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

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So, I want to focus on what Jesus said to Peter shortly before He was betrayed by Judas.  As I read the passage, the phrase, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  We often think about this phrase, and it has much for us to think about, but I don’t often hear much thought to the sentence just before it: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”  The context for that whole verse (Chapter 14 verse 38) is that Jesus had asked Peter, James, and John to wait and watch while He went a little farther and prayed.  The three of them had fallen asleep while Jesus prayed, they had been unable to stay awake as Jesus wrestled with His fears (I’m not sure that is the correct way to phrase that).  This happened just shortly after Peter had claimed that he would not deny Jesus even if he needed to die with Him, and not long before he did indeed deny Jesus.  Peter needed to pray because he was about to be tempted.  In the same way, we need to pray in order to prepare ourselves for temptation.  I struggle with praying as much as I should.  In fact, as I am writing this, I realize something.  I have been struggling lately with completing tasks that I have committed myself to do for my congregation.  It strikes me that in some ways this is an example of my spirit being willing, but my flesh being weak.  The answer to overcoming my procrastination and laziness is for me to pray more.  I have long struggled with praying as much as I believe I should.  Hopefully, this will inspire me to more prayer.

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

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

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

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There are a lot of things I like to think about and comment on in today’s passage, but I want to start with something I never quite put together before.  It always surprises, and delights, me when that happens.  That something is the connection between the two “tests” and the genuine question in today’s passage.  First the Pharisees try to trap Jesus with a no win question about taxes, where Jesus finds a “win”.  Then the Sadducees take their crack at trapping Jesus with what they viewed as a logical paradox, who would be married to a woman who had married multiple brothers in levitical marriage (where a brother marries his brother’s widow in order to give his brother an heir) without any children in the resurrection.  Finally a random scholar asks Jesus which commandment is the most important merely to understand Jesus’ thinking.  The first two questions were intended to reduce Jesus’ influence, if not outright destroy it.  However, Jesus’ answers to them led to the third question, which was from a genuine seeker, someone who genuinely sought the truth.  Not only did the first two groups of questioners fail to stump Jesus with their questions, fail to make Him look bad in front of the crowd, but their questions caused another to be drawn to Him.

In a way this is a demonstration of what Jesus tells His disciples later in this passage when He tells them not to be anxious about what they are to say to those who accuse them for following Him.  Jesus demonstrates that God can give us answers to those who accuse us which will neutralize their accusations while drawing those who are truly seeking the truth to God.  The scribe who asked the third question was seeking truth, not trying to set a trap, when he asked Jesus his question, but he only asked it because he heard what Jesus said to the questions designed to make Him look bad.  In the same way, if we allow the Holy Spirit to use our mouths when those who oppose God attempt to make us look like fools, He will draw people to Him.

I use 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 have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

When Jesus is asked about divorce in this passage His answer addresses many more things than just divorce.  Most people see that He also addresses the nature of marriage.  He tells us that marriage is between a man and a woman and that the two of them become one flesh.  This rules out both same sex marriage and polygamy.  I think the same sex marriage part is obvious, but perhaps some people do not see why a person could not marry more than one person of the opposite sex.  I think that is rather straightforward.  The passage says that a man and a woman become one flesh.  That is a individual man and an individual woman become one flesh.  How then can  either of them become one flesh with another?

Jesus also addresses how we see the Law given by Moses. When the Pharisees told Jesus that Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away the passage they quote was not actually a command about divorce, but rather a command about remarriage after divorce.  The passage starts by saying, “if a man writes her a certificate of divorce.”(I am paraphrasing here)  So, Moses did not tell them, “You can divorce your wife by giving her a certificate of divorce.”  Rather, Moses said, “Some of you are going to divorce your wives, when you do…”  Jesus pointed this out to the Pharisees, and to us.  We need to be careful not to read a command from God into places where God tells us what to do when we have gone against His desire.  Moses gave this command here because people were going to get divorced.  Rather than tell them that when they did so they were irreconcilably alienated from God, he gave them instructions to limit the damage they had done, both to themselves and their wife (the same principle applies in other situations and to women who divorce their husbands).

