Reflective Bible Study

In our journey through Jesus’ life, we now come to the night Jesus was betrayed. However, before Jesus is betrayed and arrested, He shares a special meal with His disciples, and at this meal, Jesus does something profoundly unexpected – He takes the role of the lowest servant.

Let’s read about what happened, about why Jesus did this, and about the reaction that one of His disciples had when this happened. Our passage comes to us from the gospel of John, chapter 13, and we will be reading from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, John tells us that:

¹ It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

² The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. ³ Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; ⁴ so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. ⁵ After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Let’s pause reading here because two details I see already are profound and I don’t want us to miss them.

The first detail is that Satan had already prompted Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus, and looking at the details that we will read in Jesus’ conversation with Peter tells us that Judas was still present. Knowing Judas was present would mean that Jesus washed Judas’ feet even though they both knew that Judas was plotting a betrayal. This act demonstrates an incredible level of love and humility on Jesus’ part, but it would not be enough to break through to Judas’ stubborn, hard heart.

The second detail is that when we read about Jesus knowing that the Father had put all things under His power, the first thing that Jesus does is get up from the meal, take off His outer robe, wrap a towel around His waist, and then proceed to do the lowest role that society had. Washing someone’s feet was the bottom role in that society and Jesus chose to step into this role at the very moment that He knew that God had placed everything under His power.

It is also interesting to note that in this second detail, when John tells us that all things were under Jesus’ power, nothing that happened after this point was without Jesus’ direct consent. While Jesus prays for another way in the garden, His prayer is always in the context of doing God’s will so that humanity can have the opportunity for salvation. Jesus could easily have called off the whole crucifixion event, brought in thousands of angels to defend Himself and all the disciples, or even come down from the cross, but any of these options would abandon humanity to the fate of sin, and that is something that God was unwilling to do. He loves us and He wants to save us for eternity!

While Jesus was moving through the room washing the disciples’ feet, we pick back up in verse 6 when:

⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

⁷ Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

⁸ “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

⁹ “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

Quick side-note: This is how we can see that Judas Iscariot was present. Jesus wouldn’t have needed to say that not everyone was clean if Judas Iscariot had already left.

Continuing in verse 12:

¹² When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. ¹³ “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

In this passage, and in Peter’s conversation with Jesus, we see an interesting idea present when we begin to look at what it means to leave sin and have our lives washed by Jesus.

On one extreme, we have Peter’s first remark that the Messiah, God’s Son on earth, would not ever wash His feet. While this is on one level a statement of humility, because Peter knows he is less than Jesus and doesn’t comprehend the idea of Jesus lowering Himself below him, the challenge here is one of pride. Peter doesn’t want to accept that Jesus is taking the role of the lowest servant or slave for him personally, because he feels the roles should be switched.

However, symbolically, we see another idea at work in this first extreme. When someone who has sinned humbly comes to God asking for forgiveness, the first mistake that can be made is thinking that God won’t affect or change their life. This is the trap of Peter’s first extreme. When we come asking God for forgiveness, expect to be touched by God, or as Jesus replied to Peter in verse 8, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” If we want to be adopted into God’s family through forgiveness and accepting His invitation, expect and welcome His desire to wash our lives.

But we also have a second extreme, which Peter immediately moves to when realizing that washing is necessary for being included with Jesus. After realizing his first position isn’t desirable, Peter then swings to the opposite extreme, asking Jesus to wash “not just [his] feet but [his] hands and [his] head as well”.

We can admire Peter for diving all in with his request. Peter is an all-in-or-all-out type of guy. However, in Jesus’ response, we see the opposite extreme being also a place where Jesus doesn’t want or need us to go.

When God has touched and washed our lives, we might think there will be nothing left of our former selves. We might even want this. However, the truth is that just like people aren’t 100% free from sin, no-one is 100% stained by sin. When God wants to wash our lives, He is more interested in cleaning the sin-stained parts, and not on dwelling the parts that are not affected by sin.

