Reflective Bible Study

As we begin looking through the gospels for the parables and visual illustrations Jesus used when teaching the crowds, we don’t have to look very far. One of the first visual illustrations Jesus uses can be found in Mark’s gospel very early on in Jesus’ ministry.

In this event, which happens shortly after Jesus invited Matthew to be a disciple, some people come to Jesus with a question. Let’s read what happened from Mark’s gospel, chapter 2, using the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 18, Mark tells us that:

¹⁸ John’s disciples [referring to John the Baptist’s disciples] and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came to Jesus and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples don’t?”

¹⁹ Jesus replied, “Can wedding guests fast while the groom is still with them? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast.

²¹ “No one patches an old coat with a new piece of cloth that will shrink. Otherwise, the new patch will shrink and rip away some of the old cloth, and the tear will become worse. ²² People don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will make the skins burst, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is to be poured into fresh skins.”

In this short event, we see Jesus use two similar visual illustrations and on the surface, these illustrations seem disconnected from the context of what was written before. It is as though Jesus is talking about fasting and then immediately shifts focus to talking about new and old cloth and new and old wineskins.

While preparing for this episode, I wondered if I should leave out this first portion of the passage since it doesn’t seem to relate to the set of parable-illustrations Jesus shared.

However, when choosing which gospel to use for this episode, I noticed that each of the three gospels that include these parables all lead into the parables talking about the question on fasting. Whether it appears to us as coincidence or not, the gospel writers connected Jesus talking about fasting with His talking about cloth and wineskins, and because of this, we’ll include these first verses for context.

By including these verses, it was fascinating in my mind to see the foreshadowing of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and return to heaven so early in the gospels. Verse 20 is the transition verse between fasting and patching cloth, and this verse has Jesus tell those present that “But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast.”

Jesus knew early on that He would be leaving His followers and returning to heaven, and immediately after hinting this, we see two similar illustrations.

The first illustration is about patching an old coat. Jesus shares in verse 21, “No one patches an old coat with a new piece of cloth that will shrink. Otherwise, the new patch will shrink and rip away some of the old cloth, and the tear will become worse.”

The second illustration is similar, but focused on storing wine. Jesus shares in verse 22, “People don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will make the skins burst, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is to be poured into fresh skins.”

When reading these parables, I get the impression that Jesus selected the disciples that He did because He wanted to minimize the hurdle of tradition when trying to teach them about God’s kingdom. Sometimes, our habits and ways of viewing the world are a bigger obstacle to growing closer to God than it is if we begin while we are young.

Some of the religious leaders might have thought it odd for Jesus to have chosen the least religious people possible to start a religious movement, but Jesus knew something they did not – Jesus knew that strongly held preconceived ideas about the Messiah would not benefit the mission Jesus came to accomplish. The more religious the student, the more likely they would have preconceived ideas from what the religious culture taught. Jesus picked some of the least qualified people because they would have the least to unlearn before learning what Jesus wanted to teach them.

Those of us living over 2,000 years later are just as susceptible of falling into the rut that the first century religious culture faced. Those in the first century ultimately missed accepting the Messiah they were looking for because they had let tradition replace their focus on the prophecies. While we might think ourselves superior because we didn’t miss Jesus, we have just as easy of a trap we can fall into, and in our case, it isn’t simply one trap that causes us to miss Jesus. We actually face two traps in our spiritual walk.

Those of us living today must balance between two easy to fall into ditches on our spiritual walk. The first ditch we can fall into is believing we must have an open mind and accept every idea as equally credible. This is spiritual suicide because in spite of what others might say, not all spiritual ideas can coexist with one another. We can and should live peacefully with those who believe differently from us, but that doesn’t mean that we must align our beliefs. We should be open to working with others and keeping communication open, but we shouldn’t automatically surrender our beliefs just because others disagree. The more open-minded an individual is, the less grounded they will be, and they less certain they are about what truth actually is.

The other ditch we can fall into is becoming completely closed-minded and rejecting every idea that runs counter to our established belief system. While very little is truly new in the realm of spirituality and beliefs, when we present a closed-minded attitude towards someone else, we close off communication, and this ultimately will isolate ourselves. The more closed-minded an individual becomes, the more hostile towards others they will be.

The same is true for a culture. The more closed-minded a culture becomes, the more hostile it becomes towards others. The first century religious culture ultimately was hostile towards Jesus because they had become closed-minded towards other beliefs.

