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.

    My first thought when reading this was that Judas went to the priests and agreed to betray Jesus immediately after the woman anointed Jesus with perfume. All of the Gospels agree that he did this shortly after that event, which suggests that it provided the impetus for him to do so. My next thought was that Judas must have been disconcerted by Jesus declaring that one of the Twelve would betray Him so shortly after he had agreed to do so. What must have gone through Judas’ mind at that moment?

“How does he know?”

“He can’t possibly know.”

“He must be guessing, but why would he say that?”

From there I wondered what the rest of the disciples thought when Jesus instituted Communion, when He said that the bread was His body and the wine His blood. Especially in light of the fact that shortly before that He had said that one of them would betray Him. When we read it we cannot help but think about it in the context of His crucifixion, but the disciples had not yet processed the idea that Jesus would die, let alone die on the Cross.

    Bible scholars tell us that the most reliable early copies of the Gospel of Mark end with Chapter 16 verse 8: “The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” To us, that seems like an abrupt ending, but it is important to remember that Mark wrote this Gospel while Peter was still alive. He would have perceived that his audience knew the rest of the story. I think that Mark’s true ending was verses 6 and 7:

but the angel said, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body. Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died.”

Jesus was risen and they would not find Him among the dead. Perhaps Mark added verse 8 to explain why it took some time for people to start proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the dead. Or, perhaps, he just felt like he needed some conclusion other than the quote to end his account.
    I want to make one final point. The verses which come after verse 8 have been part of the Gospel of Mark that I believe God intends for us to read them. I have faith that God is in control of history and that if they did not represent His words they would have faded from history, just as other writings which were viewed as Scripture for a time have.

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.

    The parable Jesus tells about the evil farmers does not directly apply to most of us. Most of us are not in a position to persecute those who call us out for our sins. Yet there is something there for us to think about. How do we react to those who do call us out for sin? Do we listen to what they have to say, examine our lives, and change our behaviors if their accusation has merit? Or, do we seek reason to find fault with our accusers?

    Mark illustrates three reactions to Jesus. These are the reactions which all religious leaders who step out of the status quo inspire. The first reaction is on social/political issues. The Pharisees asked Jesus taxes in a way designed to trap Him between an answer which would anger those inclined to follow Him and an answer which would bring down the power of the government on Him. Jesus recognized that the question was not being asked honestly, but merely as a way to use His answer, whatever it was, against Him. Remember that this question and answer occurred in the context of the religious leaders challenging Jesus on what authority He had to drive the money changers out of the Temple. Jesus asks them to show Him one of the coins used to pay the tax. When they do, He draws attention to the fact that it has Caesar’s image stamped on it. This was the basis for why the money changers were even here. Because the common coins had Caesar’s image on them it was considered idolatrous to use them to use as offerings in the Temple. Jesus points out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees for on one hand saying that these coins were idolatrous, yet carrying them around in the Temple. But there is more to His answer. The problem with these coins was that they had Caesar’s image on them. Jesus had asked them whose image was on the coin, He then told them to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s and to God what was God’s. Those who were truly paying attention would have realized that He was referring to the fact that the Bible teaches that we bear the image of God. Give your money to the government which created it to do with as it pleases, but give yourself to God, who created you, to do with as He pleases.

    The second response was an attempt to show that Jesus’ positions were logically inconsistent based on not understanding what He taught. The Sadducees believed that the idea of the resurrection of the dead was logically inconsistent and came of with a hypothetical which they thought illustrated this. Jesus showed that they had created a straw man argument. They assumed that since He taught that divorce was wrong that He also taught that marriage continued after the resurrection. Not satisfied with showing that they had misrepresented His teachings, Jesus pointed out the logical inconsistency of their position. When God revealed Himself to Moses, He presented Himself in the present tense as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

    The final reaction is the one which we should seek to emulate. One of those listening apparently did not have a preformed opinion on Jesus. Having heard Jesus give good answers to questions which he thought were on peripheral matters, he asked Jesus the question we should all ask of those who proclaim themselves religious teachers; what really matters? When Jesus answered that what really matters is that there is only one God, whom we must worship with all that we are and that we must love our neighbors as ourselves he knew that Jesus was a true teacher of God’s word. Everything else follows from that. If someone truly believes these two (or three, depending how you consider them) basic premises are the starting point we can debate all other beliefs and doctrines on the basis of how they fulfill them.

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.

    Jesus’ teaching about divorce and remarriage contains a lot on proper sexual behavior. The first and most important thing is what it teaches us about marriage. Marriage is for the rest of your life. In Jesus’ day there were two schools of teaching on divorce. One taught that a man could divorce his wife for any reason he chose, even just because he did not want to be married to her anymore. The other school taught that a man could only divorce his wife for serious reasons, such as infidelity. The “trap” in the question was that most people followed the first school. Jesus not only sided with the less popular school on this subject, He stated that if a man divorced his wife and got remarried he was committing adultery (and the same for the woman). I want to note that what Paul says on the subject is consistent with what Jesus says here: if your spouse leaves you, you are no longer bound. But Jesus does more than give His position on the issue of divorce, He gives us the basis for His teaching on the subject.
    Jesus’ teaching on divorce is based on something which is relevant to modern society’s take on human sexuality. Jesus tells us that because God created mankind as male and female a man leaves his parents and is joined to his wife. Jesus teaches us that marriage happens when God unites a man and a woman together, so that they are no longer two individuals. So, as far as the followers of Christ are concerned, marriage is between a man and a woman and divorce is not an option. What those outside of the Church chose to do is entirely up to them. One of the failures of the modern Church has been its failure to remain faithful to Jesus’ teaching on divorce. Once the Church started to make exception for the hardness of human hearts, it lost its ability to stand firm on other teachings. Jesus’ teaching here also gives us an understanding about “gender identity”. Perhaps the biggest mistake which Christians who remain faithful to Christ’s teaching on this subject make is to conflate “gender identity” with “gender role”. For that matter, society in general makes this mistake. I generally avoid talking about this subject because there are people in our society genuinely struggling with their identity. The loving thing is to work with them to show them God’s love and how He designed them to be the way that they are. This does not mean that every person who is biologically male was intended to fill the role which our society assigns to men, nor every biological female the role society assigns to women. However, God has a role He intended for each of us to fulfill and He assigned us a biological gender for the purpose of filling it. Generally, those struggling with gender identity need help dealing with abuse they experienced. Sometimes that abuse resulted from their unwillingness to accept the role which society assigned to them because of their biological gender. In all cases, we need to approach their situation with God’s love and make sure that we operate with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Whatever issues the person is struggling with, they will not be helped by us pretending that they are not the biological gender which God made them.