This means that when Jesus takes us and washes our lives, don’t be surprised if we have a new focus, a new outlook, a new perspective, but a similar personality, a similar color of hair, and a similar color of skin. God won’t turn us into His clone when we accept Him into our lives, but He will transform us into the people He created us to be. God was interested and involved in your entrance into this world, and because you and I are here, He has a plan and an ideal for our lives.

God wants to wash your life. He wants to clean the sin from it, and He is more than happy to do so. We must come to Him, seek His will, and ask Him to help change us into His ideal for our lives. He promises to bless us when we follow in His footsteps, and He challenges us to be happy in the place where He has placed us.

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

Always seek God first and focus intentionally on Him in your lives each day.

Be sure to regularly pray and study the Bible for yourself to keep your connection with God strong.

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

In our last episode, we began looking at the miracle surrounding Lazarus being raised from the dead. However, because this also happens to be the miracle that takes up the greatest number of verses of any other miracle in the gospels, we didn’t actually get to the miracle part of the event in the last episode.

However, in this episode, let me briefly summarize what we covered in the last episode, before jumping back into the narrative. This event begins with Jesus hearing about His friend Lazarus’ illness, and Jesus reassures those present that Lazarus’ sickness wouldn’t end in death. Instead, it would bring glory to God.

However, instead of leaving immediately to go help Lazarus, Jesus stayed where He was for two more days, before announcing to the disciples that Lazarus was now asleep, or in other words dead, and that Jesus was now going to go wake Him up.

When they arrive in Bethany, which was the town that Lazarus, Martha, and Mary lived in, Martha comes out to meet Jesus.

Let’s jump into the event at this point. While we looked at some of Martha and Mary’s conversation with Jesus in the last episode, this will give us a great foundation leading into the big themes we’ll focus in on in this episode. Our passage and event is found in the gospel of John, chapter 11, and we will be reading it from the Contemporary English Version. Jumping into our event in verse 17, John tells us that:

¹⁷ When Jesus got to Bethany, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Bethany was only about two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many people had come from the city to comfort Martha and Mary because their brother had died.

²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus had arrived, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² Yet even now I know that God will do anything you ask.”

²³ Jesus told her, “Your brother will live again!”

²⁴ Martha answered, “I know that he will be raised to life on the last day, when all the dead are raised.”

²⁵ Jesus then said, “I am the one who raises the dead to life! Everyone who has faith in me will live, even if they die. ²⁶ And everyone who lives because of faith in me will never really die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷ “Yes, Lord!” she replied. “I believe that you are Christ, the Son of God. You are the one we hoped would come into the world.”

²⁸ After Martha said this, she went and privately said to her sister Mary, “The Teacher is here, and he wants to see you.” ²⁹ As soon as Mary heard this, she got up and went out to Jesus. ³⁰ He was still outside the village where Martha had gone to meet him. ³¹ Many people had come to comfort Mary, and when they saw her quickly leave the house, they thought she was going out to the tomb to cry. So they followed her.

³² Mary went to where Jesus was. Then as soon as she saw him, she knelt at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³ When Jesus saw that Mary and the people with her were crying, he was terribly upset ³⁴ and asked, “Where have you put his body?”

They replied, “Lord, come and you will see.”

This is where we left off in our last episode. Continuing reading from verse 35:

³⁵ Jesus started crying, ³⁶ and the people said, “See how much he loved Lazarus.”

³⁷ Some of them said, “He gives sight to the blind. Why couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”

³⁸ Jesus was still terribly upset. So he went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone rolled against the entrance. ³⁹ Then he told the people to roll the stone away. But Martha said, “Lord, you know that Lazarus has been dead four days, and there will be a bad smell.”

⁴⁰ Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you had faith, you would see the glory of God?”

⁴¹ After the stone had been rolled aside, Jesus looked up toward heaven and prayed, “Father, I thank you for answering my prayer. ⁴² I know that you always answer my prayers. But I said this, so that the people here would believe that you sent me.”

