Reflective Bible Study

In all the gospel records, and in all of Jesus’ miracles, two similar events are among the most well known events. Actually, let me back up. In all the gospel records, and in all of Jesus’ miracles, there is one event that is very well known, and another similar event that is in many ways just as significant, but it is overshadowed by the more famous event. From these two separate events, we get a glimpse of the size of the crowds that Jesus preached to, though that detail in each event is more of a side note rather than a key detail.

Most of you likely have already jumped ahead and know the two events I’m referring to. These two miracle events are the ones where Jesus multiplies an insignificant amount of food to feed the large crowd of listeners who happened to also be hungry.

One of these events is commonly referred to as the feeding of the five thousand, and it holds a significant and rare award for being one of the few events to be recorded in all four gospels.

However, the event we are focusing in on in this episode is not the feeding of the five thousand.

Instead, for this episode, we turn our attention onto the less famous miracle of this pair, which is simply known as the feeding of the four thousand. While most people know a lot more about the feeding of the five thousand, with the boy giving his lunch to Jesus, let’s discover what we can from this less famous miracle of food multiplication.

Our passage is found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 15, and we’ll read it using the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 32, Matthew tells us:

³² Then Jesus called his disciples and told them, “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry, or they will faint along the way.”

³³ The disciples replied, “Where would we get enough food here in the wilderness for such a huge crowd?”

³⁴ Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?”

They replied, “Seven loaves, and a few small fish.”

³⁵ So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. ³⁶ Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to the disciples, who distributed the food to the crowd.

³⁷ They all ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. ³⁸ There were 4,000 men who were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children. ³⁹ Then Jesus sent the people home, and he got into a boat and crossed over to the region of Magadan.

In this passage, as we read it together, we can easily see several places where this miracle of feeding four thousand people has similarities to the feeding of the five thousand. However, instead of focusing in on the similarities, like their being loaves of bread and fish in both events and that there were baskets full of leftovers in both events, let’s focus in on one or two things in this passage that make this event unique from the more famous meal where 5,000 were served.

While I already alluded to both events having bread and fish, the first thing that stands out when I read this is not that the quantities of each are different, but the source of food is different. In the feeding of the five thousand, a small boy offers his lunch and this gift is multiplied exponentially to feed the crowd. But in this event, all indications are that the disciples scavenged among what they had to find the seven loaves of bread and a few small fish.

The big idea that stands out in my mind regarding this detail is that sometimes we will have to put in the little that we have in order for God to multiply it into being something more. In the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus accepts and multiplies the gift from someone in the crowd, but in this event, it is the disciples own food and savings that Jesus used and multiplied into the meal for the over 4,000 people present. This would be like saying that the gifts that other people bring can be multiplied by Jesus, but so can the gifts that we bring too.

All too often, we are tempted to sit back and let someone else step up to provide what is needed, and sometimes, like in the feeding of the 5,000, it happens. But other times, like our event where 4,000 are fed, we have to be the ones to supply the materials and effort.

Another thing that stands out in my mind with the feeding of the four thousand is that it was after the crowd had followed Jesus for three days. In verse 32, we read Jesus saying to His disciples, “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry, or they will faint along the way.”

While the feeding of the five thousand was after one long day, most of the gospels record the disciples telling Jesus He should send the crowd away so the people can get something to eat. But in this event, after three days, Jesus is the One who prompts this miracle because He realizes these people probably left their homes without preparing for a three or more day trip with Him.

This detail tells me that Jesus sometimes will prompt a miracle because He knows we need it perhaps even without us asking. We don’t see people in the crowd asking for or demanding a miracle. We simply see Jesus offering to perform the miracle because He knows the people need it.

Also, as a side observation, while the feeding of the five thousand was after one day where many of the crowd may have had a big breakfast before leaving to find Jesus, the feeding of the four thousand was after three days and almost all the food was gone. In my mind, these four thousand people probably ate even more total combined food than the five thousand, simply because they were all that hungrier.

All these details come together to bring us a key point: Sometimes God is waiting for us to bring our time, talent, energy, and resources to Him to allow Him to do something great in the lives of those in the world. While we are tempted to let someone else do it, God is waiting for your gifts and mine.

With that said, as we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life. Intentionally choose to step up and give God the little you have. While you might think your gift is insignificant in the big picture, your gift may be just the thing God is waiting for to transform someone else’s life. Never think your gifts are too small when giving to the One who multiplies small gifts for great impact!