Jesus knew His ministry would challenge and change history, and He knew, like He describes in these parables, that trying to transform the old into the new will only result in greater trouble and conflict than it was worth. Instead, as Jesus began His ministry, He illustrates how He is going to start something new, and while this new doesn’t invalidate the old, starting fresh is needed to shed the layers of baggage known as tradition.

Some people think that we are due for a new start in Christianity in order to shed the baggage of tradition that has crept into Christianity over the centuries. On one hand I agree, however, I also add the caution that when we discard tradition, we must be very intentional that we are moving towards the truth that God has taught through His Word. Discarding tradition for error leads nowhere positive. If you choose to discard tradition in your own life, choose to discard tradition in favor of a truth that is clearly visible in God’s Word the Bible!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open these challenges by saying in one way or another, be sure to continue to seek God first and place Him first in your life. Intentionally decide today that you will move towards Him and discard any tradition in your life that runs counter to the truth you find in His Word.

How do we know what is in God’s word? The easiest way to learn and know is by praying and studying the Bible for yourself. By personally getting into the Bible, you will learn firsthand what God wants to teach you, and you will grow a personal relationship with God. While other people can have interesting things to say about the Bible, never let someone get in the middle of your relationship with God.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we begin another year looking at the gospels, this year we are focusing in on John’s gospel, and for many people, John’s gospel might be the most powerful of all the gospels in the Bible. I am certain that while we will try to cover as much as we can during the time we have this year, we will barely scratch the surface of what John’s gospel shares about God, about Jesus, and about how much the Godhead loves each of us.

To begin our year in John’s gospel, let’s first look at how John opens his gospel record, because in this introduction, I suspect that we can find some amazing truths about God and about Jesus.

Our passage is found in John, chapter 1, and we will read this introduction from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 1, John begins by telling us:

¹ In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was already with God in the beginning.

³ Everything came into existence through him. Not one thing that exists was made without him.

⁴ He was the source of life, and that life was the light for humanity.

⁵ The light shines in the dark, and the dark has never extinguished it.

Pausing our introduction briefly here, I want to draw attention onto how John frames Jesus as the source of all life and light. According to John, Jesus was the key to the creation of this world and Jesus is our Source of life.

While it might be easy to spiritualize this detail away by focusing forward onto what Jesus would do for us through His death on the cross, John’s big point here is that there wouldn’t have been a human race for Jesus to die for if Jesus hadn’t created us.

Reading this introduction to John’s gospel amazes me, because from how John frame’s Jesus’ role in creation, Jesus willfully created the reason He would face the cross. While we might think that God the Father created the world and humanity, and then sent Jesus to clean up the mess sin made, John’s introduction frames Jesus being our Creator and the rest of this gospel frames Jesus as our Redeemer as well. Jesus is the reason every human is alive because Jesus is our Creator.

However, John’s introduction isn’t finished yet. Continuing in verse 6, John tells us that:

⁶ God sent a man named John to be his messenger. ⁷ John came to declare the truth about the light so that everyone would become believers through his message. ⁸ John was not the light, but he came to declare the truth about the light.

⁹ The real light, which shines on everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into existence through him. Yet, the world didn’t recognize him. ¹¹ He went to his own people, and his own people didn’t accept him. ¹² However, he gave the right to become God’s children to everyone who believed in him. ¹³ These people didn’t become God’s children in a physical way—from a human impulse or from a husband’s desire to have a child. They were born from God.

Pausing again, as I read how John frame’s Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world, John tells us Jesus “gave the right to become God’s children to everyone who believed in him.” To clarify this idea, John tells us this isn’t a physical change, such as from a human impulse or husband and wife relations, but a spiritual one. We could conclude that when we believe in Jesus, God adopts us into His spiritual family.

This detail is significant when we read the next portion of John’s introduction, specifically the portion we will end with. Picking back up in verse 14, John continues sharing by saying:

¹⁴ The Word became human and lived among us. We saw his glory. It was the glory that the Father shares with his only Son, a glory full of kindness and truth.

¹⁵ (John declared the truth about him when he said loudly, “This is the person about whom I said, ‘The one who comes after me was before me because he existed before I did.’”)

¹⁶ Each of us has received one gift after another because of all that the Word is. ¹⁷ Laws were given through Moses, but kindness and truth came into existence through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. God’s only Son, the one who is closest to the Father’s heart, has made him known.

Let’s stop reading here because John has emphasized some big ideas that I don’t want us to miss. In the last portion of verse 14, John tells us that God the Father’s glory, which He shared with Jesus, is a “glory full of kindness and truth”.

