Dukes, Billy (February 17, 2022). " 'Convoy' Singer C.W. McCall Is in Hospice". Taste of Country . Retrieved March 24, 2023.

John was eventually released from exile on the island of Patmos and returned to pastoral ministry. Church history reports that much of his time was then spent in Ephesus, where he is still buried in a tomb. John is a man who really lived and really walked with Jesus. Top Singles – Volume 26, No. 14 & 15, January 08 1977". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Archived from the original on March 19, 2016 . Retrieved March 24, 2017.

Martha was the older of the two sisters, and the words “her house” indicate that she was the proprietor of the property. Martha welcomed Jesus into the home, and after the initial greeting, she hurried off to the kitchen to continue the preparation of the meal. In experiencing and living into this kind of love, the disciples would not only be called servants and children of God, but also friends. A friend was one who knew Jesus, who knew his love and the plans that he had for them. They had lived with Jesus and received his revelation. Jesus entrusted them with his words, his Spirit, and his kingdom. What an amazing gift! And he offers it to us, just as he did the disciples. Jesus embodied the life of God’s Servant and taught his disciples to do the same. This is surely at the heart of what the feet washing is about in John 13. John 15:16: “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” Note three things: A. Friends of Jesus are chosen by Him. Just ponder that for a moment. The Son of God, the one through whom all things were created, the one who for all eternity past has existed in relationship with the Father and the Spirit, takes on flesh, comes to earth and on the night before he’ll be brutally executed on a Roman cross for them, looks at his closest followers and says, ‘You are my friends’. It’s astounding. And what’s even more astounding is that we can trust that by extension Jesus says those words to us too. Jesus says to all of his followers: ‘You are my friends’. Jesus wants to help the disciples to understand what the greatest love is really like, and he doesn’t turn to marriage or sex, he turns to friendship. For Jesus, friendship is a relationship of deep love.

But the good news is that God sent Jesus to reconcile rebellious sinners to Himself (2 Cor. 5:18-19). The self-righteous, religious crowd scoffed that Jesus was a friend of sinners (Luke 5:29-32; 7:34; 15:1-2). But He gladly accepted that label, explaining that He didn’t come to call the righteous (in the context, He means “self-righteous”), but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). So the first step to being called the friend of Jesus is to come to Him as a helpless sinner, asking Him to save you. Once you’ve done that, then you can consider these characteristics of Jesus’ friends and seek to grow in them. 1. Friends of Jesus love one another just as He loved us (John 15:12-13, 17). Lesson 6) Mary chose the good part, the one thing needful—which is salvation through repentance of sin, faith in Christ—and a commitment to follow Him in obedience.

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In Malta, as in America and everywhere else, friendship is not only essential, but the love of friendship is a compelling basis for unity and enduring peace. In the Society of Christian Doctrine itself members try to avoid partisan political discussion. We greet one another with a reminder that our lives are hidden in Christ’s peace: “Peace be with you.” St Paul stated the basis for this reminder in Philippians 4:7; the peace of Christ, indeed, passes all understanding and is not dependent on the outcome of a political election or a constitutional decree. But does relating to Jesus as a friend diminish his authority in our lives? Not at all, because when he calls us friends, he still remains our King. He said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). Jesus tells us to obey him; we never tell him to obey us. And our obedience doesn’t earn, but rather, proves, our friendship with him. Jesus says to his disciples gathered with him in the upper room: “I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). If these commands sound vaguely familiar, it’s because Jesus already said (John 13:34-35), “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Why would Jesus repeat this command on the same night? He repeated it because He was the master teacher and He knew that repetition is the key to learning, especially learning something that isn’t easy. It takes more than one hammer blow to sink a nail. It takes more than saying it once for us to learn to love one another! And in friendship with Jesus, there is also challenge. Because of course this isn’t a friendship of equals. And so, we, the friends of Jesus, are also to be obedient to him: ‘You are my friends if you do what I command’ (John 15:14, emphasis added). Obedience doesn’t make us friends of God, but our obedience flows out of our friendship with him. (Just as Jesus’ obedience to the Father doesn’t make him God’s Son, but it flows out of his position as the son. See John 15:10.)

The longer we live in this life, and the closer we come to the grave—the more we realize the importance of that truth. We can have health and money and lands and prosperity, but those things cannot really be called “needful.” The “many things” which most people are constantly striving for are not really necessities. For when we come to the end of life’s journey—the one thing that will count is whether or not we have accepted God’s offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. Because love is primarily a commitment and not a feeling, it can be commanded. The Bible does command certain feelings, for example, “Rejoice always” (1 Thess. 5:16). Or, “Be anxious for nothing” (Phil. 4:6). And love should not be devoid of feelings. It is a caring commitment; people should feel our genuine feelings of love for them. But even when we don’t feel especially loving, we need to obey God by sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others. I’m sure that the cross didn’t feel good at the moment, but Jesus endured it because He was focused on the future joy of having us with Him in heaven for all eternity (Heb. 12:2). Some imply that to preach obedience is to be legalistic. Why is this fallacious? Can obedience become legalistic? How? When Jesus arrived, Mary soon found a place sitting at the feet of Jesus, drinking in His words of wisdom. Mary took advantage of this time with Jesus to hear what He had to say—and what He was teaching about the real issues of life here and hereafter. There is something tranquil in what Mary chose to do. Mary chose to hear about matters of eternal consequence. But as D. A. Carson cautions ( The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 522), we need to be careful about being too chummy in calling Jesus our friend. In the Bible, God and the Lord Jesus call certain ones their friends, but no human ever refers to God or Jesus as their friend. It’s not a mutual, reciprocal friendship. The Bible refers to both Abraham (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; James 2:23) and Moses (Exod. 33:11) as friends of God. Jesus here calls the disciples His friends. But He is still their Lord and Teacher (John 13:13, 14). Although at the last supper, the apostle John laid his head on Jesus’ breast, years later when John saw Jesus in His glory, he fell at His feet as a dead man (Rev. 1:17). So as we consider whether or not we are friends of Jesus, we need to maintain John’s reverence.John 15:14 contains what I think are some of Jesus’ most extraordinary words: ‘You are my friends.’ Indeed, over the centuries a great number of Johannine scholars grappled with the question of whether the alternation of verbs ἀγαπάω and φιλέω that appear in the conversation between Jesus and Peter, in which Peter is reinstated on the profession of his love for Jesus (John 21:15-23) is narratively significant. The consensus of those Johannine scholars who conclude that this alternation represents John’s stylistic preference for using different but synonymous words, is based on their insistence that all attempts to draw a semantic distinction between ἀγαπάω and φιλέω are doomed to failure, whether in Greek literature generally, the Septuagint, the New Testament, or John’s Gospel itself. One of these scholars, James Barr, wrote in his essay, “Words for Love in Biblical Greek” the following: My Society of Christian Doctrine sent me for three intensive weeks of reading Theology at Notre Dame with Dr Timothy O’Malley (“Introduction to Catechetical Theology”) and Dr Angela Senander (“Renewing Moral Theology with the Call to Holiness”). I arrived in June, fresh from having completed my thesis for the Master of Arts in Theology. Three months later, in September 2016, I successfully defended this same thesis on “‘Love of Friendship’ in the Christian Life” and was awarded the MA in December 2016. Thank God for this Christmas gift, which began with the great privilege of studying theology first at the University of Malta and subsequently at Notre Dame. What twice-blest opportunities these were to share learning and insights through conversation with fellow students, in guided reading with our mentors of the Institute for Church Life and Theology Department, where I experienced collegiality, hospitality, and a spirit of good will.