Reflective Bible Study

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, the Jewish leaders as a group actively opposed Him. However, I don’t think that these leaders believed they were opposing God’s Messiah. Instead, I suspect that these leaders had wrapped their beliefs up inside their tradition, and when God sent Jesus as His chosen Messiah, He didn’t fit the description their tradition had created or ultimately formed.

However, the Jewish leaders could not deny that Jesus was special, that He had the ability to work miracles, and that He focused on helping those who were hurting. But what they could not wrap their minds around was how Jesus fit into their mold – because if Jesus didn’t fit into their mold, they concluded that they could not trust that He was from God.

It is with this backdrop that we come to an event where two opposed religious groups team up and ask Jesus for something. We will be looking at this event from Matthew’s gospel, and it is found in chapter 16. Starting in verse 1 and reading from the New International Version, Matthew tells us that:

¹ The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

² He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ ³ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. ⁴ A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.

What I find amazing in this passage and event is that Jesus criticizes these leaders for wanting a sign, before telling them that they will actually get a sign, but that the sign will come in a way that they did not expect.

Likely up to this point, no one had thought of Jonah’s rebellious life and attempt at running away from God as a Messianic symbol, but after Jesus made this connection with these religious leaders, the connection is clear. Jonah himself probably wouldn’t believe it if someone had suggested to him that his attempts at running away from God would be used as a sign pointing out the Messiah.

However, the challenge Jesus shares with these leaders is one that should prompt us to pause. Jesus says in verse 4, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it…” Part of me wonders if Jesus really meant to say that a wicked generation demands a sign. If this is the case, then these leaders, who were trying to test Jesus by challenging Him to give then a sign from heaven, would be implicated, but those living at various points in history who were diligently seeking God and looking for the ways God is moving around them would not be guilty. I can understand those who frame Jesus’ statement in this way.

But while the heading in my Bible titles this section as a demand for a sign, the wording of the verses themselves speak more on the looking and seeking a sign rather than demanding a sign.

When we look a little deeper at what Jesus is describing in these verses, specifically in the context of these leaders’ request, we find an interesting clue about what Jesus is speaking out against. The leaders who had come to Jesus came with the idea that if Jesus would perform a miraculous sign for them, then they would choose to believe in Him.

This is a key distinction between of the two angles we can understand Jesus’ response. In Jesus’ own words, evil and adulterous people desire to see signs and miracles before believing, whereas other people who are paying attention don’t have to demand signs or miracles because they have opened their eyes to see what God is already doing all around them. Those who are paying attention to God’s moving and working have all the evidence they need for their faith, while those who demand to see miraculous signs will never be truly satisfied with what they see.

But tucked within these leaders’ demand for a miraculous sign is another trap that is less visible on the surface. I don’t even believe the leaders themselves realized it was there. The demand to display a miraculous sign is very similar to one of the temptations Satan brought to Jesus in the wilderness. In this temptation, Satan takes Jesus, places Him at the highest point of the temple, and challenges Him to jump off, quoting a scripture about God promising to protect Him.

The subtle temptation in both of these situations is for Jesus to do something miraculous to draw attention to Himself. The trap present here is that Jesus did not come to draw attention to Himself, but instead to give glory to God the Father. Everything Jesus did was intended to point people to the Father and to give people an accurate view of the Father. The Father poured His Holy Spirit out onto Jesus to validate this mission, and even at a few key points in Jesus’ ministry, the Father speaks His approval of Jesus.

Those who are always looking for and seeking signs will ultimately be disappointed. While Jesus does point these leaders to a sign that they can look for, the sign Jesus gives them is nowhere near the one they wanted to receive or the one they expected.

The sign Jesus points them to look forward to is a sign that is outward focused. People cannot raise themselves from the grave, but God can do so if He chooses. Another way to say this idea would be that if God the Father did not want Jesus to return to life after the crucifixion, there would have been nothing Jesus could have done to raise Himself from the grave. Jesus returning to life after the crucifixion is one of the clearest ways God gave to validate Jesus’ ministry.

