Reflective Bible Study

As we approach the half way point in our year looking at Mark’s gospel, we come to a passage where Jesus give a very strong warning and challenge to a specific group of people. While it might be easy to skip over this warning under different circumstances, this challenge is prompted after Jesus is told about something His followers did. Of all the warnings and challenges, this one stands out as being one of the most significant and serious in my own mind. However, this challenge, while it is very serious, also contains within it a promise that is easy to miss if we are not paying attention.

This passage and challenge are found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 9, and we will read from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 38:

³⁸ John said to Him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.” ³⁹ But Jesus said, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. ⁴⁰ For he who is not against us is for us. ⁴¹ For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.

Let’s pause reading briefly because while Jesus has more to say, I want to emphasize some details in the first portion of this passage. First, it is worth paying attention to John’s opening and telling Jesus that he and some of the other disciples saw someone who wasn’t a part of their group casting out demons in Jesus’ name. John says that they tried to prevent him. However, Jesus pushes back with a powerful counter-intuitive truth: Christianity was never meant to be an exclusive club for sinners saved by grace. Christianity is united by people following Jesus Christ and giving Him the glory, the praise, and the credit for everything.

Jesus emphasizes this truth by telling His disciples that anyone who is not against Jesus is for them, and those who are performing miracles in the name of Jesus have God’s approval to do so. If someone cannot perform a miracle in Jesus’ name, then they are likely misusing Jesus’ name and/or they are missing a relationship with Jesus in their lives. Miracles that succeed using Jesus’ name can only happen if the one doing the miracle has the Holy Spirit in his or her life. Whoever helps someone else in Jesus’ name will not lose the reward God has promised them.

However, Jesus isn’t finished sharing. Continuing the theme of helping others, Jesus turns the tables starting in verse 42, saying:

⁴² “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, ⁴⁴ [where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.] ⁴⁵ If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into hell, ⁴⁶ [where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.] ⁴⁷ If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell, ⁴⁸ where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

⁴⁹ “For everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰ Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

In the last section of our passage, we come to a very challenging idea: It would be better for us to cut a part of our body off if it causes us to sin than to risk our salvation. This is a challenging part of our passage because it implies that God wants us to injure ourselves. The implication is that our body controls our head.

While some people may let their bodies and their impulses control their lives, when given the choice of hell or losing a part of your body, I would imagine most people would recoil and acknowledge that any part of their body could be brought into control. Choosing between facing hell or losing a part of your body is like choosing between two significantly bad options when a third option exists.

The third option is banishing the sin from your life and bringing whatever part of your body into control so it does not cause you to sin any more. It may be significant that Jesus uses the example of hand, foot, and eye in this graphic illustration. Our hands can symbolize what we do, our feet symbolize where we go, and our eyes symbolize what we focus on.

In each of these cases, we have the freedom to choose. We can choose to do something wrong, which some people might define using the word sin; we can choose to go somewhere that is not spiritually healthy; and we can choose to focus on things that are not beneficial for our lives. While looking at these three ideas, it’s amazing in my mind that these three ideas create a loop. However, the progression this loop takes is in reverse order of what Jesus shared. The loop looks like this: Focus leads to movement, and movement leads to action. However, action then also prompts us to focus more, leading to more movement, and more action, allowing the loop to continue.

If we are stuck in a loop of sinning, we may have to do something drastic to break this cycle. While I don’t suggest maiming yourself or cutting a part of your body off, I think that given the choice of hell or being crippled, you would look intentionally for a third option.

Our third option comes in Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit. Verse 49 tells us that “everyone will be salted with fire.” While I haven’t done much study on this verse, it is possible that one way to understand Jesus’ words here relate to experiencing the Holy Spirit. Everyone gets the option of receiving and feeling the Holy Spirit’s fire. However, depending upon who the person is, the Holy Spirit’s fire can harden their hearts against God, or it will soften their hearts to hear His message. Everyone is given the option to choose Jesus or not. It is a choice we are freely given, and one that we all must make.

While there is much more we could discuss on this angle of the subject, don’t let the skeptic inside you ask the questions about everyone who doesn’t know about Jesus, or who couldn’t have known. This passage and challenge isn’t about them. This passage and challenge is about you. “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Let the Holy Spirit into your lives and let the Holy Spirit help you become who God created you to be!

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 let the Holy Spirit fill your life. Choose to let God help you move away from sin and intentionally control your bodies and actions in a way that builds up your life towards God’s ideal and don’t let your lives drift into a loop that feeds sin. We can choose what we will focus on, where we will go, and what we will do, and while some people have more freedom in these areas than others, we all have enough freedom to choose to sin or not to sin in any given situation.

Also, continue praying and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. God wants a personal relationship with you, and He wants to help you break free from the sin that is holding you back in your life.

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 let sin or temptation steal you away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue working our way through John’s gospel, we arrive at a place where Jesus is clearly asked whether He is the Messiah or not. While this seems like a great place for Jesus to openly declare that He was in fact the Messiah these Jews had been waiting for, I am fascinated that Jesus takes a different angle when answering this question. In the angle Jesus takes, He subtly challenges the very idea these Jews had about who the Messiah would actually be.