⁴³ When Jesus had finished praying, he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The man who had been dead came out. His hands and feet were wrapped with strips of burial cloth, and a cloth covered his face.

Jesus then told the people, “Untie him and let him go.”

In this miracle, one phrase stands out to me as the big theme throughout this entire event. Without this phrase, this miracle would simply be just a miracle, or something special Jesus did back then, but no real indication of Him wanting to do the same for us today. But with this phrase, suddenly this miracle becomes a foreshadowing promise for every believer who worries about or faces death.

While Jesus is talking with Martha, He tells her in verses 25 and 26, “I am the one who raises the dead to life! Everyone who has faith in me will live, even if they die. And everyone who lives because of faith in me will never really die.”

There are three big truths centered in these three short statements, and they might sounds as though they contradict each other.

In the first statement, Jesus makes the bold claim that, “I am the one who raises the dead to life!” If you have ever been fearful about being stuck in the grave in death, or if you have doubts about whether God loves you, pay attention to the fact that Jesus is the one who does the resurrecting, and it is Jesus who died for you. There is nothing to fear in death because Jesus has the power over death to bring you back to life!

The next statement speaks to a future resurrection for everyone who has faith in Jesus. Jesus tells Martha, “Everyone who has faith in me will live, even if they die.” This verse speaks to the truth of the resurrection Jesus promises to every believer. Death isn’t something we should fear when we have faith in Jesus, because Jesus has promised us life. From Jesus’ perspective, the grave is not relevant, because He conquered death.

With the third statement, we might be tempted to believe Jesus then contradicts Himself. After saying that those who have faith in him will live even if they die, Jesus then promises that “everyone who lives because of faith in me will never really die.” While I can understand why some might see this verse supporting believers being swept up to heaven immediately at their death, this doesn’t match the context of Jesus’ words, and it negates the resurrection Jesus has just promised. The future resurrection Jesus promises us becomes irrelevant if at death we receive our rewards immediately.

Instead, Jesus centers our focus on the truth that when we sleep, a metaphor for the death before the resurrection, we don’t truly die because Jesus keeps us safe, and figuratively holds us in His hands. This first death is irrelevant for a believer to focus on because unless we are alive when Jesus returns, we will face this first death.

However, this first death is irrelevant because we look forward to the resurrection that brings us back to life, and there is a strong theme running through the Bible that when we face this first, sleep-like death, the next conscious event we will know is the resurrection.

So what is Jesus’ key idea in the third statement? Jesus promises us that “everyone who lives because of faith in me will never really die.” Following the sleep-death that ends with our resurrection, we are giving the gift of eternal life. Jesus purchased that gift for us with His death on the cross, and He is anxiously awaiting the day when He will give it to us. The day we all look forward to is resurrection day, the day of our rebirth into a new life with God!

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

Intentionally seek God first and place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus. Live your life in a way that honors God as a way to say thank You for everything He has done. We can never be good enough to earn our salvation, but we keep getting back up when we stumble because we want to honor God with our lives, and we want to accurately reflect Jesus to our chaotic, crazy world.

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and move closer to God each day. While death is not a pleasant subject for many people to think about, if you haven’t studied all the conflicting beliefs surrounding it, I challenge you to do so today. While most beliefs about death claim the Bible as their foundation, choose the belief that has the greatest weight of evidence behind it. Don’t pick a belief simply because I or another person think it. Pray and study it out for yourself 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 walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Shortly before switching away from Jesus’ teachings and onto sharing about the night Jesus was betrayed, Matthew shares in his gospel about a parable that shares several characteristics to one we looked at earlier this year from Luke’s gospel.

However, there are enough unique details in Matthew’s version of this parable to make me think Jesus spoke two similar parables at different times. While the parable in Luke is often called the parable of the ten servants, Matthew’s parable focuses in on three servants only, and because of this, it is known simply as the parable of the three servants.

Let’s read how Matthew shares this parable and discover some things we can learn from it. Our passage is found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, and we will be reading from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 14, Jesus continues teaching the disciples saying:

¹⁴ “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. ¹⁵ He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.

