Tag: jesus

• E8 Mark 6 – Intensification

  

  In Mark 6,  we continue to see the themes we’ve been seeing develop and intensify:

  I. Intensification of people’s response to Jesus, His message and His miracles.

  A. POSITIVE RESPONSES.

  We’ve already seen several instances where Jesus attracted a large crowd and they grew larger and larger as His reputation spread. To review:

  

  1. Mark 1:32-33 First we see the whole town of Capernaum gathered where Jesus was staying, bringing those who needed healed. At least they stayed outside this first time.

  2. Mark 1:45 “Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in remote places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.”

  

  3. Mark 2:1-2 “Later, when Jesus returned to Capernaum, the people heard that He had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even near the door.”

  

  4. Mark 3:7-8 “Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and a great multitude from Galilee followed; and also from Judea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him.” 

  

  5. Mark 3:20 When Jesus returned to Capernaum again, the house was so crowded He and the disciples couldn’t even eat.

  6. Mark 5:21 When Jesus had crossed over again in a boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around Him; and so He stayed by the seashore.

  

  7. Mark 5:24 While Jesus accompanied Jairus to his house, “a large crowd pressed around Him.”

  8. Mark 6:31 We see the same thing in this week’s chapter, but now Jesus responds to it. “Then, because so many people were coming and going that Jesus and the disciples didn’t even have a chance to eat, Jesus said to the them, “Come with Me by yourselves to a remote place and let’s get some rest.”

  9. And then we have the feeding of the 5,000 where we get an idea of the size of the crowd and we also see Jesus’ attitude about these ever-increasing mobs.

  

  Mark 6:32-34  “So they went away by themselves in a boat to find a remote place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”

  Here we see Jesus had compassion for the crowd and He began teaching them. You can think of this as feeding their spiritual hunger. Later Jesus also takes care of their physical need for food.

  So, in summary, we see that Jesus tried to avoid having His reputation spread about when He could, and He tried to avoid large crowds, but when He couldn’t avoid them as His reputation intensified, He ministered to their physical and spiritual needs.

  B. NEGATIVE RESPONSES.

  

  Mark 6:1-6 Jesus went to his hometown, Nazareth, accompanied by his twelve disciples. When the Sabbath came, as was His habit, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed.

  “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given Him? What are these remarkable miracles that we’ve heard about Him performing? Didn’t He used to be our carpenter, the Son of Joseph and Mary? Isn’t this the brother of James, Little Joseph, Jude and Simeon? Aren’t His sisters here as wives with us?” And they took offense at Him.

  Jesus answered them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” As a result of their lack of faith, He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

  

  1. Rejection. The key word describing why His hometown rejected Jesus was they were offended. This is a common problem when we become Christians and return home a changed person. Everyone there knows who we used to be, what we used to be like. Even though they had heard stories of what Jesus had done and said, and even had gotten a sample of it, they were not able to look beyond their preconceptions and see the Prophet that God had appointed and anointed with the Holy Spirit when He was baptized.

  The Greek word for offended is skandalizo, (Strong’s G4624, 29 occurences) from which we get the English term “scandalized.” We consider it a ‘scandal’ when seemingly good people do an egregiously bad thing–they have an affair, they embezzle money, they get drunk and act inappropriately in public. These are good people doing bad things that scandalize us. In Jesus’ case, He was a seemingly ordinary man doing and saying extraordinary things.

  

  So, what is Jesus’ preferred response when He is rejected? He just leaves. They reject Him, so He rejects them by removing His presence. No calling down a curse from heaven. The curse is that the people are robbed of blessings they might have received. As the passage says, He was not able to perform any miracles there, except heal a few individuals who DID believe in Him.

  The sad thing is faith begets faith and unbelief begets unbelief. Most people start at a neutral position, kind of a ‘wait and see’ attitude. But there are always those who already believe, and then there are always the skeptical disbelievers. What tends to happen is, whichever of the decided ones goes first tends to tip the undecided their way. If the believing people step up first and receive a healing or other miracle, then many are tipped over to at least a little faith.  However, as at Nazareth, the skeptics stepped up first and spouted their skeptical disbelief, then the undecided were tipped to their side.

  There are some lessons for us in there somewhere…

  

  2. Intrigued, but uncommitted. We see this uncommitted response from Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee, not officially a king since his father’s kingdom was divided between four of his sons, hence the official title, ‘tetrarch,’ meaning ruler of a fourth. But Herod had pretentious to be  much, much more.

  John the Baptist had gotten in Herod’s face about having divorced his wife, and then marrying his brother Philip’s ex-wife, Herodias, when he divorced her.

  This confrontation was a risky move, but consistent with the role of a prophet to confront the king when they sin. The only problem was, despite Herod, who was an Idumean, a descendent of Esau, trying to act like the Jews somewhat, in order to appease them and keep them under control, he was anything but a believer of the Jewish faith.

  Herod really didn’t have a choice when John publicly confronted him with what was a sin in Jewish eyes. He had to arrest and imprison John. But Herod was intrigued by John. He knew John was a “righteous and holy man,” so Herod protected him from his wife Herodias’ fury. Because of John’s public denouement of the couple, she wanted John dead, dead, DEAD!

  Herod would trot John out from time to time to talk with him, but never made a commitment to believe the gospel. Messages I have heard over the years point out that Herod’s sin and his unwillingness to repent kept him from making this step of faith.

  

  The problem with sitting on the fence of faith and not deciding is it makes you vulnerable to being manipulated by those who are committed to something else. In this case  it was Herodias’ commitment to see John dead for his insults. She waited until Herod’s pride also made him vulnerable and she was able to manipulate her husband into finally having John the Baptist executed.

  C. Revenge. Herodias represents the extreme reaction of those who are offended by the gospel and its implications. That is, they try to exact some type of revenge on those who offend them.

  Throw Jesus Off the Cliff!

  

  And don’t think an overt sinner such as Herodias would be the only type of person who would respond to the offense of the gospel with life-threatening revenge. Peter read from the shorter account of the rejection in Nazareth for his presentation to the Roman magistrates. In the longer version researched by Luke (4:28-30)…

  “All in the synagogue who heard these things were filled with rage. And they rose up to throw Jesus out of the city. They led Him to the brow of the hill on which the city was built, intending to throw Him down the cliff. But Jesus passed through the middle of the mob and continued on His way.”

  These were ‘righteousness’ Jews, neighbors and family friends, even relatives by marriage. They had known Jesus as the oldest son of Joseph the carpenter who had taken over the family business when his dad died. Then on His 30th birthday, out of the blue, He had turned the family business over to his next older brother and just left. To where and for what reason? No one seemed to know.

  Sure, they had heard the crazy rumors about what Jesus had done in and around Capernaum, all the way on the other side of the country. Those rumors caused Jesus’ mother and brothers to travel there and try to bring Him back home to Nazareth. The rumors were crazy, so that meant Jesus had gone crazy, right?

  But here was this eloquent, itinerant rabbi speaking to them. How had He suddenly become such a wise teacher? Did He really perform the miracles they had heard about in Capernaum? It wasn’t possible, in their experience, so there had to be another, more mundane explanation, didn’t there?

  II. Intensification of Jesus’ display of  supernatural power.

  I don’t have time to go into detail with the rest, but in Mark 6, we see…

  

  

  

  III. Intensification of the training of His twelve disciples

  

  And Jesus had another agenda, the training of the twelve men that He chose to be with Him all the time.

  

  A. In Mark 6, we see Jesus give them authority to heal the sick and cast out demons, just like He could, and send them two by two to surrounding villages to proclaim the gospel. When they return to Him, they excitedly share stories of their success.

  

  B. And the walking on water was supposed to be a faith-building exercise for the disciples.

  

  C. As too the feeding of the 5,000. That miracle was supposed to help the disciples grow in their trust in the abilities of Jesus and God, who He represented.

  ==================================

  Pastor Chan has been focusing on this last aspect of what’s portrayed in Mark–discipleship.

  His point in chapter 6 is, we need to realize that if we try to be true disciples of Jesus, we will face opposition from some, and we may even lose our lives. His question was, “Are you ready to give your life for Christ as well as give your life to Christ?

  An intriguing and challenging thought! Guess you can tell by my choice of words where I am on that issue?

  Most people don’t seem to pick up on how important training His disciples was to Jesus. I look at the gospels and see three intertwined, but equally important, objectives that Jesus accomplished while He was in Israel.

  

  1. SACRIFICE Most people know that Jesus came to die for our sins so that we can be restored to a right relationship with God and avoid His wrath against sin at the Judgment. Less well known is the aspect that Jesus’ life had to be completely righteous and without sin. That is the only way His sacrifice could be acceptable to God as sufficient payment for all the sins of everybody in the world, past, present and future. Peter mentions this purpose a little later in Mark:

  

  

  2. MINISTRY: Many people are also familiar with Jesus’ statement of His purpose in Mark that we saw in chapter 1. We also frequently see Jesus teaching the multitudes, although He often spoke to them in parables. A couple of quotes Jesus made from Isaiah elaborate on this ministry aspect of His purpose for coming.

  a. The first is in Luke’s expanded account of Jesus’ Rejection at Nazareth.

