Reflective Bible Study

While moving through Mark’s gospel and comparing what Mark included in his gospel versus what the other gospel writers include, not much of Mark’s gospel is truly unique. However, the miracle that we will be focusing on for this episode is one of the few events that made it only into Mark’s gospel. I wonder if this is because this event was kept relatively secret, or if something within the event prompted the other gospel writers to exclude this event from their own respective gospels.

Whatever the reason for only Mark including this miracle, I am glad that he did. Of all the miracles Jesus did, this one may be the most fascinating one in my mind. So without any further delay, let’s read it.

Our miracle and passage are found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 8, and we will be reading from the New International Version. Starting in verse 22, Mark tells us that:

²² They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. ²³ He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

²⁴ He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

²⁵ Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. ²⁶ Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.”

This miracle is fascinating in my mind. This is the only miracle that I can recall where it takes Jesus a second try to get it right. While other miracles are attributed to faith, and at least one of the gospel writers suggested that the lack of faith in a situation could cause a miracle to not happen, this is the only miracle where the man is healed, but only after a second attempt by Jesus.

However, was this really a second attempt, or was there something happening behind the scenes that made the second try of this miracle distinctly different?

Looking at the details in this miracle, one set of details is easily overlooked. These details form the foundation for this situation. First, the man is brought to Jesus when Jesus has entered Bethsaida. Jesus then leads the man outside of Bethsaida. Finally, Jesus tells the man to go home and to not return through Bethsaida. Putting together these details points us to the high likelihood that the blind man was not from Bethsaida. It is possible this man lived close by, but it is also possible that those in this village searched out someone they knew Jesus could help, and then convinced this man to come to Jesus.

Another detail worth paying attention to is that this blind man was brought to Jesus. This detail is important because it shows more initiative coming from this group of people than from the blind man himself. Related to this detail is the detail that the group of people were the ones begging Jesus for the miracle, not the blind man.

With all these details put together, we can conclude that this group of people were more interested in seeing a miracle than on giving God the glory, or even on helping this man who was blind. Instead of seeing an opportunity for God to help someone in their presence, this group wanted to see Jesus perform for them. Oddly enough, knowing that faith is needed for a miracle to take place, I believe that if Jesus had attempted the miracle in the presence of this group of people, not only would Jesus have let the spotlight shine on Him, but also this miracle likely would have worked the first time. This would have been because those bringing this man to Jesus had the faith necessary to see him be healed.

However, Jesus wanted to heal more than this man’s eyes and He wanted to help this man without stealing the focus off of God. Jesus wasn’t interested in getting an audience or on gaining popularity. Instead, Jesus wanted to help people on an individual level as much as possible.

Up to Jesus asking the blind man a direct question after they are away from those who brought him to Jesus, we do not see or hear anything specific about this blind man. From the details leading up to this miracle, we don’t get the picture this man had faith or hope that he would ever be able to see. We are left to wonder if this man was born blind, or if he was blinded because of something that had happened earlier in his life.

However, when Jesus asks the man if he can see anything while they are alone, we start to get answers for some of our questions. This man responds to Jesus’ first attempt by telling Jesus that he can see people, but they look like trees walking around. If this man had never seen anything, I don’t believe he would know what a tree looked like. Instead, this detail makes me think something happened earlier in this man’s life that caused him to lose his eyesight.

This then leads us to another interesting conclusion. In this culture, people believed that sickness and disability happened because God was punishing people directly, or perhaps indirectly in the case of parents sinning and children being punished. If this man had eyesight then lost it, it is quite likely that he believed God was punishing him for something in his life that had happened.

If you believe God is punishing you, you don’t believe God would want to heal you. In the case of this man, I bet he was doubtful, skeptical, and probably reluctant to even be brought to Jesus. It is likely that this man told those people when they found him that God wouldn’t be interested in healing him because God was too busy punishing him instead.

This makes Jesus’ first attempt a successful attempt at healing this man. However, with the first attempt, while Jesus only partially heals this man’s eyes, Jesus healed this man’s hope, and I believe this man went away believing He had been forgiven. With a restored hope, this man had enough faith necessary for Jesus’ second attempt to fully heal his eyesight.

In our own lives, when bad things happen, it might be easy to let doubt tell us that God is mad at us and that He is causing the challenges we are facing. However, if we believe God is mad at us, then there is no reason to have any hope that our lives could be better. If God is truly mad at us, there is no hope, and if God was very mad at us, we wouldn’t be alive. If God had rejected humanity, Jesus wouldn’t have come to this planet.

However, Jesus did come. Jesus did heal someone who likely believed God was directly punishing him. Jesus gave His life as a substitute for our lives, and through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have the promise of a new life with God.

Jesus came to show us what God is really like. Jesus came to show us God’s love for us. And Jesus came to demonstrate for us that even if we are in open rebellion towards God, He still loves us and He wants to forgive us when we repent and return to 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 have faith and hope that God loves you and that He wants the best for you. When bad things happen, choose to see these things as a wakeup call from a God who loves each of us and not as a divine punishment from a cruel spiritual dictator. God loves us and He wants the best for our lives.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Through prayer and Bible study, we can open our hearts to God and let Him into our lives. When God is in our lives, we will know how much He loves us and we will be fully equipped to show His love to a world that needs to see God’s love more than ever!