John tells us that we receive amazing gifts and blessings because of who Jesus, also known as “the Word”, is and because of who we are to Him. While God blessed the world with His law through Moses, God revealed His kindness and truth through Jesus.

This detail is incredibly important for us to pay attention to. John tells us that God’s glory is full of kindness and truth, and John has already set the stage with an invitation given to all humanity to become adopted into God’s family. If we are to accept this invitation into God’s family, we should also expect that we will be transformed into reflecting God’s glory in the world around us. God’s glory does not judge, put down, or condemn others. God’s glory shines the light of kindness and truth.

I believe the order of these words is important. While some people might think that truth should come before kindness, it is very easy for truth to be shared outside of the context of kindness and for the hearer of the truth to interpret it in an unkind way. This is why I believe John wrote kindness, or grace, first.

Instead of the age-old cliché of loving the sinner while hating the sin, we should love the sinner first, before sharing the truth that God loves the sinner regardless of their sin. Too many sinners have their identity wrapped up in their sins, and hating the sin is seen in their eyes as hating the sinner, regardless of what we might say.

However, God loved us while we were actively sinning against Him, and we can know this to be true because Jesus came to die for us. God put kindness and grace first, before challenging us with the truth that God sees us as more valuable than our actions, our potential, and our sins. God’s glory is filled with kindness and truth, God’s glory is seen in Jesus, and as followers of Jesus, we are called to reflect this glory as well.

Truth shared in an unkind way is more damaging than simply being kind and extending grace. Jesus modeled kindness towards sinners, and He was kind and gracious towards all who understood they were sinners before calling them out of their sin.

Jesus modeled this gracious attitude towards us, because whether we like to admit it or not, we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s ideal. The sooner we realize that we are not any better than anyone else, the sooner Jesus can transform our lives with His glory, kindness, and truth!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to reflect God’s glory by being kind to everyone God has brought into your life. Choose to give people the benefit of a doubt and to extend grace even if grace isn’t what we deserve. We give others grace and kindness because God has blessed us with His grace and kindness.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and move closer to God in your life. The best way to learn what God is like is by opening the pages of your Bible and looking at Jesus. Jesus came to show us what God is like, and how much He loves each of us.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we begin our year looking at Jesus’ parables, it would be good to begin by answering the question about why Jesus used parables when He spoke to people. While parables are fascinating and simple illustrations, there are plenty of other ways of sharing God’s truth, many of which are clearer and simpler to understand, while others are more complex and less relatable.

Fortunately for us living today, the disciples asked Jesus why He used parables when speaking to the crowds, and most of the gospels include Jesus’ answer to this question. While it would be easy to speculate why Jesus used parables, let’s let Jesus answer this question for us.

Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 13, and we will read it from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 10, Matthew tells us that:

¹⁰ [Jesus’] disciples came and asked him, “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?”

¹¹ He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not. ¹² To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. ¹³ That is why I use these parables,

For they look, but they don’t really see.
    They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.

¹⁴ This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that says,

‘When you hear what I say,
    you will not understand.
When you see what I do,
    you will not comprehend.
¹⁵ For the hearts of these people are hardened,
    and their ears cannot hear,
and they have closed their eyes—
    so their eyes cannot see,
and their ears cannot hear,
    and their hearts cannot understand,
and they cannot turn to me
    and let me heal them.’

¹⁶ “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. ¹⁷ I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.

In His response, Jesus not only answers their question, but He also shares that He was fulfilling prophecy while doing so. Jesus used parables to share truth in a simple, yet challenging way. While parables are simple sounding illustrations, we must be paying attention in order to understand what Jesus is teaching.

Jesus’ response tells us there is a difference between looking versus seeing, and hearing versus listening or understanding. In verse 13, Jesus summarizes a key idea in Isaiah by saying “For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.”

In order to understand Jesus, we must not only be looking and hearing, but we must also be seeing and listening.

However, how is it possible for someone to be looking but not seeing, or hearing but not actually listening? Isn’t the definition of looking actually seeking something out, and isn’t hearing necessary for learning?

It is in this subtle concept that we discover an amazing truth about what Jesus likely warns us about in these parables. While these illustrations are simple, the temptation is to read them, pull out a theme, and then discard the parable. This is looking and hearing with a closed mind, and it is what the religious leaders were good at doing in the first century.