  

  

  21 And He said to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

  b. The other time Jesus quoted from Isaiah where the ministry of the Messiah, His ministry, is described was in response to a doubting John the Baptist languishing in Herod’s prison. Matthew 11:3-5 (NIV)

  The disciples of John asked Jesus, “Are you the One who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied,  “Go back and report to John what you hear and see.”

  

  Putting these verses together with some others, we can say in summary, Jesus’ MINISTRY was to proclaim the gospel to as many in Israel as He possibly could, to teach them God’s word, and to do so with miraculous signs of God’s power as a testimony to His authenticity as the Messiah.

  

  3. MAKING DISCIPLES. Which brings us to Jesus’ third mission, the one most often overlooked, and the one Pastor Chan is focusing on in this study of Mark.

  Jesus said, as recorded in Luke, “A disciple Is not greater than his teacher, but all, when fully trained, will be like their teacher.”

  That is one of God’s goals for our salvation, that we should become ‘little Christs’ and continue to carry the good news and God’s Word around the world and down through history, as was done for us.

  

  SUMMARY:

  To put the whole set of intertwined purposes into perspective, the GOSPEL is meaningless and powerless without the SACRIFICE of Jesus, which is useless without APOSTLES, those who are sent to take the GOSPEL message to the WORLD, and you cannot become an APOSTLE until you’re completely trained as a DISCIPLE.

  The sequence for us, then, is, we hear the GOSPEL, we believe, we become DISCIPLES and learn from the TEACHING of God’s Word. Then we are SENT to take the GOSPEL to other people and other places, where we DISCIPLE other new believers, etc.

  Yes, this will involve SACRIFICE on our part to go, and it might lead to the ultimate SACRIFICE of our lives, but that is God’s plan for the salvation of the world. We should feel privileged to be a part of that plan.

  

  APPLICATION

  So, make sure you are involved in the process of discipleship–either as a learner or as a teacher–and share the gospel and God’s Word with the lost around you. That is God’s plan for the world, that is God’s plan for you.

  

  October 27, 2025

  bible, christianity, faith, god, jesus

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• E7 Mark 4:35 to 5:43 OverLord

  

  Week 5 of our study covered 4 events in Jesus’ life and ministry where He demonstrated that He was Lord over something. Some of these things, like showing His authority over sickness and demons, Jesus had already demonstrated, but this week we see He takes even those to a new level.

  4:35-42 Jesus is Lord over the storm.
  5:1-20 Jesus is Lord over a Legion of demons.

  5:24-35 Jesus is Lord over chronic illness.

  5:23-24 and 35-43 Jesus is Lord over death.

  We see that each of these encounters contain four elements that we can use to improve our own walk with Jesus:

  Q1. How did they approach Jesus for help?

  Q2. How did Jesus demonstrate His Lordship when He helped them?

  Q3. How did Jesus stretch their faith in Him by how He responded?

  Q4. How did they and/or those who witnessed what Jesus did, respond?

  I. JESUS, LORD OVER THE STORM

  

  

  

  

  40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

  

  (See note at the end for an explanation of the underlined text and fingerprint sticker in some of the images )

  

  Q1. How did the disciples approach Jesus for help? The disciples came to Jesus for help in desperation. Maybe they waited until the boat started to be swamped, because four of them were fishermen and thought they could handle the storm, as they had handled so many before. Maybe they waited because they didn’t want to disturb Jesus, who was obviously deep in an exhausted sleep in the back of the boat. I can almost see them frequently glancing back at Him, expecting that the violent tossing by the storm would wake Him up and He would take charge. A key to their feelings at the time was how they started their question, “…don’t you care…?”

  

  For whatever reason or however we ask, we can learn that Jesus will help us, even if we wait until we reach the end of our resources and come to Him in desperation as our final option. Our tendency is to become impatient when we don’t see God act on our behalf. Maybe He’s waiting for us to ask Him? We tend to become impatient, maybe even desperate, when God doesn’t work on our timetable and then we start to look around for other options. Faith is in the asking, but faith is also in the waiting.

  

  If we will do these things in our needs, the rewards are a new understanding of who God is and what He can do…and a fall-to-your-knees awe that creates in you a deep worship of this God of the Universe who DOES care for us.

  

  Q2. How did Jesus demonstrate His Lordship when He helped them? Jesus demonstrated a new ability to His disciples when He showed that He was Lord over the storm. They believed that Jesus was the Promised Messiah with a special anointing from Jehovah God, and they had left everything to follow Him and be His disciples based on that belief, but they did not yet understand the full extent of Jesus’ power.

  

  From this we learn that God and Jesus have powers beyond whatever we might understand or expect. Rather than try to figure out if God can help us or not, we should realize we’ll never understand what He can do, but we should just approach Him in humility and believe that He is able to help us, that He is willing help us, but it will be in a way and time of His choosing.

  

  Q3. How did Jesus stretch their faith in Him by how He responded?

  BEFORE: Jesus criticized the disciples for their lack of faith. There were lots of clues that they missed that should have led them to trust Him, no matter what was happening. First He had said they were going to the other side of the Sea. They needed to understand that what Jesus said they were to do, and that He would make sure it happened.

  

  The second clue was that He was blissfully asleep, even during the height of the storm. However, they did not understand how much they should and could trust Jesus, even in the middle of the most desperate situation.

  This is the first lesson we can learn from this. Just because He’s not calming the $#!+storm when we think He should, doesn’t mean He cannot. We just need to continue to trust in Him and keep doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

  

  AFTER: When Jesus dealt with the storm by commanding it to calm down, this was a totally unexpected response from Him. The disciples knew they needed help, but apparently they did not know that Jesus could calm the storm, they just knew they needed help, and that Jesus had already exhibited supernatural powers. They found out that Jesus was able to do beyond what they could ask or even imagine!

  

  That is another lesson for us. We have to trust God in how He chooses to respond. We cannot try to fit God’s capabilities into a tiny box defined by our past experience or limited imagination. God’s ways are as far beyond us as the objects in the night sky are from Earth. Ask Him, trust Him, and prepare to be amazed…and you’ll have your concept of God stretched.

  

  Q4. How did the disciples respond to this awesome and unexpected display of Jesus’ power and authority? Jesus rebuked them for being cowardly before they woke Him, Strong’s G1169, deilos, overcome by dread and unable to act, always used in a negative sense. But after they saw the storm calmed and were ‘afraid,’ Strong’s G5399, phobeo, used not only for an overwhelming fear that stops you in your tracks, but also used in a positive sense of a healthy, reverential awe of God’s power and authority. 

  

  This is the appropriate response to God, a reverential awe that overwhelms us and elicits worship of the God who is so much greater than we are. That’s what happened to the disciples, and that’s what will happen to us when God answers our prayers in a totally unexpected way. But we won’t have this experience of God if we don’t ask Him, with what little faith we have, and then humbly wait for Him to act.

  ====================================There were so many wonderful lessons from our study of Mark this week. I don’t have time to write about them all this weekend. For example:

  

  The woman who had been sick for 20 years who had faith that she would be healed if she could just sneak up behind Jesus and touch the edge of His robe, AND SHE WAS!

  

  The Legion of demons which did not have any more power to resist the authority of Jesus than one demon did.

  

  And the demon possessed man who was in his right mind and clothed properly again. He wanted SO badly to go back with Jesus across the Sea, but instead, he was sent back to his people as a witness for what Jesus had done for him.

  

  Then there was the synagogue ruler who tracked down and asked Jesus to come and heal his sick daughter, but before they could get back to his home, she died!

  ____________________________________________There are so so many wonderful stories and wonderful lessons in the gospels. I hope I whet your appetite for more to the point you will begin to study them for yourself. 

  

  After all, it’s not just general knowledge we seek to gain from Bible study. Through Bible study AND prayer, we can receive personal messages from God of affirmation, of guidance, of reassurance, and much, much more. Jesus and God wait for you in the pages of your Bible. Take the time to meet with Them there!

  

  ====================================

  

  NOTES: The underlined parts of the narrative are unique content to Mark. I believe what modern scholarship says,  that Mark is the third gospel in time, not the first, and it is based on a series of oral presentations by Peter to the magistrates in Rome who had been assigned to investigate the charges against Paul.

  When Peter came to Rome to visit Paul, word got back to the magistrates and they wanted to hear about this ‘Jesus fellow’ from an eyewitness. Matthew was the only official gospel at that time, written as a collaborative effort by the Apostles just before they left Jerusalem due to the increased persecution against them.

  During Paul’s three years of imprisonment in and near Jerusalem, Luke had personally investigated the stories of what Jesus had done and taught, using Matthew’s gospel as his source material, and then had written his own gospel. Paul asked Peter to legitimize Luke’s gospel, and Peter chose to do so by using both his copy of Matthew and Luke’s gospel as his source material for what appears to have been five presentations, based on internal structure. That is, each section is about 100 verses long and has a clear ending, followed by a clear beginning for the next session, with the verses between mostly starting with ‘And.’

  You can often tell which of the two gospels Peter is using for each story, but there are omissions and additional, unique content. As an exercise, I’ve been comparing all three accounts to identify Peter’s additions. I call these ‘fingerprints of Peter,’ and view them as his personal contributions to the gospel narrative.

  Peter’s omissions are interesting also. He seems to be portraying Jesus and the disciples in such a way that the Romans won’t see them as a threat. His careful  portrayal of Jesus comes across as provincial and something easily dismissed as a ‘local matter among the heathens way down there on the fringes of Roman civilization.’