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 another place where Jesus challenges the crowds, and from the context of this event, this crowd included a number of Pharisees. It is fascinating in my mind when reading this event to discover that the challenge the religious leaders bring to Jesus looks like a valid challenge on the surface. However, for these religious leaders’ challenge to be valid, they would have to reject much more than they would like to admit.

With that said, let’s read about what happened and about the challenge these religious leaders give Jesus.

Our passage for this event is found in John’s gospel, chapter 8, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 12, John tells us that:

¹² Later, Jesus talked to the people again, saying, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness but will have the light that gives life.”

¹³ The Pharisees said to Jesus, “When you talk about yourself, you are the only one to say these things are true. We cannot accept what you say.”

¹⁴ Jesus answered, “Yes, I am saying these things about myself, but they are true. I know where I came from and where I am going. But you don’t know where I came from or where I am going. ¹⁵ You judge by human standards. I am not judging anyone. ¹⁶ But when I do judge, I judge truthfully, because I am not alone. The Father who sent me is with me. ¹⁷ Your own law says that when two witnesses say the same thing, you must accept what they say. ¹⁸ I am one of the witnesses who speaks about myself, and the Father who sent me is the other witness.”

¹⁹ They asked, “Where is your father?”

Jesus answered, “You don’t know me or my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father, too.” ²⁰ Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the Temple, near where the money is kept. But no one arrested him, because the right time for him had not yet come.

²¹ Again, Jesus said to the people, “I will leave you, and you will look for me, but you will die in your sins. You cannot come where I am going.”

²² So the Jews asked, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he said, ‘You cannot come where I am going’?”

²³ Jesus said, “You people are from here below, but I am from above. You belong to this world, but I don’t belong to this world. ²⁴ So I told you that you would die in your sins. Yes, you will die in your sins if you don’t believe that I am he.”

²⁵ They asked, “Then who are you?”

Jesus answered, “I am what I have told you from the beginning. ²⁶ I have many things to say and decide about you. But I tell people only the things I have heard from the One who sent me, and he speaks the truth.”

²⁷ The people did not understand that he was talking to them about the Father. ²⁸ So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that I am he. You will know that these things I do are not by my own authority but that I say only what the Father has taught me. ²⁹ The One who sent me is with me. I always do what is pleasing to him, so he has not left me alone.” ³⁰ While Jesus was saying these things, many people believed in him.

In this passage, Jesus makes some very bold claims. And the religious leaders present were quick to challenge Jesus’ claims based on the detail that they did not see anyone else validating these claims.

This challenge is one of the better challenges the religious leaders could think of, because any secondary witness validating Jesus’ claims could immediately be challenged, judged, and likely discredited. Because of this, I suspect this is why Jesus didn’t remind them of John the Baptist, who made the same claim about Jesus. I also suspect this is why Jesus didn’t pull out the secondary witness of the scripture, because it would cut to the heart of their belief, and this wasn’t likely the right time for that.

Instead, Jesus counter-challenged the religious leaders on the detail that His secondary witness is God the Father, and that only those who knew Him would also be able to recognize the Father. Jesus subtly dismisses the religious leaders’ challenge by giving them a secondary witness but also telling them that they are unlikely to ever know Him.

Jesus emphasizes that without faith in Him, specifically faith in Jesus, everyone present, and we could also say everyone at any point in history, will die in their sins. Only through Jesus is a made way for us to trade our sins away. Jesus offers to take the punishment for our sins and in return, He offers us the life that He deserved – a life that can begin today and extend into eternity.

However, in this event, and in what Jesus shares, He makes a powerful set of claims that are easy to miss. In verses 15 and the first part of 16, Jesus tells those present that: “You judge by human standards. I am not judging anyone. But when I do judge, I judge truthfully, because I am not alone.”

This truth is powerful, because it tells us that Jesus did not come as a judge when He came to earth in the first century. Instead, while Jesus doesn’t claim the role of judge at that point, He does foreshadow that He will judge in the future. This verse brings out the powerful truth that: Our redeemer is also Our Judge.

If you have ever been worried or uneasy about God the Father judging you and that somewhere in your past is an unconfessed sin that could forever separate you from God forever, you should take that worry to Jesus, and understand that Jesus is not only your Redeemer, He is also the Judge. We don’t have a Judge who is unfamiliar with what life is like as a human living in a sinful world. Our Judge understands our lives better than we might be willing to accept, and our Judge gave His life to redeem us.

God loves us so much that Jesus came to take our place. Jesus not only became our Redeemer on the cross, Jesus also happens to be our Judge. This means that Satan’s accusations against us can simply be brushed aside by our Judge when we accept the gift of His sacrifice on our behalf, and let His perfect life cover our sins.

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 today to accept Jesus’ gift in your life. Choose to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in what Jesus accomplished for humanity on the cross, and ask Him to take your sin-filled past and give you His life in exchange. This prayer is one that Jesus is more than happy to answer!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God and Jesus each and every day. Choose to pray and study personally in order to make your relationship with God personal, and don’t let anyone get in the way of your relationship with God!

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

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!