I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 8-9

When we read about Jesus telling His disciples about the suffering He would soon suffer and Peter taking Him aside to talk to Him, we don’t often really think about what Peter was thinking.  It seems to me that Peter took Jesus aside for one of two reasons, both of which were noble.  First, Peter may have thought that Jesus was becoming too negative.  Perhaps, Peter thought that Jesus was becoming depressed over the opposition which He was facing.  Second, Peter may have thought that Jesus’ statements about the suffering He would soon experience would unnecessarily discourage others.   In either case, Peter misunderstood what Jesus was saying.  Jesus was not being a “Debbie downer” when He spoke of his coming suffering and death.  He was preparing His disciples for what was coming.  Peter saw Jesus’ predictions of His coming suffering and death as a sign that Jesus thought He was failing.  Jesus saw His coming suffering and death as signs of His success.

Jesus uses Peter’s attempt to “buck him up” as a teaching moment.  He tells us that if we strive to avoid pain and suffering, we will fail.  And not only will we fail to avoid pain and suffering, we will fail to serve God.  A Science Fiction writer whose work I love has her main character say something similar to what Jesus says here.  The character has been desperately seeking something, then at one point, when he seems close to getting it, he walks away from making any further effort to get it.  When asked why, he responds that he realized that it does you no good to obtain your heart’s desire if you give up your heart to get it.  Spoiler alert, he gets what he was seeking anyway.  In fact, he gets it because he refused to compromise his ethics to get it.  That is similar to Jesus’ point here.  If you are not willing to face suffering and death to do what is right, you will still face death and suffering with the knowledge that you did not do the right thing.  On the other hand, if you do the right thing in the face of suffering and death, any suffering you experience will bring you joy.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 6-7

I did not write much about Jesus’ comments on hand washing and purity when I read it in Matthew, but I want to spend some time on it today.  It would be easy to think that Jesus was unaware of the health benefits of hand washing, and of washing eating utensils.  However, that misses the point.  Jesus does not say that washing serves no good purpose, or even that we should not wash our hands before eating.  Rather, He tells us that we should be more concerned with our spiritual health than with our physical health.  Contaminated food can only harm our physical bodies, we should be more concerned with that which can harm our spirits and our souls.  Further, Jesus tells us that what we say and do defiles our souls in much the same way that eating contaminated food can make our bodies sick.  It is what comes from within which controls our spiritual health and well-being.  Say and do that which is wholesome and our spirits will become healthier and stronger.  If, instead, we say and do those things which are vile, our spirits will become corrupt and weak.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 4-5

There are two powerful statements in today’s passage.  The first is Jesus’ response to the storm: “Peace, be still.”  What makes that so interesting and powerful is that He said it after the Apostles woke Him in a panic about the storm.  Having said that and calmed the storm He asked them why they were afraid.  Jesus was able to sleep during the storm because He had faith.  He knew that God was in charge of everything in the world, including the storm, and that God’s plans would be fulfilled.  There was no need, and nothing to gain, from staying awake and worrying about the storm.  When life’s storms beat at us we should try to live as Jesus lived, calmly and without fear.  Sometimes those storms will overwhelm even those among us with the strongest faith, when that happens we can call on God and He will provide us with the calm needed to face our lives.   However, sometimes we need to do for others what Jesus did for His Apostles and calm the storms which are overwhelming their faith.  Do you have the faith, do I have the faith, to call out to life’s storms, “Peace, be still” with the confidence that God will still those storms?  And remember, sometimes all it takes to calm life’s storms is for someone to calmly respond to them.

The other one is that of the woman seeking healing: “If I can just touch His robe…”  That is another statement of faith.  The woman knew, she just knew, that if she could get close to Jesus and touch His robe she would be healed.  Do we share her desire to get close to Jesus?  Do we share her faith that just being near Him will bring us healing?

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 1-3

I like the way the Gospel of Mark quick hits on the stories it tells. It is a quick and concise account of Jesus’ life.  Today I want to start by looking at the faith of the man with leprosy in this passage.   In a way it resembles what Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego told Nebuchadnezzar before they were thrown into the fiery furnace.  The leper told Jesus that he knew that Jesus could heal him, if Jesus was willing to do so.  We should approach God with our requests with the same attitude:  God is capable of doing whatever we ask of Him, the only question is whether or not He is willing.

