Reflective Bible Study

Continuing our journey through the gospel of Mark, we come to a miracle where it appears Jesus helps those with Him simply because He can and because He knows that there are people who need His help even if they haven’t asked. Jesus also appears to help because He feels somewhat responsible for the less than ideal situation those who are with them are in.

Let’s read this event from Mark’s gospel, and discover what we can learn about Jesus and God through this situation. Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 8, and we will read it from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 1, Mark tells us that:

¹ About this time another large crowd had gathered, and the people ran out of food again. Jesus called his disciples and told them, ² “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. ³ If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a long distance.”

⁴ His disciples replied, “How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?”

⁵ Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?”

“Seven loaves,” they replied.

⁶ So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to his disciples, who distributed the bread to the crowd. ⁷ A few small fish were found, too, so Jesus also blessed these and told the disciples to distribute them.

⁸ They ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. ⁹ There were about 4,000 men in the crowd that day, and Jesus sent them home after they had eaten. 

In this short miracle, I am amazed that this crowd of over 4,000 people stayed with Jesus in the wilderness for 3 days, and everyone in this group stayed a significant amount of time past the food running out. Jesus states at the opening of our passage that He was concerned that some of those present might faint from hunger on their trip home because they had not eaten that recently. Either Jesus knew of some elderly people in the crowd, or most of those present had not planned for an extended trip, while those that did plan were generous and shared.

From the way Mark describes this miracle, I can see a big truth in this event which tells us that God will help us when we have aligned ourselves with Him. While this doesn’t mean that God will give us fame, fortune, or a long healthy life when we are living within His plan, I believe that when we are living fully within God’s will, God will not allow us to die before we have accomplished what He has called us to do in this world.

While death seems to strike indiscriminately, and while good people seem to die early while evil people seem to live a long time, no one on this planet is outside of God’s frame of view. God values every individual on this planet, and while tragedy happens, I trust that God is keeping those He needs alive as alive, and those who have fulfilled what God has called them to accomplish on this planet are given the opportunity to rest.

However, in this miracle in the wilderness, I am drawn to another detail. This detail is where the source of the bread for the miracle came from. While the more famous miracle where Jesus fed 5,000 has the small lunch being donated by someone outside the group of disciples, every indication in this event suggests that the disciples found these last loaves of bread to give to Jesus from their own reserve supply of food. This tells me that God will sometimes call me to give something of value that is part of what I own in order for Him to work a miracle in the world around me. While every situation is truly different, I should be willing to let God use my skills, my talents, and especially the things He has trusted me with for His glory and His will.

Also, while reading this miracle, it is interesting to see what characteristic is not present in the disciples’ response. In the earlier feeding the crowd of over 5,000 miracle, at least one of the gospels record a statement of disbelief at the overwhelming need when compared with the small lunch that was donated by the small child. In contrast, we don’t see any doubt or disbelief in the disciples response following Jesus asking for the small amount of bread. The disciples understood Jesus could multiply this food and they know that is what He intended to do.

The last big idea I see in this miracle event is focused on who Jesus decided to help. While this miracle is prompted by Jesus knowing that some people might faint before arriving somewhere where they could get food to eat, Jesus doesn’t help only those who needed it the most. This miracle was for everyone present, regardless of their level of hunger, and everyone benefitted. This tells me that if we want to see miracles in our lives, we must be spending time with Jesus.

While I’m sure it is possible to see a miracle without Jesus present in our lives, without Jesus, the tendency for people would be to discount the miracle, ignore it, or give it some scientific explanation. However, just because something has an explanation for how it happened does not invalidate a miracle taking place.

Without Jesus in our lives, the world is full of coincidences and things that we might consider lucky. However, with Jesus in our lives, we see divine providence everywhere. With Jesus, there are no coincidences. Instead, we choose to see God’s hand at work in the world today. While things are getting more polarized, God has not given up on this world or on His people. Instead, Jesus came to redeem this world, and while there are people left in this world who God knows He can redeem, He gives the world more time.

Those who were with Jesus, and who stayed with Jesus even after their food ran out experienced a miracle. Even when our lives get tough or challenging, we are called to stay with Jesus, because when we are allied and aligned to Jesus in this life, we can be certain we will share in Jesus’ future life to come.

