Reflective Bible Study

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!

For the next several podcast episodes, we will slow down and focus in on Jesus’ time on the cross. In many ways, this event is the climax of the entire Bible record, and this event could be considered the climax of history, or we could say “His-Story”. However, nothing in this event seemed positive at the time it was happening, that is unless you were Satan or one of the religious leaders pushing for Jesus’ death. This moment in history was evil’s big time in the spotlight.

Let’s read how Mark’s gospel describes the first portion of the crucifixion, and unpack some things we can learn from this event. Our passage for this episode is found in Mark, chapter 15, and we will read from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 22, Mark tells us that:

²² They led Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the Place of the Skull. ²³ The soldiers tried to give Jesus wine mixed with myrrh to drink, but he refused. ²⁴ The soldiers crucified Jesus and divided his clothes among themselves, throwing lots to decide what each soldier would get.

²⁵ It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified Jesus. ²⁶ There was a sign with this charge against Jesus written on it: the king of the jews. 

Let’s stop reading here. Each one of the verses we just read has some fascinating details in it.

First off, the place Jesus was crucified was called Golgotha, and the meaning of Golgotha is “the Place of the Skull”. This is interesting in my mind because to get a name like this, this location needed something special about it. When looking up information about this location, there is some speculation about how Golgotha received this name. However, I found the following detail fascinating. Golgotha may be named this way because it was a hill that resembled a skull, because one church tradition said that Adam was buried there, or because of all the people (or skulls) that were executed there.

When seeing the detail that Adam was buried there, I chuckled a little bit because how could anyone know where Adam was buried since he died before the flood and the flood radically changed the surface of the earth. However, the rational explanation for this theory is that Noah excavated Adams bones and brought them with them on the ark. Then following the flood, Shem and Melchizedek traveled to the resting place of Noah’s Ark, retrieved Adam’s bones from it, and were led by Angels to Golgotha, which is described as a skull-shaped hill at the center of the Earth. This location was also where the serpent’s head had been crushed following the Fall of Man.

I found this theory to be fascinating, and if it turns out to be true, then it gives a lot of symbolism not only to the significance of Jesus death, but that the place Jesus died was connected with the origin of sin and with humanity’s fall. It also connects Jesus with Adam, and in other parts of the New Testament, Jesus is symbolically referred to as a second Adam.

Also in these verses, I find it fascinating that Mark describes Jesus being offered wine mixed with myrrh to drink. This detail is fascinating because one of the gifts Jesus received when He was born was myrrh. The wise men brought Jesus gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This means that at the beginning of Jesus’ life, He was brought myrrh and at the end of His life, He again is offered myrrh.

With this recurrence of myrrh, I wonder what might be its significance. Looking at myrrh in the Old Testament, we discover that myrrh is a key ingredient in the oil that was used to anoint and dedicate the temple, priests, and kings. However, this was myrrh used for anointing, not ingesting. Wine mixed with myrrh likely was given as a way to help numb the pain, and I believe Jesus refused this because He did not want rumors circulating that He was drunk while on the cross, even if the amount of wine given wouldn’t likely have been enough to intoxicate someone.

In addition to being in the wine that was offered to Jesus at His death, myrrh shows up again in Jesus’ burial, but in John’s gospel, when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus bring a 100 pound mixture of spices, which included myrrh by name. While we aren’t focusing in on John’s gospel in this year of podcasting, myrrh in this context symbolically connects Jesus’ death and His being anointed as priest and king.

Following Jesus refusing the wine, Mark describes the soldiers dividing Jesus’ clothes and gambling for them. While Mark doesn’t give much context or symbolism for this detail, at least one of the other gospel writers includes the detail that this fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy.

After describing Jesus’ clothing being gambled for, Mark tells us that the crucifixion began at nine o’clock in the morning. This detail is important in my mind because it shows how quickly and earnestly the religious leaders wanted Jesus condemned to death, with the sentence carried out. The previous day had ended with Jesus walking freely around Jerusalem as He left the temple that day, but less than 18 hours later, Jesus is dying on a cross.

Many of Jesus’ biggest supporters would have gone to bed that night believing everything was fine, but they would wake up the following morning, get ready for their day, head into Jerusalem, and pass Jesus hanging on the cross. This was evil’s time in the spotlight, and Satan was not going to give up this opportunity to see Jesus’ life end.

The speed of Jesus’ crucifixion and the events of His betrayal and arrest remind me that life can change in an instant. However, while life can instantly become worse when it was better before, Jesus’ death also makes the reverse possible. Because of Jesus’ death, our lives that are destined to end in death because of our sin can instantly be given a different destiny.

When we place our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus and His sacrifice, Jesus accepts our sinful lives as being included in His death, and He gives us the assurance of the life He deserved. The new life Jesus offers us is a life that begins today and it extends into eternity. Just as Jesus spent a brief period of time resting in the grave, we may experience this rest as well, but like Jesus was resurrected, we too can look forward to our own resurrection at the moment Jesus returns to take us home!

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, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus and in His sacrifice on our behalf. Through Jesus’ death, we can have the assurance that our sins are forgiven and that we can have a new life with God that extends into eternity.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. By studying the Bible, discover what God wants to teach you as you come to Him in prayer and study His message of hope.

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