  Peter also portrays the disciples as clueless provincials, certainly no threat to the Roman Empire either. I especially note that Peter omitted anything that would make himself appear as a threat, without minimizing his key role among the disciples, thus maintaining his position as a reliable eyewitness for the magistrates.

  This is largely just an interesting exercise for me. But in whatever way Jesus and the disciples are portrayed, the Gospel of Mark still communicates the truth about what Jesus did and said, and we as Christians can still learn about who Jesus is and what He taught by reading and studying the Gospel of Mark.  AMEN!
  ====================================

  October 20, 2025

  bible, christianity, faith, god, jesus

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• E6, Mark 3:7 to 4:34 – Transitions

  

  Week 4 of the Gospel of Mark study showed some interesting changes in Jesus’ interactions and in His teachings. Here’s a summary.

  I. Four Groups. We saw there were four distinct groups of people who interacted with Jesus and vice versa.

  A. The Masses.

  

  

  

  This is the change we saw in Jesus’ interactions with the masses–He had started out proclaiming the gospel and teaching from the Word. Now He is no longer speaking plainly to them, but teaching in parables.
  ————————–
  B. His Disciples.

  

  Up until now, we had seen Jesus surrounded by many disciples. Now He chooses a special group of twelve to always be with Him and that He can send out to multiply His work. At that point they will be called Apostles, “sent ones.”

  

  

  With the change to teaching the masses in parables, Jesus now begins teaching deeper truths about the Kingdom of God to the twelve and any other disciples who are with Him at the time.

  C. His Opponents. The opponents of Jesus had been increasing in their opposition to His actions and His teachings. Identified variably as ‘teachers of the Law,’ ‘Scribes,’ (those who made the copies of what we call the Old Testament and who taught the people what it said), and Pharisees (a sect of Jewish lawyers who emphasized purity by avoiding any kind of impure person or thing.) They had began by questioning Jesus’ teachings and lack of conformity to current mores. Then they began criticizing Him. Now we see their opposition take a sinister turn.

  

  3:28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” 30 He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”
  —————-‐–‐
  Whoa! Jesus was still willing to address their accusations, but it looks like His opponents had crossed a line as He now pronounced one of the most controversial things that He was recorded as saying, they were guilty of the “Unpardonable Sin.”
  ———————–
  D. His Family: Mark has not made mention of Jesus’ family until now, but apparently word of what He was doing and saying had gotten back to them in Nazareth, so they came to see Him where He was teaching and ministering along the Sea of Galilee.

  

  

  

  Wow! Doubly harsh! First His family rejects who He is, and then He rejects His family.
  ———————-
  II. SUMMARY
  So here are the transitions we see in this week’s section of Mark:

  A. The masses–Jesus dissociates from the masses by teaching them using stories, leaving the hearers puzzled about what He is saying. It’s like He’s accomplished His first goal to attract those from the masses who want a deeper relationship with Him as disciples, and now He’s moving on.

  B. His disciples. Apparently having accumulated a critical mass of followers, Jesus selects 12 for special teachings and assignment. He now focuses more of His teachings to private sessions with them and other, local disciples who aren’t following Him from place to place.

  C. His opponents. The Jewish religious leadership increase their attacks on Jesus and Jesus accelerates right back at them. This is going to set up the final confrontation when they have Jesus arrested and crucified, actually what God has planned.

  D. His family. Jesus makes a final break from His family and shows how He is ‘all in’ as far as His commitment to His disciples. By the way, this is the first time we see that there are woman disciples as well as men, even if all the chosen Twelve were men.

  III. PARABLES
  I’m just going to skip over the parables we looked at this week because what caught my attention was at the end of Jesus’ parable about the lamp and lampstand.

  A. To set the scene:

  

  

  4:24 “Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more, 25 whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”
  —————————
  B. This is the SECOND harsh pronouncement in our reading this week. For some reason I had not taken note of this statemrent at the end of the parable before. But, I WAS familiar with it at the end of another parable. (Images (c) Mark Young Bible Cartoons)

  

  

  

  And then, as the moral of the Parable, we have that same statement by Jesus:

  

  C. Now, it was never clear to me exactly what the ‘talents’ (KJV) were, translated by modern versions as gold in Matthew and and coins in Luke. The happenstance of the match with the modern English word, ‘talent,’ referring to natural gifts and abilities we are born with, had always led to the passage being taught as meaning we should use our natural gifts and abilities to serve God and to advance His Kingdom.

  

  I think the repetition of this moral in Mark 4 makes the answer to the question clearer,  though. The parable about handling money is definitely about accountability, and so too is Mark 4. However, now we see it is not about something of worldly value or natural ability, but rather of spiritual, eternal value–the gospel, which gives us eternal life when we believe, and God’s eternal Word, which is able to redeem our souls unto righteousness.

  

  I believe Jesus is warning His hearers, and us down through history, that we have to be intentional in listening to what God is saying, we have to be intentional in thinking about what it means, and we have to respond in obedience to the message and truths that God reveals to us, AND that God is going to hold us accountable for how we use His spiritual treasure.

  The first ‘coin’ is the gospel, and the next two parables are about planting the ‘seed’ of the gospel to establish and grow God’s Kingdom here on Earth. The method of ‘investing’ it is to proclaim it to those around us. The implication is, if we are successful in sharing the gospel, God will entrust more ‘treasures’ from His Word to us and we will have another opportunity to invest it in others by teaching and guiding them into obedience. But what if we don’t?

  

  IV. APPLICATION

  In the Law, there were blessings for following it and curses for not. We live in a different spiritual age, the Age of Grace, so there are increasing blessings for obedience, and removal of those blessings for not. No punishment, no curses, just loss of God’s hand of blessing in our lives. For example:

  

  

  There are many, many more blessings that I think we as Christians take for granted until we lose them. I know, because I have.

  

  I was a success at everything I did until I graduated from college and moved to the big city. One of my own transitions. I had spent the last 10 years involved with the Navigators as a part-time volunteer–first in the military, then in college. The Navigators are a para-church organization specializing in disciple-making.

  During that 10 years, I had shared the gospel with many people, although no one ever made a decision for Christ. After completing their study curriculum, I began teaching their class on how to study the Bible, as I was very good at that. I met individually with many young men during those years, but I never made any disciples. What I now understand about those 10 years is God didn’t hold me accountable for my success, He held me accountable for my obedience.

  

  After college, starting my career became my focus–teaching, coaching and continuing my education. Although I wanted to bring what I had learned about discipleship to the church, I had limited success and soon settled into a standard Sunday-morning-church kind of Christian.

  

  Sharing the gospel was never a big part of my life, anyway. Without being a part of an organization that did those things, very slowly all of my newly learned Christian disciplines began to fall away. Then everything else I did began to fail. Small failures at first, but bigger and bigger failures until the career arc, and the life I had envisioned having, began to fall apart until it completely disappeared.

  

  Now, I’m in another transition, the final one to the end of my life. I’m under treatment for several potentially terminal health conditions, any one of which could take me out at any time.

  

  As I’m walking this final journey, two things have become prominent in my thinking. First is the verse, “The judgments of the Lord are just; they are always fair.” (Psalm 19:9b, Good News Translation)  I’m willing to accept God’s judgments in removing the blessings of success and health, resulting in failure and sickness, as being justified because I have not been faithful with the treasures of the gospel and Biblical truths that God entrusted to me.

  

  The other thing that has been filling my thoughts has been an almost overwhelming desire to leave a legacy for the Lord. Since i received my terminal diagnosis, I’d been praying for something I could do that would make a difference for God’s kingdom on Earth in the little time I have left, but my options were limited due to my disability and now being debilitated. Through a roundabout series of events, I came to write this blog. I hope that my thoughts, insights and experiences are helpful to you, my few subscribers, in your own walk with Jesus.

  

  There is a possibility, though, that gives me hope for something better. In a recent sermon at Summit Church about Psalm 32 by Pastor Brian Loritts, he showed how David finally came to a place of repentance and confession to God after his sin with Bathsheba…and God forgave and restored him!

  

  Another example he shared was Peter. Peter had denied he even knew Jesus while He was on trial…THREE TIMES! But Jesus forgave a repentant Peter and used him to deliver the Pentecost message where 3,000 responded in faith and were added to the church.

  

  Pastor Loritts pointed out that God is in the restoration business. Jesus is a safe place to take our sins, failures and shortcomings to, because He loves us, He’ll accept us in our repentance, and forgive and restore us to right standing with Him–not condemn or punish us.

  That is my hope and prayer before I leave  this Earth; that as I lean into Jesus in my brokenness, He will restore His hand of blessing, and as David said in Psalm 51, which Pastor Loritts said was linked to Psalm 32:

  

  I ask that you pray this for me as well.

  Thank you,
  Bill

  October 14, 2025

  bible, christianity, faith, god, jesus

  ---

• E4, Mark chapter 2 – Revelations, part a

  

  

  PREPARATION:
  As you read, think about these questions:

  • Jesus reveals some more about Himself, what are those things?

  • Some people took advantage of the miraculous powers that Jesus offered. Who were they and how did they respond to Him?

  • Some people were offended by what Jesus and His disciples did. Who were they and how did they respond to Him?