The other point I want to touch on is Jesus’ response to the Pharisees challenging Him about His disciples plucking grain while they walked.  He makes a point about the Sabbath which applies to all of God’s commands.  God gave us rules about keeping the Sabbath for our benefit.  He did not create us for us to keep the Sabbath rules.  The same is true of the other things which God commands.  God did not create us in order to have someone to who He could give commands.  He gave us His commands so that we would know how to live life to its fullest.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 14-16

I am sure I have written this in the past.  When I was younger, Jesus’ instructions to the two disciples He sent ahead to prepare for the Passover meal were related to me as an example of Jesus’ ability to see the future.  It was suggested that He prophetically knew the man would be where he would be and would be willing to allow them to use his room for their Passover meal.  However, as I read it now it seems clear to me that Jesus had made previous arrangements to eat the Passover meal in this man’s room with His disciples.  On the other hand, Jesus’ prediction that one of the Twelve would betray Him is indeed a prophetic pronouncement.  Every time I read that I wonder what went through Judas’ mind at that moment.  

When I read the various accounts of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane I have two separate reactions.  First is the desire and wish to pray as Jesus did when difficulty and struggling confront me: “Please take this suffering from me, but Your will be done, not mine.”  I want to ask God to take the suffering away from me, but I want to submit to that suffering if it is necessary to accomplish His will.  Second is an empathy with the disciples inability to stay awake.  All too often when I attempt to pray in the ways I think that I should I find myself falling asleep.  As with so many other passages on prayer, this passage reminds me that my prayer life comes nowhere close to where it should.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 12-13

Today’s passage contains accounts of three different approaches people take to those who proclaim the truth.  First the Pharisees attempted to trap Jesus in the conflict between government authority and popular opinion.  Then the Sadducees tried to trap Jesus in what they thought was a logic conflict in His belief system.  Finally an unnamed teacher of the law asked a probing question aimed at discovering the core of Jesus’ teachings.

The Pharisees thought that Jesus’ appeal to the masses came from telling them what they wanted to hear.  The premise of their question was that if Jesus gave the crowds the answer they wanted to hear, they could have the Romans arrest Him for inciting rebellion.  On the other hand, they thought that if Jesus gave an answer on taxation which did not support it the crowds would turn on Him.  The Pharisees did not ask this question in order to learn Jesus’ answer.  They thought they had come up with a question where they could use whatever answer Jesus gave against Him.   There are many nuances to Jesus’ answer.  However, Jesus makes the central point that only those involved in trade with the Romans were significantly impacted by the Roman taxes.  

The Sadduccess thought that resurrection from the dead was illogical.  Their question was intended to highlight the logical inconsistencies of what Jesus taught.  Again, they were not seeking to understand what Jesus’ taught.  They sought an answer they could use against Him.  Jesus showed that their question only seems like it presents a quandary because they lacked faith in God’s power over the Universe.

Finally, the unnamed teacher of the law asked a question which actually explored what Jesus taught.  This last question truly got at whether or not Jesus was a teacher to whom we should listen.  This man asked Jesus a question to which he genuinely wanted to know the answer.  Unlike the Pharisees who thought they would be able to use Jesus’ answer against Him, no matter how He answered and unlike the Sadduccess who thought their question had no answer.  This unnamed teacher genuinely wanted to know what Jesus thought.  He wanted to see if Jesus’ answer added up.  When people question us about our faith, they will fall into one of these categories.  Some people will be seeking an answer that they can use against us or our faith.  Others will be seeking to show that only foolish people would actually believe what we say we believe.  But a few people will ask questions because they genuinely seek to learn the truth.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 10-11

I see a connection between Jesus’ interaction with the rich man and His teaching about leadership.   The rich man came to Jesus because he felt that something was missing in his life.  He felt this way despite the fact that he had kept all of the commandments from a young age.  Yet despite the feeling of emptiness he felt, he was unwilling to take that next step.  We usually read Jesus’ instructions to the rich man as being about wealth.  However, in light of Jesus’ teaching about leadership a few verses later, this teaching appears to me to be more about serving others than about wealth.  Actually, that is not true.  Jesus’ instructions to the rich man were to use his wealth to serve others.  Those same instructions apply to all of us.  We should use whatever gifts we have, whether that be wealth, a skill, or something else, to serve others.  We miss that Jesus’ teaching about wealth is really the same as His teaching about leadership.  In order to accumulate wealth as God measures wealth we must use our material resources to help others.  This is the same as Jesus’ teaching about leadership.  Those with authority as God counts it use their authority to serve others.  True leadership is service.  True wealth is giving to others.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 8-9

Today’s passage starts with the feeding of the four thousand.  Just a short time earlier, Jesus had fed the five thousand.  This time starts much the same way: with Jesus more or less instructing the disciples to feed the crowd.  Despite having seen Jesus feed the five thousand the disciples responded much the same way they had the first time, “How can we find enough food to feed them here in the wilderness?”  Even after this, they still worried about not having enough food and argued over whose fault it was that they did not have enough with them.  How often are we guilty of the same lack of faith?