When Jesus stepped into history, there was expectation in the culture about the Messiah appearing. However, the expectation was so exclusively focused on one understanding of prophecy that Jesus simply didn’t fit the expectation. Jesus ultimately was rejected because the religious leaders had closed their minds to any other understanding of prophecy. As we spent a whole year looking at, without covering everything, the Old Testament is filled with prophecies that Jesus did fulfill in His lifetime, including prophecies that Jesus could not have directly influenced while here on earth.

But because Jesus didn’t fit the picture of the Messiah that the religious leaders were looking for, they rejected Him. These religious leaders give us a model for looking but not seeing, and hearing but not really listening. The religious leaders looked with an agenda, and they filtered their ears with their ideas about who they believed God would send.

Jesus’ warning in His answer is that more understanding will be given when we listen to Jesus’ teaching, and we will have “an abundance of knowledge”, but when we don’t listen, even the little understanding we think we have “will be taken away”.

We live in a world today that has pushed Jesus and His teachings to as far on the sidelines as it can, and we are seeing the fruit of this decision. Without Jesus’ teachings that affirm creation, we are left wading through theories about our origins that keep getting disproven. The problem isn’t the theory; the problem is with the assumptions that are used to form the rules that define what theories are acceptable. By rejecting Jesus, knowledge may be increasing, but understanding is being lost.

Without Jesus’ teaching on all the subjects that this world struggles with, we are left with a world that is growing more chaotic, more polarized, and more hostile than it has been in a long time.

Jesus shares the solution in His response. In verses 16 and 17, Matthew quotes Jesus saying, “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.”

When we look with open eyes for Jesus and when we listen to Jesus, we will be blessed. Seeing Jesus means that we are looking for examples of ways God is working in the world today, not just supernaturally, but also through His people. Listening to Jesus means that we hear His teachings with an open mind and we apply the themes and lessons He shared into our lives. This is the simple recipe for gaining knowledge about God, and it is the framework for our focus on the parables during this year of podcasting.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open these challenges by saying in one way or another, continue to seek God first and let Him lead and guide you as you walk through life. Don’t just look with a closed mind at what God may be doing, but open your mind and see what God is doing in the world around us. Don’t just selectively hear what you want to hear, but listen with an open mind and bring what you have learned to the Bible to discover if it is truth.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, keep praying and studying the Bible for yourself to discover what the Bible really teaches and to grow your own personal relationship with God. While studying the Bible isn’t the last or only step when growing a relationship with God, combining prayer and Bible study are the only way to have a strong, solid foundation for your relationship with God.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

In our last episode, we began reviewing our past year’s worth of podcasting by focusing in on insights and profound thoughts we discovered while studying through Luke’s gospel. Our last episode focused us on insights we learned during the first portion of this past year.

For this episode, we turn our attention onto the second half of our year of podcasting in Luke’s gospel, and onto things we learn as Luke leads us through Jesus’ journey towards the cross.

However, before diving into these insights, I always like to take a minute or two to talk about what we will look at next year. As some of you might remember, a little over three years ago, I suggested that we take the next four years and focus each year on one of the gospel records. We began with Matthew two years ago, Mark was last year, and the year we wrapping up with this episode focused on Luke.

I have been amazed and blessed with the time spent in each of these gospels, and we have one gospel left: the gospel of John. Following the grand plan we began a few years ago, let’s take next year and focus on what one of Jesus’ closest disciples can tell us about Jesus’ ministry on earth. I’m not sure what we’ll focus on for the year following John, but we will have plenty of time to figure it out as we move through the last of the four gospels.

However, in order to get to John’s gospel, we need to finish up looking at our insights from Luke’s gospel, and with that said, let’s dive into what we learned over the last half of this year of podcasting.

Let’s begin by looking at some big insights from episode 27, which focused in on Jesus’ message about Jerusalem and some Pharisees warning Jesus about Herod. In this episode, we are reminded that doing evil separates us from God, and that means our present choices outweigh our past decisions for God. Our present choices matter when we are discussing salvation because being saved is a decision that is always made in the present! The only decision that truly matters is a present decision to accept Jesus, repent and move away from doing evil, and accept the gift of salvation.

Before Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and return, Jerusalem is known as the city who killed God’s prophets, Jesus included, but when Jesus ultimately returns, God’s people will get to experience the New Jerusalem, which is the city God built that will ultimately protect His people forever!

Jumping forward to episode 29, when we learned what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus and to count the cost of following Jesus, we were challenged with the truth that if following Jesus does not have much of a commitment, then following Jesus doesn’t have much value. The more committed a relationship is, the more valuable it is – especially when we are talking about a relationship with God!

