Reflective Bible Study

As we continue looking at the details Mark includes in the crucifixion portion of his gospel, we come to the section of this event that frames who Jesus died with, and the messages Jesus was receiving from those present. While it would be easy to see these verses and the messages Jesus was receiving as simply the mocking of hostile people, what these people were saying has a profound spiritual truth that might have even encouraged Jesus to press forward to His last breath.

Let’s continue reading and discover what the next verses can teach us about Jesus, and about God’s love for us. Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 15, and we will read from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 27, Mark tells us that:

²⁷ They crucified two rebels with him [referring to Jesus], one on his right and one on his left. ^[28] [And the Scripture came true that says, “They put him with criminals.”]  ²⁹ Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, ³⁰ come down from the cross and save yourself!” ³¹ In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! ³² Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Let’s stop reading here. From these verses, it doesn’t seem like anything in the messages Jesus was receiving is positive.

However, let’s look a little closer at what was said. The first “insult” Mark describes coming from people who passed by, and these people said, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” While these people believed or understood Jesus’ statement to refer to the building that was called the temple, John’s gospel tells us Jesus meant His body and He called His body the temple when making that claim.

This means that when these people threw Jesus’ words back at Him, while they intended their reminder to be an insult, they were actually reminding Jesus in the moment of His greatest physical pain, that resurrection was just around the corner!

I doubt anyone present would have realized this subtle encouragement, and I wonder if Jesus had planned early on to make this prediction knowing that at the moment He would need some encouragement from hostile people, He could count on them to remember and repeat this coded message back to Him.

But that isn’t the only insult that has multiple meanings in this passage. The other primary insult Jesus received was from the religious leaders, who Mark describes as saying, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself!” Again, similar to how the first “insult” could be reinterpreted to be encouraging, this second insult can also be a great reminder that Jesus could grasp and be encouraged by.

In this second insult, Jesus is reminded why He is on the cross. Jesus faced the cross to save others, not to save Himself.

The only reason Jesus faced the cross was to pay for the sins of those who want to escape the disease of sin and the traps of Satan. Jesus came to redeem sinners and to give those who want to return to God a way to return to God while allowing God’s justness and justice to still be clearly seen. God punishes sin and sinners deserved to be punished. However, someone unworthy of punishment is allowed to step in and take the punishment on themselves, which both allows justice to happen, while also showing love and mercy towards the guilty person. This second insult reminded Jesus why He was on the cross – because He was dying to save all of God’s people throughout history, including you and me!

However, the reason these insults were seen as insults was because of an assumption that those present blinded themselves into believing. This assumption was either something these people had convinced themselves was true, or it was a lie Satan had prompted them to believe in order to give Jesus one big last temptation before His death. The assumption I am referring to is that Jesus did not want to die.

The last big temptation Satan planned for Jesus was the temptation to come down from the cross and to save Himself. This temptation was included in both of the insults that were hurled at Jesus, and the implication is that Jesus needed to do this to prove who He was. This could only be a temptation if it were possible for Jesus to do, and I believe that Jesus was fully capable of leaving the cross if He wanted to.

However, Jesus knew that proving Himself to a skeptic would do no good. If Jesus had abandoned the cross when faced with this last temptation, the religious leaders and skeptics might have believed, or they might have simply come up with another reason they should doubt. One possible doubt would be that the soldiers didn’t do a good enough job driving the spikes into the wood, or that Jesus’ bone structure was uniquely different, allowing the spikes to slip off of Him. A skeptic’s mind can come up with countless reasons to not believe.

If Jesus had abandoned the cross when faced with this temptation, any belief in Jesus would be worthless, because Jesus gave up when times were too tough. Satan’s big claim against God was that God’s law was impossible to keep and impractical for life. Jesus came to demonstrate God’s love and to live a life that fulfilled all of God’s laws, showing us how God’s way is the best way!

Jesus’ chose not to save Himself so that He could save every person who wants to have a new life with God. Jesus used these insults that were thrown His way as subtle encouragements to remind Him why He was on the cross, which was to save sinners, and that the cross would end with resurrection on the third day!

Jesus used the biggest insults His enemies had and He had masterfully planned for them to be a source of encouragement in His darkest, most pain-filled hours leading up to His last breath.

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 Jesus’ sacrifice on your behalf. Choose to let Jesus’ death pay for the price of your sins and accept the new life that Jesus offers to each of us because of what He faced. Jesus faced the cross for you and me, and His sacrifice only benefits us when we accept His death on our behalf by placing our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Him.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Choose to pray and study the Bible to discover a God who is passionately in love with you and a God who would stop at nothing to show His love for you because He wants to redeem you from the life of sin you are living in. God loves sinners, and Jesus came to redeem sinners who want to love God in return.

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!

As we are coming closer to the end of our year podcasting through the miracles included in the gospels, we come to a very unique miracle, probably a miracle that was more one-of-a-kind than normal, that happened during the week leading up to the crucifixion. Oddly enough, while most miracles resulted in positive results, this miracle results in negative ones, and this miracle serves as an object lesson about the power of faith.