Also, as I regularly challenge you in one way or another, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to Jesus. A relationship with Jesus is vital, not just for gaining eternal life in the future, but for surviving in life today. While many people focus on the future rewards of following Jesus, don’t ignore the gifts and blessings God is willing to give you today for following 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 give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

If you have ever felt that following Jesus is hard, or perhaps even a little unrealistic at times, then you may be surprised to find out that you are not alone. It may also surprise you that this isn’t just a feeling people have in today’s modern, busy, technology-filled, Internet-connected world. On multiple occasions within the gospel narrative, large crowds abandoned following Jesus because He said something challenging or something they didn’t agree with.

I don’t claim to know or understand why Jesus pushed the crowds away, but periodically, perhaps if the crowd was getting a little too big, Jesus would go deeper and more challenging in what He was teaching – and almost always, He would say something that would ultimately push the crowd away. While I doubt Jesus was interested in pushing people away, I suspect Jesus would rather have devoted disciples over casual followers. I wonder if Jesus could sense the commitment level of the crowds that followed Him, and if a crowd had a shallow level of commitment, Jesus pushed them to either deepen their commitment, or to find someone else to follow.

Our passage for this episode comes immediately after Jesus has just pushed the crowd following Him in this way. Leading up to the verses we are focusing in on, Jesus has just finished talking about how people must eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to gain eternal life. While we can understand that these two ideas are metaphors that echo the sacrificial system the Jewish religious culture was built on, either the crowd did not understand this connection or they believed this challenge was too difficult to apply into their lives.

Let’s read about what happened following Jesus sharing this teaching from the gospel of John, chapter 6, using the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 60, John tells us that:

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.”

In this passage, both Jesus’ response to the disciples grumbling about what He was saying, and Simon Peter’s final response stand out as significant in my mind.

In Jesus’ response, which sounded weird to the disciples like it sounds weird to us living over 2,000 years later, we learn something interesting about human nature and about God. Jesus knew that His ministry on earth would end, but that would not stop His ministry at a whole. While some people might have pictured Jesus’ ministry ending when He ascended to heaven following the resurrection, several places in the New Testament frame Jesus’ ministry as not stopping. Instead, Jesus’ ministry shifted, or we could say that it changed focus slightly.

Perhaps some of Jesus’ followers at that time chose to follow simply because of the miracles He was doing, and/or perhaps it was because Jesus was a popular celebrity. These people followed the man Jesus, but they didn’t believe Him to be One with God – and One sent from God. These people would have been the first to be offended by Jesus’ claims and among the first to leave when Jesus shared something that challenged their viewpoint.

When we align our lives around believing in Jesus, this means that we must accept His sacrifice on our behalf. The flesh side of the discussion Jesus shared centers around Jesus’ death on the cross – which was foreshadowed for centuries in the sacrificing of an innocent lamb – and by “eating his flesh”, we are internalizing what He did for us on the cross.

The parallel metaphor of drinking Jesus’ blood, which is even more disturbing when stopping to think about it, means that we must accept Jesus’ life into ours. The blood of a living creature is one key that holds the creature’s life, and perhaps one reason why Jesus’ words here are so appalling to those in the crowd is because the Jews were commanded in Moses’ law to not eat any animal before first draining that animal’s blood.

Since Jesus appears to directly contradict what Moses commanded the nation of Israel to avoid, I suspect that there is a bigger truth Jesus wants His followers to learn.

In my opinion, Jesus challenges us through Moses’ law to not internalize any life that is based in a sin-filled world. Jesus came from Heaven to live a sinless life – so His life is the only life we should look to for getting strength for our own lives.

In some of the pagan cultures, they believed that if one drank the blood of an animal or an enemy, they would gain that animal or enemy’s strength and life essence. While I don’t think Jesus is trying to redeem and validate a very pagan practice, He may be alluding to it in a figurative sense. Jesus might simply be telling us that internalizing His life is the only way we will be able to have true life ourselves – and true life that leads to eternal life.

In Jesus words, we find the statement at the end of verse 63, “The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.”

I suspect that in this passage, Jesus is not speaking here of His physical body or physical blood. Instead, I suspect that Jesus wants to point us to the very real work of the Holy Spirit working through His life. Jesus’ words have creative, restorative, and life-giving power, and they are the essence of His ministry. The miracles and healing then become significant because they point us to pay attention to the message and the Messenger. The miracles lead us to the Messenger and His message, while the Messenger and His message bring us eternal life.

