Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure

Curing Cold Love: Matthew 24:1-14

Published February 7, 2024 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: Matthew 24:1-14 (NASB)

When reading Jesus’ life from the four gospels, I am often fascinated at the details that one writer includes that the others don’t include. Sometimes it is a detail that is changed, while in other cases, it is a new detail that the others simply didn’t share.

In Matthew’s version of this teaching, he shares a verse that is unique to his gospel message, and it stands out to me because I think it is relevant for our point in history: “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” (v. 12)

Both Mark and Luke include all the surrounding verses in their teaching, but only Matthew gives us this one little detail – and it is a detail that I find fascinating.

First off, this is in a prophecy portion of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus is looking forward into a future time. It is possible the time He was pointing to has already happened, or it might be the time period we are in the middle of, or it could even be a time period that still is in the future time for us as well. However, what made this verse jump off the page was not wondering when this would happen. Instead, I was fascinated at the implications.

In this verse, we find two different (and supposedly unrelated) ideas: law and love. Jesus connects the two by saying that the lack of law in one’s life and/or in society will have an effect on one’s love.

This is opposite to the allure of “forbidden love” that we see throughout society and culture. We have the Romeos and the Juliets choosing each other over the social norms present and we conclude that true love can exist outside of the area of law when both partners consent and when no one gets hurt.

But Jesus, in this verse, pushes back. He says it is only through obedience that we can experience true love. What is it about obedience (the opposite of lawlessness) that might be so important?

When I ask myself the question, only one thing comes to mind: humility. In order to obey someone or some rule, one must humble himself/herself and view themselves as less than the person/idea they are obeying. In contrast, viewing oneself as being above the law is about as prideful of an attitude as one can get.

Pride, which means a focus on oneself, destroys relationships, and it is rampant in cultures where people think that laws are important – but only for other people. In places where people think that their common sense or situation warrants an exception to obedience, this is when a culture shifts from being lawful (or law-minded) and towards lawlessness. And when people have this attitude, their focus on self erodes their ability to truly love other like God loves others.

When our love grows cold, our hearts harden, and it makes it hard for anyone (including God) to reach in. It seems backwards to think about, but the only way to soften a hard heart is for the person holding that heart to choose to move towards God. By moving towards God, He can soften your hard heart, or give you a heart transplant.

Why do people choose to move towards God – especially when they are completely self-focused? It is only after they choose to realize and admit that their lives are empty of meaning and purpose. Stuff doesn’t bring lasting satisfaction. Disobedience can define someone’s life, but it is a shallow definition. When people think about their legacy, what their life is worth to others after they have died, then there is an opening for God to point them in a new direction – which in all cases is towards Him.

Disobedience hardens our hearts. When we choose to obey Jesus and move closer to Him, only then is He able to melt our hard hearts, which allow us to fully experience true God-like love for Him and others. God is able to write the most amazing legacy imaginable for our lives when we choose to follow Him.

This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!

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Never Ashamed: Luke 9:21-27

Published February 6, 2024 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: Luke 9:21-27 (GNT)

²¹Then Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell this to anyone. ²²He also told them, “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will be raised to life.”

²³And he said to them all, “If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me. ²⁴For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. ²⁵Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but are yourself lost or defeated? Of course not! ²⁶If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷I assure you that there are some here who will not die until they have seen the Kingdom of God.”

Read Luke 9:21-27 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

Probably the most clear and direct statement about Jesus comes immediately after He shared about His upcoming death and resurrection. While Jesus sets the bar for following Him really low, in some ways it is ridiculously high as well.

Luke tells us that after Jesus shared about His upcoming arrest and death, He tells all those who are present, “If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me. For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but are yourself lost or defeated? Of course not! If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (v. 23-26)

On one hand, the requirements Jesus sets for us are really low. They are not based on social status, financial status, or popularity. These things have hierarchy and they are ways of measuring people in relation to other people. But everyone has the breath of life in them, and it is this life that Jesus refers to.

While the cross Jesus took up was a literal cross, and while many of the disciples and first followers of Jesus also ultimately took up literal crosses, Jesus is speaking figuratively of challenges that come against our faith in Him. When we choose to go with Jesus, the first thing He says is that our “self” should be left behind. If we are trying to bring our lives and our stuff along on the trip with Jesus, we will not be able to keep up. Jesus tells us, “if you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it” (v. 24)

This sounds backwards, but it speaks to the focus we should have for our lives. If we focus on building ourselves up, or on acquiring all we can in this world, it won’t mean anything if we miss this one point. When time ends, the only decision that will have mattered is whether we have placed God/Jesus as first in our lives.