  ===================================

  Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  ===================================

  CONCLUSIONS
  1. How did the paralytic and his friends respond to Jesus?

  Jesus had been at Capernaum before and had healed a lot of people, then left for a while as He traveled from village to village, proclaiming the gospel and teaching about God’s Word.

  

  I’m guessing the paralyzed man had heard of Jesus’ previous visit and arranged with some friends to take him there if Jesus ever returned to town, and as it so happened, He did. But when they got to the house where Jesus was in residence, it was too jam-packed to get in.

  

  I can imagine them standing around for a while outside discussing what to do, when one of them suggested, ‘Well, if we can’t get in through the door, let’s use the roof!’I suspect the homeowner was not too pleased, but I’m also sure the men were willing to pay to have the roof repaired.

  

  So the attitudes exhibited by the paralytic and his four friends toward Jesus were first of all faith, they believed Jesus could and would heal the paralytic, if only they could get the man in front of Jesus. They were desperate, willing to do something very much out of the ordinary to accomplish their goal, and they were committed to getting the help their friend needed, no matter what the cost. This is very much like the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:6

  NOTE how the rest of the people in the home who had come to see and hear Jesus reacted, “…they were all amazed and glorifying God…” That is, ALMOST everybody…

  

  2. What did Jesus reveal about Himself?
  In chapter 1, we saw that Jesus had demonstrated the authority to teach God’s Word in a new, to way, to cast out demons, and to heal the sick. Mark used the testimony of the demon to further show who Jesus was, “I know who You are–the Holy One of God!” Later in chapter one, when Jesus again encountered demons, He did not permit the demons to speak “because they knew He was the Annointed One from God.”

  

  I believe this is an example of what God does, that is, He reveals things to us via successive revelations, instead of revealing everything at once and overwhelming us. That is why it is important not to ‘overrun’ your insight.

  

  What I mean is like driving at night; your headlights allow you to only see so far, depending upon whether low beams or farther with high beams. You need to be traveling at a slow enough speed to have time to react when your headlights reveal something ahead, like a curve or object in the road, which needs you to take appropriate action.

  

  In the case of walking with God, it’s like He’s giving us directions on how to walk through a maze from His perspective above, but only one turn at a time.

  

  So, because God reveals things to us successively, we need to act in obedience, but only as far as we can ‘see.’ Don’t forge ‘full speed ahead,’ leave some maneuvering room in your life. The path we need to walk to get from where we are to where God wants us to be is usually not a straight line. But God only directs us to make changes within our ability, and sometimes that is in ‘baby steps.’

  

  I think that is why the Psalmist said ‘God’s Word is like a lamp for our feet.’ If you’ve ever walked at night when camping, or in the country where there are no streetlights, and you had to use a lantern or flashlight to light your way, you might understand how these light sources can show you only the path just ahead, just a few steps are revealed at any one moment. That is how I have found it to be following Jesus in my life.

  

  In this situation with the paralyzed man brought for healing, Jesus said instead, “Your sins are forgiven.” This didn’t set well with the opposition. Jesus said to them that He wanted to clearly demonstrate that He had the authority to forgive sins, so He then commanded the man to “get up, pick up his mat, and go home!”

  Obviously the man was no longer paralyzed, but Jesus didn’t say, “Be healed,” or anything like that. I think the implication was the man was already healed when Jesus said his sins were forgiven.

  

  I just happened to hear a message from Andrew Hopper from Mercy Hill Church this week from James 5:13-16, which is about prayers for healing by the elders, where it also mentions if the sick person has sinned, their sins will be forgiven.

  

  So, the Bible clearly teaches here, and in other places, that there is a relationship between our physical infirmities and sinful spiritual condition. Also that there is a relationship between what we would call insanity or other mental illnesses, and demon possession, or as in Mark chapter 1, ‘unclean spirits.’

  

  How can we tell if someone has an organic sickness from an injury or infection, as opposed to suffering from a judgment as the result of their sins? How can we tell if someone is possessed by an unclean spirit that needs to be expelled? I don’t know that we CAN tell. But this I believe, JESUS can tell and we CAN pray to Him and trust Him to heal, to forgive or to deliver us from an unclean spirit as needed. We just need to ask Him, listen for His commands to us and trust that He knows what we need.

  

  3. Some people were offended by what Jesus said and/or did. Who were they and how did they respond?

  In chapter 1, those who listened to Jesus teach in the synagogue commented that He taught with authority, not like the Scribes did.

  

  To understand what they meant, we can look in Matthew where a similar comment is recorded at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. All during the Sermon, Jesus kept saying, “You have heard that it was said…, but I say to you...” That was Jesus teaching with a personal authority.

  

  Apparently this comment from the synagogue had gotten back to the Scribes, because some of them came to the house where Jesus was ‘holding court’ this time. When Jesus told the paralytic, “…your sins are forgiven,” the Scribes didn’t say anything, but they were thinking it very loudly! One of the Divine powers Jesus demonstrated was His ability to know what people were thinking.

  

  Note that Jesus didn’t criticize them for what they were thinking. Jesus demonstrated all of the qualities we are told by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:13,14 Christians are to exhibit. In this instance, Jesus patiently tried to help them to understand.

  

  At this point, the Scribes were not yet portrayed as actively hostile, just questioning. It’s not unusual that there are things about Jesus, about the gospel, about the Bible, etc., that we don’t understand. It is very reassuring to me that Jesus doesn’t reject or condemn us when we have questions, especially since compared to Him and Father God, we are like children in our understanding of spiritual matters. Instead, He is willing to patiently explain and even to demonstrate His truths to us, if we’ll just give Him the opportunity.

  There are many more revelations about Jesus in Mark 2, but the weekend is ending and a new week of Bible study begins in the morning. What new and exciting things about Jesus the Christ might I discover this week?

  

  NOTE: Story pictures (c) Free Bible Images and used by permission

  October 5, 2025

  bible, faith, forgiveness, healing, jesus

  ---

• E3, Mark 1:14-20 – Disciples

  

  I. REVIEW:

  In Week 1, we saw WHO Jesus was:

  • He was the prophesied Messiah, the special Annointed One from God, heralded and identified by John the Baptist.
  • He was/is the actual Son of God, acclaimed by God the Father’s own voice from the heavens.
  • He was the singular receptacle of the Holy Spirit, seen descending in the form of a dove and remaining on Him, John 3:21.
  • Jesus demonstrated His worthiness to be God’s personal representative on earth by passing the three tests/temptations of lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride, that our penultimate ancestors, Adam and Eve  failed.

  We were left with the question, ‘Was Jesus worthy enough for us to follow Him?’ This week’s lesson looked more in depth at that.

  II. PREPARATION:

  After Jesus established His bona fides as the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One from God, He began to call some men to follow Him as disciples. Mark says:

  

  A. What did you leave behind when you answered the call to become a Christian?

  In my traditional church background, we were called to give up sinning in order to identify as Christian. ‘Sinning’ was defined as doing those things the Ten Commandments say not to do. (And I apologize for the King James Bible language, it was how I learned this.)

  

  2. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain. (In other words, no cussing using the name God or Jesus Christ.)

  6. Thou shalt not kill.

  7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

  8. Thou shalt not steal.

  9. Thou shalt not bear false witness. (Lie)

  10. Thou shalt not covet. (Want what is not yours.)

  The positive Commandments were the new things that I was supposed to do instead:

  4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

  5. Honor thy father and thy mother.

  

  Now, there were those singular individuals who felt a deeper call to become missionaries. They literally gave up everything they knew and had in their life in America and went to live in some distant, heathen, third-world country that didn’t know who Jesus was, in order to proclaim the gospel to them.

  I always felt like these men and women were the ‘A team’ of Christians.  The rest of us just kept muddling around with our daily lives here and made sure we gave enough beyond our tithes to support them.

  There really weren’t any sacrifices for us ‘run-of-the-mill’ Christians. No leaving the life we knew behind, no daily following of Jesus wherever He led, no sacrificial discipleship. Thinking back, although I am grateful for having heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ through my traditional denomination, I now feel like I was robbed of the life I might have had as a Christian if I had also known how to follow Jesus as a disciple.

  III. THE STORY:

  A. Jesus Announces the Good News

  

  B. Jesus Calls His First Disciples

  

  

  IV. CROSS REFERENCES, SUMMARY:

  It seemed strange to me that Jesus would be walking along the shore, meet some fishermen at work in the water, invite them to follow Him and they would just drop everything and start literally walking with Jesus wherever He was going.

  It would make more sense to me if the call to follow had happened after Jesus taught in the synagogue, after He had cast out the unclean spirit, after He had started healing everyone in town who needed it as they came to where He was.  After…

  It would just make more sense for it to happen the other way if the disciples were coming to Jesus and asking to be His disciples. That was the usual way of things.

  The Gospel of Mark is like the ‘Cliff Notes’ of the gospels. It is a simple, dispassionate presentation of the facts. The other two synoptic (same view) gospels, Matthew and Luke, also include the calling of these first four disciples, Galillean fishermen, before Jesus started teaching and performing miracles of healing and demon exorcism.

  But if we look at John the Apostle’s gospel, we’ll see the call and following were not quite the ‘out of the blue’ events they seem to be in the synoptic gospels.

