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.

    We will not know in this lifetime why Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. However, the more I read Mark’s account here the more I think that Jesus’ response to the woman who anointed Him with perfume, and to the disciple who questioned her doing so, played a major role in his decision to do so. The Gospel of John tells us that Judas was the disciple who questioned the woman anointing Jesus with the perfume. Here in Mark, immediately after Jesus rebukes the disciple for belittling the woman’s act, Judas goes out and cuts a deal with the chief priests to betray Jesus. When I wrote the previous I realized the true importance of the story about the woman anointing Jesus. When we look at this we tend to interpret Jesus’ words as an affirmation of the woman’s action, which they were, but that is not the important lesson here. More important than Jesus’ affirmation of the woman’s action was His rebuke of the disciples’ reaction to her act. The woman anointed Jesus in an extravagant act of worship. The disciples scolded her for expressing her joy at being in Jesus’ presence. The lesson here is that we should never do anything which might diminish the joy of being in God’s presence.

    The other story in this passage which I want to write about today is Peter’s denial and Jesus’ prediction of that denial. When Jesus tells the disciples that they will all desert Him in the face of His persecution, Peter quickly asserts that he will not. He insists that he will stand with Jesus even if it means his own death. There is an element of hubris in what Peter is saying. To a degree, he is saying “I know these others will desert you, but I am different from them. I am better than they and will stand with you.” It is that hubris which leads to his denials. The other aspect is that Peter does not yet understand what is going to happen despite what Jesus has been telling them for weeks, if not months. I think that Peter believed, at least in part, that the betrayal and arrest would be the signal for Jesus to throw of his “disguise” and reveal Himself as the conquering Messiah. And Peter would be there, the loyal follower ready to support the now victorious King. To me that explains why Peter followed Jesus to the high priest’s house. He expected that it would be there that Jesus would reveal Himself and His power. Peter was there to stand up when Jesus declared Himself to say, “Here I am Lord. Let’s take the battle to them.” It was devastating for Peter when he realized that he was not who he thought he was. He was no better than anybody else and neither am I.

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 starts with some good messages, but I want to start by focusing on the widow’s offering. Mark tells us that Jesus and His disciples could see who gave a lot and who gave a little. There is nothing in this passage which suggests that those who gave a lot were being ostentatious about their giving. I want to point out that this was in the days before paper money or checks, so all the donations were with coins. I say all of that to make sure we focus on Jesus’ message here. Unlike many of the other passages in the Bible, this small short passage has but one lesson for us. It does not matter how much we give. Jesus did not belittle those who gave large amounts out of their excess. There is value in voluntarily giving to charity the used goods which you have replaced, or money which you have in excess of what it takes to satisfy your needs. However, it is those who sacrifice their needs further the Kingdom of God who truly make a difference.

    Later that day as Jesus and the disciples left the Temple area, one of the disciples took note of the impressive buildings and walls of the Temple. The contrast between those things and the widow’s donation never struck me before today. The beautiful and impressive buildings and walls of the Temple were the product of large donations. Yet, for all of their beauty and strength, the walls and buildings of the Temple they would one day be completely demolished. The results of the small things we can do may not be as impressive, or as noticeable, but they change lives in ways that last for eternity. I have just spent time with a message which is not fully supported by this passage, but I believe that Mark’s juxtaposition of the widow’s offering with the disciple commenting on the impressive architecture of the Temple was intended.
    Now, I want to get into the heart of the meaning of Jesus’ response to the disciple’s comment about the Temple architecture. The first ting of importance He tells them is that between now and the end there will be times of trouble: natural disasters, wars, persecution, etc. However, all of these things will represent opportunities for us to do God’s will and to spread the Good News. We do not need to spend time worrying about what we will do when these things happen, God’s Spirit will guide us. Note: this does not mean that we should not plan for these things, just that we do not need to worry and stress over them. In these times of troubles people will rise up and proclaim themselves, or be proclaimed by others, as our savior, the one who can save us from these troubled times. Jesus warns us not to be fooled. Or, as I read elsewhere, we are not to seek to save the world (or follow those who today claim they will do so), Someone has already taken care of that. Further, Jesus tells us to pay attention to these signs of His return so that we can be ready when He does return. However, we should not get to caught up in trying to read the signs to determine exactly when He will return, because no one will be able to do that. Only God knows when He has planned to bring about the end.