If one believes Jesus’ miracles to be the devil working or the result of a series of cleaver and deceptive tricks, then they can easily discount His entire ministry and message. But if God’s power is the only possible source behind a miracle, then that validates the message and the Messenger – even if it is challenging or difficult to believe. Through our belief in Jesus and what we think about Him, God is able to “enable” us to come to Jesus.

“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” (v. 66)

In the minds of this crowd of followers, Jesus had stepped over the line. He might be from God, and God might support His ministry, but in their eyes, Jesus’ words at the conclusion of this sermon were too difficult to accept.

On seeing the crowd beginning to disperse, Jesus asks His twelve core followers in verse 67, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”

Perhaps Jesus believed everyone would leave, or maybe He saw some confused or torn looks in the eyes of His closest followers. However, before too much silence had settled in the air, Simon Peter speaks up with one of His bold statements about Jesus in verses 68 and 69, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

In Peter’s mind, Jesus is It. Jesus is the One that God had promised. Jesus is the One that gives eternal life. Why look for anyone else? Peter’s track-record of faith was far from perfect, both in his past and in his future, but Peter has a clear head about the simple truth that Jesus is the Holy One of God, and regardless of what anyone else says or does, He is staying.

With this in mind as our episode is coming to a close, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open these challenges by saying, intentionally seek God first in your life. Choose to believe with Peter that Jesus is the Holy One of God. Be sure to study out this truth, from both the gospels as well as the rest of the Bible.

Also, as you pray and study the Bible for yourself, purposefully look for evidence of a God who created and loves each of us personally. While there is no shortage of opinions in the world about who God is, what He is like, and who Jesus is in relation to God, choose to base your opinion on what is shared in the Bible. The Bible has stood the test of time, and it is a reliable guide for understanding who God is and why Jesus came to this earth.

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!

While the gospel record focuses on Jesus’ life and the lives of those He helped and taught, periodically, a gospel writer will insert a side-note about something else that happened during Jesus’ life that wasn’t entirely connected to Jesus. Our passage for this podcast episode includes one such side-note – or in this case we could call it a “side-story”.

In a number of our episodes during this year of podcasting, we have focused in on the ministry of John the Baptist, and on how his ministry paved the way for Jesus’ ministry. However, John’s ministry was different from Jesus’ ministry, and perhaps because the gospel writers’ knew John’s ministry and Jesus’ ministries were connected, a few of them deviate from Jesus’ story to tell us what ultimately happened to John the Baptist.

Let’s read the passage and find out what happened to John the Baptist. Our passage is found in the gospel of Mark, chapter 9, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 14, Mark tells us that:

¹⁴ King Herod heard about Jesus, because he was now well known. Some people said, “He is John the Baptist, who has risen from the dead. That is why he can work these miracles.”

¹⁵ Others said, “He is Elijah.”

Other people said, “Jesus is a prophet, like the prophets who lived long ago.”

¹⁶ When Herod heard this, he said, “I killed John by cutting off his head. Now he has risen from the dead!”

¹⁷ Herod himself had ordered his soldiers to arrest John and put him in prison in order to please his wife, Herodias. She had been the wife of Philip, Herod’s brother, but then Herod had married her. ¹⁸ John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to be married to your brother’s wife.” ¹⁹ So Herodias hated John and wanted to kill him. But she couldn’t, ²⁰ because Herod was afraid of John and protected him. He knew John was a good and holy man. Also, though John’s preaching always bothered him, he enjoyed listening to John.

Let’s pause reading the passage because I want to point out two things I find interesting so far.

The first thing I find interesting about this passage is how Mark weaves John’s story into Jesus’ story through Herod’s statement when He hears about Jesus. Mark doesn’t break from Jesus’ story without giving us a transition to let us know a brief summary of what had prompted John the Baptist to end up in prison, and, as we will soon read, what eventually lead to John’s head being detached from his body.

The other statement that stood out to me in this section of the passage is the last portion of verse 20, where Mark tells us, “. . . though John’s preaching always bothered him [and this is king Herod], he enjoyed listening to John.”

This statement probably stands out for similar reasons as the other one, because it tells me that John’s preaching was intriguing enough to be interesting and enjoyable, but truthful enough to make the region’s leadership uncomfortable. From how Mark frames John the Baptist’s preaching, we can conclude that John was an excellent communicator who knew how to share a message in a way that taught truth while also being engaging to those who were listening.

Let’s continue reading from verse 21 and learn what happened to John the Baptist:

²¹ Then the perfect time came for Herodias to cause John’s death. On Herod’s birthday, he gave a dinner party for the most important government leaders, the commanders of his army, and the most important people in Galilee. ²² When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and the people eating with him.

