Doubting Thomas was smart and careful, John 20:19-31

Thomas was one of the most impressive apostles for a number of reasons. Sometimes people feel bad about him because he told Jesus that needed to put his hands on Jesus’s wounds to believe Jesus had risen. But Thomas shows up 3 times in the Gospel of John. He also inspired the Gospel of Thomas which many people thought should have been in the Bible. The “doubting” was really more about being practical and smart than about unbelief. In this episode I explain why we should look up to Thomas. Also why many people really admire him even today. 

John 11:8 The disciples replied, “Rabbi, the Jewish opposition wants to stone you, but you want to go back?” 16 Then Thomas (the one called Didymus) said to the other disciples, “Let us go too so that we may die with Jesus.”

John
14 “Don’t be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. 2 My Father’s house has room to spare. If that weren’t the case, would I have told you that I’m going to prepare a place for you? 3 When I go to prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with me so that where I am you will be too. 4 You know the way to the place I’m going.”

5 Thomas asked, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you have really known me, you will also know the Father. From now on you know him and have seen him.”

John 20
24 Thomas, the one called Didymus,[a] one of the Twelve, wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples told him, “We’ve seen the Lord!”

But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds left by the nails, and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe.”

26 After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more disbelief. Believe!”

28 Thomas responded to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Jesus replied, “Do you believe because you see me? Happy are those who don’t see and yet believe.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to the Real Bible Rob teamcast. And today is uh Thomas Day. It's a good day to talk about Thomas because uh the most famous story about Thomas happened right after Easter and happened after the resurrection of Jesus. And it there's a lot of ways that people look at this um apostle Thomas, one of the 12 that went around with Jesus, one of the disciples. And um sometimes people look at him a little bit shamefully, like he he did something bad. But um, what I want to do is I want to show you that actually Thomas is an amazing, uh, very impressive apostle, and um actually beloved by a lot of people, even today. A lot of people really admire Thomas, and they do for a couple reasons. One is uh he's mentioned in the Gospel of John uh three different times. Um he always seems to be a voice of reason. We don't hear a lot from him, but we do hear uh at really important times. We hear that, you know, the the one guy in the room that's saying what uh should be said or what the other guy, uh you know, what the other disciples are thinking. Uh, and then the other thing is that there is a something called the gospel of Thomas. Um now it's not in our Bible, but that's only because it was discovered um only about a hundred years ago. Uh it was discovered in Egypt, and um, they think that it was uh, you know, could have been included in the scriptures, but people just didn't know about it, was lost. And also it has a uh some ideas in it that the church fathers who put together the Bible weren't super comfortable with. Um there are books like that. Um, so we have the uh gospel of Thomas today, thankfully, because it was discovered, uh, but we don't necessarily consider it part of our Bible, but you can still learn a lot about uh what an amazing person this is. We don't, of course, know whether Thomas actually wrote it because a lot of these uh uh books were written in the name of someone, but he certainly inspired it. Um he was certainly looked up to, and there's a lot of things in the in the church that talks about Thomas as a saint and all and uh all kinds of legends about what it what he did. So let me get into a little bit about who this guy is, Thomas. Well, first of all, his name means the twin in um in in Greek Diddy Mos is actually the word for it, and um in Greek, and he was called, and Thomas means also means twin. And so we don't know about his his brother or sister who was uh the other twin, but we know that that that's just the name for him. You know, a lot of times they did that as they would have a name just to kind of describe you know where you sit in the family or who you are, and that's who Thomas is, and he became you know one of the disciples who Jesus called one of the 12 disciples to go around with him during uh Jesus' time on earth. So uh Thomas first shows up in John 11, and now this is a very interesting story because Jesus uh it was uh asked by Martha and Mary, and I'll tell you more about uh them in another episode. But um, Martha and Mary were friends of Jesus, and they called to Jesus, said, please come on, come down to our house because our brother Lazarus is very, very sick, and uh, we need you to come and heal him. Well, Jesus and the disciples did not come down immediately, they took a little bit of time because they were very worried. Uh, and in fact, it says in uh John 11 8, the disciples replied, Rabbi, meaning Jesus, the Jewish opposition uh wants to stone you, but you want to go back. This is after when Jesus finally said, Okay, maybe we will go down and see about Lazarus. And they find out that Lazarus had died. Uh, but Jesus will later raise Lazarus from the dead, which is a good thing. But there was so much um worry and uh concern uh about this because uh Lazarus, Mary, and Martha's house is only two miles from where Jesus will be put on trial and um crucified. So, you know, it's getting really close and it's dangerous, and there were spies in the hills looking for things to happen. And they knew that this family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were friends of Jesus. So you can just imagine they were looking and waiting for a time when Jesus would come down. But then here comes Thomas. There was a lot of debate about whether, you know, Jesus, should we go down, should we not go down, what's the timing? They delayed a few days, probably for this reason, because they were worried about getting captured. And then Thomas says in um John 11 16, says, Thomas said to the other disciples, let us too go that we may die with Jesus. That could could not be more bold, could it? They knew he knew the danger, they knew the danger, but then Thomas said, Let us go and support Jesus, let us be with Jesus. So you can see that Thomas is a very, you know, an important, strong character. We see him a few chapters later, after this first thing happened, and Jesus does a lot of speaking, uh, a lot of storytelling and speaking between uh in that last couple of weeks that he's on earth. Um, and he the most one of the most famous parts is in John 14. And John 14, he says to the disciples, don't be troubled, trust in God, trust also in me. My father's house has room to spare. If that weren't the case, then I would have told you that I'm going, would I have gone and told you that I was going to prepare a place for you? When I go to prepare a place for you, I will return and I