Let’s read what happened and discover some things we can learn about faith from this very unique miracle. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 21, and we will read it from the New Century Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 18, Matthew tells us that:

¹⁸ Early the next morning, as Jesus was going back to the city, he became hungry. ¹⁹ Seeing a fig tree beside the road, Jesus went to it, but there were no figs on the tree, only leaves. So Jesus said to the tree, “You will never again have fruit.” The tree immediately dried up.

²⁰ When his followers saw this, they were amazed. They asked, “How did the fig tree dry up so quickly?”

²¹ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will be able to do what I did to this tree and even more. You will be able to say to this mountain, ‘Go, fall into the sea.’ And if you have faith, it will happen. ²² If you believe, you will get anything you ask for in prayer.”

Not only is the miracle in this passage amazing, so is the promise Jesus shares in this last verse. Jesus directly tells His followers that with faith and no doubt, we will be able to command trees, mountains, and nature itself to do our bidding.

While I don’t know the extent of Jesus’ promise here, it does seem to extend much further than most of His followers living today think. On the surface, it seems that faith without doubt leads to miracles. Also closely related to this idea is the truth that belief in Jesus leads to answered prayers.

In this miracle, we discover a truth that we don’t often like thinking about. Faith and belief is a two-edged sword. While it is great to think of the positive side of faith, and how God can work miracles for the good of humanity through us when we have faith in Him, there is a negative side to faith as well. One might call doubt itself a negative faith.

When we truly know in our hearts that God will do what He has promised to do, we are freed to move forward and we ultimately discover what He promised. Rarely does the path to the finish line lead us through the scenery and experiences we think it will, but when we have faith in Jesus, God will direct our path towards His promises.

However, doubt is like a negative faith. Doubt is a faith that says whatever we hope will happen won’t happen. This negative faith sabotages our walk with God because it causes us to question God’s goodness, God’s love, and God’s protection in our lives. When bad things happen, it is easy to blame God, it is easy to doubt God, and it is easy to discredit God because of what happened. I, like many of us, have experienced situations where I am left to wonder if God was really behind what happened.

When bad things happen, some people are quick to blame God, while others are quick to blame Satan. Those who blame God say that He should have prevented what happened, while those who blame Satan do so because they want to defend God and His loving character. However, while it doesn’t appear as though these two positions are compatible, I believe they are both mostly correct. Yes, Satan caused the destruction, and yes, God allowed it to happen. Both sources are to blame.

However, each source has wildly different motives. In Satan’s case, he simply wants to turn people away from God and to cause people to doubt God’s love. However, in God’s case, He wants those who face difficult times to lean into their faith and into their belief. There are many reasons bad things happen, and a surprising number of the reasons can be viewed in a positive way.

If something bad happens in our life, we can choose to hate God, or hate the sin-corrupted world that we live in. If we choose to hate God, then doubt gains a foothold in our hearts. However, if we choose to hate the sin-corrupted world, we naturally lean into God and more eagerly look forward to the day when Jesus returns and puts an end to sin.

In our passage, Jesus challenges His disciples to have faith and not doubt. This promise states that belief, faith, and prayer with no doubt results in miracles. I firmly believe this is simply because when we have belief, faith, and prayer that is all focused entirely on God without any doubt that would cheapen His promises in our minds or hearts, we will have the Holy Spirit and be moving forward along the path God has for us to walk. In this situation, our prayers will not only be what we want, they will also be what God wants, and when we want what God wants, we shouldn’t be surprised when what God wants shows up in our lives and our situations.

Before closing off on this episode, we should also check our beliefs and our faith. Spreading throughout Christianity are some subtle, and other not so subtle, beliefs that cheapen God’s love and drag down His character. While I could list a few, I won’t here, simply because I would rather challenge you to look at your own life and your own beliefs and ask yourself if any of your beliefs cheapen God. When we find a belief that cheapens God, we should study the Bible to discover God’s truth, and reject the counterfeit belief for God’s treasure.

While I don’t know if having beliefs that cheapen our faith will result in a lack of miraculously answered prayer, I do know that cheap beliefs and cheap faith hurt our spiritual growth. Let’s intentionally push back doubt, lean into faith when bad things happen, and look forward to Jesus’ return when He puts an end to sin.

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

As always, be sure to intentionally seek God first and place your hope, faith, trust, and belief in Him. Push back at the temptation to doubt because doubt is negative faith and it leads to nowhere positive. Instead, accept Jesus’ promise in this passage that faith, belief, and prayer without doubt is the path into a miraculous life with God.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn what God wants to teach you firsthand. While other people can have good ideas, always filter what you learn through the pages and truth contained in the Bible to discover if what you are being taught aligns with God’s truth. God won’t share truth that contradicts with His Word, and you can trust that anything from God will support what He has revealed to us through the pages of the Bible.

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