Monthly Archives: October 2022

Daily Bible Study

October 22, 2022 Bible Study — Jesus Begins To Study For His Ministry

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 2-3.

A few days ago in this blog I asked about how Jesus had the credentials to be allowed, and perhaps even invited, to teach in synagogues, which the Gospels report that He did at the very beginning of His ministry.  In today’s passage we get the only direct insight into that.  Luke writes that when Jesus was twelve He spent three to six days in the temple courts  learning from some of the leading religious scholars of the day.  At the age of twelve, those who taught there were amazed by the questions He asked and the answers He gave.  I want to go over the number of days Jesus spent in the temple courts.  So, Luke writes that His parents did not realize He was not with them until they were a day out from Jerusalem, then Luke writes that they found Jesus after three days.  So, the question becomes, did Mary and Joseph find Jesus three days after they left Jerusalem, three days after they realized He was missing, or three days after they got back to Jerusalem?  If the latter, Jesus was in the temple courts for five or six days, because perhaps the reason Mary and Joseph left Jerusalem without Him was because He spent the day before they left at the temple as well.  Not that the exact number of days has any significance.  More importantly, this story indicates that Jesus spent every opportunity He had learning from teachers of the Law, and He was such a student that the teachers of the Law welcomed Him studying with them.  I think that Luke intends for us to understand that Jesus continued in His studies of Jewish Law, thus explaining why He was welcome to teach in the synagogue when He began His ministry.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 21, 2022 Bible Study — How Did Luke Learn What Zechariah Said When John Was Named?

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 1.

I was reminded by today’s passage about a thought which struck me a few weeks ago.  Mary was related to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was married to Zechariah, a priest.  This suggests that Elizabeth was descended from priests (priests were not required to marry the daughter of another priest, but it seems likely that they usually did).  All of this suggests to me that Mary was descended both from David and from Aaron, thus Jesus may have combined both the priestly and kingly lineages of Ancient Israel.  Which brings us to the fact that John the Baptist was definitely of priestly lineage, like numerous Old Testament prophets.  (I would like to point out that while only a few of the prophets whose writings we have in the Old Testament were also priests, several passages in the Old Testament indicate an expectation that prophets were of priestly lineage).  Having said that, I am actually more interested by the fact that Luke was able to recount in detail what Zechariah said at the time of John’s naming.  Luke has been noted for both his attention to detail and the reliability of what he writes.  As a note on this, at various times historians thought that Luke had used incorrect words for the titles of individuals to whom he referred, or for areas he described, there were also times when people thought that Luke’s description of the order of travel was wrong.  Later discoveries proved that Luke’s terms, and travel routes were accurate for the time.  Now, we have reason to believe that Luke got the accounts of what happened to Mary directly from Mary, but Zechariah and Elizabeth would have been dead by the time Luke was compiling this account.   Further, it seems likely that no one else present would have felt the event significant enough to remember the words spoken those many years later when Luke was gathering the accounts he recorded.  However, John was raised according to the oath of the Nazirite, and apparently lived according to it as a grown man.  This would have led people to think of Samuel and Samson.  So, perhaps someone before Luke had sought to gather stories about John’s birth.

All of this reminds me of comments a speaker at our Sunday morning said a few weeks ago. He used the story of the Sidonian woman with a demon-possessed daughter who asked Jesus for help as a basis for this (although that story is really about something else).  I cannot remember exactly what he said, but he said that sometimes we give bread from God to God’s children and other times we are just dropping crumbs from that bread to the dogs beneath the table.  Whether what we say is bread or just crumbs, we should hope that someone benefits.  Today, I feel that I am just dropping crumbs, but I pray that God uses it anyway.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 20, 2022 Bible Study — While The Other Disciples Did Not Betray Jesus, Were They Really Any Better?

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

I want to look at the juxtaposition here of Jesus telling the Twelve that one of them will betray Him, then later telling them that all of them will fall away.  I believe that these two are so close together in the narrative to remind us that while we may not actively betray Jesus as Judas did, at some point we will fail to stand up for Him, just as the other eleven did.  Which brings me to Peter, who emphatically stated that he would stand by Jesus, even if no one else did.  We often focus on Peter’s later denial, but his mistake was in thinking that he was more able to stand up for Jesus, that he could stand when all else fell away.  God gave Peter three chances to live up to his claim to be more faithful than everyone else, to stand with Jesus when no one else would.  God did this in order to make Peter understand that he was not stronger, more faithful than everyone else.  However, when the messenger spoke to the women at the Tomb on Sunday morning, the messenger told the women to tell Jesus’ disciples and Peter that Jesus would meet them in Galilee.  So, God reminded Peter that even though he was not better than the others, he was still one of them, and God still loved him.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 19, 2022 Bible Study — That Which Bears God’s Image Belongs To God

