Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Invisible Jesus Test | The Gospels | John 9:35–41

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

What if Jesus has become functionally invisible in your life? What keeps us spiritually blind? And how do we begin to truly see? In today's episode, Jeff explores John 9:35–41 and contrasts the humble faith of the man born blind with the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees, reminding us that Jesus is our sight-restoring Savior. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 9:35–41

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. Sometimes we miss the big thing that's right in front of us. Some people describe this tendency with the phenomenon called inattentional blindness. When people experience inattentional blindness, it's not that they can't see anything. Their physical eyes are functioning. The problem is that they're not.

their eyes aren't really focused. Their attention is distracted. And so their in attention makes them blind to something right in front of them, especially if that something is unexpected. Now there's a good chance you're familiar with the famous experiment that displays this tendency. It's called the Invisible Gorilla Test. With the Invisible Gorilla Test, subjects watch a video of people passing a basketball back and forth. Viewers are asked to focus their attention on the number of passes between people in the video. And while their eyes are functioning and focused on the passes, many viewers don't notice the gorilla walking across the screen. It's the unexpected thing that they miss. Now, in most life scenarios, someone dressed in a

gorilla suit would be impossible to miss, but when you aren't expecting it, if you're looking for something else altogether and have inattentional blindness, well, that gorilla, that gorilla, Rilla might as well be invisible. I wonder if it's possible for you and I to have our own version of inattentional blindness with Jesus. He can be right there in front of us, yet we can miss him because we're busy looking for something else. Could you be blind to who Jesus is and to what he's doing?

Could you functionally be making him invisible? Our passage today in John chapter 9 is a little bit like an invisible Jesus. test. It forces us to reckon with the spiritual blindness of the human heart. And it causes us to consider what we're paying attention to, who we're paying attention to, and how we can start seeing differently. Now as we approach God's word together, let's slow down and ask for his grace, for his kindness to move through our time. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the gift of life, for the gift of breath, and we thank you for the amazing gift of your word that you give to us. We bring before you every part of our human experience now, the things that we're bringing

into this moment, our joys and our sorrows, our anxiety, and our excitement, our calendars, and our contingencies. We bring all these complex things to you, and we pray that you'd meet us in this space. Jesus, help us abide in you and remain in you as we engage with your truth. And Holy Spirit, ask you to move in and through this time in John's gospel account. As we read your living word, may it read us and restore us to life with you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, now leading up to our passage today, we encountered a man who was born blind, but was given sight by Jesus. In verse three of chapter nine, Jesus said that this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. And the ensuing events include a group of Pharisees interrogating this man who had been

born blind, the relentlessly digging into how this miracle occurred and what it meant about who Jesus is. In their frustration, the Pharisees cast the man out of their presence. And that takes us to our text for today, which begins with the man born blind being found by Jesus. Let's pick up in verses 35 through 36. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said, do you believe in the son of man? He answered, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? All right, let's do a quick pause here and recall that this is one of the key foundational questions in all the gospel accounts, and it's a key question in this scene. We've seen repeatedly. Who is the son of man? Who is Jesus? What does it?

mean to believe in him? The conversation continues in verses 37 through 39. Jesus said to him, you have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. Jesus said, for judgment, I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Now this is a powerful moment between Jesus and the man born blind. This man has already seen Jesus with his restored physical eyes, but now he sees him with the renewed eyes of faith. By God's grace, the eyes of his heart have been opened to know Jesus,

and he responds by believing, by trusting, by worshiping. Jesus is no longer invisible to this man. In fact, he's impossible to miss. The response of the man born blind is in stark contrast to the Pharisees who cast him out. We get an interesting window into their spiritual blindness in verse 40. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, are we also blind? What a question for them to ask. These men who can see with their physical eyes now have to reckon with the eyesight of faith.

And Jesus' response to them might seem enigmatic at first, but its impact is really formative. In verse 41, he says, if you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say, we see, your guilt remains. Now, Jesus is not saying that these religious leaders would have no sin that separates them from God. They're still sinful people in God's grace. He's saying that their self-proclaimed ability to see everything clearly,

to see the law, to see themselves, to see Jesus, to see Jesus. clearly? Well, in that, they're actually more stuck in spiritual guilt than they realize. Because they don't see as well as they think they can. They're missing the real Jesus who's right in front of them. The commentator, Colin Cruz, says it this way. Because they claimed to know and were unwilling to learn, their guilt remained. Their presumption of knowledge kept them from seeing the truth. Now, if we use the imagery of our inventory. visible gorilla test. This is like a viewer being shown that the unexpected gorilla is indeed walking across the screen, but refusing to learn and acknowledge its presence. Just choosing to ignore

the reality that's right there, even if they've been shown it after the fact. If there's such a thing as an invisible Jesus test, the Pharisees are failing it here. For the man born blind, it's impossible for him to miss Jesus now. But for them, it's impossible. It's impossible. to really see him. He's unexpected. He's unnoticed. And therefore, they are stuck in unbelief. Now, as we reflect on this passage, consider how you might be treating Jesus like he's invisible, just like the Pharisees. I know that it's usually not in fashion to identify the Pharisee inside our own hearts, but if you were like me, the more I peel back the onion layers of my life, the more I see traces of their unwillingness to really see, to really learn,

to really be humble and see my need for Jesus as the one who is able and willing to renew my life. I need God's grace to open the eyes of my heart. Are there ways that you're living with a spiritual, inattentional blindness and need to pray for the spirit to open the eyes of your heart? When we see Jesus in our real need for him, our response should increasingly be like the man born blind. We believe, we trust, and we worship. Now, we don't do that perfectly overnight,

but in a process of grace, one day to time, as God's sovereign work focuses our spiritual eyesight. And that sense of process, it should give us a lot of hope. It's even at play here in our passage from John chapter 8. Now it would be easy to miss, but let's go back and notice it. Back in verse 35, we read that this man was found by Jesus. Think about that for a moment. This means that Jesus was looking for him.

Jesus was pursuing him. After his eyesight was restored, after that earlier encounter they had, after he was cast out by the Pharisees, Jesus didn't stop looking for this man. Now, I don't know about you, but that gives me deep hope in the process of God open, the eyes of my heart. Jesus doesn't just find us once and then leave us alone. He keeps finding us. He unites us to himself. He pursues us in the process of renewal. Now, if that's true,

doesn't that mean that you want him to focus the gaze of your eyes on him? Will you learn to see his movement in the course of your life? May we see the real Jesus who is right there with us and respond with trust and worship today. Heavenly Father, we confess the ways that we don't always see Jesus the way we should. It's often because we see ourselves as too great in our own eyes. Help us have the focus of faith. Jesus, we thank you that you don't just find us once, but you continually pursue us in your relentless love.

Help us trust you and worship you as our sight restoring Savior. Holy Spirit, would you open the eyes of our hearts, not just as isolated individuals, but as a community of faith, we need you. We pray all of this because of your grace, for your glory, and in your story. In Jesus' name, amen.