Reflective Bible Study

As we’ve moved through this year focusing in on Mark’s gospel, we’ve sped through Jesus’ life and through many of the most significant events so far in Jesus’ ministry. In our passage for this event, Jesus is challenged again because of something His disciples don’t do, and in Jesus’ response, we get the picture He was perhaps a little irritated at these religious leaders, but also that Jesus had a higher opinion of God’s law than these religious leaders.

Let’s read this event and see what we can learn. Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 7, and we will read it from the Contemporary English Version. Starting in verse 1, Mark tells us:

¹ Some Pharisees and several teachers of the Law of Moses from Jerusalem came and gathered around Jesus. ² They noticed that some of his disciples ate without first washing their hands.

³ The Pharisees and many other Jewish people obey the teachings of their ancestors. They always wash their hands in the proper way before eating. ⁴ None of them will eat anything they buy in the market until it is washed. They also follow a lot of other teachings, such as washing cups, pitchers, and bowls.

⁵ The Pharisees and teachers asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples obey what our ancestors taught us to do? Why do they eat without washing their hands?”

Before continuing to discover what Jesus says in response to this, I want to draw our attention onto this question being a spiritual question more than a health question. While the laws given through Moses encompass not only spirituality, but health, legalities, and more, at this point in the Jews history, everything was being given a disproportionate level of spiritual significance.

I will be among the first to say that there is likely spiritual significance in more parts of my life and habits that I even begin to realize. However, with that said, some instructions have less to do with spiritual health directly and more to do with physical health. I don’t know if these disciples did not ever wash their hands, or if these disciples didn’t wash their hands in whatever way was spiritually significant in the minds of these legalistic Jews.

However, Jesus’ answer draws our attention not only on His heart, but also onto a pretty significant spiritual truth as well. Continuing in verse 6:

⁶ Jesus replied:

You are nothing but show-offs! The prophet Isaiah was right when he wrote that God had said,

“All of you praise me
    with your words,
but you never really
    think about me.
⁷ It is useless for you
    to worship me,
when you teach rules
    made up by humans.”

⁸ You disobey God’s commands in order to obey what humans have taught. ⁹ You are good at rejecting God’s commands so that you can follow your own teachings! ¹⁰ Didn’t Moses command you to respect your father and mother? Didn’t he tell you to put to death all who curse their parents? ¹¹ But you let people get by without helping their parents when they should. You let them say that what they own has been offered to God. ¹² You won’t let those people help their parents. ¹³ And you ignore God’s commands in order to follow your own teaching. You do a lot of other things that are just as bad.

¹⁴ Jesus called the crowd together again and said, “Pay attention and try to understand what I mean. ^15-16 The food that you put into your mouth doesn’t make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean.”

¹⁷ After Jesus and his disciples had left the crowd and had gone into the house, they asked him what these sayings meant. ¹⁸ He answered, “Don’t you know what I am talking about by now? You surely know that the food you put into your mouth cannot make you unclean. ¹⁹ It doesn’t go into your heart, but into your stomach, and then out of your body.” By saying this, Jesus meant that all foods were fit to eat.

²⁰ Then Jesus said:

What comes from your heart is what makes you unclean. ²¹ Out of your heart come evil thoughts, vulgar deeds, stealing, murder, ²² unfaithfulness in marriage, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness. ²³ All of these come from your heart, and they are what make you unfit to worship God.

In this lengthy response to this challenge, Jesus calls out the Pharisees and other religious leaders for placing their own rules above God’s direct instructions. While I’m confident that the religious leaders believed both sets of rules were important, in any place where these rules conflicted, they minimized God’s law in place of their customs. While some of what God has said could be seen as unpopular and potentially illegal in our world today, God didn’t share His laws as optional from an eternal perspective.

However, the biggest portion of Jesus’ response comes in contrasting what makes you fit for worship from what is simply a smart thing to do for your health. However, one phrase in this passage stood out to me as we read it. This phrase is found at the end of verse 19: “By saying this, Jesus meant that all foods were fit to eat.”

Reading this translation makes me think that all foods are equal, but some of the other translations we regularly pull from frame this phrase better in my mind. Both the New American Standard Bible translation and the New International Version emphasize Jesus’ declaration here that all foods are clean. I can understand why these translators may have chosen to frame this idea as being fit to eat, but it might have been better to say that Jesus simply reframes all foods as spiritually clean.