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.

    Today’s passage starts out with Jesus’ teachings about marriage and divorce. I often skip over this because His teaching on the issue is so short and to the point. Yet, even among Christians it seems to be something to which not enough attention is paid. As I was reading it today, I realized that our society makes much the same mistake which those who asked Jesus did. They put the priority on divorce. That is their question was, “Is it OK to get divorced?” When the real focus needs to be on what marriage is. Jesus tells us that God made us male and female. The result of being created in this way means that a man leaves his father and mother, is joined with his wife, and the two become one. That joining is something accomplished by God. It is wrong for anyone to attempt to divide that which God has joined. Even when we do look at this passage we tend to focus just on Jesus’ teaching about divorce, but really there is a lot more there. The New International Version translates Jesus as saying that God created people as male and female at the beginning of creation. He did not create us male, female, and other. Jesus’ teaching on divorce follows implicitly from that. Of course it works the other way as well. As we become more casual in how we deal with divorce, we lose our understanding of the importance of a man leaving his parents and becoming one with his wife (and a woman leaving her parents and becoming one with her husband). From there we become discontent with the way in which God made us. Which is another angle to look at this issue. If we approach marriage from the perspective that God made us the way we are, and made the other person the way they are, we have a different perspective on marriage. Marriage becomes about fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives and our spouse is someone God created as our equal.

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 feeding of the four thousand. This is the second account of Jesus feeding a large number of people. What always strikes me about this passage is the disciples’ response when Jesus asks them to feed the people. They had witnessed Him feed the five thousand, yet they react as if it is impossible to feed this crowd, one which was slightly smaller than the previous one. I look at this and wonder how they could not believe that Jesus could feed this group when He had fed the previous one. Of course, how often do we do the very same thing? We witness God perform a miracle, then a short time later we doubt that He will, or perhaps even that He can, perform another one. Immediately after this Jesus and His disciples got into a boat and crossed over the Sea of Galilee. When He got there some Pharisees met Him and started to argue with Him. They soon demanded that He perform a miraculous sign to prove that He had the authority to make the argument He had made. Once again, this comes after Jesus had recently miraculously fed two large groups of people, healed numerous people, and driven demons out of numerous others. Are we looking for a sign, or are we instead listening to what Jesus has to say?

    I have long loved the story of the boy whom the disciples could not heal while Jesus was on the mountain. What I love about it is the father’s response to Jesus. First the father asks Jesus to help the boy, “if you can.” Then when Jesus tells him that anything is possible if a person believes, he responds, “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.” I never before noticed how this fits into the theme from the beginning of the passage. The disciples had witnessed Jesus’ many miracles, but did not see how they could feed the crowd. The Pharisees demanded a miraculous sign to validate Jesus’ teachings. The father wanted with all of his heart to believe that Jesus could heal his son. Do we share that father’s desperation to believe that God can perform the miracles?

    There is one more story about faith in this passage. When John told Jesus about the man they told to stop using Jesus’ name to cast out demons we do not usually see this as a story about faith. Nevertheless it is. The man who was using Jesus’ name would not have done so if he did not have faith that Jesus had power over demons. Jesus recognized the man’s faith and honored it. The man in this story may not have known much about Jesus, but he knew that He had power over evil. Once someone starts down the path to faith in Christ, they will find it difficult to turn away. Writing about this reminds me of something which Jesus said elsewhere. Jesus said that He came to divide. As followers of Christ we are not called to make common cause with those who reject His message. The time will come when everyone must choose a side. Jesus knew that this man who believed in the good that could be done in Jesus’ name would not soon be convinced that Jesus or His followers were evil.