Now a little bit about the account of the rich young man.  The passage makes clear that we cannot enter into the kingdom of God on the strength of our own actions.  After Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, His disciples wondered how, if that is the case, anyone could do so?  Jesus answered them that it is not possible for man, but not with God.  God makes it possible for those who accept His gift.  When Peter asked, “What about us?”  Jesus told them that everyone who has left something in order to follow Jesus will receive it back a hundredfold.  Anything you have left behind, God will give you back a hundredfold.  I don’t think Jesus meant that as literally one hundred times the houses, brothers, parents, or other things He mentions.  Rather I think He means that you will value what God gives you a hundred (or more) times what you left.  As we leave things behind to follow Jesus, our values change and we discover that what God gives us is worth much more than anything we gave up.

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

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

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After Peter declared that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, Jesus began teaching them that He would suffer, be killed, then, after three days, rise again.  When Peter heard him say this, he took Jesus aside and rebuked Him for being negative.  I am convinced that Peter thought that Jesus was feeling like He was going to fail when He started saying those things.  Peter was convinced that the Christ would win a mighty battle over His enemies and never suffer.  In this situation, Jesus called Peter “Satan”, which means “Adversary”, because what Peter was saying was similar to the temptations which He experienced in the wilderness right after His baptism by John.  Peter was telling Jesus that He did not need to suffer, that Jesus instead should use His power to force people to honor Him.  Once again I find myself knowing in my head what I want to say, but failing to put it into words.  I want to note that just before rebuking Peter for this, Jesus turned and saw that His disciples were watching, and, I believe, offering their support to Peter as their spokesperson.  So, Jesus’ rebuke was meant for all of them.  Jesus was telling them that their understanding of what the Christ would be was incomplete and mistaken.  In the same way, we need to recognize that God does not always work the way we expect.  It was immediately after this that Jesus taught that whoever wanted to follow Him must deny their own wants, take up their cross and follow Him.  The crowd would have understood taking up their cross to mean heading towards suffering and death.  Are we willing to take up our cross and follow Jesus?

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

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

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It struck me today that, in Mark’s account of the feeding of the five thousand, when Jesus asked His disciples how many loaves they had, they responded by telling Him that they had five loaves and two fish. Why did that strike me?  Because Jesus did not ask them how much food they had.  He asked them specifically how many loaves they had.  However, His disciples understood that He meant how much food did they have, and they answered that question.  They didn’t take Jesus’ question strictly literally.  They didn’t limit their answer just to the loaves of bread they had, even though that was what He asked them about.  They paid attention to the context, which was, “how do we feed all of these people?”  When Jesus asked them, they actually took some time to consult among themselves to determine how much food they had.  In the same way, when we are called to a task and do not think that we have the resources to accomplish it, we should consult among ourselves to determine ALL of the resources we have that we can possibly use for the task.  Then, we should give those resources into God’s hands and begin the work to which He has called us.  In particular, I am thinking of those who think that we should delegate God’s call to us to care for the sick and the poor to the government because “the Church doesn’t have enough resources to address the problem.”  Perhaps it is time we stopped thinking that government programs will answer the need and start working on doing it ourselves. I want to note that I know there are Christian organizations who are following this principle, but I also know there are many Christians who think that the answer to suffering is more government action.  What I am saying is that when we see a problem which we feel God is calling us to address that we should strive to address it directly, not by delegating the answer to the government, or even to some large impersonal group.