However, Mark’s gospel is attributing a meaning to Jesus message that I don’t see. Perhaps the original language has a better connection, but Jesus is focused more on spiritual cleanness and fitness for worship and how our food doesn’t change our status or our fitness in God’s eyes. I don’t see Jesus telling us that all foods are now permissible to eat, because history, logic, and any reasonable dietician will tell you that different foods have different health benefits. Some foods are simply better than others, and some types of food should be avoided.

Jesus’ message is that our food doesn’t affect God’s response to our worship. Jesus does not hint or state that all things that go into our mouths are equal from a health perspective.

Instead, Jesus emphasizes that what comes out of our mouths comes from our hearts, and what comes out of our mouths makes us unclean. The things that come out of our mouths reveal our hearts. We could also say that the things we share on social media reveal our hearts as well. In today’s era, our “voice” extends to both what we say and what we write and share. What we choose to communicate to others reveals our heart.

God doesn’t view our online lives and our offline lives as different. God sees everything we do and Jesus tells us here that what we do is an extension of our hearts.

After leaving the crowd and entering the house with the disciples, Jesus reemphasizes the truth that our hearts affect how fit we are to worship God. This also strongly suggests that our worship to God might not be accepted based on the state of our heart.

While it is true that our food affects our health, and our health will ultimately affect our life, which includes our ability to worship, our food does not affect the spiritual state of our heart or God’s love for each of us when we come to Him in worship.

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, continue intentionally seeking God first in your life. Don’t let this passage be a license to ignore what you put into your mouth, but let it be a challenge to be extra aware of what comes out of your mouth, and to be extra aware of what you communicate to others, whether this communication uses your vocal cords, your pen, or even your computer, tablet, or phone. What you say and share with others reveals the state of your heart, and the state of your heart reveals how fit you are to worship God.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself. I don’t know of any better way to help clean and restore your heart than through heartfelt prayer, and studying God’s truth in the pages of the Bible. These spiritual habits have given men and women a solid spiritual foundation for centuries, these spiritual habits can strengthen our spiritual lives, and these spiritual habits have the power clean our hearts as well. Don’t simply assume the Bible says something because you heard it from a friend or read it on the internet. Choose to study it out for yourself because if for no other reason than your eternity depends on it!

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 continue moving through John’s gospel, after John has finished sharing about the crowd Jesus challenged and how almost all of Jesus’ followers left Him, John moves to focusing on Jesus being at home with His brothers and away from His disciples. We don’t have much context for what set the stage for this event, however what John shares in this event is fascinating.

Our passage for this episode comes from John’s gospel, chapter 7, and we will read it from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 1, John tells us that:

¹ After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him. ² Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. ³ Therefore His brothers said to Him, “Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. ⁴ For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” ⁵ For not even His brothers were believing in Him. ⁶ So Jesus said to them, “My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. ⁷ The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. ⁸ Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.” ⁹ Having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee.

Pausing reading briefly, I am amazed at this event and at Jesus’ short conversation with His brothers. As I wonder and imagine the details of this scene, I suspect that Jesus’ disciples had already left to go to the feast in Jerusalem, and this is why Jesus was alone with His brothers.

However, the phrase that really jumps off the page at me is a statement Jesus’ brothers tell Him in verse 4: “For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly.” This statement speaks volumes about where the heads and hearts of Jesus’ brothers were. The statement Jesus’ brothers make is completely true, but this statement also entirely misses the direction of Jesus’ life and mission.

When Jesus’ brothers share this statement, it is solid logic: If someone wants to be known and have a following, they won’t hide their lives away. If someone wants to be known by others, they must step into a spotlight, or at least step out in some way. This statement, given in the context of the whole message Jesus’ brothers tell Jesus, lets us know that Jesus’ brothers did not understand Jesus’ mission as the Messiah. In the minds of Jesus’ brothers, the Messiah needed to be very public and the Messiah needed to be focused on attracting followers in order to kick Rome out of the nation.

However, Jesus understands something that His brothers don’t. Jesus understands that fame and popularity are two very bad motivators. What Jesus’ brothers don’t understand is that Jesus is not interested in being known by the world – at least at this point in His ministry. Instead, Jesus is more interested in fulfilling God’s mission for His life, and God’s mission is one that is both incredibly personal, as well as incredibly sacrificial. Jesus’ mission for His life ultimately gives life to those around Him and to those who accept Him.

In contrast, the mission the first century culture had for the messiah was that he would overthrow Rome in their nation, and this mission required lives to be lost in order to succeed. Jesus’ ultimate mission only had one life to be given, and this life was His own.

