January 5, 2009

Read the Bible through this year: Genesis 7:1-9:29; Matthew 4:1-22

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

I read through the archived post on this and decided to rework it for this study.  If you wish to get a preview of upcoming lessons go to the website and look under the archive for Mark.

Mark 2:1-13

In the second chapter of Mark, there are three instances where the Pharisees and scribes are trying to circumvent Jesus' ministry.  It is interesting in that when we are tempted, the devil will try different angles to get us to slip up.  If he can't get us one way, he will try another.  The "immediately" theme is still strong, Mark continues to press the need.  I am not going to focus on that this time though.  Again, I am going to briefly summarize what I see, if you see something that stands out to you, please feel free to comment.

Mark 2:1-13 (NASB95)
¹ When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home. ² And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them. ³ And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. ⁴ Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. ⁵ And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” ⁶ But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, ⁷ “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?” ⁸ Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, “Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? ⁹ “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’? ¹⁰ “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, ¹¹ “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” ¹² And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.” ¹³ And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them.^[1]

Healing of the paralytic.  I find this story particularly interesting.  The reference in verse 1 indicates that Jesus was most likely at the home of Peter in Capernaum.  While Jesus was speaking they removed the roof right over his head in order to lower the paralytic down to be healed.  The parallel passage for this in the other gospels is Matt 9:2-8, and Luke 5:18-26.  Can you imagine the mess and the silt drifting down as someone removed a roof from over your head while you were trying to hold a meeting? No matter how the roof was constructed, dust and dirt had to be trapped in it.  The people who came to hear Jesus speak were not moving at all, no matter if they took the house down while they were standing there.

The first attack of the scribes was because of wrong thinking.  They were thinking and reasoning away Jesus forgiving the man’s sins because by doing so, Jesus equated Himself with God.  In essence, Jesus was claiming not only to have great authority, but by forgiving sins, he was claiming to be God.  Because only God can forgive sins. 

Isaiah 43:25 (NASB95)
²⁵ “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.

Isaiah 44:22 (NASB95)
²² “I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud And your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.”

Psalm 103:1-5 (NASB95)
¹ A Psalm of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name. ² Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits; ³ Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases; ⁴ Who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; ⁵ Who satisfies your years with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

What happened was simple, they were trying to fit Jesus into their theology.  Jesus did not line up with the traditional standards for prophets. Also He constantly broke the rules that the scribes were commissioned to enforce.  In the other gospels, the word scribe is also translated lawyer.  Jesus did not fit in their God-box.  Satan's first attack is listed here, the scribes were more into religion than they were into faith.  Satan used religion to convince them that Jesus was not genuine.  If we were in their shoes would we be saying the same things?  Put yourself in their shoes. You are in a house listening to a preacher preach, and then he claimed to be able to forgive sins.  It probably would raise a question mark in any knowledgeable persons mind.  I don't believe up to this point the scribes had made an error.  It was a logical response to the situation, that is the reason that the Lord gave the sign of the healing.  Their error was in the fact that the Messiah was prophesied and that they should be watching for him according to the guidelines established in the scriptures. It was so that they would know that He was the Messiah, as foretold by the prophets. 

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NASB95)
¹⁴ and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Psalm 147:3-6 (NASB95)
³ He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds. ⁴ He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them. ⁵ Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite. ⁶ The Lord supports the afflicted; He brings down the wicked to the ground.

Isaiah 38:16-17 (NASB95)
¹⁶ “O Lord, by these things men live, And in all these is the life of my spirit; O restore me to health and let me live! ¹⁷ “Lo, for my own welfare I had great bitterness; It is You who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

Hosea 14:4 (NASB95)
⁴ I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away from them.

It was clear that the Lord forgives sins, and the Lord would cause the healing.  If Jesus was sinning, surely God would not honor it.  The scribes had the wrong attitude of the heart, they simply did not recognize the signs that were clear before them, therefore Jesus reacted.  I believe that Jesus being a just God, gave them the opportunity to verify this truth, Jesus is the Messiah based on the scripture that the scribes had already diligently studied in preparing for their position.  To the Scribe's credit, there is not a reference that indicates that the Messiah would be able to forgive sins. Jesus then was not only challenging their theology, He was bending their thinking to consider that God had become a man. Only God can forgive sins, Jesus forgave sins, Jesus is God.  Connecting the dots is easy for us, it was extremely difficult for them.  One indicator that should have helped them clarify this is that the people were glorifying God, not glorifying the action or glorifying Jesus.  The people did not connect the dots either, but they did recognize that only God could forgive sins.  This hinges on the simple truth that Jesus impressed on them in verses 9-10.  The litmus test was that Jesus challenged traditional thinking about God by taking a stand that if he was God, then the man would pick up his pallet and go home.  The man did just that. 

