Even Jesus's own [half] brothers did not believe (i.e. have faith) in him. We see from John 7:1-13 that familiarity with Jesus does not necessarily equate submission to him. But the offer of Jesus is invitation into a 'new kind of family' through his own life, death, and resurrection! This is the family of God. More than mere metaphor—it is reality-altering truth!

True disciples of Jesus will increasingly grow at submitting more and more of their whole live to the empowering presence and lordship of Jesus and teach others to do the same.

Jesus takes the "I am the living bread" statement and doubles down. He switches focus form the Galileans who seem to be missing the points and, as Bruce Milne points out, focuses on the true disciples who will respond and showing them confidence in their eternal security, identity, and identity.

Jesus says, "I AM the bread of life," declaring that he alone has the power, love, and authority to give us eternal life. But that eternal life is not just a declaration about a life never ending, it's also about a quality of life that surpasses anything we could ever imagine.

Jesus must be King over our whole lives, but we must submit to the King that he actually is and not the king we're tempted to make him.

To know Jesus is to know God because he is God (cf. John 1:1, 5:21; Colossians 1:15-20; Hebrews 1:3ff; etc.). One of the primary ways the God has established that we might know him is through his Scriptures/the Bible. When we are ignorant of the Bible, we are ignorant of God (cf. John 5:37-47).

Being a disciple of Jesus means, in part, that we are continually allowing him to redeem both our human categories (how we view/categorize the value/worth of others AND ourselves) and our human frailty (both physically and spiritually).

Though John's retelling of Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well is brief, it's chalked full of challenges for all that would become his disciples. Jesus challenges what we believe about humanity, sin, salvation, and worship.

In John 3:22-36, the primary difference between the Baptist and his disciples is not that one knew about Jesus and the others did not (they all knew of Jesus and his activity). The difference was what they knew about themselves! John knew who he was only because he knew who Christ was.