Because of this, Jesus opts to sit this festival out, because He knows His time has not yet come, and likely because traveling with His disciples or His brothers will draw too much attention onto Himself.

However, after Jesus’ brothers leave for the feast, John continues in verse 10, saying:

¹⁰ But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as if, in secret. ¹¹ So the Jews were seeking Him at the feast and were saying, “Where is He?” ¹² There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, “He is a good man”; others were saying, “No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray.” ¹³ Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.

In this passage, Jesus travels to this festival alone, and as anonymously as possible. At the start of the feast, the Jews were actively looking for Him, but they did not find Him. While this feast was happening, people were talking about Jesus and debating among themselves about how important Jesus really was.

At other places within the gospels, Jesus described how He would divide people. This last part of our passage hints at how Jesus divides people. In all this subtle whispering, we see this division take place. One group describes Jesus as a good man, while other people believed Jesus to be leading the people astray.

However, it is interesting from how John describes these whispered debates that neither one of these two groups understands Jesus’ ultimate mission or goal. Instead, the group that believes Jesus to be a good man might not believe much more about Jesus then this.

In an interesting twist, by this point in John’s gospel, Jesus has amassed a huge crowd of followers and pushed them all away. This detail allows this debate to flourish about Jesus because those who believe Jesus to be a good man can focus on all those Jesus has helped and healed, which is a sizable amount, while those who believe Jesus to be leading people astray can focus on the unbelievable claims Jesus made while teaching. Both sides of this debate have different sets of proof, but neither one appears to take any steps towards believing Jesus to be God’s Messiah.

This is the same in our lives today, except that there are now three groups of people. In our world today, there are people who are actively opposed to Jesus and God, and this includes many who simply claim God doesn’t exist and Jesus is not the same person that the Bible describes. Those who believe this line of thinking make up one group.

The second group of people are those who believe Jesus to be a good man and a good teacher, but that history has exaggerated His life and His ministry. Those in this second group know slivers of Jesus’ life and ministry, but they are not open to letting Jesus or God change their lives.

These first two groups are direct descendants of the two groups debating in our passage in John’s gospel.

To contrast these two groups, we have a third group, and this group believes Jesus to be the Messiah, and that Jesus is the way God stepped into history to show His love for us. This third group, which began with Jesus’ disciples shortly after Jesus returned to heaven, changed the first century world. I am a part of this third group, and if you’re not a part of this group yet, consider yourself invited to join. Those who have placed their hope, faith, trust, and belief in Jesus and His sacrifice for us on the cross can begin a new life with God today, and our lives with God extend forward into eternity!

 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 place your faith, your hope, your trust, and your belief in Jesus and in what He accomplished for humanity on the cross. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are giving the opportunity of a new life with God, a life that we don’t deserve, but a life that God offers to us as a gift if we are willing to accept it. If you haven’t accepted God’s gift yet, this is a challenge to do so today!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to personally grow closer to Jesus each and every day. Through personal prayer and study, discover just how much God loves you and how God showed His love for all of us through what Jesus did for us! While some people point to acts of God that sound negative, angry, or hostile, we should filter all the claims through Jesus. Jesus gives us the best picture of God we can know, and because of this, the best place to begin studying is with Jesus!

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!

As we move through our year focusing on Mark’s gospel, let’s jump over one of Jesus’ most famous miracles and focus in on a miracle that happened on a much smaller scale, but a miracle that may have stood out in the minds of the disciples a little more. Part way through Mark, chapter 6, we find Mark sharing the only miracle that all four gospel writers include. This is the miracle of the feeding a crowd of over 5,000 people.

After this miracle has taken place, we jump into our event that we’ll be focusing in on for our time together this episode. This means that our passage for this episode will come from Mark’s gospel (which is no surprise there), chapter 6, and we will read from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 45, Mark wraps up the miracle of feeding the 5,000 by telling us:

⁴⁵ Jesus quickly made his disciples get into a boat and cross to Bethsaida ahead of him while he sent the people away. ⁴⁶ After saying goodbye to them, he went up a mountain to pray. ⁴⁷ When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on the land.

⁴⁸ Jesus saw that they were in a lot of trouble as they rowed, because they were going against the wind. Between three and six o’clock in the morning, he came to them. He was walking on the sea. He wanted to pass by them. ⁴⁹ When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought, “It’s a ghost!” and they began to scream. ⁵⁰ All of them saw him and were terrified.