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, seek God first in your life and choose to ally and align your life to Jesus and God’s will. Choose to live your life for God and trust that even if things don’t always make sense, God has a plan, and His plan is for you and as many people as possible to be saved from sin. When we don’t have answers, this isn’t an excuse to doubt. When we don’t have answers, this is an opportunity to trust.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself, and while studying, pay attention to the situations in the Bible where there weren’t clear answers given to prayers and determine if God had a plan. While doubt is easy to do, doubt sabotages our trust and our faith. When given the opportunity to doubt, choose faith instead, regardless of what others try to tell you.

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, we come to one of the most fascinating events in the entire Bible record. This event is fascinating not just because of what is described that happened, but because there is controversy over whether this event was actually included in the original copies of John’s gospel or not.

If you pick up any modern translation of the Bible and look up our passage for this event, you will likely find a footnote, or perhaps a more visible note about many or most of the oldest manuscripts not including this event.

However, that is only part of the story. As I researched this event not too long ago, I discovered that while this event likely wasn’t included in the original copy of John’s gospel, there is no doubt that it is a very old story. Sometimes, this event is written in the margin of John’s gospel, while other times this event is included at the end of John’s gospel as one additional event that happened during Jesus’ life.

As I have studied the origins of this event, I am left to conclude that either what we are about to read happened, and that God preserved it even though John didn’t include it in His original, or that this event didn’t happen, but perhaps something similar did happen and that is how this story came to be.

Regardless of the origins of this event, when we open our Bibles and read this event, there is no escaping the clear picture of Jesus’ love for sinners. This theme is one that is included in so many of the gospels that we can easily assume that even if this event didn’t happen the way we are about to read, if a situation like this did happen, Jesus would have responded in an equally loving way!

With that said, let’s read our passage for this episode, and discover what we can learn from this event. Our passage is found in John’s gospel, at the beginning of chapter 8, however we will begin by looking at the last verse in chapter 7. Reading from the Contemporary English Version, John tells us that:

⁵³ Everyone else went home, ^8:1 but Jesus walked out to the Mount of Olives. ² Then early the next morning he went to the temple. The people came to him, and he sat down and started teaching them.

³ The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law of Moses brought in a woman who had been caught in bed with a man who wasn’t her husband. They made her stand in the middle of the crowd. ⁴ Then they said, “Teacher, this woman was caught sleeping with a man who isn’t her husband. ⁵ The Law of Moses teaches that a woman like this should be stoned to death! What do you say?”

⁶ They asked Jesus this question, because they wanted to test him and bring some charge against him. But Jesus simply bent over and started writing on the ground with his finger.

⁷ They kept on asking Jesus about the woman. Finally, he stood up and said, “If any of you have never sinned, then go ahead and throw the first stone at her!” ⁸ Once again he bent over and began writing on the ground. ⁹ The people left one by one, beginning with the oldest. Finally, Jesus and the woman were there alone.

¹⁰ Jesus stood up and asked her, “Where is everyone? Isn’t there anyone left to accuse you?”

¹¹ “No sir,” the woman answered.

Then Jesus told her, “I am not going to accuse you either. You may go now, but don’t sin anymore.”

In this event, I am always amazed at how Jesus takes the focus off of the sinner and on to those judging. While some traditions say that Jesus was writing the sins of the woman’s accusers in the sand, nothing I see in this event prompts me to think this directly. Part of me suspects that Jesus simply chose a portion of the law that emphasized mercy, or some other relevant topic to this situation, and began writing it.

With Jesus emphasizing the demands of the law, mixed with the heart of the law, then His statement about those lacking any sin should be the first to throw the stones makes sense. I doubt that Jesus would clearly expose the religious leaders’ exact list of sins, because I don’t believe this happens anywhere else in the scripture. If you can think of a place in the gospels where one person is exposed for specific sins and specific events, then definitely let me know in the comments. It’s possible I’m forgetting an event that would set a precedent.

Instead, in other cases, it seemed like Jesus preferred challenging the religious leaders with parables that describe their behavior without calling out specific instances of sin.

With this framework, Jesus could have been writing a parable in the sand that hit at the heart of this situation. However, a story or a parable written in the sand, would likely have been remembered, copied, and ultimately preserved.

