John 8:59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
Jesus clearly tells them who He is! He said, before Abraham was “I am!” The Jews want to stone Jesus. Jesus hides and then walks out through them. He will go on obviously to do ministry!
The lesson here is that when you know you are about to be killed for doing ministry there is no problem hiding so you can preach again. We should be bold in the gospel. We should be ready to die when the time comes but until then we do not play the fool. We keep going to preach some more!
What a wonderful example God gives us of how Jesus did ministry! He is a worthy example, of course!
Escaping Again
John 10:39 Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,
Once again just a couple of chapters later Jesus escapes out of their hand. He is not afraid to die. He has come to die. It simply is not time to die yet.
As our missionaries travel the world and preach in very insecure places it is wise to know how to handle the ministry. Jesus did not let fear keep Him from the ministry. He was out, about, and doing ministry. He would preach and they would attempt to take Him.
He never allowed them to stop His ministry but He would escape to preach again somewhere else. A preacher today shouldn’t be foolish enough to go to either extreme. To intentionally want to get caught and harmed would be foolish. To allow the fear of getting caught to keep you from doing anything that might cause you to get harmed would be foolish also.
Jesus did ministry. Jesus escaped. Jesus continued doing ministry and did it again!
