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

I have always loved the accounts of the Pharisees asking Jesus if it was lawful to pay tax to Caesar.  In response to their question, Jesus asked to see a denarius (the coin used to pay the tax).  When they produced one, He asked them whose image was on it.  When they replied (accurately) that it had Caesar’s image on it, Jesus told them to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s, a clear reference to the Genesis Creation account where God said that He made man in His own image.  Jesus’ message here was that we should give money which has no intrinsic value and is produced by the government back to the government when it asks, but we should give our selves, which has eternal value, to God who created it.

Today, I am equally taken with Jesus’ response to the Sadducees, whose question on marriage in the after life immediately follows that of the Pharisees.  What struck me about Jesus’ answer is that it gives the model of the appropriate response to those who question our basic faith.  Paraphrasing Jesus said, “Your question is fundamentally flawed because you neither know the Scriptures nor the power of God.”  This approach is the answer to many who argue for false ideas about God.  Carefully read the Scripture and put your faith in an all-powerful God.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

When the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce, He asked them what Moses had commanded concerning divorce.  The Pharisees answered that Moses allowed a man to write a woman a certificate of divorce and send her away, referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-4.  The implication being that Moses had given that as a command on how to divorce.  However, when we read the passage it says, “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house,…”  Notice that Moses does not say it is OK to do so, he just issues a command concerning what happens afterwards under certain circumstances.  Which means that Jesus is NOT superseding (or, as the Muslims like to say, abrogating) the Law of Moses with His command concerning divorce.  So, Jesus is exactly correct, Moses was making allowance for something he knew was going to happen (perhaps it would be more accurate to say that God was making allowance for something that was going to happen).  In any case, looking at both what Jesus said about divorce, and what God commanded through Moses, gives us insight into how the Church today should deal with divorce.  It happens, but it is wrong and those who have joined themselves to Christ should make every effort to avoid the ending of their marriage.   There is forgiveness for those who divorce, but it would be better if they had remained married.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

When Jesus told the crowds (and His disciples) that anyone who wants to be His disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Him, they did not yet understand that He would die on a cross.  Even His disciples did not yet comprehend that He would die.  On the other hand, they had a much better understanding about the horrors of crucifixion than we do.  We need to understand what Jesus is saying here.  We need to be willing to suffer in order to follow Jesus.  An author of fiction whose books I enjoy had one of her characters create a paraphrase of what Jesus says about gaining the world and losing our soul which sheds light on what Jesus said here.  The character said, “There is no value in gaining your heart’s desire if you have to give up your heart in the process.”  While there is much more to what Jesus says here, that statement gave me new insight into the meaning of what Jesus says here.  If we are willing to do whatever it takes to get things, or to experience pleasure, we will allow that which makes us to be destroyed and we will become empty shells.  On the other hand, if we are willing to sacrifice everything we are in order to make the world a better place for others, we will become that which death cannot destroy.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

I am going t write about when the Pharisees confronted Jesus about the fact that His disciples did not follow their tradition of washing their hands before they ate.  In response Jesus calls them hypocrites for allowing children to get out of caring for their parents by dedicating their assets to God.  He goes on to explain that nothing outside of a person defiles them.  We are defiled by what comes out of our hearts.  We are not defiled by what we eat, or by what we touch, not even by what others do to us.  We are defiled by what we think, which leads to what we do.  What has happened to us does not justify us doing evil.  We can decide to do good, even when others have done us wrong.  Or, we can decide to do evil.  It is entirely our choice, we can allow God’s Spirit to transform our suffering into good, or we can allow our suffering to transform us into a monster.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

Mark recounts two parables concerning the sowing of seed by a farmer in today’s passage.  In the first one, the Parable of the Sower, Jesus explains to His disciples that “the farmer” sows the word, some of it is heard by receptive hearts and some is heard by unreceptive hearts.  In the second one, the Parable of the Growing Seed, Jesus does not explain it at all.  However, I think we can conclude that the seed in the second one is the word of God, just as it is in the first parable.  Which brings us to who is the farmer in each of these parables?  Sometimes we conclude that the farmer in the first parable is God.  This seems to make sense, since people are the soil on which the seed is sown.  However, in the second parable, the farmer cannot be God because it says that the farmer does not know how the seed sprouts and grows.  Yet, we believe that God knows everything, so the farmer must be those who speak the Gospel to others.  And that makes sense of the second parable.  We do not know how the seed which we plant grows and bears fruit in the hearts of others, but we can watch it happen.  I believe that we are to conclude that we are the farmer in both parables.  This changes the lesson we should take from the first parable.  Instead of spending time worrying about what sort of soil we are, we should busy ourselves spreading the seed which is the word of God.  And since we do not know how that seed will sprout and grow, we should not spend much time worrying about what sort of soil we are spreading it on.

I want to note that we should spend a little bit of time thinking about what sort of soil we are spreading God’s word on, not because we should avoid “wasting our time” spreading it on unproductive soil.  Rather, we should consider the type of soil on which the word of God falls in order to decide what other action we should take.  If the soil is god, then we should stand aside and allow the crop to grow, perhaps adding a little fertilizer, or watering it a bit, but primarily making sure we don’t trample on the crop which is growing.  However, if the seed has fallen among thorns, we should strive to help the recipient pull those thorns so that the crop can grow without being choked.  If the seed has fallen on rocky soil, we should seek to work with the recipient to remove the rocks and to fortify the soil.  Finally, if the soil has fallen on hard ground, we should seek ways to break up the ground and make it receptive to the word that perhaps another coming after us will sow.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

I am not sure how many points I am going to make about today’s passage.  The first point I want to make is that Jesus went into the synagogues and taught in many villages throughout Galilee.  This suggests to me that He had some recognized training as a Rabbi.  It seems to me unlikely that they would have just allowed a random individual to show up on the Sabbath and begin to teach.  Then when He did teach, He “taught as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the Law.”  I know when I was young the sense I got from that was that He taught by making declarations about what God’s will was.  However, I learned a few years ago that, in the first century, most Jewish rabbis taught by quoting from the writings, and sometimes oral teachings, of authoritative rabbis who had preceded them.  So, I have come to understand that Jesus taught by appealing to the Scripture and explaining what it meant.  He did not rely on what some other authority said the passage meant.  He read the passage and said, “This is what it means.”  The thing about doing that is that, since He was not appealing to some authority for His interpretation, His interpretation had to be one which people could agree with when they compared it to what the passage actually said.  This contrasts with many religions which have arisen since Jesus where the “prophet” declares that God has given him, or her, a revelation which supersedes the previous Scripture.  There is one more thing I want to note about Jesus preaching with authority.  While Mark seems to indicate that Jesus taught from the Scripture which the Jews already had without introducing His own, He also links Jesus teaching with authority to the authority He demonstrated by driving out demons.  Jesus did not need to depend on the authority of others in interpreting Scripture because He demonstrated that His interpretation was consistent with God’s will by driving out demons and healing the sick.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus