Reflective Bible Study

As we continue through the gospels looking at Jesus’ miracles, we come to a miracle that comes with an object lesson, and while this object lesson is not pleasant to thinking about, it is something that is very relevant to our mission in the world today.

During the first century, the culture had developed the belief that those who were sick, injured, disabled, or hurting was because of their sin, or the sin of their parents. Those holding to this belief had several Old Testament texts that they used to support this idea, but while the texts are accurate, as we will soon discover, the error of those holding this belief was thinking that this belief covered every situation.

Let’s read what happened, and discover what Jesus wanted to teach His disciples. Our miracle for this episode is found in John’s gospel, chapter 9, and we will read it from the New Living Translation of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, John tells us that:

¹ As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. ² “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”

³ “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. ⁴ We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work. ⁵ But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶ Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. ⁷ He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!

⁸ His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some said he was, and others said, “No, he just looks like him!”

But the beggar kept saying, “Yes, I am the same one!”

¹⁰ They asked, “Who healed you? What happened?”

¹¹ He told them, “The man they call Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see!”

While the event continues for a good portion of the rest of the chapter, this is a good place to jump out of it. Evidently, this miracle happened on the Sabbath, and while we could continue reading and focus on that big theme, we’d run out of time before being able to focus on a few verses near the beginning of this event that stand out even more in my mind.

It is possible Jesus wanted to do this miracle to tick the religious leaders off because it was the Sabbath, but that thought doesn’t match how this event opens. Instead, this passage opens with Jesus and the disciples spotting a blind man begging on the side of the road. While it is logical to think Jesus had already decided to heal him, the question the disciples ask Jesus is very profound when we think about it.

The disciples ask Jesus why this man was born blind. The two options in their minds, which also reflected the minds of those in first century Jewish culture, was that this was because of sins that were either committed by a previous generation, such as his parents or grandparents, or because he had some serious sin present in his life. The last option doesn’t make much sense, because usually the punishment for a sin comes after the sin itself, and this punishment seemed to come before a sin could have even been committed, but this doesn’t exclude it as an option in the minds of those in the first century.

However, while the culture only allowed for two options, Jesus opens the door for a third. As we will soon see, we should openly desire a third option, because the two options present in that culture wouldn’t have allowed Jesus to work any miracles, and those two options would actually keep us from helping others while living within God’s will.

While it sounds crazy to think about, imagine for a moment that a parent is punishing a child for doing something wrong, and as a punishment, the parent takes the child’s favorite toy away. If the child had a friend with the same toy, and the child’s friend chose to give the toy to the child, how would this friend be seen in the eyes of the parent punishing the child? In essence, the parent is trying to punish, but the child’s friend is cancelling the parent’s efforts.

Let’s translate this into first century culture, and into the idea that they had about God. Those in the first century believed that injury, illness, and similar situations were God’s punishment for sin. If this was the case, then every time Jesus healed someone, He broke God’s will that that person deserved to be punished, and it makes Jesus’ ministry oppose God.

However, this is unfortunately what many Christian’s believe. Many Christians see God the Father as a mean God looking for reasons and ways to punish people for their sins, while Jesus is holding the Father back or cancelling the Father’s efforts in certain cases. This doesn’t sound like a unified picture of God or a pleasant picture of heaven.

Luckily, Jesus gives us a different frame of mind to view illness, injury, struggle, and disability: Jesus gives us the frame that shows us it is an opportunity to see God’s power in a person’s life. When bad happens in our lives, Jesus doesn’t say that sin is never the cause, but Jesus opens the door to the option that the bad that happens is not God’s punishment.

Jesus’ third option opens the door for us to be a blessing to others. If God is punishing someone for their sin, we would be unwise to get in the way of that punishment. However, what if the bad that happens is God sending an opportunity for His people to step in and help, and an opportunity for God to be praised through the good that happened in spite of the bad situation? If this is the case, then as Christians, when bad happens, we are to see this as God giving us an opportunity to get involved and challenging us to make a positive difference.

The same is true in our own lives. When we think about our testimony, rarely if ever do we discover our testimony comes out of our triumphs and successes. More often than not, our testimony comes out of our trials in life, and how God brought us through the trials and into a closer relationship with Him. When we let God lead us through the trials, we find that we come out the other side with a testimony. Our testimony is a blessing and it is given so we can be a light in a dark world.

Jesus warned His disciples that the night was coming when no one can work. Jesus tells us that while He is present, He is the light of the world. While Jesus could be saying that the night began when He returned to heaven, I have a suspicion that since we as believers are together called the “body of Christ”, we are to consider the night as still coming. While we can be a blessing to others, we should be a blessing, because the night is coming when we won’t be able to work.

Let’s together demonstrate God’s love, His power, and His compassion to a world that believes God hates them. God doesn’t hate us. Jesus came to redeem us from the curse and punishment of sin.