will take you with me, and there you will be also. You know the way to the place I'm going. And Thomas, again, Mr. Practical here, right? He says, Lord, we don't know where you're going. How can we know the way? He's just saying, Look, you're you're you're telling telling us these things. Um let's be bold, let's go straight forward, tell us the truth, give us the straight word. And then Jesus comes and says the most important um verse in this part of John, in John 14, he says, uh Jesus answered him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have already known me, you would have known the Father from now on, know him and have seen him. So Jesus, that this is also a verse that's very important for us, uh, especially for Christians, but it's m more important for kind of reasons people don't realize. It's more about Jesus is a a window to God. Uh it's not so much like Jesus is saying you're in, you're out, like some people use it, but it's more like saying, if you if you don't know me, you don't know the Father, you don't know who God is, because I'm representing God. I'm kind of God's uh I'm God, I'm the peace of God that's on earth right now with you, even though I'm a full, you know, I'm a man, but um I'm a window, I I'm the way you can be with God, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. That's what Jesus is saying here. And it took Thomas to have Jesus say this. Now I'll take the go to the most important uh thing in in in uh John, where Thomas is most known for. And this is in chapter 20, and this is where he gets called doubting Thomas. So that's in the title of this podcast is doubting Thomas, and people always call him doubting, as if that's a bad thing. Uh, and you can kind of read that story like Thomas is not a real, you know, a good solid believer, but that would be the wrong impression to get from this, because really it's about Thomas being smart and practical again. So listen to this. This is uh Thomas or John uh 20, uh starting with verse 24. And Thomas, one called Didymus, who means you know, the the twin, one of the twelve, wasn't with the disciples when Jesus came. The other disciples said, We have seen the Lord. This is after the resurrection. But he replied, Thomas said, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger in his wounds left by the nails and put my hand in his side, I won't believe. After eight days the disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them, and even though the doors were locked, Jesus appeared among them. He entered, he came in sort of miraculously, right? And he said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here, put your look at my hands, put your hand on my side, no more disbelief, just believe. And Thomas says, My Lord and my God. Now here comes the the verse that people kind of don't use very well about Thomas. It says, Jesus said, Do you believe just because you've seen me? Happy are those who don't see and yet believe. Well, uh again, uh what Jesus, the writer of this, and what Jesus is doing is he's encouraging us that can't be like Thomas, that can't be as sure as in seeing and touching Jesus like Thomas does. It's kind of a spiritual thing. But we shouldn't put Thomas down for this because all Thomas is doing is he's doing what we want to do, it's what the other disciples wanted to do, and that is to be is to have some sureness, is to believe that Jesus had risen uh in body. And um so don't don't shame Thomas with this. Just go, you know, if you had the opportunity to see and touch Jesus, wouldn't you? Uh and and then when we see this gospel of Thomas, if we believe that Thomas inspired or even wrote this gospel, there's uh all these sayings that have Thomas has, and also it's a it's a very spiritual book. So sometimes people will uh look at it and say, well, maybe it shouldn't be in the Bible because it it doesn't have all the beliefs that we expect. And you know, and kind of looking down on Thomas being the doubting one, uh, you know, he shouldn't be somebody telling us about Jesus. But if you look at it and you look at the spiritual way that Thomas talks about Jesus, it's it's an important aspect that you really don't see in other writings. So I'm not gonna tell you whether this is the way it should be or not be, but what I'm saying is that this is how we learn more about the Bible is we have different clues, we have different ideas, and we listen to people, right? And we we look at these characters as real people. So this Thomas guy, uh, you can use him like, you know, as a bad thing, you know, you you shouldn't doubt. But it doesn't say that anywhere in scripture. It doubting, it's okay to doubt, it's okay to ask tough questions. Whenever somebody uses this and say, No, you should not doubt, they're just trying to make it so that you don't think for yourself. So that's why I think I love Thomas, and I think a lot of people love Thomas, because he looks like the kind of character of somebody who does think for himself. That, and you can see he's a bold one. So he's not like somebody who makes a big noise about Jesus, and then when things don't happen the way he wants them, that he backs away. No, he's just saying, no, I'm I'm going to be faithful. And all the legends and all the stories about Thomas uh as an apostle, meaning the one who is sent out and to preach the gospel, are very uh positive about Thomas and about what a bold person he is. So this is a really a great way to uh get to know a character. There are a lot of these characters that people say a lot about, um, you know, and they or they don't like them. Sometimes people really don't like the Apostle Paul because they think he's kind of a mean person or he doesn't like women, or that, but that's just what people have said about him without looking at the scripture itself. Same here is that people have said some bad things about Thomas, but really, you know, if you look at the scripture and you kind of see then what his legacy was later on, you kind of go, well, no, he's a good guy. We should really like Thomas. Um, you know, and we we should trust in Jesus, we should believe, but we should also be practical and bold and do the things, you know, that we should do. So that's a that's a good message, I think, to have here. And as I go through different kinds of characters, I'll try to bring these characters to life a little bit for you so that you can see them as um people that you can identify with. And you can say, yeah, I would act like that. Or yeah, um maybe this is not the way I should think, but I should think another way. But you can do that for yourself. We're never told exactly how to believe, we're never told exactly how we should think these things. That's not part of biblical Christianity, that's not part of the what we should get from the Bible. Instead, we should get all of these stories and then we should question them. We should ask questions just like Jesus did of the rabbis in Jerusalem, just like the disciples did of Jesus. They asked a lot of questions, and that's good. So uh with that, I uh you know, uh ask God's blessing for you as you uh look at these things, as you think about them, as you look at the Bible. And uh people do say a lot of things about the Bible that aren't really there. So I I wish you uh grace and peace. God bless you.