Listen up, little ones
Listen for the words blind and sinned.
Reading
John 9:1–12—Who Sinned? This Man or His Parents?
Optional Reading
Job 19:1-12
Keys for kids
- Job’s friends thought his sin caused his suffering.
- Jesus’s disciples thought that his man’s sin caused his blindness.
- God caused this man’s blindness so Jesus would heal him.
Questions
- Why did Job suffer?
- Why was this man born blind?
- What did Jesus do for this man, physically and spiritually?
Notes
Job’s friends were certain that Job’s suffering was because he had sinned. And sometimes people do suffer directly because of their sin—either the natural consequences of their sinful actions or God’s punishment of them for their sin. But not always. As Kruse puts it, there is a general connection between sin and suffering due to the fall. There is sometimes a direct connection between a particular sin of an individual and suffering (see 5:14), but not always (see Luke 13:2–5).
Here in John 9, Jesus sees a man blind from birth. And Jesus’s disciples think like Job’s friends did. Either this man or his parents must have sinned for this to happen. But Jesus says, No, this happened to this man to display God’s works in him. Kruse lets us know that the ‘work of God’ is, as it nearly always is in the Fourth Gospel, the work that God does through Jesus (see 5:36; 14:10–11; 17:4).
So, Jesus does the work of God and heals this blind man. In fact, as we read the whole story, Jesus heals the man’s eyes and saves his soul. Our conversion story, though not likely the same physically, is very much the same spiritually, I was blind. Now I see.
Learn from the book of Job, and from this man born blind that suffering is not necessarily caused by personal sin.
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 146a, 119s
Prayer
- Praise God that you, once blind, can now see.
- Pray for a specific application from yesterday's sermons.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.