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

This morning it struck me that Mark placed the Parable of the Tenants just before the conversation about paying taxes to Caesar for a reason.  We often read the Parable of the Tenants as being about  the fact that throughout history religious leaders have killed the prophets whom God has sent, culminating in killing His Son, Jesus.  In doing so, we often think that this ended with Jesus’ death and resurrection, but if you look at the martyrs killed for their faith during the Reformation you quickly realize that religious leaders still persecute those whom God has sent.  However, we often fail to think about the purpose for which God sent those whom the religious leaders persecute.  The discussion about taxes which immediately follows the Parable of the Tenants here makes clear that purpose.  God sends prophets, and others, to call on us to give to Him what is His.  And reading Jesus’ answer about taxes makes clear what is God’s.  The coins which were used to pay the tax to Caesar bore Caesar’s image.  So, Jesus said, we should give them to Caesar because they were his.  What made them Caesar’s?  The fact that they bore his image.  So, if we are to give to Caesar the coins which bear his image, does that not mean that we should give to God that which bears His image?  The answer is a clear and resounding “Yes”.  In Genesis we were told that God created man in His image.  So, when Jesus says that we should give to God what is God’s, He is telling us to give ourselves to God.  And the Parable of the Tenants was about how far we are often wiling to go to avoid being reminded that we belong to God.

As I was composing the title for today’s blog, I was reminded of one other point that we should take from these two episodes:  Every human being bears the image of God, which means they are His prized possessions.  Let us treat them with at least the respect and honor we would wish others to treat our prized possessions.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 18, 2022 Bible Study — Jesus Connected With His Audience When He Taught

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

The other day I wrote about how people came and listened to Jesus teach for hours on end.  I think that today’s passage gives us an insight into how Jesus taught, and why people were willing to sit and listen to Him teach for hours on end.  In today’s passage we have three separate incidents described which I want to cite.  First, while Jesus is teaching some Pharisees asked Him a question about divorce.  Second, some parents brought their children to Jesus for Him to lay His hands on them.  The timing on this incident is less clear, but it appears to also occur while Jesus is teaching.  The third incident occurs as Jesus has finished teaching and is about to go on His way.  At that point a man runs up and asks what he must do in order to receive eternal life.  So, what do these three incidents tell us about how Jesus taught?  Well, the first and last incidents involved people coming up to Jesus and asking Him questions about how they should live their lives.  The middle incident involved parents bringing their children to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them.  In each incident, people felt welcome to approach Jesus.  He would then speak to what was most on their hearts at the moment.  Yes, we know, and those watching probably knew, the Pharisees were merely asking Jesus their question as a test, but it could have been a man(and in that society, it would have had to be a man) in a bad marriage struggling with what he should do.  The only one of these incidents where Jesus gave the people the answer they were looking for was when the parents brought their children to Him.  I think there is more we can learn about how Jesus taught from the story about the children.  But I want to point out that all three of these incidents involved Jesus teaching about a subject which someone in His audience brought up.  Even the answers He gave to the questions asked of Him were approachable, were phrased in ways which those listening could easily understand.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 16, 2022 Bible Study — Speak The Word Of God And People Will Come To Listen

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

So, today as I was reading Mark’s account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand I was struck by something that has never crossed my mind, something that I have never heard anyone comment on.  After the Twelve returned from the preaching mission on which Jesus had sent them, He had them get in a boat to go to somewhere remote for them to have time to debrief.  However, people saw them going and got there ahead of them.  Now this is the interesting part, the crowd sat and listened as Jesus taught, for hours.  They may have followed Him there because of the miracles He and His disciples had performed, but they sat and listened to Him for a long period of time, such a long period of time that the disciples became concerned about their need to eat (and perhaps from the disciples’ desire to eat as well).  The people may have come to see Jesus perform miracles, but they stayed to hear Him teach.  In between Mark’s account of Jesus sending the Twelve out to preach and his account of this feeding, he wrote about Herod executing John the Baptist.  I thought to myself, why did he do that?  Then it occurred to me, none of the accounts we have mention John the Baptist performing miracles, but they do talk about people coming out in droves to hear him preach the repentance of sin.  Which brings me to this, if we want to reach people we need to preach the unvarnished word of God.  We don’t need to smooth off the edges so as not to offend anyone.  We don’t need to soften it to avoid causing someone pain.  Sometimes people need to be offended, or to suffer pain in order to heal.  Jesus spoke the word of God without fear of what His listeners would think, and they came from miles to hear Him speak.  He didn’t need any gimmicks to reach people.  He didn’t need to make it a carnival to get them to come.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 17, 2022 Bible Study — Going To Great Lengths So As To Not Cause Others To Sin

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

Today’s passage ends with Jesus telling His disciples that they should maim themselves before they allow a part of their body to cause them to sin.  I have seen some quote those verses in order to support the idea that they have no responsibility to not act in a manner which might lead others to have impure thoughts (I want to note that even though we usually mean thoughts about sexual immorality when we say “impure thoughts”, I am using it here to mean thoughts about committing any sin).  However, Jesus prefaces His words about cutting off our hand, or gouging out our eye, by saying that it would be better to have a millstone cast around our neck and be cast into the sea than to cause one of those who believe in Him to stumble.  This leads me to believe that Jesus’ words about taking extreme action to avoid stumbling were meant to warn us to be extremely cautious not to lead others to sin.    We should be careful not to dress, or act in a manner, which will lead others to lust.  We should be careful not to act in a manner which would lead an alcoholic to think about drinking, a drug addict to consider taking drugs.  To reiterate: I believe Jesus point here is that we should go to great lengths to be sure that we do not cause our fellow believers to stumble.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 15, 2022 Bible Study — Preach The Word Of God And It Will Bear Fruit

