Reflective Bible Study

As we continue moving through Luke’s gospel, we come to a point where we are introduced to two very different individuals, and from the way Luke’s gospel describes this event, I am fascinated by some of the details we see when looking closely at what happened.

First off, this event focuses on two different women, and nothing in this passage is hinted at these two women being married. One of these women is described as having a home, which strongly implies that she was old enough to have an established life, and this is without Luke’s gospel sharing any evidence of a husband.

While it is possible she had a husband who traveled a great deal and who wasn’t present for this event, it is also just as possible that she was divorced or simply had chosen not to marry. There may be other possible explanations, but all the explanations we can think of are really distractions from the big contrast Luke wants us to see as he describes what happened when Jesus meets these two women.

Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 10, and we will read it from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 38, Luke tells us that:

³⁸ As they were traveling along, Jesus went into a village. A woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹ She had a sister named Mary. Mary sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to him talk.

⁴⁰ But Martha was upset about all the work she had to do. So she asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work all by myself? Tell her to help me.”

⁴¹ The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha! You worry and fuss about a lot of things. ⁴² There’s only one thing you need. Mary has made the right choice, and that one thing will not be taken away from her.”

In just five short verses, we are introduced to two very different women, and two very different responses to interacting with Jesus.

It is easy to condemn Martha for worrying and fussing while focusing on the details of being a good hostess. It is also easy for us to sympathize with Martha’s irritation over Mary’s lack of help or Mary’s decision to sit listening to Jesus. However, the biggest theme of this passage can get lost in the details if we are not careful.

It is worth noting that Jesus does not condemn Martha for serving or being a detail-driven hostess. While Jesus does call Martha out for where she has placed her focus, this only happens after Martha had become upset about what Mary was doing when compared with what Martha wanted Mary to be doing. In other words, Martha’s expectation for Mary was upsetting her when Mary wasn’t doing what she expected her to do.

This detail is huge, because it points us to a number of big spiritual truths.

First, we can see that our expectations for ourselves have an impact on our spiritual lives. In Martha’s case, the expectation she had placed on herself was that of being the perfect hostess. She wanted every detail accounted for because she knew how special Jesus was and what a big deal it was that He decided to spend time in her home.

Continuing in Martha’s example, we discover that when we don’t meet our expectations for ourselves, we often try to get others to help us meet our expectations. When Martha began falling behind with the details, she tried to get Mary to come and help her catch back up. While the details Martha was fussing and worrying about might have been very temporary things, the way she frames her frustration and request appeared to be more demanding than the situation might have warranted. I don’t believe Martha was in the wrong for asking for help, but she ultimately was called out for the way she demanded help from her sister.

This leads us to another truth: when others choose not to help us achieve our own expectations for ourselves, we can become bitter and angry towards them when they technically have done nothing wrong except for failing to abide by our expectations for them. In Martha’s example, Mary had done nothing wrong except that she chose not to help Martha achieve her expectations for herself. If Mary had gotten up to help Martha, then at the end of Jesus’ stay with them, Martha may have had the feeling of satisfaction, but Mary would definitely have had the feeling of regret and a missed opportunity.

Ultimately, what Jesus tells Martha is a message to all of us. While we may worry or fuss about a lot of things, it is more important that we connect with Jesus personally, and that we don’t try to dictate how other people connect with God. Every person will connect with God in their own way, and for a relationship with God to be truly personal, it must not depend on or include other individuals standing between us and God.

In Martha’s case, her expectation for herself stood between her and her relationship with Jesus, and when she was falling behind achieving her expectation, she expected Mary to help her rather than letting Mary focus on her own connection with Jesus. Jesus pushed back Martha’s upset remarks because Jesus knows that Mary’s simple choice to sit and listen is infinitely more valuable to her connection with Jesus than all the serving and hosting she could do!

In our own lives, we should intentionally spend time sitting and listening to Jesus to stay connected with Him. While serving Him is always a good thing in the big picture, we must never lose our connection with God while being focused on serving Him. In our lives each day, let’s take time to be with Jesus while we also spend time serving 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. Choose to take time to spend with Him and simply be with Him. We can serve God in our lives, but if we serve God to the point of becoming disconnected from Him, we will ultimately lose the life He has called us to be a part of. We can become disconnected from God even while doing great things for Him, and the longer we are disconnected from God, the farther we can drift from Him.

This is one reason why I regularly challenge you to pray and study the Bible for yourself. Through prayer and Bible study, we can keep our connection with God strong, and when we prayerfully open the Bible to study, we are opening our minds to God’s leading and listening for what the Holy Spirit wants to teach us in God’s word. Prayer and Bible study are two of the best ways of staying connected with God!

