NATHANAEL: THE TRUTHFUL LIAR

I must admit that I came up with that title after considering G.K. Chesterton's many paradoxes, especially the title of one of his novels, Four Faultless Felons. Also, I lifted the general premise of this post from a recent sermon given by our pastor Ernest Jones.

Just to continue the allusions, consider the lyrics to one of the songs in The Music Man: “How can there be any sin in sincere?” In fact, one may actually speak a lie but do it quite sincerely. Being sincere does not necessarily keep you from being sincerely mistaken. The only sin is if you refuse to admit that you are wrong, even when all the facts are against you. Fortunately, that was not the case with Nathanael. As you may recall, about all we know concerning this apostle is told in John 1:43-51 when Jesus calls him.

Philip comes to Nathanael and tells him that they had found the one of whom Moses and the prophets had spoken. Prior to this point in John's account, the identifications given to Jesus are “Lamb of God” and the “Son of God” (by John the Baptist and two unnamed disciples), “Rabbi” (by the same two disciples), and “Messiah” (by one of those disciples). Nathanael is totally incredulous and expresses, in the truths of the Bible, just that he honestly didn't seem to comprehend them.

the form of a question, his opinion that nothing good could ever come out of Nazareth. Nonetheless, Nathanael is willing to have his “facts” questioned and comes with Philip anyway.

Jesus sees him and pronounces that Nathanael is an Israelite without guile. The Greek word for “guile” is dolos, and it literally means a bait or snare. It applies to someone who tries to mislead with their words, a definite form of a lie. And yet, Nathanael had just expressed a a statement that was not the truth. The most guileless person I ever knew was a fellow chemist, and yet he was an atheist. On the few occasions when religious matters came up in conversation, if wasn't as if he was dead set against But Nathanael is soon to comprehend Jesus' supernatural nature, even if he did come from Nazareth. Before long, he is calling Jesus not only Rabbi, but also “Son of God.”

One important lesson for us from this encounter of Nathanael and Jesus comes from consideration of the various ways we may hold totally inaccurate opinions in the areas of faith, politics, science, etc. The question is, “Are we open enough to new information, or reconsideration of old information, that we will be willing to admit we are wrong?” Unfortunately, it is usually human nature for us to dig in our heels when our favorite “facts” are questioned, and to label everything else as heresy, “fake news,” or biased science. I could list example after example right out of today's news, but I think all of you can easily come up with your own lists.

Finally, here is one question that I had never seriously considered before: Was Nathanael really an apostle? If you look at the four listings of the Twelve (found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts), you will see that his name does not appear in any of them. However, the story of his call by Jesus certainly is the same as that of the other apostles. Also, many Jews at that time had two different names, a Jewish one and a Greek or Aramaic one. Nixon concludes, “He seems to be one of the Twelve and he has been variously identified, especially with Bartholomew.” Less common possibilities that have been proposed include Matthew, Matthias, John, Simon the Canaanite, and Stephen. I will let you make up your own mind on this issue.