And Jesus finishes this idea out by saying another easy-to-understand idea that is also challenging to apply. “If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (v. 26)

When we have chosen to follow Jesus, we should never be ashamed of our decision. We can expect to face challenges, and we can expect that there will be those who don’t understand, but if we hold on tightly to our faith and belief in Jesus, and we are never ashamed of our association with Jesus, then He will stick up for us when He returns in His glory with the Father and His angels.

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Flashback Episode — Facing Opposition: Mark 3:1-12

Published February 5, 2024 in Audio Journal Entries

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In Jesus’ ministry, we don’t have to look far to discover places where Jesus challenges the preconceived ideas of the religious teachers. As we move through Mark’s gospel, not much of the year has gone by and we already see the religious leaders shifting into opposition-mode regarding Jesus’ ministry. In the event we are focusing on in this episode, we will discover how these religious leaders orchestrate an event in an attempt to catch Jesus doing something wrong.

Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 3, and we will read from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 1:

¹Then Jesus went back to the synagogue, where there was a man who had a paralyzed hand. ²Some people were there who wanted to accuse Jesus of doing wrong; so they watched him closely to see whether he would cure the man on the Sabbath. ³Jesus said to the man, “Come up here to the front.” ⁴Then he asked the people, “What does our Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To help or to harm? To save someone’s life or to destroy it?”

But they did not say a thing. ⁵Jesus was angry as he looked around at them, but at the same time he felt sorry for them, because they were so stubborn and wrong. Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it became well again. ⁶So the Pharisees left the synagogue and met at once with some members of Herod’s party, and they made plans to kill Jesus.

Pausing our passage briefly, I find it fascinating that this man with a paralyzed hand happened to be at this synagogue when Jesus was there, and also when some people who wanted to accuse Jesus were there too. This event appears to be a set up if there ever was one.

However, an amazing parallel I see in this first part of our passage is in Jesus’ question, contrasted with the Pharisees’ response. Jesus asked those present in verse 4, “What does our Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To help or to harm? To save someone’s life or to destroy it?” Contrast this with verse 6, where Mark tells us that “the Pharisees left the synagogue and met at once with some members of Herod’s party, and they made plans to kill Jesus”.

The Pharisees leave the synagogue and immediately they meet with some people from Herod’s supporters to make plans to kill Jesus. Because this happened immediately, we can conclude that these Pharisees met to plot against Jesus on the Sabbath, and that means that the answer to Jesus’ question in the minds of these religious leaders was that their law allowed them to harm others and to destroy life on the Sabbath instead of helping or saving life. This is what the actions of these Pharisees show.

In contrast, Jesus’ question and Jesus’ actions throughout His ministry answers the question of the Sabbath saying that it is lawful to help people regardless of the day, and it is always lawful to save someone’s life regardless of the day of the week it is.

However, Jesus knew what these leaders were plotting. Continuing reading in verse 7:

⁷Jesus and his disciples went away to Lake Galilee, and a large crowd followed him. They had come from Galilee, from Judea, ⁸from Jerusalem, from the territory of Idumea, from the territory on the east side of the Jordan, and from the region around the cities of Tyre and Sidon. All these people came to Jesus because they had heard of the things he was doing. ⁹The crowd was so large that Jesus told his disciples to get a boat ready for him, so that the people would not crush him. ¹⁰He had healed many people, and all the sick kept pushing their way to him in order to touch him. ¹¹And whenever the people who had evil spirits in them saw him, they would fall down before him and scream, “You are the Son of God!”

¹²Jesus sternly ordered the evil spirits not to tell anyone who he was.

The way this passage concludes reminds us of some things we looked at earlier. When given the opportunity to speak, Jesus quickly silenced the evil spirits claim about Jesus being the Son of God. As we have already seen, it is never wise to listen to evil spirits, even if what they are saying is truthful. An evil spirit is never a trustworthy source of information.

In both parts of this passage, we discover that Jesus is gaining popularity because of what God is doing through Him, and this popularity irritated some of the religious leaders. While some religious leaders were likely jealous of Jesus’ popularity because they would rather be popular like Jesus, I also believe some of these leaders were jealous of Jesus because they wished they could do what Jesus did.

Other religious leaders were probably hostile towards Jesus because they were more afraid of Rome noticing what was happening and misinterpreting Jesus’ ministry as being a Jewish-sponsored movement worth crushing. If Rome believe the Jews were behind Jesus’ movement, they would not only target Jesus and His followers, but also everyone else present as well. These religious leaders saw the power in Jesus’ popularity and they likely wanted to distance themselves from being targeted if this movement failed.