In our own lives, we should not look for or seek after miraculous signs in order to build a foundation for our faith and trust in God. Instead, we should build our trust in Him based upon what He has promised us, and then keep our eyes open to what God is doing around us. There are plenty of signs available for us to see, but we must be paying attention and willing to acknowledge God’s interest in being involved the world today. It is easy to discount coincidences as simply that, but what if every coincidence was instead providence that gives us additional evidence of God moving in the world today.

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

Continue seeking God first, and choose to place your foundation on His promises and on what Jesus has done for each of us. Don’t look for miracles or signs to build your faith on, but instead look for these things as a way to validate the commitment you have already made.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to personally grow closer to God each day. Through prayer and personal Bible study, we are able to invite Jesus into our lives and hearts and let Him transform us from the inside.

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

As we continue our first year chronologically looking at events from Jesus’ life and ministry, we come to an event where Jesus heals someone, gives the person He healed a specific instruction, and then finds out later that the man He healed completely disregarded Jesus’ request.

While on the surface this seems almost unbelievable, what we’ll soon discover as we read our passage for this episode is that this is exactly what happened, and one of the most amazing themes in this event is surprisingly relevant for our lives today.

If you have ever felt shy, uneasy, or unsure about sharing Jesus with someone in your life, this passage may gain new significance in your life after we read it together.

Our passage for this episode is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 7, and we will read it using the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 31, Mark tells us:

³¹ Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. ³² There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

³³ After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. ³⁴ He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). ³⁵ At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

³⁶ Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. ³⁷ People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

In this passage, we find a very counter-cultural idea. Perhaps counter-cultural might not be the best way to describe it, but it is a very counter-cultural-to-our-current-world idea. In this passage, when a group of people eagerly bring a deaf and almost completely mute man to Jesus, the first thing Jesus does is lead the man away from the crowd. Jesus feels love and compassion for this disabled man, but while we might expect Jesus to heal the man because of His compassion for this child of God as soon as he is brought to Jesus, there is something bigger at play in this scene, which prompts Jesus to pull the man aside to heal him apart from the crowd.

As we read this event, I cannot escape a clear counter-cultural idea in Jesus’ actions. When many people in the world today are clamoring for the spotlight, the stage, and for attention from others, Jesus steps off stage, and He takes the man needing help away from the crowd in order to heal him.

While Jesus heals this man with a strange set of actions, I don’t for an instant believed this was the reason Jesus pulled the man aside. Instead, I suspect that Jesus pulls the man aside because He isn’t looking for fame or glory in this event. While healing and helping others was making Jesus famous, Jesus isn’t interested in the fame. By taking the man away from the crowd to heal him, Jesus appears to be actively pushing fame away. Fame and glory are being pushed towards Him, and Jesus understands that the glory for all the miracles and help He was providing should never rest on Him. Jesus wanted all the fame and glory to point upwards towards His Father. Jesus wanted God the Father to receive all the glory.

If you have hesitations in your mind about this angle of looking at this miracle, what Jesus does immediately after healing this man is significant. After healing the deaf and mostly mute man, Jesus tells everyone present to not tell others what happened.

Looking from the perspective of our culture of fame, glory, and status, Jesus’ actions don’t make any sense. If Jesus wanted to draw attention to Himself, as culture pressures us to do, then Jesus should welcome all the publicity He can. Jesus’ miracles prompted people to talk and it was the best free publicity any marketer would dream to get. If Jesus came to this world as a marketer or a PR manager, we would discover He would not stop talking about God the Father and how amazing God is.

I suspect that something about the crowd present for this miracle prompted Jesus to know that they weren’t as interested in glorifying God through Jesus’ miracle. I suspect that Jesus could discern selfish motives in their hearts while also understanding that they wanted Him to receive all the credit for this healing.

Because of this, Jesus heals the man away from the crowd, and then Jesus challenges all those who knew about the miracle to not share it with others.

It is at this point in our passage where things get extra interesting. After Jesus asks the people to be quiet, this small group disobeyed Jesus in order to share what God had done for this formerly disabled man. They went against Jesus’ instructions in order to share what God had done.