Let’s read about what happened, and how Jesus’ reframe of His ministry should have prompted these Jews to understand the Messiah differently, instead of simply prompting them to reject Him.

Our passage is found in John’s gospel, chapter 10, and we will read it using the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 22, John tells us that:

²² It was winter, and the Festival of the Dedication of the Temple was being celebrated in Jerusalem. ²³ Jesus was walking in Solomon’s Porch in the Temple, ²⁴ when the people gathered around him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? Tell us the plain truth: are you the Messiah?”

²⁵ Jesus answered, “I have already told you, but you would not believe me. The deeds I do by my Father’s authority speak on my behalf; ²⁶ but you will not believe, for you are not my sheep. ²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they shall never die. No one can snatch them away from me.²⁹ What my Father has given me is greater than everything, and no one can snatch them away from the Father’s care. ³⁰ The Father and I are one.”

³¹ Then the people again picked up stones to throw at him. ³² Jesus said to them, “I have done many good deeds in your presence which the Father gave me to do; for which one of these do you want to stone me?”

³³ They answered, “We do not want to stone you because of any good deeds, but because of your blasphemy! You are only a man, but you are trying to make yourself God!”

³⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written in your own Law that God said, ‘You are gods.’ ³⁵ We know that what the scripture says is true forever; and God called those people gods, the people to whom his message was given. ³⁶ As for me, the Father chose me and sent me into the world. How, then, can you say that I blaspheme because I said that I am the Son of God? ³⁷ Do not believe me, then, if I am not doing the things my Father wants me to do. ³⁸ But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, you should at least believe my deeds, in order that you may know once and for all that the Father is in me and that I am in the Father.”

³⁹ Once more they tried to seize Jesus, but he slipped out of their hands.

⁴⁰ Jesus then went back again across the Jordan River to the place where John had been baptizing, and he stayed there. ⁴¹ Many people came to him. “John performed no miracles,” they said, “but everything he said about this man was true.” ⁴² And many people there believed in him.

In this passage, I am amazed at how Jesus frames the crowd’s hostility towards Him. While the crowd rightfully determines that Jesus’ words would fall within one definition of blasphemy, either they did not understand, or they were unwilling to accept, the difficult truth that the Messiah that the Old Testament prophesied about would actually be God’s Son.

Much later in Jesus’ ministry, during the week leading up to Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, and crucifixion, Jesus uses an Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah as evidence that the Messiah existed before David while also being David’s descendant. For those who are interested in what happened, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include this event, and you can find it at the end of Matthew, chapter 22, near the end of Mark, chapter 12, and at the end of Luke, chapter 20.

However, tucked within Jesus’ counter-challenge to these Jews is another amazing truth. While Jesus doesn’t ask those in this crowd to accept what they feel are blasphemous claims about being one with God, Jesus does challenge them regarding what they see Him doing. Everything Jesus did was to bring glory to God and to uplift God’s name. Even the crowd acknowledged when they picked up stones to stone Jesus that it wasn’t for anything He had done, but for one single claim He had made.

While Jesus clarifies how His claim about being God’s Son is completely compatible with the Old Testament scriptures, He shifts the focus onto His actions. Actions always speak louder than words, and in Jesus’ case, the only way Jesus could have done 90% of what He did was if God was with Him supporting Him through the Holy Spirit. While Jesus could have leaned on His divinity throughout His entire life, Jesus instead submitted Himself to God the Father’s will, and leaned on the Holy Spirit for power.

This means that if God the Father did not like the message Jesus was sharing, there would be no way Jesus could have helped people during the time He was teaching, and preaching. We don’t have to look very far into Jesus’ miracles to come to one that would be impossible for Jesus to do if God was not with Him.

Because Jesus worked so many miracles, and because Jesus always attributed these miracles as the Father’s will, and as reasons to give God the glory, we can use Jesus’ actions as a foundation for our faith. Regardless of the message Jesus shared, what Jesus did while He was alive on earth could only have happened if God was with Him. If Jesus had stepped too far, or over the line of what God felt was acceptable or not, we could expect that Jesus’ ability to perform miracles would stop.

However, when we fast forward to the end of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus was resurrected from the dead exactly as He predicted, Jesus returned to heaven, and the Holy Spirit was given to His followers exactly as Jesus promised. These details surrounding the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth give the greatest evidence to the powerful truth that Jesus was who He claimed to be. Jesus was God’s Son and the Messiah God had promised since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.

Because Jesus’ word has never failed, we can trust His promises, and even if we are uncertain of some of the more extreme claims Jesus made, we can look to Jesus’ actions as a foundation for our faith 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 what He accomplished while He was alive on earth. Trust that Jesus is in heaven working for our benefit as history speeds towards the end of sin and the salvation of God’s people!

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. God wants a personal relationship with you, and a personal relationship is best built on the foundation of personal prayer and personal Bible study. While other people can have good things to say, or interesting ideas to think about, always take what you hear, read, or see and filter it through the truth in God’s Word.