Enough for today. All comments are welcomed.

Father, open our eyes so that we can see that Jesus is still the Messiah and is the God of our salvation.

In Him,

Joe Turner.

January 9, 2009

Read the Bible through this year: Genesis 10:1-19:29; Matthew 4:23-6:34 (to date)

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Mark 2:14-17 (NASB95)
¹⁴ As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him. ¹⁵ And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following Him. ¹⁶ When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

^[1]Calling of Matthew.  Parallel passages: Matthew 9:9-13; Luke 5:27-32.  Here Jesus called Matthew, and he dropped everything and followed Jesus.  Not only did Matthew drop everything, he had a big reception at his house and invited all of his friends to meet Jesus.  What is interesting about this is not that Matthew  invited his friends, it was the response from the scribes.  Again, Jesus did not fit into their box, He went beyond the expectations of the scribes.  They expected someone who was a prophet to refuse to associate with sinners.  When Jesus not only called Matthew, a tax collector, but also was having dinner with Matthew's friends, it was too much for them to bear.  It is interesting that the statement in v. 16 could also be translated "...tax collectors and irreligious jews".  This time they are not reasoning in their minds, they are reasoning together trying to figure out Jesus.  They also try to undermine His ministry by going directly to His followers instead of going directly to Jesus. 

Notice also his response, He stated the obvious, He came to save the sinners, not the righteous.  It was a play on words.  All men are sinners, the scribes knew this, that was why a sin offering had to be made.  But here Jesus turns the tables on them, calling them righteous, in that they were standing as judges, therefore they were righteous.  The seed of doubt was sown in the first story regarding the paralytic, now the seed grows and the scribes are discussing the possibilities together.  They miss the obvious due to the doubt that has crept into their minds.  They miss the fact that after the paralytic is healed, the people praise God, and they also miss the fact that the irreligious Jews are repenting due to their association with Jesus.  Sometimes knowledge can be a hinderance when it sets up a bias in our mind.

I wonder when considering this passage if the same thing is happening today.  Several people that I have spoken with would simply refuse to deal with drug addicts, homosexuals, sex addicts, and sinners of the hideous sorts we have today.  What would Jesus say to us if He walked into our churches today?  We have removed ourselves so much from the world that we may usher out a drunk that staggers in to church on a Sunday morning.  Imagine what it would be like to have a group of tweakers (drug addicts) drop in to a service on Sunday morning. Better than that, how well received would a bunch of gang bangers be if they walked into your home Bible study?  Think about it.  We are not very much different than the Pharisees of old.  Try to picture the same scenario that took place when Jesus visited Matthew in his home. 

Enough for today, all comments are welcomed.

Father, show each of us our own hearts and the religiousness that has crept into our lives.  Teach us how You will relate to others through us.

In Him,

Joe Turner.

January 12, 2009

Read the Bible through this year:  Genesis 19:30-25:11; Matthew 7:1-8:34

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

I started a new course in Theology today.  I am not certain how this semester will affect the Bible study, hang in there with me as I figure it out.

Mark 2:18-22 (NASB95)
¹⁸ John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁹ And Jesus said to them, “While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰ “But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. ²¹ “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results. ²² “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”^[1]

Old versus New.  Finally the scribes and Pharisees get it right.  They come directly to Jesus to find out why He is doing what He is.  They cannot understand why Jesus does not encourage His disciples to fast.  The simple truth of the matter was that Jesus was intensely training His disciples, and was interested in discipling them.  Jesus gives them three situations with which to illustrate His reason why He doesn't require the disciples to fast.  The point of these three illustrations was probably missed on the Pharisees and scribes.  However, they were pretty smart dudes, so they may have figured part of it out.  Jesus was saying in three different ways that the old law was passing away, and a new age of grace was coming.

First, the Bridegroom is with His bride.  This is an allegory which we understand today better than they could have.  Jesus is the bridegroom, the church is His bride.  When He was taken away at His death, the apostles did spend time fasting and praying.  Then after He rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven, once again the disciples fasted and prayed up until the day of Pentecost. The Old Testament scriptures are full of references to a bridegroom in relation to God and His people.  The picture of the bridegroom was one that was well known to the religious teachers.  Jesus in effect was not just asking them a question but also teaching them to recognize who he was.  Tradition also came into play because it would be foolish for anyone attending a wedding feast to fast during the feast.  My understanding of the Jewish wedding is that they would celebrate the wedding for a week during the wedding festivities.  The first day of the celebration was when the groom made an unexpected trip to the brides house along with the entire wedding party to collect his bride.  She is aware that the groom is coming, but never knows the exact time or date.  In other words, surprise.  Imagine what it was like, the bride prepared for the wedding by being constantly ready for the arrival of the bridegroom.  Then at a moment's notice she was carried by the procession to the bride chamber and married to her husband.  We as westerners simply cannot conceive in our minds the idea of a wedding that is driven by the groom.