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.

    Mark tells us that when Jesus preached in His home town of Nazareth, the people were initially impressed. However, they almost immediately followed that up by dismissing His teaching because He did not have impressive credentials. Despite the sense of what He said and the miracles He performed to support His teachings, they could not get passed His lack of credentials. He had not been taught by this big name teacher, He had not gone to that elite school. Jesus had just studied Scripture and told people what it clearly meant. How often do we put more credence on someone’s credentials than on the meaning of what they say?

    Righteousness does not come about by performing the correct rituals and ceremonies. It is not the result of eating this and not eating that. Righteouesness, or the lack thereof, is a result of the thoughts we harbor and the actions which are prompted by those thoughts. What we say to and about others, and how we treat them matters more to God than any ceremony or ritual.

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.

    I have been struggling to put together what I want to write today. I knew right from my first read through what I wanted to focus on, but am having trouble getting it to fit together. Jesus tells us that we need to pay close attention to what we hear of His teaching, of God’s will for us. The more we pay attention to what we understand, the more we will understand. The reverse is also true, the less we do of what we understand we ought to do, the less we understand of what God wants us to do. I have seen the former in my own life and the latter in other people. I want to be clear that my failure to see the latter in my own life may indeed be a product of that very thing. If I lost understanding of God’s will for my life because I failed to do things I understood Him to want, it is unlikely I would recognize it to be happening.

    Jesus tells two parables here about small things having large results, even without us understanding how it happens. We have a natural tendency to want to do big things which will make a big difference. There is nothing wrong with that, but the fact of the matter is that Jesus tells us that that is not how God’s Kingdom works. It is the small things which God uses to change the world, kind words to a stranger, the widow’s two pennies, etc. Small things grow into large things. Sometimes, the small thing we do inspires others to do things for others in a geometric, or even logarithmic, progression. Sometimes, the small things we do inspires others to do larger things. And sometimes, the small things we do open up the opportunity for us to do larger things. Do not try to figure out how the small things will bring about big results, just do them. You may never see all that results from the little things which you do, but do them anyway.

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.

    We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that John the Baptist was similar to members of the group known as Essenes (a Jewish sect of the time). However, what we know of the Essenes suggests that they were more isolationist than John. They tended to withdraw from the rest of society and form isolated communities. While John separated himself from society, he engaged with society in order to call for people to repent. The Gospel writers tell us that John proclaimed that the Messiah would come shortly and declare John as the one the prophets had foretold as immediately preceding the Messiah. Further they told us that John pointed out Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus actively rooted His ministry in the teachings of John. This is an important understanding. John the Baptist was a preacher of repentance distinctly based in Judaism. Jesus intentionally started His ministry as an extension and expansion of John’s. This is important because, by starting his account of Jesus’ ministry with John the Baptist, Mark is declaring that Jesus taught a form of Judaism.

    Having said what I said what I said about Mark clearly and intentionally rooting Jesus and His teaching in Judaism, Mark also clearly stated that Jesus was doing something new. THis is made clear by Jesus’ response to questions about His disciples fasting. Jesus compares His teachings to new cloth and to new wine and the practices and traditions practiced by John’s disciples and the Pharisees to old clothing and old wine-skins. We can easily make too much of this distinction, since, before making that comparison, Jesus declared that His disciples would fast in the future. We get a better idea of what Jesus meant by referring to His teaching as new wine and the practices of the Jews of His day as old wine-skins from the two stories which followed. In those stories Jesus addressed the application of Sabbath Laws to the human situation. It is never wrong to do good. A modern example comes to us from the Las Vegas shooting incident. A man found a truck with the keys in it and used it to transport wounded victims to the hospital. Technically, he stole the truck, but when things were over the owner just wanted his keys back (and asked how the people taken to the hospital were). We should act as the man who helped others and react as the man whose truck was “stolen”.