrease.

Yesterday I attended my nephew’s wedding and spoke with my cousin who I only see at funerals and weddings.  His wife asked if I knew a certain woman who worked in the mail room of a newspaper office a number of years ago. I explained that a few years ago when I was between ministries I had indeed worked at a newspaper mailroom a couple nights a week for a few months.  She said she recently met this woman who was my supervisor at that time.  She told how I had ministered to her during a very difficult time in her life and then I just sort of disappeared.  But it was her first exclamation that struck me. When my cousin showed her a family photo my former supervisor picked me out and said, “That’s him, you mean he’s real? Then she explained, “I always thought he was not real, but an angel that God sent to help me through my difficult time.”  Because I was not teaching in a classroom or did not have a congregation people figured I was not in ministry. Yet,  God had allowed me to decrease so that He might increase in the life of just one woman. Elijah was a prophet to the most powerful king and queen in the world, yet he became a fugitive from this king and queen and during this so called downtime in his ministry, God caused him to decrease so that he could minister to one poverty stricken widow and her son. One unknown, poverty stricken widow was just as important to God as a king or queen such that God sent his famous prophet to minister to her. Ministries mean nothing to God, only people. As the Talmud teaches, you save one life, you save the world. She also showed a picture of her son who worked in Washington DC standing next to the President of the United States.  Could the Godly influence of a mother affect her son and thus affect the President of the United States.  Could some grumpy old Hebrew professor who led this mother to God have been some influence – naw, that’s getting too far fetched.