  In John’s gospel (the youngest of those four disciples) we find out that Andrew (Peter’s older brother) and John himself (younger brother of James) were disciples of John the Baptist. They were there for the thunderous voice of God shouting His acceptance and approval of Jesus as His Son. They were there for the hole being ripped in the sky and the bright, shining form of the Holy Spirit flashing down from heaven and settling over Jesus like a holy mantle.

  John recorded that at some later day, as Jesus was walking by, apparently after the Wilderness Experience, John the Baptist pointed Him out by saying,

  

  A. HOW DID THEY BECOME DISCIPLES?

  In Jesus’ time, becoming the disciple of a rabbi was essentially secondary education. When a Jewish boy finished his basic education in the Law and the Prophets, they then had a final, oral exam to make sure they adequately understood the basics. Today this graduation is celebrated in the Bar Mitzvah.

  There was also a secondary purpose. The country rabbis were always on the lookout for the exceptionally bright student who they would accept as disciples, therefore continuing their education one-on-one. The majority of the students would then be apprenticed in their family business. Think of it as college versus trade school.

  There were also a very few exceptionally bright students who would be sent to Jerusalem to try and become a disciple of the prominent teachers there. In sports terms, think of the first group as being drafted by a farm team and the more elite group trying to walk on with a pro team. Paul the Apostle was one of that latter group. He came all the way from Tarsus and was accepted by Gamaliel as a disciple, one of the most prominent rabbis of that time.

  So, disciples could be picked, or they could ask to be accepted. Most likely Andrew and John had gone to John the Baptist first in repentance and to be baptized, but then volunteered to stay on as disciples.

  

  B. WHAT DID DISCIPLES DO?

  The disciples exchanged service to the rabbi for being taught by him. We can see this with Jesus’ disciples in the gospels. Jesus had a public ministry and His disciples helped with various aspects of that, plus they got to listen to and watch Jesus as He taught and ministered. The disciples also took care of basic needs such as getting food and arranging a place to stay. In essence, anything that needed to be done for the master, the disciples did.

  

  In exchange, the disciples received private instructions and could ask questions about anything they didn’t understand. One downside might be that since the disciples were with their rabbi almost 24/7, especially Jesus’ disciples, since He was an itinerant teacher (traveled from village to village), along with the teaching could come rebuke when they didn’t quite get it. But this also was accepted as part of the disciple relationship.  And that’s what Christian discipleship is, a relationship with the Great Teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ.

  

  VI. CONCLUSIONS and APPLICATION

  A. Where is discipleship today?

  

  1. There was no discipleship in my traditional denomination. I encountered discipling  when I was in the Army and met a group called the Navigators. There I was discipled for the first time and spent 10 years with them, continuing after I left the Army. It was my hope to be able to bring discipleship back to my denomination. Unfortunately, my disabling injury interfered with that goal. However, in recent years I have begun to see discipleship becoming more and more a part of church life. It still isn’t the discipleship I learned in the Navs, but at least the traditional Protestant church is moving in the right direction. Baby steps!

  2. Otherwise, I’ve only seen perverted cult examples of ‘discipleship’ in my lifetime. Here are some prominent examples:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  B. How do you tell the difference?

  It doesn’t take a lot of thought to see the similarities in Jesus and His disciples, and these cults.

  

  

  

  

  So then, how do we tell who to follow, the process of discipleship is the same? The Bible calls these false leaders ‘anti-Christs,’ that is, false teachers and prophets that people turn to ‘instead’ of Christ. Jim Jones promoted himself as a prophet of God. David Koresh proclaimed himself the only true teacher from God.  Reverend Sun Yung Moon stated he was the second coming of Jesus Christ.

  

  C. What is the effect of false cults?

  I’ve noticed several:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  So, what is Jesus creating? Is it a cult or is it a new culture? Stay tuned to Mark and let’s see if we can answer that question.

  

  September 28, 2025

  bible, christianity, discipleship, faith, god, jesus

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• E2, Mark 1:12-13 Temptations

  

  12 At once the Spirit sent (Jesus) out into the wilderness, 13 and He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted/tested by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended Him.

  

  Cross references: There were others who spent 40 days with God without additional sustenance, Moses and Elijah.

  

  

  There are two significant aspects to the temptation of Jesus. First is that He can be sympathetic toward us when we’re going through difficulties, because He’s been there:

  

  Second is that Jesus came through His time of testing victorious, which qualified Him to be the sacrifice for the redemption of humankind. In comparison, our penultimate ancestors were NOT victorious when they were tested by Satan and that is why we are in the mess the world is in.

  But thanks be to God,” to quote Paul (1 Corinthians 15:57), God has not left us in this mess, He had a plan–a plan for redemption, a plan for salvation, a plan reaching its climax here in Mark with God’s Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Let’s look more in depth at temptation/testing starting in Genesis.

  Genesis 3:1-15, New International Version

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  • Lust of the flesh: Bodily desires, appetites, and sexual immorality. 

  • Lust of the eyes: Craving or longing for pretty things, possessions, which can be seen as a desire for more. Also called ‘covetousness’ in the Bible.

  • Pride of life: Boastful confidence in oneself, one’s resources, or earthly things. Jesus referred to it as ‘Mammon,’ a Middle Eastern concept of His time that referred to anything of value one depends on in place of God.

  

  Pulling together the accounts of the temptation / testing of Jesus from the other synoptic gospels, let’s see how Jesus also faced each of these three threats and how He dealt with them.

  

  Lust of the flesh: Jesus had been fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and He was hungry. Satan came and tested/tempted Him saying, “If you are really the Son of God, turn these stones into loaves of bread!”

  Jesus replied, “It is written, mankind shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

  

  Lust of the eyes: For the next test/temptation, Satan took Jesus to a high place and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. Then he said, “All these kingdoms can be yours if you will just bow down and worship me!”

  Jesus replied, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD thy God and serve only Him.’”

  

  Pride of life: Finally Satan took Jesus to the highest point of the temple for His last test/temptation. While they were looking down at the thousands of people in the courtyard, Satan said, “It is written, ‘God’s angels shall bear up His Annointed lest He strike His foot against a stone.’  IF you are God’s Annointed, throw yourself down from here!”
  
  Jesus replied, “Get out of here Satan! It is written, ‘You shall not test/tempt the Lord thy God!‘”

  

  Jesus successfully passed the three tests/temptations that Adam and Eve failed. Lessons we can learned:

  1. Jesus accurately quoted what God had said in the past as it pertained to each test. Eve misquoted what God had said by adding, ‘…or touch it.’ Which gave the Serpent an opportunity to deceive her when she touched a fruit and nothing happened.

  2. THE FLESH Jesus prioritized obeying
  God over His natural physical needs. He taught in Matthew 6:33 that we should do this too.

  

  3. THE EYES Jesus refused to be impressed or distracted by seeing all the kingdoms of the world. He focused on the key point of worshipping/serving God versus anyone or anything else. (In other words, He avoided idolatry)

  4. PRIDE The whole aspect of Jesus’ coming was in humility. He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself even further, to be obedient to God’s plan and die on a cross.

  

  To participate in such an ostentatious miracle as Satan suggested, even if he did appear to have a Scripture to back him up, would have been the exact opposite of humility.

  SUMMARY

  I can summarize where Jesus was in this situation by one concept–a personal, submitted relationship with God:

  Who? Jesus chose God over His fleshly needs. He put God’s needs first–God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness.

  Who? Jesus chose God over His psychological needs and desires for fame, for significance, for personal glory. He chose to serve and follow God’s ways and God’s plan rather than take what was offered as an easier shortcut.

  Who? Jesus chose God over his own self-exaltation. Whenever we start to tell others about ourselves, to let others know how great we think we are, we are failing this test. (Ouch!)

  John knew what he was saying when he called it the “Boastful” pride of life. That’s because when you start boasting about yourself, your people, your possessions, your accomplishments, etc., you’re bring prideful.

  

  APPLICATIONS, Mark 1:1-13:

  1.a. Who is Jesus to me? He is the Savior that makes it possible for me to go to heaven when I die, where I will live forever with God and Jesus. My response to that salvation is best expressed in this classic hymn, My Jesus I Love Thee.

  

  1.b. What kind of Savior has Jesus been to me? He has been persistent in seeking relationship with me. Even when I’ve slipped away or strayed from Him, He has always gently called me back into fellowship with Him and with His Body, the Church.

  My feelings about the grace of Jesus in my life, to have never given up on me, is best expressed by the classic hymn, Softly and Tenderly (Jesus is Calling).

  

  1.c. What do I want Jesus to be in my life? I want Him to be the everything to me I’ve heard from so many others. I want Him to be what this classic hymn expresses, to be All the World to Me.

  

  2. Has Mark convinced you of the uniqueness of Jesus, how He is qualified to be the Savior of the World? What more should he include?

  Intellectually I know these things, but emotionally I got nothing. Jesus coming in humility makes it difficult for me to be amazed and astounded about who He is and what He did. Jesus constantly strove to keep things low key. The dialogue in Mark seems so dispassionate, so emotionless, it’s almost like it is being delivered deadpan.

  There’s nothing to stir the heart, wow the mind, to awaken that sense of wonder that these are not just historically momentous events, these are eternally momentous events. It seems like the eternal significance is just beyond my ability to perceive and comprehend. Hoping for more later!