Isaiah 54:4-7 (NASB95)
⁴ “Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; But you will forget the shame of your youth, And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. ⁵ “For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. ⁶ “For the Lord has called you, Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, Even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,” Says your God. ⁷ “For a brief moment I forsook you, But with great compassion I will gather you.

Isaiah 62:4-5 (NASB95)
⁴ It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,” Nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”; But you will be called, “My delight is in her,” And your land, “Married”; For the Lord delights in you, And to Him your land will be married. ⁵ For as a young man marries a virgin, So your sons will marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So your God will rejoice over you.

Jesus uses two other parables to explain the relevance of the Messiah to the Pharisees.  Just as He violated their religious standards by eating with publicans and sinners, you cannot patch an old cloth with new material.  Jesus did not abolish the law, it was still the law.  The old law served the function of covering sin in order to make it possible for a relationship with a Holy God.  Jesus taught a new way of thinking that carried with it true forgiveness that transcended the old law.  The material of it carries the same function.  God put in place a functional system which enables sinful man to relate to a Holy God.  Trying to squeeze Jesus' teaching into the old law simply will not work. 

Second, the illustration of the garment.  A person cannot patch an old garment with a new piece of material, because it will shrink and ruin the old garment.  This symbolizes the law verses the new covenant.  The old Testament Law was inflexible, and designed to keep people under bondage.  It demonstrated how utterly sinful that people are.  In the New Testament, we are under the law of Grace.  The Holy Spirit resides in our heart, and we are taught the law of God through our relationship with Jesus Christ.  We have a very flexible teacher.  In a way, the understanding of the cloth bends your thinking.  Does the New Testament become like a worn piece of cloth as the Old Testament did?  To answer my own question, I believe that the Old Testament was a temporary solution to the sin problem.  It was not intended to be a permanent answer to the problem of sin.  When Jesus came and established the New Testament, the concepts of the Old Testament were refined and re-written to become a dynamic, ever growing, constantly changing concept driven by the Holy Spirit on a continual basis.  Perhaps you may argue that the Bible was completed at the time that the canon of the scriptures was put together which created the Bible that we use today.  Learning and application did not stop with the canon, our ideas that we hold today are radically different than the ideas of the early church.  The old garment simply does not exist now because the Holy Spirit is driving Christianity as an ever-changing developing organism.  The New Testament has crippled the church in one way; it has caused the modern church to think that the Old Testament is outdated.  The reality is that the New Testament simply finishes the story of the Old Testament.  Concepts taught in the Old are still valid in the New, and now through the work of the Holy Spirit we are able to compare, contrast, and apply all scriptures to our lives so that we can live rich lives in Christ. The final point I would make on this is that God designed a permanent solution to sin in the New Testament through the work of Christ on the cross.  Now that sin has been paid for completely, the one who accepts that sacrifice also gains the Holy Spirit who teaches each of us through the use of the scriptures. 

Third, the illustration of the wineskins.  Think about wine, it is a very volatile substance.  In order to get wine, grape juice or some type of juice has to ferment.  That means the juice is alive, it has stuff growing in it causing it to expand, bubble and burp.  If you were to put new wine into old skins, it would rip the skins with the intense pressure that it creates.  The same is true in relation to the Christian life.  We are likened in John as abiding in the Vine, Jesus.  He will bear fruit in our lives through the Holy Spirit.  This fruit is living and active, it is always moving and growing.  The Old Testament law simply would not be able to allow for this type of growth.  The new wineskins are our like new lives in Jesus Christ.  When we are born again, we are like the new wineskins ready for the fruit. 

In short, the new way of thinking is similar to the old way of thinking because both are designed to draw men close to God.  The difference is that the Old Testament offered no permanent solutions.  The New Testament offers complete forgiveness in Christ forever.  The end result is that God designed a way for sinful man to be forgiven so that he can resume fellowship with a Holy God.

I am going to close here.  All comments are welcomed.

Father, as we consider Your dynamic truth, open our hearts and minds to be ready to change as You direct our lives.

In Him,

Joe Turner.