Immediately, he said, “Calm down! It’s me. Don’t be afraid!” ⁵¹ He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped blowing. The disciples were astounded. ⁵² (They didn’t understand what had happened with the loaves of bread. Instead, their minds were closed.)

Let’s pause reading here briefly because I want to point out what Mark has just told us. While Mark mentions that the disciples were astounded at Jesus and that the wind stopped blowing at the instant Jesus stepped into the boat with them, Mark also includes an interesting side note. Verse 52 tells us that the disciples didn’t understand what had happened with the loaves of bread because their minds were closed.

As I think about this side-note Mark included in his gospel, part of me wanted this verse to read that the disciples’ minds were closed because God wasn’t ready for them to fully understand the significance of what Jesus had done. However, nothing like this is suggested in this passage or in this context.

Instead, the context is the disciples fighting the storm and Jesus walking to them on the water. At the end of what had occurred that night, it wouldn’t surprise many people that the events of the miraculous feeding of a huge crowd was diminished in the minds of these disciples who were likely very sleep deprived while also making very little progress crossing the lake.

Part of me wonders if the disciples had closed off their own minds to Jesus and to the significance of this earlier miracle because they were simply overwhelmed with what they had just been through.

This detail reminds me of the truth that our current problems will always appear to be bigger than our past problems, and the further in the past a problem is, the less significant it appears. It is the same when we look at something that is far away. It always appears smaller than when we are right next to it. When we have a lot of distance between a problem we once faced and where we are today, that problem will always appear less significant than the challenges in our lives today.

While it is crazy to think about, someone who had been homeless for several months a decade or more ago might be more stressed out tomorrow morning about what they will wear from a closet of clean clothes then about their homelessness, even though their homeless state was significantly more stressful at that time of their lives.

With the disciples, while their stomachs had been satisfied through the miracle of food multiplication, they had moved on to the most immediate challenge and their minds were closed to the significance of this miracle.

If the disciples missed the significance of the miracle where Jesus fed the huge crowd, is it possible we too can miss what God is doing in our lives today?

Are our lives so full of distractions that we miss seeing all the amazing miracles that God is doing in the world around us?

Are our lives so focused on screens that we miss the beauty of creation?

While I cannot answer these questions for you, I can certainly say that God has been challenging me at this point in my life with busyness and intentionally staying connected with Him. I will be the first to say that I probably miss more than I should with regards to what God is doing in the world around me.

However, I know that passages like this and specifically challenges like this help me refocus my life onto Jesus.

Before ending this episode, I want to draw our attention onto what happened after Jesus and the disciples reach the far shore. Picking back up in verse 53, Mark tells us that:

⁵³ They crossed the sea, came to shore at Gennesaret, and anchored there.

⁵⁴ As soon as they stepped out of the boat, the people recognized Jesus. ⁵⁵ They ran all over the countryside and began to carry the sick on cots to any place where they heard he was. ⁵⁶ Whenever he would go into villages, cities, or farms, people would put their sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch the edge of his clothes. Everyone who touched his clothes was made well.

In these few summary verses, I get a clear reminder that even simple faith in Jesus is enough to work miracles in our lives. Those people living in that area had the faith that simply touching Jesus’ clothing would be enough to make them well. This is amazing faith, and it is also simple faith. I see this passage challenging me to step out of the busyness of my life and back into being better connected with God! Perhaps it can be the same sort of challenge for you too!

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 place your hope, faith, trust, and belief in Jesus. Intentionally make time to step out of the busyness we all face and intentionally take the time to rest with God. God promised us regular rest in His daily and weekly cycle for our lives, and following His pattern for our lives is what ultimately works the best for our health and wellbeing.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. A strong relationship with God will help us face the trials that come into our lives, and a strong relationship with God helps our minds be open to seeing and understanding what He is doing in the world today.

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 podcast episode, we stopped before finishing a longer challenge Jesus gives to the crowd of people who found Him following the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking to the disciples’ boat as they were struggling to cross the lake.

In Jesus’ challenge, He begins by emphasizing what God wants most from His people. After the crowd challenges Jesus to give them a sign, which tells us something about the character of this crowd since they just experienced a sign when Jesus fed them in the wilderness, Jesus shifts to talking about the bread God gives, and how He is the Bread of Life.