So King Herod said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I will give it to you.” ²³ He promised her, “Anything you ask for I will give to you—up to half of my kingdom.”

²⁴ The girl went to her mother and asked, “What should I ask for?”

Her mother answered, “Ask for the head of John the Baptist.”

²⁵ At once the girl went back to the king and said to him, “I want the head of John the Baptist right now on a platter.”

²⁶ Although the king was very sad, he had made a promise, and his dinner guests had heard it. So he did not want to refuse what she asked. ²⁷ Immediately the king sent a soldier to bring John’s head. The soldier went and cut off John’s head in the prison ²⁸ and brought it back on a platter. He gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. ²⁹ When John’s followers heard this, they came and got John’s body and put it in a tomb.

While King Herod disliked John, he knew that killing John was not wise politically, because John had a decent level of support still among the Jews living in his region, but Herod’s wife hated John because of John’s stance that their marriage was not acceptable or as the passage puts it in verse 18: “lawful”.

However, the queen found her opening through a somewhat blind, open-ended, blank check that Herod gave to her daughter following a dance. Before continuing further, I won’t claim to know what sort of dance this would have been to have pleased Herod so much that he would be willing to part with half his kingdom, but chances are high that he was drunk and this significantly limited his ability to reason that a promise of this nature was a bad idea.

However, Herodias and her daughter were not drunk, and the queen was very quick and calculated in her response through her girl. As I say this, I can’t help but notice that this passage makes a clear distinction that the girl who danced before Herod was Herodias’ daughter, which probably meant that this was a product of Herodias’ marriage to Herod’s brother Philip. This would make the girl who is not named in this passage Herod’s niece. This detail in part explains her loyalty to her mother that was greater than her loyalty to the king.

However, even with all the nuances within the details of this passage, we cannot help but stumble upon some big truths worth paying attention to in this passage. Through the details we know about the end of John’s life, we can discover and learn both a warning and a promise.

The warning comes from Herod’s perspective. This warning is a warning to be cautious about the words that we speak and the promises we make. We may back ourselves into a corner if we are not careful, which results in us pushing ourselves to do something we really didn’t want to do.

However, the promise we can learn in this passage comes from John’s perspective. The promise we discover is that regardless of what happens to my body in this life, God has promised full protection for my future life with Him. While nothing can happen in my present life that He has not allowed, I can understand that whatever happens to me in the present life is insignificant when compared to the future life He has promised me.

With this warning and promise stated, and as we have 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. Remember the warning and the promise that we can learn from Herod and from John. Purposefully be cautious of the words you say and the promises you make, and remember that with whatever happens to you in this life, God has promised protection in your future life as a follower of Jesus.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do in one way or another, make prayer and personal Bible study a regular habit. Always pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn what being a follower of Jesus really means. Through studying the Bible, discover who Jesus is and why following Him is important! You won’t get a better answer or reason to follow Jesus than what is found when looking at His life within the Bible and the four gospels.

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 give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Part of me wonders about the faith component that many of the gospel writers attach to the healing miracles Jesus performed. Some miracles seem to place faith needing to be present from those Jesus healed. Other miracles happen seemingly from the faith of some friends of the person needing healing. Still other miracles seem to avoid listing anything about faith, but they simply happen because Jesus wants them to happen.

Looking at all the gospels, and all the different times Jesus healed people, we get a very broad picture of the ways that Jesus healed and the circumstances surrounding the healing. About the only common denominator is Jesus, but even He isn’t the common denominator because we read about Him sending His followers out in pairs and they are able to perform miracles and healing too.

However, in our passage for this episode, there is a subtle clue about what the common denominator is in all these Biblical miracles, and when we understand this common denominator, it will help us understand God’s character better.

Let’s read the passage and uncover it. Our passage is found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 9, and we will it read from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 27, Matthew tells us:

²⁷ As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” ²⁸ When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” ²⁹ Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.” ³⁰ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: “See that no one knows about this!” ³¹ But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.

³² As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him. ³³ After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” ³⁴ But the Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

While this passage contained two very different miracles, several things we just read caught my attention.

First off, when looking at these two miracles we see almost two completely different sets of ingredients. The first miracle, which was the healing of the two blind men, Jesus ties the miracle to the blind men’s faith in Him. The blind men had followed Jesus requesting healing, and we don’t know how far they traveled with Him crying out for Jesus to heal them. These blind men seeking healing demonstrate a significant amount of faith in Jesus because their persistence was evidence of their faith, and it directly lead to their eyesight being restored.