March 4, 2009

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Welcome back to the study.  I apologize for dropping out of sight for so long.  The course that I just finished was probably the most difficult and time consuming of all the courses that I have taken so far.  I completed just under 700 pages of textbook reading as well as reading a required book that was close to 300.  None of it was fun reading. I was caught flat-footed at the beginning of the semester, managed to catch up, and then developed a strange illness about three weeks ago.  The doctors are trying to figure it out, to date it appears to be an allergy attack that won’t go away. But, the course is behind me and I am looking forward to a brief break before resuming school on March 12th.

Mark 2:23-28 (NASB95)
²³ And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. ²⁴ The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ²⁵ And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; ²⁶ how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” ²⁷ Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”^[1] 

The Pharisees were focused on one thing, the rules and regulations.  In order to be a good Jew, a person had to keep all of the law.  One thing in particular that they must keep was the Sabbath!  In order to insure that the Sabbath was properly kept holy a whole list of things was issued regarding it, right down to the number of steps that you could take on the Sabbath.  One point on this is that the work and rest that they were supposed to be getting was not working because they had to stress over all the rules. 

Jesus informed the Pharisees that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."  The point of this is simple, the Sabbath is supposed to be a day of rest for the man.  The Pharisees had made it a day of work because they served the Sabbath as slaves to it.  The punch-line of the Sabbath is found in verse 28, "So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."  Jesus claimed that he was God in this statement and that the Sabbath was made for Him.  Mark did not record the reaction of the Jews to this statement.  The other Gospels do not contain a reaction either, it could be that the Pharisees were trying to figure out who Jesus was and were still putting together his statements.

1 Samuel 21:1-6 (NASB95)
¹ Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone and no one with you?” ² David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’ ³ “Now therefore, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” ⁴ The priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” ⁵ David answered the priest and said to him, “Surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will their vessels be holy?” ⁶ So the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence which was removed from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.

1 Samuel 22:17-18 (NASB95)
¹⁷ And the king said to the guards who were attending him, “Turn around and put the priests of the Lord to death, because their hand also is with David and because they knew that he was fleeing and did not reveal it to me.” But the servants of the king were not willing to put forth their hands to attack the priests of the Lord. ¹⁸ Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn around and attack the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned around and attacked the priests, and he killed that day eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod.

Getting back to David, he and his men were fleeing from Saul because of the incident with Jonathan where he informed David of Saul’s intent to kill him.  Here is a clear case where Jesus teaches us about circumstances.  David was on the run because he felt that he would be killed by Saul.  I am of the opinion that if he were to have gone to Saul and declared his rightful throne, Saul would not have been able to do anything but comply.  But driven by fear, David fled from Saul under the pretense that he was on the kings business.  In effect, he was on the kings business because as the kings enemy he was leaving the land.  God worked though these circumstances to make David into the man that he needed to be in order to take the role of king over the land. 

There was a high price to pay for the bread that David and his men consumed.  Saul instructed Doeg to kill all of the priests of the Lord, killing 85 men that day, (1 Samuel 22:17-18). 

Back to Mark.  What can we learn from this passage?  The idea of the Sabbath is that it is to be a day of rest and of worship of the Lord.  Today the Christian church has replaced the Sabbath with Sunday, for a whole myriad of reasons.  Most of them are not scriptural.  For example, way back in the early church, Constantine implemented Sunday as the day of worship because it was the day to worship the sun god.  Constantine claimed to be a "christian" emporer and declared that day as the day of worship.  Some will dispute this by saying that Jesus rose on Sunday from the dead.  That is also true.  The argument can go back and forth, in the end it is not really that important.  What is important is if on the day of rest we are focusing on Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath.  If our Sabbath day of rest is spent worshipping our toys or focusing on other things other than God, such as with the Jews who worshipped the Sabbath.  Then we are committing the same sin.  We have neglected God for our idea of religion or for our own self-interest. 

For the Railroaders.  Many of us do not have an opportunity to make it to worship services because of the uncanny ability of the railroad to call us to work on weekends.  I would like to put out a thought and hear your response on it.  Suppose we make it a point that regardless of our schedule, God gets one day of the week?  On that day we pray, meditate on him, and read scriptures.  The "Sabbath" day of rest is one where we pointedly worship in whatever way that God leads us.  It may be a quiet time alone, or attending a mid-week Bible study at your local church.  I attend a small church in Temecula and noticed Sunday that there is a "Home group" taking place every evening of the week in our church.  I am sure that at the larger churches that many of you attend there are similar opportunities.  What do you think?  Write in.

I am going to close here.  One final thought, God is not interested in religion.  He is interested in having a personal relationship with you.  It's worth thinking about.

Father, as we consider Your word this morning, guide each one of us in our spiritual lives and convict us of the need to make one day holy each week.

In Him,

Joe Turner.