  

  3. How does your faith background affect the way you see Jesus? Are you aware of any potential blind spots, beliefs or practices that might be missing in your Christian faith and practice, having grown up in a certain tradition?

  

  I know that my traditional conservative  Protestant upbringing had lots of gaps– things that were a little off center from the truths of the Bible, even some things that were outright wrong–but I can’t see the what and where of how to change, how to move away from that background, even when I think I can see what new direction I need to move in.

  

  It is as if those childhood beliefs are so deeply ingrained in my psyche that it is who I am. I’ve made some changes in my faith and practice over my lifetime as I’ve learned more and different things, but they have just been baby steps.

  

  The only path ahead I see is to keep grinding it out day-by-day, to keep seeking God, to stay in God’s Word and prayer, to be in fellowship with God’s people, to keep believing that God will work His will in me and through me. But it’s tough!

  

  The three things I heard the most from others in church while growing up in my traditional faith were, ‘maybe,’ ‘it might be,’ and ‘nobody can know for sure.’

  These words are not enough for me anymore, and they haven’t been for a long, Iong time. My hope is that as we look at the story of Jesus in Mark, that my uncertainty will be replaced by certainty, that my doubts will be replaced by convictions, that what I’ve always heard as speculations will be replaced by belief in the truth. Amen!

  

  
  

  September 21, 2025

  bible, christianity, faith, genesis, god, jesus

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• E1: Mark chapter 1:1–11, Introductions

  

  PREPARATION: What are two things you would like to take away from your study of the Gospel of Mark? 1. I’d like to grow in having a devotional attitude as I study the Bible and 2. I’d like to have an attitude of worship toward God that would balance my long-time scholarly/academic/intellectual approach.

  

  Write down a one-sentence prayer for what you would like for the Holy Spirit to change in you as we journey through Mark the next few weeks?My prayer for God to change me during this study is embodied in the classic hymn, Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh on Me:

  

  https://youtu.be/2DtJgaGRav4?feature=shared The Isle of Man Methodist Church

  THE STORY Mark 1:1-13, New International Version, annotated. John the Baptist Prepares the Way 1 The beginning of the good news (gospel, evangelon) about Jesus the Messiah, [the Christ=Annointed One] (the Son of God, not in earliest manuscripts).2 As it is written In the Prophets:

  

  And in Isaiah,

  

  4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to see and hear him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 

  

  6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. Cross reference:

  

  7 And this was his message: “After me comes One more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy (and neither are we) to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with/in water, but he will baptize you with/in the Holy Spirit.” Cross references:

  

  

  The Baptism of Jesus 9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 

  

  10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, He saw heaven open up and the Spirit descended on Him like a dove.

  

  11 And a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Beloved Son, with you I am well pleased. (Voice = God the Father. Must have been an important event, because the entire Trinity was present!)

  

  SUMMARY: After reading these opening verses to Mark’s gospel, what were the expectations for Jesus? What kinds of things did the people anticipate from Him?

  

  1. The ‘good news’ about Jesus. We started with the point that this isn’t just personal good news like ‘Honey, I got a raise / promotion at work.’ Or, ‘Congratulations you’re going to gave a baby!’ Or, ‘The lab test was negative for cancer.’ These are all examples of PERSONAL good news. It is good, it might even be GREAT news, but it is meaningful only to you and your family.

  

  The good news in Mark is transcendent, it is worldwide. It doesn’t affect just a few people, it is for everyone, everywhere, for all times, for all peoples and for all life situations. I think the readers already knew the basics about WHO Jesus was. They wanted to know more about Him, where He came from, what He did, what He said, where He went–they wanted MORE, and here was the beginning of that ‘more.’

  

  Woo-hoo baby! Strap in, because Uncle Mark is going to take you on the ride of your life! There is a great contemporary song that captures a lot of what a Christian life truly lived can be like, Steven Curtis Chapman, The Great Adventure.

  

  2. The Christ, the Annointed One of/from God is someone who was sent from God with a unique anointing of God’s power, sent for a very special purpose, with a special message. Sent to us, with a message from God for us. If you ever wanted God to speak to you. If you ever wanted God to do something about the mess in the world, this is it. Pay attention. Expect some answers. Expect some solutions.

  

  3. God first sent a special, prophesied messenger to the people of the Bible, to the Jews, God’s chosen people, to prepare the way for the arrival of His Annointed One. This Annointed One was so important that God sent a herald to announce He was coming. ‘Get ready, everyone! The One who God has promised will soon be here. He will fix everything that’s wrong. He will make all things right, all things whole. Get ready, you don’t want to miss this!’

  

  As a result of John the Baptist’s proclamations up and down the Jordan River, there was a sense of excited anticipation in Israel. The Messiah was coming from God, get ready!

  

  4. ‘…and John was calling everyone to repent of their sins, proclaim4ing a baptism for the forgiveness of sins…’ So how do you prepare for the Messiah? The Jews knew that God was holy and the very first step to approaching Him was to be forgiven your sins through animal sacrifice. The Annointed One from God would be like God, so it only made sense that He was holy too. If you wanted to receive Him, if you wanted Him to receive you, you had to be clean.

  

  Now, John didn’t mean you needed a bath on the outside. The Jewish ceremonial washing was just a sign of one’s spiritual cleansing. You needed to be clean on the inside. The straight path that John mentioned was not work on the roads. It was to prepare a straight path for the Messiah to reach your heart. Clean out the sinful thoughts, words and actions from your life, then you’ll be ready to receive Him…and He you.

  

  You have to be holy to approach God the Father. You had to be holy to receive His Son. And then there is God’s Holy Spirit (it’s in the name.) So what we’re talking about here is HOLY HOLY, HOLY. That is God’s expectation of us, because that is who God is.

  

  5. John the Baptist was a big deal in Israel. He was the first true prophet from God in 400 years. (There had been many self-proclaimed false prophets.) John was so popular with the masses that when he began calling the religious rulers sinners too, the rulers were afraid to arrest him because of popular acclaim.

  

  Then John said something absolutely astounding. He said that the One who was coming was even greater, so great that John was not worthy enough to even untie His sandals.

  

  Now, in those days, when someone entered a home, the lowest servant was stationed at the door with a pitcher of water, a basin and a towel. His job was to untie and remove the dirty, nasty sandals after the person had been walking the dirt roads of the time, stepping in mud sometimes, and definitely stepping in what the animals left behind. The servant then washed off anything that might have splashed up on the bare feet inside the sandals so they wouldn’t track anything inside, because they sat around on the floor and who would want to sit in some of that? Then the servant also washed and dried the sandals for when they left.

  

  This was a sometimes nasty job assigned to the lowliest of the low, and John said, he was not even good enough to do that for God’s Annointed when He comes! What must the people have thought when John made that statement? I’m guessing there was a tremendous amount of interest and curiosity. If John, the great prophet of God, as they saw him, was saying, the Coming One is so much greater that John is lower than the lowliest servant, what kind of a Person might the Annointed One be?

  

  6. A thundering voice from heaven, a hole ripped in the sky, a bright, powerful figure flashing out of that hole, shrinking to the size of a dove before it fell on this Nazarene who was just baptized… what in the world was happening? Is this the One? Who is he?

  The people were primed to receive the Messiah and the stories about what happened at this baptism must have flashed up and down the country as fast as telephone or radio could have carried them. But these questions remained unanswered because whoever it was, He was whisked away, He fell off the radar, He disappeared for parts unknown.

  Without confirmation, the people must have wondered, did something unusual, something special really happen? Was this the Messiah or should we look for someone else? I’m sure this was part of God’s plan, but the why is not clear to me.

  SUMMARY: So, the question was, after reading verses 1 to 11, what might be expected from Jesus, what might one anticipate from Him after this introduction by Mark?

  

  I think the expectations were for something great, for Someone great. Greater than anything they had ever known, heard of or seen. Something/Someone so great they had to be totally ready. So great that there were more questions and speculations than there was real knowledge. So great that it might totally blow you away. Maybe too great to comprehend, too great to withstand. Maybe it was some kind of GOD greatness?

  September 20, 2025

  bible, christianity, faith, god, jesus

  ---

• E0, Introduction to the Gospel of Mark

  Hello subscribers! If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t posted a new blog recently, there’s a story behind that..

  

  I’d been working on Genesis chapter 26, the third installment in the topic of Generational Sin, when I made the MOST AMAZING DISCOVERY! As I followed up on that discovery and continued to work through my planned study, I just kept writing and writing for over a week and a half. When I finally had said everything I wanted to say about the topic, I realized I had waaaay too much for one blog. However, I realized that the extra material outside of Genesis 26 would make a perfect concluding fourth blog of the miniseries.

  

  As I was trying to figure out how to disentangle the two parts, our Fall Men’s Bible studies started up. I considered and prayed about which topic to sign up for and felt drawn to the one on the Gospel of Mark. We began last week and I found out why God had led me to that one.

  

  To understand the reason, I refer back to my first blog in the D series. I had heard a comment from Matt Slick on Christian radio that he finds it works best if he approaches study of the Bible with a devotional attitude rather than a scholarly attitude.

  

  I was immediately convicted by God as my approach to studying the Bible has been predominantly scholastic. Since that moment of conviction, I’ve been praying and staying alert for God’s answer about how I can grow as a worshipper when it comes to approaching His Word, the Holy Bible. It turns out this Bible study on the Gospel of Mark, using study and video materials by Francis Chan, is God’s answer for that need in my life that He Himself had shown me.