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

Today’s passage contains another of Jesus’ parables which we do not often put much thought into, and, if we do, we tend to lump it in with the parable of the sower.  While the parable of the sower provides understanding for the parable of the growing seed, the latter has a different message.  As I read it today it occurred to me that when we are seeking ways to grow a congregation, this parable should speak to us.  Jesus tells us that the seed, which Jesus had just told His disciples was the word, is spread on the ground, which Jesus told His disciples was those people who heard the word.  The one who spread the seed need do nothing more.  In fact, Jesus says it doesn’t matter what else he does, the seed will grow according to its nature.  The one who sowed the seed need not know why the seed grows, and Jesus says we can’t know.  So, sow the word of God, and it will grow according to God’s plan.  As God says through the prophet Isaiah, God’s word will accomplish the purpose for which He sent it.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 14, 2022 Bible Study — We Can Read The Scripture For Ourselves In Order To Know What God Wants Of Us

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

When I was younger, I understood the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism to indicate that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus after His baptism and everybody heard the voice speak.  Some years ago I realized that the wording here in Mark, and also in Matthew and Luke, suggests that only Jesus saw the Spirit and heard the voice.  The Gospel of John account suggests that John the Baptist heard the voice from heaven.  The wording here in Mark could indicate that only Jesus or John the Baptist, or perhaps both, heard the words.  My understanding of the accounts leads me to believe that Jesus and John saw the dove descend and heard the voice from heaven, but that the others present only saw the dove (and perhaps heard something which they dismissed as “noise”).  The voice served as a confirmation to Jesus of the things He had been coming to understand about Himself and provided Him the strength to go through His wilderness testing.

Another thing which we take for granted is that, on the Sabbath, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach.  I do not know this to be true, but I am pretty sure that they did not allow just anybody to come into the synagogue and teach on the Sabbath.  So, in some way, Jesus had established Himself as someone with the necessary credentials to be allowed to teach., at least at a synagogue in Capernaum.  Which leads me to discuss some things we know about Jesus, and about John the Baptist.  We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that there were many similarities between what Jesus taught and the teachings of the Essenes (a third group of devote Jews alongside the Pharisees and Sadducees).  We also see from the Gospel accounts of John the Baptist that he was closer in approach to the Essenes than was Jesus.  So, it seems likely that both Jesus and John the Baptist were “credentialed” by their connection to the Essenes.  Which brings me to a second aspect of Jesus teaching in the synagogue: the people felt, and said, that He taught with authority.  In order to understand what was meant when they said that, we need to understand how most Rabbi’s of that time taught.  They would say things like, “as Rabbi Hillel wrote,…”  Jesus on the other hands appears to teach by saying, “as the prophet Isaiah wrote,…”   Most other Jewish teachers of the time referenced the interpretation of the prophets given by prominent Rabbis.  Jesus, on the other hand, spoke as if He, and His audience, could read the prophets for themselves and understand what they meant.  Jesus taught that we do not need someone else to tell us what God wants of us.  We can read the Scripture for ourselves and understand what God wants of us.

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

Daily Bible Study

October 13, 2022 Bible Study — Who Is Guilty Of Shedding Jesus’ Innocent Blood? All Of Us

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 27-28.

Many people wonder why Pilate would have bothered washing his hands of Jesus’ blood when he sentenced Him to be crucified.  After all, we know from historic records that Pilate was a typically brutal governor by Roman standards.  What we know about him suggests that Pilate would have had no qualms with crucifying an innocent man if he thought doing so was in his best interest.  So, why would Pilate have made the gesture of washing his hands in order to proclaim himself innocent of Jesus’ blood?  We find the answer to that question in the message Pilate received from his wife about her dream.  Many first century Romans believed that dreams were messages from the gods and often made important decisions based on their dreams.  So, Pilate ritually absolved himself of Jesus’ death by washing his hands in front of the crowd.  Further, that ritual was intended to transfer any guilt which may have accrued to Pilate to those in the crowd on whose behalf he ordered the crucifixion.  The acceptance of that guilt by the crown completed the ritual.  I do believe that those in the crowd did suffer for the guilt they willingly accepted of crucifying an innocent man, but we should note the crowd which was present did not represent the majority of Jews alive at that time, not even the majority of those living in Jerusalem.  So, even if they had been able to condemn their descendants for the guilt which they took upon themselves, they would have fallen far short of condemning all Jews for all time after.  The people in the crowd accepted the guilt for shedding the blood of an innocent man on that day and all of us are included in that guilt.  Only by accepting His sacrifice on our behalf can that guilt be expunged.

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