After Peter, speaking on behalf of the Twelve, declared that Jesus was the Messiah Jesus began explaining how He would die and rise from the dead.  Perhaps I am reading this wrong, but it seems to me that Jesus was likely explaining to the disciples how His death in this manner and then resurrection was necessary in order to accomplish God’s purpose.  Reading further into the passage, Peter thought that Jesus was saying these things because He thought His ministry was a lost cause and Peter sought to lift His spirits.  I suspect that Peter told Jesus that He should have more faith in His ministry and warned Him that such negative talk would discourage His followers.  Jesus responds to Peter by telling him that Peter’s view goes directly counter to God’s.  Then Jesus gathers His disciples and the crowd to tell them that those who wish to follow Him must be willing to suffer and die to do God’s will.  Often times, serving God will lead to suffering and death.  In fact, sometimes accomplishing God’s purpose in our lives will require us to suffer and perhaps die.  We should embrace those situations as opportunities,  If we believe Jesus’ teaching we will be eager toe experience the suffering which so often accomplishes doing His will. 

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 6-7

I am not entirely sure what we should make of this, but the first thing which struck me today was that John the Baptist was killed for speaking truth to power.  However, his trouble did not come from confronting Herod over Herod’s policies, or even Herod’s actions as political ruler.  Rather, John the Baptist confronted Herod over his personal moral failings.  Perhaps if Christians today focused their attention on upholding the God’s moral code we would have less need to uphold God’s code of social justice.  I try to limit how much I write about social justice because the topic has become so loaded with terms which don’t mean what they seem to mean.  I strongly believe that we should treat every human being as created in the image of God.  No one is less worthy of respect and honor than myself, and the only degree to which anyone is more worthy of respect and honor is the degree to which they serve others.

I am not quite sure how I am going to tie this together, but I believe that Jesus’ comments about tradition and the sources of defilement relates to what I wrote above.  Jesus tells us that the truly vile things come from within.  We should be concerned with addressing the evil thoughts we have more than with the outward appearance of righteousness. Jesus gives us a list of things which can defile us.  I find it noteworthy that He lists sexual immorality, adultery, and lustful desires: three variations on the same idea.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 4-5

Most of today’s passage focuses on the power of faith and how just a small amount of faith can produce mighty results.  I suspect that today’s blog will be somewhat scattered, sort of like the first parable in the passage.  Let’s start there.  The parable of the farmer sowing seed has a lesson I don’t think I have ever heard anyone comment on and one which I never noticed before.  The parable describes different types of soil, some of which is better for grain to grow on than others and some of which is completely inhospitable.  However, in the parable the farmer spreads his seed equally on all of it.  Which brings us to the point, we should not attempt to only bring God’s word to those we think will be receptive.  We should spread God’s word to all and sunder.  Better to “waste” some of it on the hardened path where it will not root than to miss that small patch of fertile soil in the midst of the beaten down path.

Which brings us to Jesus’ teachings on faith which permeate this passage.  Why should we spread God’s word, even to those we are sure will not listen?  Because we should have faith that God can “plow up the hard ground of their heart”.  The parable of the growing seed goes into this a little more.  Just as the farmer does not need to understand how the seed grows into the plant which produces food, so we do not need to understand (and generally will not understand) how God’s word will work its way into someone’s heart to allow the Holy Spirit to transform them.  Mark’s account of the parable of the lamp gives us insight into how we spread God’s word to those around us.  We put our faith on a stand where everyone can see it.  No hiding it in under a basket or a bed.  Let the light of our faith illuminate everything we do.  That means studying God’s word and listening to His Spirit to determine what He wants us to do, and then doing it.  When we do the things which we understand we will come to understand more.  Finally, Jesus tells us to put into practice what little faith we have, because even a tiny grain of faith will grow into a mighty plant if given the chance.