However, I’m sure these fearful leaders would have completely flipped and supported Jesus if Jesus had actively expelled the Romans. These leaders would have opposed Jesus publicly until a new nation was formed and then they would try to rewrite their history claiming to have secretly supported Him all along.

But the problem with all this speculation is that God isn’t interested in support only when things are going well. God is worthy of being praised and given glory even when things are not going the way we might want them to go. While huge crowds followed Jesus because He was interesting and because He healed and helped people, everyone deserted Jesus when the religious leaders get their chance to arrest Jesus under the cover of night.

When we choose to follow Jesus, we are called to follow Jesus through the good times and the challenges, through the triumphs and the trials. God is much bigger than our problems and with His help we can move through anything and everything. While God does not promise His people a life without trials, God does promise us that with His help, we are better equipped to handle whatever life throws our way.

When we side with Jesus, know that there will be people who stand up against us because of our decision, but also keep in mind that Jesus wasn’t immune to opposition either. Jesus probably faced more opposition in His life than anyone else ever in history. When we face opposition, we can know that with whatever challenges we face in this life, we will be rewarded when Jesus returns to bring us home and into His kingdom!

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 trust in Him regardless of the trials and challenges that come your way. Know that when challenges come, Jesus faced worse challenges and abuse, and even if remembering this doesn’t make our situation easier, know that Jesus understands what we are facing because He has faced similar trials. Jesus overcame the trials and challenges in His life and He opened the way for us to be saved!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Don’t take a speaker, pastor, author, or even a podcaster’s word for what the Bible teaches. Pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow personally closer to God each and every day.

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

Flashback Episode: Year in Mark – Episode 6: When Jesus visits a synagogue and sees someone who is disabled, discover how He handles the situation, and how the question He asks the Pharisees is answered not through words, but instead through their actions.

“And” is Better than “Or”: Matthew 23:1-36

Published February 2, 2024 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: Matthew 23:1-36 (NASB)

¹ Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, ² saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; ³ therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. ⁴ They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. ⁵ But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their *I.e. small cases containing Scripture texts worn on the left arm and forehead for religious purposesphylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. ⁶ They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, ⁷ and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men. ⁸ But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. ⁹ Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. ¹⁰ Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. ¹¹ But the greatest among you shall be your servant. ¹² Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

¹³ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. ¹⁴ [*This v not found in early mssWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.]

¹⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

¹⁶ “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ ¹⁷ You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? ¹⁸ And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ ¹⁹ You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering? ²⁰ Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. ²¹ And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. ²² And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.

²³ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. ²⁴ You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. ²⁶ You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.

²⁷ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

²⁹ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰ and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹ So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. ³³ You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?

³⁴ “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, ³⁵ so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ³⁶ Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Read Matthew 23:1-36 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

Tucked within Matthew’s chapter full of Jesus’ challenges to the scribes and Pharisees, we can find an interesting concept played out regarding what God wants from His people and how the religious leaders missed it.

In these challenges, Matthew tells us Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (v. 23-24)

This section describes how the scribes and Pharisees were incredibly detailed and meticulous, but in their laser-like focus on certain religious instructions, they had missed the big picture of what God wanted.

When reading this section, it is easy to get caught in an “either/or” mentality. We see how these religious leaders were exceptionally detailed with their tithing, but they missed out on the justice, mercy, and faithfulness aspects of the law. If we are not careful, any four of these sections can be focused on at the exclusion of the others. Just like tithe can become the primary focus, so could justice, mercy, or faithfulness.

If justice is focused on like these leaders focused on their tithing, then we will find a group of believers who are critical of others and any sins they see present in those around them. If mercy was focused on like these leaders focused on their tithing, then we will find a group of believers that resemble a support group, and while it is a prime place for people to go to be accepted, they may not actually grow out of their challenges or towards God. If faithfulness was focused on like these leaders focused on their tithing, then we might find a group of believers who have such high personal standards that others may be turned off and think that they would never fit in or be welcome. Focusing on only one of the four areas Jesus describes misses God’s picture for His people.

Jesus finishes by emphasizing the importance of all four areas when He says, “These are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.” (v. 23b)

Moving forward with our faith, trust, and belief in Jesus should balance these four areas. We should focus on being faithful, extending mercy, displaying justice/justness, and giving generously. When we have these areas of our lives and character in balance, then we are living as Jesus lived, and being the people God created us to be.

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