Jesus is looking for disciples who will follow Him even when their families, their friends, their coworkers, and anyone else in their lives thinks they are crazy.

Moving forward, we reach episode 31 which looked at Jesus’ famous parable of the prodigal son. In this parable and Jesus’ teaching, we discovered that an arrogant pride is the biggest temptation for people who have been in the church for a long period of time and this arrogant pride is what ultimately formed in Lucifer’s heart. An arrogant pride looks down on others while ignoring one’s own faults.

However, more importantly, we learned that this parable focuses on how patient God is as the father of both sons. Let’s remember that while our lives are likely not going to be as extreme as either brother, we are best served by modeling the prodigal son’s return when we fail God than brushing over our faults like the older son did.

Jumping forward to episode 34, we looked at Jesus’ warning about stumbling blocks for our faith, forgiveness, and being God’s servants. In this episode, Jesus challenges us with the truth that the attitude we have towards God says a lot about our character. Nothing we can ever do, say, or give can repay God for everything He has already blessed us with. Instead of living an immature spiritual life looking for immediate blessings and rewards for every act of obedience, determine today to live a spiritually mature life that sees our lives of service as the best way to show gratitude and thanks to a God who has already given us everything!

A few episodes later, Jesus shared an odd parable about an unjust judge. In this episode, which was number 37, we discovered that when it appears as though God is silent and an unjust world has turned against us, never give up hope, never stop praying, and continually trust that God has a bigger perspective than we do. We can trust that God’s perspective extends infinitely farther into the future than sin lasts, because God’s perspective extends into eternity! Faith, hope, trust, and prayer draw our hearts to God, and even when times are bad, we can know and trust that God will always give what is right to His people, and that He will ultimately judge fairly all the unjustness we experienced in our lives in a sin-filled world.

In the next episode, number 38, where Jesus shares about a Pharisee’s prayer versus the prayer of a repentant tax collector, we learned that we should never be confident in our own perfection because we are not perfect. We have sinned, and because of this, we have fallen short of God’s perfection. We should live confident in Jesus’ righteousness instead of our own and 100% aware of our continual need for Jesus to be our Savior.

Skipping forward a few episodes, we come to Jesus’ parable of the evil vineyard workers that we looked at in episode number 41. In this episode, we were impressed with the idea that Jesus tells these leaders that they would ultimately kill the vineyard owner’s son, and by pressing for Jesus’ death, these leaders push Jesus into a role they likely never wanted Him to be in since the vineyard owner in this parable represents God.

A couple episodes later, in episode number 43, we looked at Jesus warning the disciples about the time of the end. In this episode, Jesus shared the powerful truth that when we press forward, determined to endure to the end, we will ultimately gain our lives. When we endure to the end, we gain Jesus’ life, and Jesus’ life is eternal life. Through what Jesus did, when we endure through persecution, we gain eternal life!

Moving forward to episode 46, we looked a little closer at Jesus’ prayer in the garden on the night He was arrested. In this prayer and in this episode, we discovered that Jesus’ prayer to God reflects how we are challenged to pray. When we come before God in prayer, it is worthwhile to bring our requests to Him. However, we also are challenged to frame our requests as being less important or significant than His will.

Jumping forward to episode 48, where Jesus is being tried before Pilate, we learned that if we want to hear God speak and if we want God to show up in our lives in powerful ways, we must be open to receiving the Holy Spirit into our lives. Demanding God will do something for us is an easy way to receive silence and disappointment.

In the next episode, number 49, we come to a powerful truth we learn from the time Luke describes Jesus hanging on the cross. While most people focus in on Jesus’ promise to a criminal, there is much more to Luke’s account than this single detail. In this episode, we are reminded and challenged with the truth that Jesus lived a life of forgiveness. Jesus offers sinners paradise, and Jesus’ spirit belongs to the Father. Forgiveness leads to salvation, and salvation leads us to the Father!

And to wrap up this year of podcasting through Luke’s gospel, I don’t know of a better statement to leave you with than the big concluding thought from this, second-to-last episode: Jesus came to die for each of us, to forgive our sins, to offer us the gift of paradise, and to show us God’s love and His character. While Jesus was misunderstood throughout His entire ministry, including during the first portion of His time on the cross, starting with the words of a criminal, those present for the crucifixion began to realize who exactly Jesus was and the ultimate Messiah He came to be!

As we enter a new year, let’s keep our focus on what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross and the life He offers us as a gift when we give our hearts, our lives, and our belief to Him!