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 abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Before we transition to focusing on prophecies that are connected more directly with Jesus’ road to the cross, there is one prophecy I must include because it frames how Jesus’ ministry was ultimately received by those in the first century. However, while it is tempting to look at this prophecy and say it was only applicable to those in the first century, as we will soon discover, the way this prophecy was written makes it applicable both looking forward and looking back. In other words, this prophecy is just as relevant looking back on the past as it is looking forward to the future, though I will say that looking forward would hopefully teach us something we could use to escape the negative angle of the prophet’s words.

As I shared in the introduction, this prophecy is found in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, in chapter 6, and we will read it using the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 8, Isaiah writes:

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” ⁹ He said, “Go, and tell this people:

‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive;
Keep on looking, but do not understand.’
¹⁰ “Render the hearts of this people insensitive,
Their ears dull,
And their eyes dim,
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
Understand with their hearts,
And return and be healed.”

In this short message that Isaiah volunteered to deliver, we discover a very challenging message being sent to God’s people. Through Isaiah, God challenges His people to keep looking and listening, but know that their looking and listening won’t result in perceiving or understanding. It is as though God is actively turning the eyes, ears, hearts, and other senses of His people away from Him.

However, there is another interesting angle to this prophecy. This alternate angle is found when asking where the action is present in this prescription. Looking and listening are good first steps for gaining understanding, but nowhere on the surface of this passage do we discover any application of the understanding that is being seen and heard. This prophecy describes a people who have a hollow faith; a people who are simply going through the motions, but who are not interested in going beyond a surface set of rituals.

We can see the truth of this second angle in how the prophecy ends. This prophecy ends with the implication that if those being described really saw, heard, and understood the message, they would return and be healed.

In short, this prophecy is describing a scenario where a group of people think they can see, hear, and understand, but they have written off actually applying what they believe is being shared. Because they have written off any level of application, they choose not to return, which ultimately results in them losing out on healing, greater perception, and deeper understanding.

I suspect that Isaiah gave this message fully understanding and believing that the people in his generation were the ones who needed to hear this message the most.

However, when moving to the New Testament, we discover that Jesus pulls this Old Testament prophecy into that generation when answering a question from the disciples. In Matthew, chapter 13, which interestingly enough is a chapter full of parables, we find Jesus’ disciples come to Jesus and ask Him a question about His teaching in parables. In verse 10, Matthew writes:

¹⁰ And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” ¹¹ Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. ¹² For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. ¹³ Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. ¹⁴ In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;
You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
¹⁵ For the heart of this people has become dull,
With their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes,
Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.’

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. ¹⁷ For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

From the way Jesus frames Isaiah’s prophecy, we see a glimmer of hope. While some people might look at Isaiah’s prophecy and conclude that there is no hope for those who God actively chooses to give dim eyes and dull ears, Jesus frames the blindness and deafness of this prophecy not to God, but to those specific individuals. Jesus also draws attention onto this prophecy being for a specific, likely self-selected, group of people, and not for humanity at large. This means that it is entirely up to us whether we will be included in the group who misses out on healing and blessings, or whether we avoid that group in favor of being healed and blessed.

Jesus finishes off His answer to the disciples by describing how many people throughout history wanted to witness what the first century disciples of Jesus were able to witness.

However, while we are living over 2,000 years removed from when Jesus walked the earth in the first century, and while it is easy to wish we could have been alive back then, I am certain that God has placed you in history at this exact moment for a reason. While we might not know all the reasons for why God does what He does, Isaiah’s prophecy includes a powerful promise.

The promise found in Isaiah’s prophecy, which is also echoed in Jesus’ interpretation of this prophecy, is that when we apply the teaching of Jesus that we can understand, while also actively seeking to learn more, we will be blessed with more knowledge and wisdom. Those who actively discount Jesus’ message, Jesus’ teaching, and God’s truth found in the Bible, believing that they know and understand better, are the ones who will ultimately be found to have dim eyes and dull ears.

With the choice being ours to make, let’s together seek to hear, understand, and apply the truth God shares in the Bible, and seek to discover why God’s way is best by living out His plan for our lives rather than judging and discounting it from the sidelines. By living out God’s plan for our lives today, together we will grow into being the people God created us to be, and we will ultimately be welcomed into God’s kingdom, specifically into the New Heaven and New Earth, when Jesus returns.

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

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to ally and align your life with His. Accept the gift that Jesus made available for us, and choose to let this gift, and God’s truth, change your life. Intentionally apply God’s truth into your life to gain more knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, rather than letting your eyes become dim and your ears dull.

Also, as I regularly challenge you in one way or another, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself, in order to grow your personal relationship with God. Through a personal relationship with God, He will open your eyes, strengthen your ears, and teach you His truth that is relevant for your life today. Through regular prayer and Bible study, we are able to open our hearts and minds to God’s Holy Spirit and let Him lead and guide us forward in 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 abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!