Reading a few of the last verses from our previous episode to give this episode’s passage some context, let’s pick back up where we left off in our last episode. Our passage is found in John’s gospel, chapter 6, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 47, Jesus continued speaking, saying:

⁴⁷ “Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

⁵² Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

⁵³ Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹ He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Let’s pause reading here. What Jesus has just described is one of the most challenging things He says in the entire Bible, and on the surface, it sounds like Jesus is telling His followers to become cannibals.

However, the only way these verses about eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking Jesus’ blood make sense is when we understand them spiritually. In a literal sense, no one has eaten Jesus’ flesh or drank His blood. The single opportunity that people would have had would have been as He was being taken off the cross and buried, but nothing like this is even hinted at in any of the gospels. While Jesus was dying, most of the disciples were hiding for their lives, and it is only after Jesus is raised from the dead that they begin to venture out. After Jesus was raised from the dead, there was no way the disciples could literally eat His flesh or drink His blood because He appeared and disappeared at will.

Instead, the spiritual truth Jesus teaches His closest followers later on during His ministry, when they are eating the Last Supper together on the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested. In this Passover meal, Jesus takes bread and symbolically equates it to His body, and He takes wine and symbolically equates it to His blood.

However, at this earlier point in Jesus’ ministry while He is teaching this crowd, we don’t have any hint at this symbolism, only a strange literal-sounding declaration about becoming cannibals. Because of this, when we continue reading in verse 60, we see the response of the crowd. John tells us:

⁶⁰ On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

⁶⁷ “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

⁷⁰ Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” ⁷¹ (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

In this passage, and in its conclusion, we discover that Jesus subtly reemphasizes the spiritual nature of what He shared with these followers by saying in verse 63, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.”

This is the biggest clue that Jesus is speaking in a spiritual, symbolic sense, rather than literally. Remember eating Jesus’ flesh doesn’t make sense when Jesus tells us directly that the flesh counts for nothing.

So a better question for us to ask is why would Jesus press this crowd with this truth?

When I look at the broad event, I suspect that Jesus understood something that we did not. I suspect that Jesus understood that the larger the crowds were that followed Him, the greater the danger that this crowd would derail His mission into this world. This specific crowd presents an interesting challenge of its own. This crowd, prompted by emotion, had wanted to make Jesus their earthly king following His miracle of food multiplication, but this same crowd then demanded more signs from Jesus to prove He was from God.

This crowd reflects a decent portion of humanity who are ruled by their emotions, while claiming to be ruled by logic. This crowd was self-serving, only interested in Jesus for what He could do for them, and they likely would not have been satisfied for long with any miracle or sign Jesus would have provided to prove that He was from God. Less than 48 hours after an amazing miracle they were a clear part of, we see them demanding another sign. This crowd discounted every reason they were given to believe in Jesus, while claiming they wanted Jesus to give them reasons for them to believe.

Because of this crowd’s overtly self-serving attitude and focus on bread from God, I believe Jesus took this theme and pushed it to its extreme. Jesus did not lie, but Jesus shared a spiritual truth that was deeper and more direct than any of these people were willing to accept. Jesus shared how He was God’s manna from heaven, and how the manna foreshadowed His coming into the world.

This spiritual truth was so challenging, that it prompted many of His followers who were disciples to desert Him. While we think of disciples as the twelve men Jesus chose, John uses this term to describe a bigger group of regular followers of Jesus, and John describes the twelve closest followers in this passage as simply “the Twelve”. From how this passage frames the aftermath of Jesus’ message, it appears like Jesus took this huge crowd and pushed every person away until He was left with only the Twelve disciples. The bigger the crowds following Jesus got, the harder Jesus pushed them with spiritual truth.

However, while Jesus pushed those in the first century with hard spiritual truth, we are called to believe Jesus’ words, because Jesus’ words bring life and Jesus’ life brings eternal life. God has promised that those who believe and trust in Jesus will be given eternal life. Even if Jesus challenges us with some very difficult to accept challenges, His perspective is bigger than our own, and even when we don’t understand, we are called to believe and look forward to the day when all our questions will be answered when Jesus returns to bring us home.

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 trust in Jesus even when He says some challenging words. Study into the challenging messages Jesus shares to discover some amazing spiritual truth that is worth applying into our lives. Remember, through Jesus, we are promised eternal life, and because of what Jesus did for us, we have the assurance of salvation.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, intentionally pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow from God’s Word. God has preserved the Bible for thousands of years, and it has the power to transform lives when we let the Holy Spirit speak through it. No other book or collection of writing has the Holy Spirit behind it like the Bible. We can trust the Bible will give us an accurate picture of God when we look at it holistically and in context.

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 fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!