In an odd twist of events, what happens in this event is 100% opposite of where most people are today. Too often, when given the opportunity to share Jesus with others, we minimize, ignore, or shy away from the subject. Before ascending to Heaven, Jesus challenged His followers to share the great news about Him with the world. When thinking about the great commission, many of us don’t share Jesus with others. However, when Jesus asks a small group of people to stay silent, they disobey Jesus in order to share what Jesus did.

This group of people disobeyed Jesus to give glory to what God had done through Him. They probably gave all the credit and glory to Jesus, which is what He was trying to avoid, but like the passage says, the more Jesus tried to get the people to stay quiet, the more these people talked about it.

Oddly enough though, Jesus never has told you and I to be quiet about what God has done for us. Instead, as followers of Jesus, we are challenged to share Jesus with the world. As I think about this, I don’t recall any event where Jesus asked His followers to be quiet and not to tell others about Him. In this passage, the instruction was given to people who were not followers of Jesus. The only exception to this that I can think of is Jesus asking Peter and the disciples to stay quiet about Peter’s declaration about Jesus until after Jesus was raised back to life. Since Jesus has now been resurrected, there is no God directed limit regarding if we should share the truth about Jesus!

God did amazing miracles through Jesus, and people could not help but talk about what happened. When God does miracles in our lives today through the Holy Spirit, will we stay silent, selectively share it with only those who already believe in God, or will we tell everyone we meet about what God did for us?

Regardless of what would happen, whether we would lose friends, or whether we would be rejected by people, as followers of Jesus, we have been given the command to go and make disciples, and disciples are not made by people who stay quiet.

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

As I always begin each set of challenges by saying in one way or another, remember to keep God first in your life. Intentionally follow through with the challenge Jesus gives us to follow Him and to invite other people to follow as well.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, intentionally pray and study the Bible for yourself and learn who Jesus is through what He taught and what He did. Through the gospels, discover what God is really like and just how much He loves you through what Jesus did for you, both during His ministry as well as on the cross.

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!

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, it seemed as though He always ran into conflicts with a religious group known as the Pharisees. The Pharisees had become the predominant religious group in Israel at that time, and they had used their position in culture to develop a set of rules that was supposed to keep the people from coming close to breaking God’s laws. However, by the time Jesus entered history as a man walking the earth, things had gotten a little out of hand, and what began as a good idea had spiraled out of control.

The gospel of Mark describes an event where Jesus’ disciples appear to offend the Pharisees, and how Jesus responds to their reaction. For our episode this week, we will be reading from the gospel of Mark, chapter 7, using the Contemporary English Version of the Bible. Beginning in verse 1, Mark tells us that:

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?”

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.

Pausing our reading here, I want to draw our attention onto the fact that Jesus did not initiate this conflict, nor did His disciples. Instead, this discussion was prompted by a challenge from a group of Pharisees who believed their own traditions were ordained by God. This is a disturbing place to be, because only if you are 100% correct, which is not possible, can you truly have a foundation in your traditions. It is not possible because God is bigger than a set of rules or a tablet of phrases on a stone.

Relationships cannot be dictated by rules, nor can rules push relationships towards growth. Rules do help relationships by giving all parties involved a unified frame of reference, but it is up to the people included in the relationship whether the relationship itself will grow or die.

At this point, Jesus senses a teaching moment. Let’s continue reading from verse 14 and learn what happens:

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.

The big, challenging thought we find in Jesus’ words in our passage is that our spiritual cleanliness is based on what we think, do, and say, because these things come from our heart. The state of our heart is what makes us unclean, because when our hearts are evil, evil actions, words, and thoughts will follow. The passage concludes by saying that these evil things make us unfit to worship God.

I suspect that some people living in the first century believed that the food that was eaten made one acceptable or not acceptable to God. While this is not the case, some people have taken Jesus’ words here to the opposite extreme with the idea that anything can be eaten freely. However, while all “foods” are fit to eat, it would be good for us to define what is intended to be a food for us and what is not. It would also be worth making the distinction that not all foods are equally healthy for us.

Nothing that goes into our mouths makes us less loved by God, but what comes out of our mouths can make us unfit for worship, because the source of what we say is what is inside our hearts.

I’m challenged by this because Jesus is essentially saying that regardless of how we look on a given weekend at church, if our hearts are unclean, then we are unfit to worship Him. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t worship, or that we shouldn’t pray for God to create a new heart within us, but it does mean that we shouldn’t make our worship all about us.