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 begins with the account of the second time that Jesus fed a large crowd. Despite the fact that they had witnessed Jesus feed 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves of bread and 2 fish, the disciples asked Jesus where they would get enough food to feed this crowd. We know they had not forgotten the first time because Jesus used it, and this time, as an example a short time later. After the crowd had eaten, the disciples gathered seven large baskets of leftovers. At the previous event they had gathered twelve large baskets of leftovers. These leftovers were not just crumbs. They were the sort of thing which you might gather from the tables after a party and think, “Oh good, I won’t need to make lunch tomorrow.” The fact that they gathered twelve baskets the first time and seven baskets the second time is significant. There were twelve sons of Jacob who formed the foundation of the nation of Israel and twelve signified divine authority. Creation took seven days, with the seventh being the day of rest and thus seven represented divine perfection. It always seems to me like these numbers have a meaning which I do not understand, but I think they were just a confirmation to the disciples of who Jesus is.

    Of the three Gospel accounts of Jesus healing the boy after coming down off of the Mount of Transfiguration, Mark’s is my favorite. In this account the father says something which I strongly empathize with, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.” I believe in the power of God, but I struggle with questioning whether God will act. I believe that Jesus declared we would perform miraculous works similar to those which He performed, but I fear to ask God to do such works through me. My fear is that I will look like a fool if I ask for such things and they do not happen. So, I pray that father’s prayer every day. I fear that if I call on God’s power, He will not answer. That is, I lack faith. But there is more to it than that. I also fear that if I call on God’s power He will answer and I will become arrogant.

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.

    Today we have Mark’s account of when the Pharisees confronted Jesus and His disciples over hand washing before eating. Jesus replies that they put more stock in following their traditions than in following God’s Laws. They are more concerned about physical cleanliness than about spiritual purity. What we eat does not spiritually defile us. We are defiled by our actions, words, and thoughts. We are not defiled by what happens to us. There are two further aspects to this. We make rules to clarify what it means to do wrong. Then we put more emphasis on not breaking these rules than in not doing the wrong these rules were designed to keep us from doing. If you are looking for loopholes that allow you to do what you want to do, you have already been defiled.

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.

    Today I am going to start by touching on several of the parables in a more rapid fire way than I usually would. There is significantly more depth to these than I plan on exploring today. The first parable is the parable of the lamp. There is no value to having faith in Christ if you attempt to hide that faith. Instead, you should act so that the greatest benefit can be had from your faith. Jesus followed that one with the parable of the growing seed. We do not know how God’s word will change people. Our job is to plant the seed and let God’s Spirit work from there. Finally, He gave the parable of the mustard seed. A small, seemingly insignificant action can have results all out of proportion to the effort we put into it, never pass by the small things we can do for others.

    We often separate the tow healing stories here as teaching different lessons. There is nothing wrong with doing so, but we also need to pay attention to the lesson that they both tell. They are both stories about not losing hope. Jairus came to Jesus because his daughter was sick and dying. He believed that Jesus could heal her, so he begged Jesus to come and do so. On the way, the woman who had suffered for years touched Jesus’ robe and was healed. Then Jairus got word that his daughter had died, there was no more hope that Jesus could heal her. First, let’s look at the woman. She had suffered for twelve years and tried everything anyone could think of, to no avail. Yet, despite all of this she still had faith, and hope. After twelve years you would think she would have given up. She did not. On the other hand, there is Jairus. He had come to Jesus hoping and believing that Jesus could heal his daughter, but now she was dead. What hope was there? Nevertheless, he trusted Jesus when He told him to have faith. Even in the face of the ridicule of his friends and neighbors, Jairus continued to have faith and to put his hope in Jesus. Let us not lose hope, even when we can see no way for things to get better. We need to continue to have faith in God, no matter how hopeless things may seem.

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.

    The first thing I was struck by as I read today was something I have thought about before. Mark tells the story of Jesus with less rhetorical flourishes than Matthew (or Luke, or John). He gives a very spare account of the events, using no extra words. Which means that every verse is dense with meaning. I could write quite a bit on this passage. I am going to start with Mark’s account of Jesus calling the first disciples.
    When Jesus saw Simon Peter and Andrew fishing He called them to follow Him by telling them that He would teach them to fish for people. Most of the time when someone preaches about this I think of fishing for people the way I have fished, with a fishing rod catching one fish at a time. However, Andrew and Peter did not fish that way. They did not catch fish one at a time. They caught them in large quantities. So, when Jesus told His disciples that He would teach them how to fish for people, He was not talking about teasing them out one by one from where they were hiding. As Christians today we spend too much of our time trying to reach people one by one. Jesus taught how to bring them in by the multitudes. There is an account later where Jesus has the disciples catch so many fish the boats were overwhelmed. We should be seeking to bring so many people to Christ that our facilities are overwhelmed.