The most probable conclusion in my mind would be that Jesus began writing some Old Testament scripture, prophecy, or law, and this served as a reminder to all the accusers how their lives, attitudes, and actions were unfit to cast judgment on this woman, even if they began this event feeling fully justified.

Also, I find this event fascinating because if I’m not mistaken, this is the only time anywhere in the gospel record where I see Jesus writing anything. Jesus quotes what is written, and Jesus taught scriptures on a regular basis, but I don’t see anything recorded about Jesus personally writing anything outside of this event.

If this was the only time Jesus wrote in His entire ministry, and Jesus wrote it in the sand, making it easily removable or erasable, because Jesus chose this as His medium, we can understand several huge truths in the Bible: God’s love covers a multitude of sins. Jesus forgives us when we repent and turn to Him after we have sinned. We are invited to come to Jesus, let Him wash us, and make us as white as snow!

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 accept the gift Jesus offers to us through what He accomplished for us on the cross. Accept Jesus’ forgiveness and His offer to wash us and make us as white as snow.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Through the pages of the Bible, discover a God who loves us more than we can even imagine, and a God who was willing to be tortured by those He loved in order to redeem those who choose to accept His gift of redemption.

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 out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue our journey through Mark’s gospel, we come to a miracle that only Mark includes in his gospel. For one reason or another, Matthew, Luke, and John don’t include this miracle, but when we look a little closer at what happened, we discover some fascinating details within this event.

With that said, let’s dive into the passage and discover what we can learn. Our event and passage for this episode is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 7, and we will be reading from the New International Version. 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.”

Within this miracle and event, I find it fascinating that Jesus takes this man aside, and away from the crowd. On the surface, this detail and decision doesn’t seem that practical or very relevant. After all, who cared if Jesus healed the man with a crowd around or not. What mattered more than anything else is that Jesus could and did heal people like this man.

However, if we write Jesus’ actions off as being unnecessary, especially since the crowd does learn of this healing at the end of the passage, then we will likely miss some key details that lead us to the most likely reason in my mind for Jesus to take this man away from the crowd.

Actually, there are two reasons that I can think of for pulling the man away from the crowd.

The first reason is that nothing in this passage suggests that this man came on his own. Instead, the opposite is described. The passage opens very clearly saying that a group of people brought this man to Jesus. While this man likely had trouble communicating from his set of disabilities, the impression I see when reading this is that this group of people wanted to see Jesus perform a miracle even more than this man wanted to be healed.

Don’t misunderstand this idea. I believe this man did want to be healed, and he likely wanted to be healed really badly, but everything in how Mark describes this event when setting the stage for it focuses us on the detail that other people initiated this event rather than the disabled man himself. Because of this, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the group of people who brought this man to Jesus were more interested in seeing a miracle than on seeing this particular individual be healed.

When this group found Jesus, Jesus ultimately has a dilemma. Jesus sees the disabled man and He wants to help this man be restored. However, Jesus also knows that a simple healing miracle will satisfy selfish-desires on the part of the crowd, and this miracle could be held up as an example of Jesus seeking His own glory for this healing.

The path Jesus takes is a brilliant one. Instead of healing this man directly, with the crowd present, which would have been the simplest and easiest option, Jesus decides to help this man, but do it away from those who are selfishly wanting to see a miracle. This decision results in the man being healed and shown God’s love while those who brought the man to Jesus only get the satisfaction of knowing they helped the man receive Jesus’ help.

I believe this group of people wanted to glorify Jesus apart from glorifying God, and Jesus wanted to avoid this as much as He could. This may be one reason He repeatedly asked certain people to stay quiet after healing them. If Jesus knew that people would spread the word about what He had done, He didn’t want this to happen if God wasn’t going to receive the glory.

Instead, Jesus wanted God to receive the glory for this miracle, and even while He tried to help those present see and understand this was God working through Him, those in the crowd don’t seem to give God the credit that God is due for this miracle. Those in the group who brought this man to Jesus appear to be more focused on what Jesus, as a human individual, was accomplishing.

The other big reason I see in this passage for Jesus to pull the man aside and away from the crowd is to highlight the presence or lack of presence with regards to faith. When we look at this miracle, can we see faith displayed?

