When Christians speak of a hiding place, it frequently brings to mind the familiar Corrie ten Boom biography describing a secret room where her Christian family sheltered Jews during the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. Three thousand years earlier, David took refuge from his assailants in the Cave of Adullam on a hill southwest of Jerusalem.
Paul warned Timothy of a time when immature and disobedient Christians would no longer tolerate the godly guidelines engendered by sound doctrine. Instead, they would produce a heaping pile of spiritual charlatans who would tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.
Jeremiah was the Weeping Prophet who wrote the book of Lamentations as a funeral dirge for Jerusalem. The city was plundered when it fell in 586 B.C. Many Jews died. Treasures were stolen from the temple. The people were taken captive into Babylon. They were torn from their homeland. Temple life and the sacrificial system were completely destroyed.
John is usually identified as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” a designation found often in the gospel he wrote. Jesus trusts John so fully that He gave him the responsibility of caring for His mother after the crucifixion. John leans in repose next to Jesus at the Last Supper.
The Hebrew word galal, which is translated “commit” in this verse, literally means to roll something away from you. To roll our works, efforts, and activities in the direction of the Lord is to release them into His care and give them completely over to Him.
The disciples came back from the store and found themselves in the middle of a comedy of errors. When Jesus had spoken with the Samaritan Woman, she had not understood why a Jewish man would talk with her. She could not grasp that Living Water was a metaphor not intended literally. She did not comprehend that Jesus was greater than Jacob.
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