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

Always seek God first and place Him first in your life. Understand and recognize that God the Father loves you and that He has called you, me, and all believers to be a blessing to others. Don’t see the bad that happens as God punishing, but instead see the bad as an opportunity or a wakeup call from God to start living within His will – whether that means changing something within our lives, or whether it means stepping out and helping someone else in need.

Also, keep praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn, discover, and grow closer to God each and every day. Through prayer and study, we grow our relationship with God and we learn from Him what He wants for our lives.

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 choose a path that walks away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As the religious leaders bring Jesus a set of challenges in what appears to be a last attempt to discredit His ministry, we discover in Mark’s gospel, a strange ending to this string of questions. However, it is likely that Mark summarized the conclusion of this event while other gospel writers include more detail.

During the last challenge that Jesus was given, we find the question appear surprisingly simple when compared with the earlier challenges. However, I wonder if this question was leading somewhere, and Jesus ultimately cut this train of questioning short.

After Jesus had been challenged by the Sadducees, a religious leader who heard what Jesus was saying decides to step in with a question of his own. Let’s read about what happened and discover what we can learn from this event.

Our event and passage are found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 12, and for our time together, let’s read it from the New International Reader’s Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 28, Mark tells us that:

²⁸ One of the teachers of the law came and heard the Sadducees arguing. He noticed that Jesus had given the Sadducees a good answer. So he asked him, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?”

²⁹ Jesus answered, “Here is the most important one. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. ³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There is no commandment more important than these.”

³² “You have spoken well, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one. There is no other God but him. ³³ To love God with all your heart and mind and strength is very important. So is loving your neighbor as you love yourself. These things are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

³⁴ Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely. He said to him, “You are not far from God’s kingdom.” From then on, no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions.

In this event, and from looking at all the trick questions Jesus had faced and avoided leading up to this point, it seems like this question was an easy one for Jesus. From looking at the other gospels and how they paint the big picture of Jesus’ life and ministry, I don’t believe this was the first time Jesus had been asked this question.

However, in this brief conversation, Jesus hints at something significant being necessary in order to gain entrance into God’s kingdom. In the summary that the religious leader shares with Jesus, he gives a compliment to Jesus for a well-summarized response. This religious leader also rightly concludes that loving God with all your heart, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as you love yourself are more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. From this summary, we see that this religious leader believed love and dedication to God and love and kindness to his neighbor are more important than the entire sacrificial system that was set up.

Seeing that this leader had also responded well, Jesus compliments him by telling him, “You are not far from God’s kingdom.”

In Jesus’ response to this religious leader, we discover something fascinating. Loving God with all our heart is one piece of the key needed to enter God’s kingdom. Another piece of this key is loving our neighbors as ourselves. However, being “not far from God’s kingdom” implies that you are close but still not in it.

With all the laws being summarized in these two commands related to love, what piece of the key into God’s kingdom is missing in this man’s response, in this idea, or in this man’s life that He still needs to discover?

As I look at what Jesus hints at in this conversation, the only thing I can see missing in this summary is a Savior.

This religious leader had rightly concluded that love is at the heart of God’s law, and loving God and loving others is the filter that we must view God’s law through. However, in this leader’s conclusion, there wasn’t any room for those who had broken the law. While this summary of the law is amazing, no-one alive at that point in time, or at any point in history other than Jesus fully exemplified this understanding of the law 100% of the time.

The punishment for breaking the law is death. We could logically understand then that the punishment for not loving God with all our heart and for not loving our neighbors is death. Everyone fails at this standard, and because of this, the closest we can come to God’s kingdom on our own is about as close as this religious leader, which happens to be close to God’s kingdom, but not actually in it.

Verse 34 records Jesus’ response to this religious leader: “Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely. He said to him, ‘You are not far from God’s kingdom.’”

This religious leader needed a Savior. This leader, like all of us living throughout history, needs a Savior because we all have failed Jesus’ standard of love for God and love for our neighbor. Jesus came to be that Savior. In the context of the pieces of the key needed for entrance into God’s kingdom, the missing piece is Jesus as our Savior. With love for God, love for our neighbor, and Jesus as our Savior, we are able to step into God’s kingdom and into the life He created us to live!

While Jesus doesn’t emphasize the need for a Savior to this religious leader, Jesus’ disciples make it very clear after Jesus was resurrected and returned to heaven that Jesus was the Messiah that the Old Testament prophets told them about. Jesus’ disciples take the message of Jesus and they emphasize that we are to love God with all our hearts and our minds, that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and that we are to place our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross for our sins!

Without Jesus, our faith is meaningless. With Jesus, our faith leads us into eternity!

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 His sacrifice on the cross for your sins. Choose to accept the gift Jesus offers you and accept the eternal life He deserved while He paid the debt that we owed.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Discover in the pages of the Bible a God who is deeply in love with you and who is passionate about saving you for eternity. Don’t let anyone get in the way of you discovering this God for yourself and for growing a personal relationship with Him!

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!