John 1:45-46
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth
Philip brings him the law and the prophets and a village name. The objection is immediate and honest, and the only answer offered is come and see.
People of the Bible
Nathanael
Said something dismissive about a town, went to look anyway, and was commended for having no guile.
Also called Bartholomew, by most accounts
Nathanael is from Cana in Galilee and is sitting under a fig tree when Philip comes with news. His response is one of the most human lines in the gospels: can there any good thing come out of Nazareth. It is a small town sneer from a man in a slightly larger small town. Philip does not argue with it, and Nathanael goes. What he hears when he arrives is not a rebuke for the sneer but a description of himself, and it undoes him in one sentence.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Nathanael
- 01
- 02
John 1:47-49
When you were under the fig tree
Before he can say anything he hears himself described. He asks how, gets one detail back, and answers with three titles in a row.
- 03
John 1:50-51
You shall see greater things
The promise is Genesis 28 with a change: heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man rather than a ladder.
Why it matters
He is praised for the very thing that produced the insult. An Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile, means a man who says what he actually thinks. The confession that follows is the fullest of any first meeting in the gospels, rabbi, son of God, king of Israel, and the answer to it is a promise about seeing greater things, angels ascending and descending on the Son of man, which is Jacob’s ladder given a person to stand on.
5 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