If we only look at this first miracle, we might conclude that the people being healed must have faith in Jesus – but when we look at the second miracle, we know almost nothing about the man being healed. However, there are some clues to indicate what ingredients were present.

In the second miracle, if we look closely, we read that the mute, demon-possessed man “was brought to [Jesus]” (v. 32) The man could see just fine, and He probably could have navigated his way to find Jesus on His own, but perhaps the demon-possession would not allow him to move that way. Maybe the man wanted healing, maybe the man had faith in Jesus, maybe the man asked some friends to take him to see Jesus, but with all these “maybe” statements, we are assuming more than the passage directly tells us.

Assuming from the opposite direction, perhaps the man was skeptical, perhaps he didn’t have any faith, perhaps the demon-possession was so strong that the friends had to restrain and drag the man to Jesus. None of this set of statements are included in the passage either, so thinking them would also be assuming something is present in this event that the passage does not directly tell us.

In this second miracle, our passage shares three facts about this man being healed: the man’s disability, which was muteness; the root cause of this muteness, which was demon-possession; and that the man “was brought” to Jesus, which meant that he did not come on his own. We know nothing else from this passage about the setup for this miracle. However, even with the seemingly lack of details, we still have a clue regarding faith: Someone had to have faith in Jesus to have brought the man to see Him. Whether the demon-possessed man had faith but needed help traveling, or the individuals who brought the man to Jesus had faith, faith was demonstrated by at least one person in the act of this man being brought to Jesus for healing.

The blind men demonstrate they had faith because they searched for and found Jesus and then they wouldn’t leave Him alone until they were healed. On the other hand, the mute man may have had faith that lead Him to seek help finding Jesus, or perhaps it was the faith of his friends, family, or neighbors that prompted His encounter with Jesus.

Faith is an ingredient in these two miracles, with it being clearly visible in the first miracle, and hinted at in the second miracle.

Secondly, it would be bad to skip over another obvious similarity between these two miracles – which is simply that both miracles were connected to Jesus’ ministry. Jesus was there for both of these miracles and He is connected to all of God’s miracles – whether He was present in person, or whether He was asking the Father to send the Holy Spirit to help in a specific situation.

I should emphasize that I said God’s miracles in the previous statement. God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are not the only spiritual force behind miracles. Following the second miracle, we see a clear dividing line present in the reaction to what Jesus was doing.

The passage concludes in verses 33 and 34 by saying, “the crowds were amazed, and were saying, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.’ ³⁴ But the Pharisees were saying, ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.’”

This brings us to the clear test we can use to determine the source of the miracle: If the miracle leads us to strengthen our faith in God, Jesus, and/or the work of the Holy Spirit, then the miracle was from God. If the miracle leads us to place our faith in anything else, then there is a different spiritual force working behind the miracle.

With how this passage concludes, I can see why Jesus never performed miracles specifically for the Pharisees or Jewish leaders. The religious leaders openly stated their belief that the source of Jesus’ miracles was from the ruler of demons.

I suppose in looking at Jesus’ ministry, and at His miracles, one could choose to conclude either way. It is technically possible that Jesus could have used either spiritual force for many, but not all, of His healing miracles. However, to understand which force Jesus actually did use, each of us must personally read the gospel record to see Jesus’ character revealed – and then following this, we must make up our mind regarding who Jesus is for us.

If Jesus actively pointed people towards God in His ministry, then God is behind His ministry. However, if Jesus drew people away from God, as the Pharisees claimed, then God would not be supportive of Jesus’ ministry, leaving Jesus to be dependent on the other source. Only by reading the gospels for yourself can you know, for yourself, how to answer this dilemma.

The Pharisees saw Jesus as an impostor, while the crowd believed Him to be someone sent by God into the world.

With this said, 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 telling you, intentionally seek God first in your life. If you have not studied Jesus’ life or decided for yourself who He really is, choose to do so this coming week! Reading the gospels from beginning to end doesn’t take much time, and reading them like four letters from start to finish helps you see a clearer picture of what He was really like. Almost no one reads the gospels as one long letter or message, but those who do will second my claim that reading a whole gospel letter in one sitting paints a powerful picture of Jesus.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, continue to pray and to read the gospels for yourself instead of taking my word or someone else’s word for it. When eternity is at stake, what are a few hours of reading to discover for yourself the truth about the Jewish Carpenter named Jesus who ultimately divided history and humanity.

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!