Worshiping with the frame of mind that says we are unfit to come and worship is the beginning of the realization that nothing we do, say, or think can make us more acceptable to God. Instead, this prompts our prayers to be requests for help and acknowledging that our lives are filled with sin – even if that sin is not known by anyone else.

I don’t believe Jesus shared this challenge to put these Pharisees in their place. Instead, I believe this was Jesus’ way of challenging them on their own terms, by pointing out inconsistencies with how they say they believed when compared to how they acted. If it were possible, I believe Jesus would have done everything possible to bring these religious people into a better understanding of God, but because their hearts were so hard and stuck on their traditions, even God couldn’t break in.

Part of me wonders if Jesus’ hard words actually did break through some of the hard shells of the Pharisees’ hearts. While there is no way to know on this side of heaven, I am curious if Jesus’ words reached someone in this group, even though everyone else was offended. I also wonder if these words challenged the disciples who were present with how they chose to worship God.

Perhaps this is even a challenge for us today.

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

Humbly come to God and seek Him first in your life. Understand that without Him, our hearts are bent towards evil and selfishness, and only with His help can we hope to be clean and fit to worship Him. The challenge for us living today is to continually, intentionally move towards Him and ask Him to help clean our lives up.

After making this commitment, it is extra important for us to not only study the Bible for ourselves, but to do so with a prayerful, humble attitude. As we pray and read the Bible, God will impress on our hearts what we need to get rid of and what we should add into our lives.

And when we receive this inspiration, know that it is designed to help us move into where God wants to lead each of us. Because of this reason, I always end each set of challenges by challenging each of us – including me – to 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!

If you have ever wondered whether Jesus contradicted Himself, the passage we will be focusing on in this episode might be a passage you could find such a contradiction. While I am fully willing to acknowledge that there is likely some significant details or nuances that are lost in the translation, or that this potential contradiction is only visible because of the translation I have chosen for this episode, a simple reading of Jesus’ teaching seems to include a contradiction.

With this in mind, instead of reading a long block of teaching, where Jesus shares with those in Capernaum a much bigger message, let’s focus in on the contradiction itself and see if there isn’t something we can learn from Jesus’ words in this portion of His teaching.

To set the stage for this truth, let’s read the first portion of our passage, which is found in the gospel of John, chapter 6. Using the New Century Version and starting in verse 38, Jesus tells the crowd:

³⁸ I came down from heaven to do what God wants me to do, not what I want to do. ³⁹ Here is what the One who sent me wants me to do: I must not lose even one whom God gave me, but I must raise them all on the last day. ⁴⁰ Those who see the Son and believe in him have eternal life, and I will raise them on the last day. This is what my Father wants.”

So far, this seems straightforward. In these three verses, Jesus is simply sharing a portion of His mission to earth. Now let’s jump down a few verses later, still within this broad conversation, and pull out the contrasting part. Jumping back into this passage in verse 47, Jesus tells the same crowd:

⁴⁷ I tell you the truth, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread that gives life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but still they died. ⁵⁰ Here is the bread that comes down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will never die. 

Following verse 50, Jesus goes on to say that He is the bread from Heaven, but instead of reading further, let’s stop so we can look closer at this potential contradiction.

Within this larger teaching to the crowd in Capernaum, Jesus shares the idea that eternal life comes through Him, the “bread that gives life”, and that the life He gives will never result in death. However to contrast that powerful idea, Jesus says that those who have eternal life now will be raised up on the last day.

To some people, the contradiction is invisible, but to others, the dilemma centers around what it means to be given eternal life. Does getting “eternal life” mean that one never dies, or is it a promise that Jesus will raise this person up on the last day?

The contradiction becomes clearer because the first passage seems to support the last day resurrection of those who have eternal life, while the second passage emphasizes that no true believer will actually die, which negates the need for Jesus to raise them up.