  

  At the end of a trailer showing him at key places in Israel where Jesus had visited, which also serves as an introduction to the study, Pastor Chan prayed this: “These are Holy, Holy, Holy places. It is sad if you have lost the fascination of God emptying Himself and taking the form of a man. God, I pray as we trace together and journey through the life of your Son (in Mark), that we treat it as sacred, as holy, holy, holy, like no other Name on the earth. Change our hearts, God. Help us to see that everything else is so ridiculous compared to this one great truth of you becoming man, dying on a cross for all of our sins; rising from the dead. God, teach us how to marvel again. Teach us to be fascinated with the Good News of Jesus Christ.”

  I was touched deeply by this prayer and knew that this was what I was looking for, that this is what I needed as the next step of growth in my life as a Christian, as a disciple of Jesus Christ. I emailed the pastor in charge and my former small group leader, who is also in the study, and wrote: PLEASE pray this for me!!! So, I decided to put off finishing the D series so that I can focus my Bible study time on Mark, because I now realize I need to do more than understand what the Bible says. I need to feel what it means deep down in my heart.

  

  Feelings don’t come easy for me. I was diagnosed with ADHD in school and that puts me on the autism spectrum. We on the spectrum, even though high functioning as I am, have great difficulty with emotions and social interaction.

  

  So, please be patient with me as I try to open up my feelings to the significance of what we are studying each week. It may be a little raw, I may be off base, I may even be crude, but I’m going to share what I put in my journaling in the following blogs this semester. Please pray for me to grow in the areas of feelings, devotion and worship. I’ll be glad to pray for you too if you’ll leave your request in a Comment.

  

  A word of encouragement would also be welcome as I walk this journey. Think of me like a child first learning to walk. I’ve always seen parents and grandparents be super encouraging and supportive of their children taking their first steps. That positiveness, I’m sure, is what keeps the kids trying when they fail and fall the first few times.

  

  I’m going to fall. I’m going to fail, but with the support and encouragement of my brothers and sisters in the faith, and A LOT of help from Daddy God, I am confident I will be able to do what God has shown me that I need to do.

  THANK YOU!

  September 19, 2025

  bible, christianity, faith, god, jesus

  ---

• D7 Interlude – The sons of this world are wiser.

  

  Luke 16 contains a parable about a dishonest manager (steward) who cleverly secures his future after being fired. Jesus’ moral is “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light,” and suggests we can learn to be better ‘children of light’ from them.

  

  Now Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions. Therefore the rich man summoned the manager and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for if it is true, you can no longer be my manager.’ 

  

  While the manager was gathering the accounts, he said to himself, ‘What am I to do since my master will take the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg… I know what I can do so that when I am removed from managing, people will welcome me into their homes…’ 

  

  The manager then summoned each one of his master’s debtors, and he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ And he said, ‘A hundred jugs of oil.’ And the manager said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit and write fifty.’ Then the manager said to another debtor, ‘How much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘A hundred bushels of wheat.’  The manager said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 

  And when his master found out, he actually complimented the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light. 

  

  So, I was recently reading this article entitled, ‘Why Threat Actors Win.’ I was struck by the qualities the article described that lead to Threat Actors’ success and thought, maybe we could learn a little something from them that we could use in our approach to carrying the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world? Those characteristics in general were described as being, “Threat Actors approach their objectives with relentless focus, strategic adaptability, patience, and an unwavering commitment to success.” Let’s look at each of these as described in the article in more detail and I’ll contrast them with how the Bible says we should be as Christians.

  

  I. Threat Actors are committed to success. They exhibit a steadfast commitment to engage in their deceptive behaviors and to carry out their bad acts.

  Compare that with this command to Christians:

  

  The steadfast commitment is not different, but where it is applied is worlds apart, bad acts versus the good works of our Lord Jesus Christ.

  A. Intrinsic Motivation: Threat Actors are motivated not only by the extrinsic reward of monetary gain, but from the intrinsic reward of outsmarting others.

  

  Our intrinsic reward as Christians is supposed to be the experience of being in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, more than anything else we might value in this world.

  B. Psychological Traits: Psychologists Paulhus and Williams (2002) identified three traits common to Threat Actors, which they referred to as “The Dark Triad.”

  

  1) Narcissism: That is an overinflated view of one’s importance, and an almost exclusive self love and admiration, which gives them a sense of being superior to everyone else, for whom they feel no sense of care or of their being important in any other way, except to fulfill the desires of the Threat Actor.

  

  In contrast, we as Christians are supposed to be lovers of God first (the Greatest Commandment), put others second (the Second Greatest Commandment) and ourselves third. In 2 Timothy 3:1-4, Paul contrasts these as being opposite qualities–people being lovers of themselves rather than loving God.

  

  2) Machiavellianism: Characteristics based on the worst of the ruling advice in Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince.’ Such as an obsession with manipulating people to meet their own ends and they constantly refine their skills to be able to do so. Threat Actors get great intrinsic reward from the exhilaration of outsmarting others.

  

  In contrast we as Christians are supposed to serve God and one another. Jesus taught His disciples that Christian leaders should not lead in the same way as worldly leaders:

  

  3) Psychopathy: Supression of feelings of sympathy or remorse allows Threat Actors to exploit others without reservations of conscience.

  Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath:

  

  The “-path” comes from ‘pathology,’ meaning these are psychologically ‘diseased’ or socially ‘diseased’ people. Honestly, despite how far off center these conditions are from how God intends us to be, we all have some of these tendencies, because they are just the natural, but extreme, expression of our fallen, sinful state.

  

  Just as psychologists have developed the concept of “The Dark Triad,” they have developed what would be the opposite qualities called “The Light Triad,” which essentially are the positive qualities that the Bible says we should have in our lives,  but psychologists do it without the Christian’s God-centered emphasis.

  1. Instead of Machiavellian manipulation, we should be Altruistic = unselfish regard for the welfare of or devotion to improving the life of others. (from Merriam-Webster).

  2. Instead of Psychopathic, we’re to be Empathic = sensitive to, awareness of, and understanding about the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of others. (from Merriam-Webster).

  3. Instead of Narcissistic, we’re to be Compassionate = a sympathetic awareness of others’ distress, that leads to a desire and actions to alleviate it. (from Merriam-Webster).

  

  As Christians, if we wish to grow away from the ‘dark’ qualities and toward the ‘light’ qualities, we need to double down on our relationship with God. As we grow close to Him and He grows within us, we  truly earn Jesus’ appellation in this parable as being ‘children of light.’

  II. Threat Actors are adaptable and innovative.

  

  A. ADAPTABLE: Threat Actors quickly learn from failures, pivot and employ other “best practices” to keep them ahead of their targets. Their ability to quickly pivot and change their tactics keeps them ahead of the defenses of their target.

  

  B. INNOVATIVE; Threat Actors are continually learning and evolving their tactics. They quickly adjust to changes in technology, prevailing opinion, and other changing conditions to stay one step ahead of their targets’ perception of threat.

  

  Paul talked about his adaptability in sharing the gospel with different kinds of people in 1 Corinthians 9: 19-23.

  “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the Law I became like one under the Law (although I myself am not under the Law), so as to win those under the Law. To those not having the Law, I became like one not having the Law (though I am not free from God’s Law, but am under Christ’s Law), so as to win those not having the Law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

  III. Consistency in Efforts.

  

  A. Persistent Targeting. Threat Actors are not discouraged even when they are initially unsuccessful or it appears their efforts have been thwarted. They will continue their efforts until they find a way to carry out their intended action. Their commitment to be successful often outlasts the target’s commitment to defense.

  

  We are also commanded to be persistent, but instead of trying to harm people, we should be working with God to bring them to salvation, which is for their good not only for eternity, but for their life in this world as well. (1 Timothy 4:8)

  

  B. Exploiting Vulnerabilities. Threat Actors systematically probe for weaknesses, whether it is in systems, processes or human behavior. They are willing to invest their patience to identify and exploit vulnerabilities.

  

  Our vulnerabilities are an opportunity for God’s power to shine through us, but we have to take them to Him in faith and submission, through prayer.

  

  The vulnerabilities of our brothers and sisters in the faith, who might not be at the point of being able to take them to God by themselves, are an opportunity for us to come alongside them and comfort them with the comfort we have received (2 Corinthians 1:4), to pray with them, and to guide them through the process of trusting God, even during their bad times.

  

  The vulnerable times in the non-Christians we know may call for us to do something more practical, as in the compassion ministries (Matthew 25:31-46), but also to pray for them, especially that the situation will help them realize their need to be in relationship with God  and be ready to share the gospel with them when it seems God is using the circumstances to lead them to Him.

  

  C. Learning From Failure. Threat Actors view failure as a learning opportunity. They carefully analyze unsuccessful attempts in order to refine their techniques, thus increasing their success rate over time.

  

  I’m sure we can all learn a lesson about not letting failure keep us down, but instead, we should learn from it and move on. I’ve found that as my faith in God has grown, i don’t fear failure as much as I used to. I think that fear of failure is a holdover from childhood or adolescence when we needed a lot of positive feedback to help us develop a positive self image. If we don’t receive enough praise from our parents or others, then we tend to go for the ‘big score.’ We try to accomplish something so big, so great, that we are certain it will get us recognized as the great person we want to be thought of as.

