Visible Goodness
Day 295 – 22 October
One Thing I Know
“He answered and said, ‘Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.’” (John 9:25, NKJV)
Clay Washed Off at Siloam
The man had been blind from birth, and he had spent his days sitting and begging by the roadside (John 9:1, 8). One day Jesus, passing by, saw him, and He “spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva,” and spread it on his eyes. Then He told him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,” and John adds that the name means “Sent.” The man went, washed, “and came back seeing” (John 9:6–7).
He came back to neighbours who had only ever known him as the blind beggar. Some people insisted it was him, others thought it must be someone who looked like him, and he kept repeating, “I am he” (John 9:8–9). Then came the first of many questions: “How were your eyes opened?” (John 9:10).
Questioned From Every Side
That question followed him all day. His neighbours asked it, and then they brought him to the Pharisees, who asked it again (John 9:13–15). They asked what he thought of the healer, and he answered, “He is a prophet” (John 9:17). They summoned his parents, who were afraid of being put out of the synagogue and gave the most careful answer they could manage (John 9:20–22). Then the leaders brought the man back a second time and pressed him harder.
By then he had told his story several times, and his patience was wearing thin. When they asked once more, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”, he replied, “I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?” (John 9:26–27). A man who had sat in darkness all his life was suddenly at the centre of a public dispute, all because of a goodness everyone could see and nobody in authority could explain.
A Contest Over One Verb
John tells this story around a single Greek verb, oida (I know). It passes from mouth to mouth through the chapter like a disputed coin. Asked where Jesus was, the man said, “I do not know” (John 9:12). His parents said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind,” and then retreated into “we do not know” about the rest (John 9:20–21). The leaders were full of certainty: “We know that this Man is a sinner” (John 9:24), and again, “We know that God spoke to Moses” (John 9:29). In both of those claims the form is oidamen (we know), spoken with all the confidence of experts.
Into all that confident knowing the man spoke his answer. In Greek it reads hen oida (one thing I know), and what follows is typhlos ōn arti blepō (being blind, now I see). He refused to claim more than he had, and he declined to give up the one thing he was sure of. The leaders knew a great deal about Moses and very little about the Man standing in front of them. The beggar knew very little theology and one fact beyond dispute.
The verb carries a family history that makes his answer even richer. Strong’s places oida (I know) under eidō (to see), whose perfect forms came to mean “to know,” while Thayer is careful to say the perfect itself simply means “to know.” In this chapter the old family connection is hard to miss. The one person in the story whose eyes had just been opened was also the one who spoke of knowing with the least pretence.
Seeing Just Now
The word arti (now, just now) adds a note of freshness. Thayer explains it as an adverb of closely connected time, and in classical Greek it meant “just now, this moment.” The man was speaking of something very recent. Blepō (I see, I have sight) completes the line, a plain present tense from a man still blinking in the sunlight.
A small difference in the Greek texts sits at the start of the verse. The Received Text reads “he answered and said,” which the New King James follows, while the critical text has simply “he answered.” The testimony itself is identical in both.
His honesty cost him. The leaders “cast him out” (John 9:34). Yet the same kindness that had noticed him at the roadside was still with him after the synagogue door had closed on him, for “Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him,” He spoke with him again (John 9:35). The goodness that opened his eyes stayed beside him when his testimony made him unwelcome.
Thursday’s One Thing
Nobody asked this man to answer every question about Jesus. They asked what had happened to him, and he told them. That is still the heart of an answer when people ask why your life looks different. You may never win an argument with an expert, and you have no need to. Your part is to tell truthfully what you know, in your own words, without stretching it.
So think today about your own “one thing.” Perhaps it is a fear that lost its grip, a habit that broke, a peace that held in a hospital corridor, a forgiveness you never expected to feel. Put it into one sentence. When someone asks how you have changed, give them that sentence plainly, and let the change in your life do the rest of the talking.
Declaration
Some questions about my faith remain open, and they leave me unafraid. I hold to what has happened to me, and I say it simply. My story belongs to me, and nobody can talk me out of it. I speak of it gladly to anyone who wonders, without exaggerating and without shrinking it. Where my words run short, let the light in my life finish the sentence and turn every enquirer towards the One who gave it.
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