To make the contrast even clearer, Jesus begins wrapping up this teaching by sharing a strange metaphor in verse 54: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” And then as a final, concluding point, in verse 58, Jesus’ last words to the crowd are: “I am not like the bread your ancestors ate. They ate that bread and still died. I am the bread that came down from heaven, and whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

The contrast and contradiction in this passage and teaching is clearly present. In this passage, Jesus is clearly giving His believers the promise of living forever, and in this last verse, living forever is contrasted with the death that the Israelites faced in the desert, even though they had bread from heaven, which they called manna, to eat.

Before continuing on, let me say first off that I don’t like contrasts or contradictions like this because they divide people. What often happens is that when we see a discrepancy in something Jesus says, people set up camps on both sides and then debate each other claiming their own chosen side is true while the other side is in error. Those watching from the sidelines may join one camp, but too often they reject both sides and walk away, ultimately missing out on the truth that is present in both sides of the debate. In the case of this passage, the truth present in both sides is simply this: Jesus has promised eternal life to those who believe in Him. The debate around this idea happens to be about the details of when this life is given.

I also don’t like contradictions similar to how we have framed this passage and this complex truth because framing the passage in this way allows skeptics an opening to try to discredit Jesus. Just as those who set up camps on each side of an issue before debating with each other, the skeptical mind takes aim at not just both sides of the debate, but will also work to discredit the One sharing the ideas. When framed as two opposing ideas, we are led to conclude that only one idea can be true, which then makes the other one a lie, and if Jesus lied, then Jesus immediately becomes untrustworthy.

So is there a resolution to this dilemma? Is there a different layer or level that Jesus is trying to teach? Is there a way where these two seemingly contrasting ideas are unified?

As I look further into this passage, I do find a common theme that blends the ideas. This theme, like I alluded to before, is that belief in Jesus brings eternal life. By using this theme as a filter to view both sides of this debate, we see something interesting appear – both in what is said, what is not said, and what is assumed:

Running the first passage through this big theme gives us the detail that eternal life is “given” or “promised”. This ultimately concludes with those having eternal life being raised up on the last day.

However, what about the second passage and those people who have “died”? If we run the second passage through this same theme – that belief in Jesus brings eternal life – we contrast believing in Jesus being the source of eternal life with those who died in the desert. A whole generation of people, minus two individuals, Joshua and Caleb, died outside of the Promised Land – and it was for one reason only: They didn’t trust God and His promise to lead them into the land that He had promised to give them.

The people in the desert died a death of unbelief – and this is different than simply death. Dying the death of unbelief is dying in a more eternal sense because where there is no belief in Jesus, there is no hope of a resurrection. It is the end. This second passage contrasts eternal life with eternal death – the death of unbelief.

In Jesus’ concluding remarks, the eternal life that is promised is promised through Jesus – who is able to do something that the manna could not do, and that is that Jesus is able to restore our spiritual lives from the inside. Heaven’s manna was a gift from God, but it was not able to restore the nation spiritually even if it sustained them physically. God did want the Israelites to learn that He provides, but they missed the spiritually restoring truth tucked within the literal gift of the manna.

Jesus is different because He lived a life that showed us God’s love and His character. Prayerfully focusing on Him does lead to spiritual renewal and eternal life. The more we look at Him, the more we will begin to look to Him, and the more we look to Him, the more our faith in Him will grow.

I have no idea where you are on the spectrum of faith in Jesus, but I do know that God wants your faith to be growing. That happens by focusing on Jesus and not on focusing on supporting one of the two sides of this never-ending debate over the details.

Focusing on Jesus unifies, and regardless of which side is more correct, when Jesus returns, the whole debate will have been wasted time. Instead of wasting time debating this, choose to focus on growing closer to Jesus and following His plan for your life, because that is what matters above everything else!

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 focus on Jesus first. Purposefully orient your life around serving God and seeking to do His will. If you are on the fence about whether you should follow or believe Jesus, let me challenge you to try God’s way out for yourself for a month or two. If after you have tried God’s way out for that amount of time, you are able to decide whether or not it is right for you, and if you decide that it isn’t right for you, at least you will have made an informed decision.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to discover firsthand what it says. While other people can share ideas with you, test everything you read, see, and hear with what you see written in the pages of the Bible. If there is ever a conflict, choose the Bible’s way over the other alternate.

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!