  When we fail or seem to fail by not getting the great admiration we are seeking, then it paralyzes us and can lead us to obsess about how others think about us, causing us to live on an emotional roller coaster. Obviously not a healthy situation, and it can lead to other emotional extremes.

  After coming to a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ and being assured of His love for me, I am more concerned now about God’s greatness than my greatness. That short circuits that whole emotional unbalance thing for me.

  IV. APPLICATION / EVALUATION

  

  To be honest, everyone is somewhere on a continuum between each pair of dark and light qualities. That is because the dark qualities simply represent the extreme effects of sin. Hopefully we are moving away from this sinful self toward God’s light at the other end of the continuum as ‘children of light.’

  

  We do that by focusing on the character of God as revealed by Jesus Christ, and strive to grow toward Him, which will automatically move us away from the bad end and toward the good end.

  Evaluate where you think you are for each of the ten positive qualities as related to sharing the gospel using this 5-point scale, then total at the end to see where you are overall in your life right now.

  1. Rarely (1-2 per year)
  2. Occasionally (1-2 per quarter)
  3. Often (1-2 per month)
  4. Regularly (1-2 per week)
  5. All the time (1-2 most days)

  1. I am committed to the Great Commission and I share the gospel with the unsaved I know.

  2. Intrinsic motivation: The love of Jesus Christ moves me to share the gospel with people around me and that I meet.

  3. I love God more than I love myself or anything else in this world, and put him first when opportunities arise to share the gospel with others.

  4. I seek to serve others rather than try to get something from them.

  5. I am persistent in sharing the gospel with someone, even when they say they’re not interested.

  6. When I am unsuccessful in sharing the gospel with someone, I pivot and try a different approach.

  7. I learn new ways to relate to people from different backgrounds so that I can more effectively share the gospel with them.

  8.A. God has pointed out at least one unsaved person in my life that I pray about and am trying to lead them to Jesus Christ.

  9. When people that I know are vulnerable due to loss or tragedy, I step in and offer them God’s comfort and pray with them, and also pray for their consolation.

  10. I use my failures in sharing the gospel as motivation to seek and learn new ways to share it better the next time.

  

  How did you do? I’ll be honest, I rated only an 18. This is what I see the results as meaning:

  10 to 19 = You are minimally involved in sharing the gospel. You are mostly a spectator.  (That’s me!)

  20 to 29 = You are a beginning laborer in God’s harvest, dedicated, active in sharing the gospel, but still learning how to do it more successfully. (That was me in the Navigators.)

  30 to 39 = You are an experienced laborer in God’s harvest. You’ve led others to Christ and you mentor other young Christians in learning how to do so.

  40 to 49 = You are a Master Laborer in God’s harvest, and should be leading an evangelism ministry, as well as teaching others how to share the gospel successfully.

  Would you like to improve in sharing the gospel as a regular part of your life? Prayerfully read back over the 10 evaluation statements and ask God to point out an area that He’s ready to help you improve in. Then commit yourself to step out in faith in that area, trusting that God will help you in your obedience.

  

  For me I think it is #3.  I need to grow more in my love for God and Jesus Christ, so that His love and the gospel will just gush out from within me as a ‘super’-natural part of my life.

  Check out this song about the gospel and what it means to people in different situations. Maybe it will help motivate you to share it more. I find it does that for me.

  The Gospel by Ryan Stevenson

  https://share.google/nDKjn4nKsS0AQA41O

  

  August 11, 2025

  bible, christianity, faith, god, gospel, jesus

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• D3 Genesis Part 2, Introduction – Long Lives

  1. Longer Lifespans

  To understand what’s happening in Genesis Part 2 a little better, it’s helpful to look at some of the things from the first half. Just prior in Genesis 23 was the death of Sarah–she was 127 years old, Abraham was 137 years old at the time and Isaac was 37 years old.

  

  The average life expectancy in the United States is abput 86.5 years–84 years for men and 87 years for women. The ages in Genesis seem astounding to us, but follow a pattern of people living longer early in Genesis, then living shorter lives as time went on.

  

  In the genealogies in Genesis 5 to 11, pre-Flood, we see long lifespans of:

  Adam = 930 years,
  Seth = 912 years (third son of Adam),
  Jared = 962 years (Father of Enoch),
  Methuselah = 969 years (son of Enoch and grandfather of Noah) and
  Noah = 950 years.

  

  A special note about the man who lived the longest: God said that He was not going to destroy the world as long as Methuselah was alive. His name actually means “His death shall bring.” God supernaturally extended his life because He was giving the people as much time as possible to repent. This is a reflection of God’s nature as summarized by Peter:

  

  After the flood only Shem, Noah’s son, lived more than 200 years at 600 years  but he was born pre-Flood.

  

  The Institute for Creation Research, who approaches the information in Genesis as being true and accurate, posits that something about the Flood changed the world resulting in the shortened lifespan. The Genesis account seems to indicate there was some sort of protective cloud layer around the Earth that filtered out more harmful cosmic and ultraviolet rays than the current atmosphere. Shortened lifespans, beyond poor nutrition, disease and natural disasters, are caused by the accumulation of genetic defects. One of the biggest cause of genetic mutations is ionizing radiation.

  

  The world’s perspective today has been that advances in science have led to longer lifespans for humankind. That is true when looking back at the historical records available, but doesn’t account for the Biblical record.

  2. Later Puberty and Marriage

  

  Genesis 24 begins 3 years later with Abraham now 140 and Isaac 40 years old. Abraham decides Isaac is ready for a wife.

  

  It was the custom at that time, and still is in much of the Middle East and India, that parents arrange the marriage of their children. Modern customs in those areas usually don’t force the young couple to marry, but they can provide their input and approval for the match.

  Once again, it is inconceivable that someone wouldn’t get married until 40 years old. In Jesus’ times, young men and women married as soon as they had completed puberty and achieved sexual maturity, about 14 to 15 for young women and about 19 to 20 for young men. That’s not significantly different than now when puberty for girls typically ends around ages 15 to 17, while for boys, it generally concludes around ages 16 to 18, on average. We have earlier onset of puberty today due to improved health and nutrition, and it lasts longer, producing larger men and women.

  My conclusion from the general data about puberty and sexual maturity is that it is partially a function of total genetic lifespan. The longer lived the people, the later the completion of puberty.  Running the numbers, that’s 21% through a man’s life today, on average, when he reaches sexual maturity. For Isaac, 40 would have been 22% of his lifespan before he died at 180. So, it is not inconceivable he had recently completed puberty and was just then fully mature.

  3. God Promises Long Life

  Some people think the ages in Genesis are in error due to misunderstanding of ancient numbering systems. Maybe so, but one thing for sure, living a long life is one of the blessings of walking with God.

  Here are some examples of promises of long life from the Bible:

  The 10 Commandments:

  

  Paul notes that this is the first of the 10 Commandments with a promise attached.

  

  Obedience to all of the Commandments of Moses came with a promise of long life from God.

  

  In Proverbs it is considered the highest wisdom to obey God’s commands, with these same promises of long life and other blessings promised:

  

  While these verses suggest a connection between a godly life, longevity and prosperity, especially for the Jews under the Law of Moses, they are not absolute guarantees of a specific lifespan. 

  4. What contributes to longer lives today?

  Modern science has determined there are certain physical, social and psychological practices that lead to a longer than normal life. There are the expected healthy physical habits of eating right, exercising regularly and getting plenty of sleep–and avoiding the unhealthy physical habits such as drinking alcohol and smoking and avoiding risky behavior. Also be sure to have regular health checkups and screenings. Most of the common killers of age–cancers and heart disease–can be avoided or caught early enough to be treated effectively.

  It is also interesting that aging studies have shown the importance of having some belief that gives you a feeling your life has meaning, to have something that gives you  a purpose, and having a community of friends with whom you regularly interact, are also characteristics shared by those who live longer than normal lives. These lifestyle characteristics were first discovered when it was found people with a deep, abiding religious faith tended to live longer. No surprise to me, because my faith in God gives my life meaning, helping to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ gives my life purpose, and I have a circle of Christian brothers and sisters with whom I regularly interact in a meaningful way. God has given us everything we need psycho-socially to want to keep living for as long as we can in Himself and in His Church, but I also believe there is a supernatural blessing from God that will extend our lives to their maximum.

  5. Application–Eternal Life

  When it comes down to it, we’re going to live forever. Maybe not in this life and on this world, but we have eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

  

  In the Old Testament, we see that a long life was a blessing from God given to His faithful Chosen People. In the New Testament, we have the promise of eternal life given to those who believe in Jesus.

  

  This actually creates a different situation for us as Christians. Rather than be concerned about how LONG we will live, God wants us to focus on HOW we live the rest of our lives on this world.

  

  Instead of living our lives for ourselves for as long as we can, God wants us to spend our lives in service to Him, the Gospel and the Great Commission–to invest our lives in bringing others to Christ and guiding their growth to maturity as Christians. This, in essence, is spiritual reproduction. Where are you in that process? If you need to refocus your attention on our eternal God, try this worship song.

  

  Chris Tomlin, Holy Forever

  July 25, 2025

  bible, faith, genesis, god, jesus, long-life

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