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

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

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I recently realized that the account of Jesus calming the storm shows us multiple things.  First, it is told as a deliberate parallel to the story of Jonah.  In the Book of Jonah, Jonah was asleep in the ship while the storm raged all about it and only woke up when the captain of the ship deliberately woke him.  Here, Jesus was asleep and only woke up when His disciples deliberately woke Him.  The reason Mark includes this parallel is because Jesus later refers to this generation being given the “sign of Jonah”, referring to Jonah being in the belly of the fish for three days.  The next thing for us to see is a contrast to the story of Jonah, and I think that contrast is important.  In the account of Jonah, the sea was only calmed after Jonah was thrown overboard…and it was calmed by God.  Here Jesus calms the storm, going from the role of Jonah (sleeping through the storm until awoken by someone) to the role of God (calming the storm).  Even without being a parallel to the Book of Jonah, Jesus calming the storm was a sign that He was God.  I believe that Jesus’ disciples first realized that Jesus was not just a human anointed by God, but actually God, during this event.  The Old Testament repeatedly tells us that only God can control storms and calm the sea.  So, when Jesus did so, the disciples began to realize that He was God.  The question they asked themselves indicate that they did not truly believe that He was God yet, but it shows that the idea began to enter their minds.

I use 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 have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

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As I began to think about what to write, my first thought was about the fact that the man with an unclean spirit was in the synagogue when Jesus was teaching there on a Sabbath.  I thought about the superstition that exceptionally evil people and beings cannot enter a Church building.  That idea does not hold up in face of the fact that people with unclean spirits were able to enter a synagogue.  It’s not a particularly important thought, but I found it amusing.  Next I am going to point out that in chapter three verses thirteen and fourteen, we see it explicitly pointed out that Jesus called more to follow Him than just the Twelve Apostles.  I point this out because too often when we refer to Jesus’ disciples we think of only the Twelve.  I even hear Christian apologists make this mistake.  They talk about the early Church as if only the Twelve heard everything Jesus preached.  The Twelve were those whom Jesus called in order to send them out to preach.  I just realized the importance of what that tells us.  Jesus called many to be His disciples, but it was the Twelve whom He selected to send out to preach.  In the same way, in the Church today, many of have been called, but only some have been selected by Christ to be sent out to preach.  So, we should not think that just because we have been called to be Jesus’ disciple that we are sent to preach.  Perhaps we only have a support role.  Of course, we see in Acts that Matthias, who was originally was called to a support role, was later sent out to preach, and Stephen who was called to a support role (the seven Deacons were explicitly called to a support role) also preached.  Do not feel like you are failing Christ because you have a support role.  However, just because your primary role is support do not think that the Spirit will not inspire you to preach when He decides that is what He wants from you.

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

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

Mark seems to suggest here that Judas chose to betray Jesus in response to how Jesus responded to the woman anointing Him with perfume.  Perhaps it appears that way to me because I want to know why Judas betrayed Him.  Maybe more importantly, I noticed that Mark makes the point that Judas Iscariot is one of the Twelve.  I take this as a warning that we should be careful about what we hear from even the most highly placed people.  This brings me to the way Mark recounts how Jesus sent out two disciples to find the room where He would celebrate the Passover Feast with His disciples.  Mark’s account says that “two disciples” went and prepared the Passover Feast and that Jesus and the Twelve arrived in the evening after the feast was prepared.  An independent reading of Mark’s account would lead one to believe that these two disciples were not part of the Twelve (despite Luke explicitly telling us that they were Peter and John).  This is not because Mark is contradicting Luke.  Rather, Mark wants us to be aware that Jesus had many disciples aside from the Twelve, but the Twelve were His closest disciples.  And that Judas was one of these twelve closest to Him.  Judas was not just one of Jesus’ disciples.  He was one of those whom Jesus had sent out with the power to cast out demons.  As close to Jesus as Judas had been, as much as Judas had seen Jesus’ power, he still chose his own course and betrayed Jesus.  Judas thought he knew better than Jesus what Jesus should do.  The more I think about it, the more I believe that Mark intended to imply that Judas betrayed Jesus at least in part because of the way Jesus responded to the woman anointing His head with perfume.  Judas betrayed Jesus because he did not approve of the way Jesus was carrying out His ministry.  I don’t know if Judas was trying to force Jesus’ hand, to force Him to do what Judas thought was the right thing.  Or, if Judas betrayed Jesus because he believed that Jesus was betraying His calling.  In either case, I am convinced that Judas betrayed Jesus because he thought he knew better what God was calling Jesus to do.  We need to be careful we do not make the same mistake.

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 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