Can Anything Good Come from There?

Read‍

John 1:43-46 "The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, 'Follow me.' Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, 'We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.' 'Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?' Nathanael asked. 'Come and see,' said Philip."

Think

Philip invites his friend and the invitation goes badly immediately.

He gives Nathanael the whole thing. This is the one Moses wrote about. This is who the prophets were pointing to. He is from Nazareth. And Nathanael's response is not curiosity. It is a joke at Philip's expense.

"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?"

You need to know that Nathanael was not being unreasonable. Nazareth was a small, unimportant town with no history worth mentioning. Nothing significant had ever come out of it. Nathanael is not attacking his friend. He is pointing out a genuine problem with the claim, and if you had been standing there you might have agreed with him.

This is the moment most of us have been dreading. You finally say something and the person you said it to pushes back with an objection you cannot answer.

Now watch what Philip does not do.

He does not defend Nazareth. He does not launch into an explanation of prophecy. He does not get flustered and start apologizing for bringing it up. He also does not get offended and walk away.

He says three words. "Come and see."

That is one of the most useful sentences you will ever learn, and it works because Philip understood something about his own role. He was not the evidence. Jesus was the evidence. Philip did not have to win the argument about Nazareth, because he was not asking Nathanael to believe him. He was asking Nathanael to look.

This matters because a lot of students stay silent for exactly one reason. They are afraid of the follow-up question.

What if they ask about suffering. What if they bring up something in the news. What if they ask me something about science and I have no idea and I look stupid and it makes God look bad?

Here is the freeing part. You are allowed to not know. "That is a good question and I do not have a good answer, but come with me anyway" is a completely legitimate response, and it is more honest than pretending you have it handled.

Nobody has ever been argued into the kingdom of God. Plenty of people have been brought.

And notice how the story ends up. A few verses later, Nathanael meets Jesus, Jesus tells him something about himself he could not have known, and Nathanael goes from making jokes about Nazareth to calling him the Son of God. The objection did not survive contact. It did not need to be answered in advance. It needed to be brought close enough to Jesus that it fell apart on its own.

Philip could never have handled that conversation. He did not have to.

One more thing. Verse 45 says Philip found Nathanael, and the word found shows up over and over in this chapter. Andrew found Simon. Philip found Nathanael. These people went looking. Nobody in this story stumbled into anybody by accident.

So if somebody pushes back on you this week, you do not have to win. You have to stay warm and keep the door open.

Who is the person whose questions have made you stay quiet?

Apply

Practice saying, “I do not know.” One of the reasons we do a night like this is so that you are not the proof. Philip could not defend Nazareth and did not try. He said come and see and let Jesus handle what he could not. Your job before September 30 is to get one person close enough to look. Think of the question you are most afraid they will ask you, write out an honest answer that starts with, “I do not know” and ends with “come with me anyway!”, and say it out loud once so you feel ready.

Pray

God, I stay quiet because I am scared of the questions I cannot answer. Help me stop thinking I have to be the proof. Give me the humility to say I do not know and the courage to still say come with me. In Jesus' name. Amen.