On the surface, I don’t see any faith clearly being displayed. However, just below the surface, there are plenty of examples of faith. First, we have the group of people bringing the man to Jesus. While they don’t appear to be interested in giving God the glory for this miracle, they easily have faith that Jesus can heal this person, otherwise they wouldn’t have brought this man to Jesus. Even with selfish-motives, those who brought this man to Jesus display faith that Jesus could heal this man’s deafness and muteness.

Another place faith is subtly displayed in this passage is with this man who was healed. While this passage doesn’t draw our attention onto his faith, there would have needed to be enough faith in this man’s life to at the very least not say no to the group’s offer to take him to Jesus. The implication in this passage is that this man had a tiny bit of faith, but not enough that prompted him to seek out Jesus earlier or on his own.

A third place faith is seen in this passage is with Jesus. Jesus did not hesitate when stepping in to heal this man. Jesus did not timidly comment to try to heal this man while also giving no guarantee that He would be successful. Instead, Jesus pulls the man aside with full confidence that with God’s help, this man would be made well – which tells us that Jesus had faith too.

This passage demonstrates faith on several levels. While the passage doesn’t say whether or not Jesus left both the crowd and His disciples to be alone with this man, or whether Jesus and His disciples together separated this man from those who brought him, we can assume that whichever way this was, the faith that was present in this event was not exclusive to the one being healed.

Part of me pictures Jesus and the man stepping away from the crowd and around the corner where they could be alone. Jesus perhaps shared the details of this event with one or two of His disciples following this event.

If this is what happened, it would mean that Jesus used His own faith to demonstrate God’s love for this man, and when we lean on Jesus’ faith, we see not just one disability being healed at once, but two. In one event, the man could both hear again and talk again easily.

In our own lives, when we lean on Jesus’ faith, we discover that we will have more than enough faith to experience and see miracles in our own lives, and we will also fully know that through Jesus, His faith, and His sacrifice on the cross, we have been saved for eternity! Our faith is limited; Jesus’ faith is limitless!

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 and place Him first in your life. Also, be sure to always give God the glory and the credit He is due. In case you are uncertain, we give God the credit when we do well, and we take the blame onto ourselves when things go poorly. This is how we are called to be humble, and it helps remind us that we need God’s help and Jesus’ life to replace our own.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each day. God wants a personal relationship with you, and the only way your relationship with Him can be personal is if you are personally spending time with Him. Don’t fall into the temptation of letting your spirituality be dependent on anyone else. God loves you and I so much that Jesus came to repair what sin broke, and this repair allows us to approach God with our requests, our thanks, and our praises. God loves us so much that nothing would stop Him from repairing the gap that sin caused.

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 be tempted into leaving where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue reading John’s gospel, we move to how John describes Jesus on the final day of the festival, and on how the religious leaders respond to Jesus, without having heard anything that He said. In this passage, we can discover some amazing themes about God and about human nature.

Our passage for this episode is found in John’s gospel, chapter 7, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 37, John tells us that:

³⁷ On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” ³⁹ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Pausing briefly, I am fascinated by both Jesus’ words and by John’s side-note. Within Jesus’ words, we see Him claim a prophecy about living water and Jesus takes this claim and applies it to Himself. Within His message, Jesus promises all who believe in Him living water, and John tells us that this living water represents the Holy Spirit.

However, I am a little perplexed at John’s side-note, because from the way John describes Jesus’ promise, the Holy Spirit being given was something pushed into the future. However, I am pretty sure by this point in His ministry, Jesus’ disciples had been sent out in pairs and had cast demons out of people and healed them. The only way Jesus’ disciples could have done any miracles, cast any demons out, or healed anyone is if they had the Holy Spirit working in them.

To reconcile these two ideas, I must conclude that something more significant changed when the disciples received the Holy Spirit following Jesus’ return to heaven, and that the transformation that took place when the Holy Spirit was given was unmistakably different from simply healing people and casting out demons.

However, following Jesus’ words and John’s side-note, the crowd is given a chance to respond and react. Continuing in verse 40, John tells us that:

⁴⁰ On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”

⁴¹ Others said, “He is the Messiah.”

Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? ⁴² Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” ⁴³ Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. ⁴⁴ Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

Pausing again, I am fascinated at the thought process that went through the crowd’s discussion about Jesus. In this passage, John describes some people calling Jesus, “The Prophet”, while others openly declared Jesus to be the Messiah.

However, to contrast these positive declarations about Jesus, others in the crowd focused on Jesus being from Galilee, and how scriptures say Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, and from the line of David’s descendants.

Part of me wonders if Jesus had left at that point, if the crowd was not interested in asking the simple question about Jesus’ birth location, or if Jesus intentionally chose not to reveal the story of His birth and the miraculous escape to Egypt. I wonder if knowing the background of this event would have changed the minds of those in the crowd. I suspect that it would have, but I also suspect that if the crowd was united about Jesus being the Messiah, then it is likely Jesus never would have made it to the cross.

Satan had done a masterful job of twisting the first century culture towards looking for a messiah who would militarily fight against the Romans, and Jesus’ mission as a Messiah was distinctly different. Jesus wasn’t interested in meddling with the politics of that area, and the only time politics entered the discussion was when other people were trying to trap Him to discredit Him.

At this point in Jesus’ ministry, I suspect that He wanted to leave room for doubt within this crowd’s mind, because with room for doubt, we are able to have faith, and with room for doubt, we are able to better identify assumptions we might have.

The crowd assumed that since Jesus grew up in Galilee from a relatively young age, that Jesus was born in Galilee. Drawing this assumption into the light demonstrates how it could easily be proven false, but I suspect that families didn’t separate or move too far apart from each other.

It is also easy to assume that Jesus was born in Nazareth, which was a town in the region of Galilee, because both Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth prior to Jesus’ birth, and they moved there following their return from Egypt. If someone were condensing the story of Mary and Joseph, they could simply leave out anything about the census affecting Jesus’ birth and the young couple’s escape to Egypt, and what would be left is that the engaged couple that we began with who lived in Nazareth was raising the boy Jesus in Nazareth several years later.

However, God did have a plan for this, and I suspect God’s plan for Jesus’ birth when compared with where Jesus would be raised had something to do with challenging the preconceived ideas of the religious leaders.

Picking back up reading in verse 45, John concludes our passage by telling us:

⁴⁵ Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

⁴⁶ “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.

⁴⁷ “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. ⁴⁸ “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? ⁴⁹ No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”

⁵⁰ Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, ⁵¹ “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”

⁵² They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”

In this passage, we can clearly see that the religious leaders, Nicodemus excluded, had prejudged Jesus simply because of where He was raised. They discounted Jesus as the Messiah because they assumed He was born in Nazareth, or at least somewhere in Galilee, and that this did not match that single prophecy.

I find it also amazing to realize the extreme prejudice these religious leaders show when faced with the challenge to judge Jesus based on His words and His actions. I suspect these religious leaders are prejudiced against Jesus because they understand that nothing they have seen and heard conflicts with God but that Jesus didn’t match up with their picture of the messiah. The clearest way Jesus did not fit the prophecies in their minds was with their assumptions about Jesus’ origins and Jesus’ place of birth. The religious leaders reject Jesus as someone who is trying to pull the focus and glory away from God and perhaps away from the actual messiah they believed would be born and raised within Bethlehem.

We too face this challenge today when we let our assumptions about Jesus get in the way of simply asking the question. If the crowd had pushed past their assumptions and researched into Jesus’ birth story, they would have discovered a birth that took place in Bethlehem, but circumstances that made it unwise to stay there for long, or to return there when the immediate threat had subsided. We can easily fall into the trap of assuming things about Jesus today, but we are challenged to push past our assumptions, and let the Bible teach us what God wants us to know about Jesus, about His mission, and about what Jesus ultimately accomplished for each of us when we place our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Him.

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 specifically in what He accomplished for us through dying on the cross. Trust that when we place our belief and faith in Jesus, we are accepted by God, adopted into His family, and will be resurrected when Jesus returns if we have fallen asleep in Jesus.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with God even stronger. Through regular prayer and Bible study, discover how the Bible opens your heart to God and to His Holy Spirit, and how studying the Bible transforms your life from the inside as you grow closer to God and to 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!