¹⁶ “The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. ¹⁷ The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. ¹⁸ But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.

¹⁹ “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. ²⁰ The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’

²¹ “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

²² “The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’

²³ “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

²⁴ “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. ²⁵ I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’

²⁶ “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, ²⁷ why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’

²⁸ “Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. ²⁹ To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. ³⁰ Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

One of the big, unique details in Matthew’s gospel is that each of the three servants received different amounts of money. This might not sound very fair, but Jesus shared in the opening of this parable that this decision was strategic. Verse 15 tells us that “He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities”.

While it might seem that this man is not being fair, this man is actually being fair and giving each servant according to the level of what each is able to manage. While we don’t have any context for what made the five-bag servant more capable than the 2-bag servant, or even the 1-bag servant, I’m sure you know people in your life who are more capable and wise with how they manage their money than others. We probably can look at these three servants in a similar way. One had shown excellent ingenuity, one was perhaps average, and one was afraid of risk.

We can learn an important point from this detail, which says that God is unlikely to give us more resources than we are able to handle. When we use what He has already given to us in a wise and productive way, He is likely to give us more resources as He sees fit.

The next detail we learn is that both the 5-bag servant and the 2-bag servant double the money they were gifted. Again, we don’t know how they did this, but the details of how are less relevant than the results – and that their results were accomplished in a way that didn’t land them in prison or dead, which means they were ethical with their investing and work strategy.

However, a lot of space is given to the 1-bag servant, who simply did nothing. This 1-bag servant is fearful of making a mistake, of losing the money, and of letting his master down. We see the master call this servant “wicked, lazy, and useless” because he did the worst possible thing with the money, which was nothing.

While the master in this parable suggested that a better place for this one bag of silver would have been in a bank where it could have collected some interest, I believe that even if this servant had tried something and failed, the response would have been better than the one he received.

Trying and failing is better than doing nothing because every time we try, we learn something new, and with every time we fail, we discover the limits to what we know and believe. Failure is not on the opposite side of success, it is simply a hurdle to jump over on our way to success.

As followers of Jesus, we have been given the best gift possible, and this gift is an invitation to heaven. This parable challenges us with the responsibility that we are to do something with this gift. Doing nothing only gets us tossed out. Doing something is the only way to move forward.

The last theme I will draw out in our time together is that even if the master didn’t have much faith in the 1-bag servant’s ability, he still entrusted 1 bag of silver to this servant. This means that if you feel left out on God’s blessings, like He is giving blessings to everyone else and you are left out on the sidelines, know that this is a lie.

The master, who represents God, has given everyone something, and He is watching to see what we do with what He has blessed us with. When Jesus returns, those who have done something will be rewarded, while those who were too fearful to do anything risk losing out on everything.

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

If you feel as though God hasn’t given you much to work with, determine to use what He has given you. If you don’t have much money, but you have some spare time, use some of your spare time to bless others. If you don’t have money or time, but you have some knowledge or an experience, look for ways you can help others with that information in time and cost efficient ways. God isn’t expecting us to multiply what He has given us exponentially, but to simply use what He has given us to bless others.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself so that you can keep your connection with God strong. When your connection and relationship with God is strong, I believe He will lead you along the path He created for you to walk, and along this path you will find out that He has given you everything you need to take the next step.

And as I always end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short, chicken out of, or back away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

In our year moving through the gospels looking at Jesus’ miracles, we come to the miracle that takes up the greatest space of any single miracle in the gospels, and strangely this miracle is only included in John’s gospel. Part of me wondered if it was so well known of an event that the other gospel writers decided to exclude it because of its fame.

However, because it is such a long miracle, we’ll split our discussion on this miracle into two parts, because not only will that give us more time to understand Jesus’ teaching surrounding this miracle, but we can focus in on more than one theme that we can learn from this event.

So without further delay, let’s dive in to what we can learn from this miracle. Our passage is found in John’s gospel, chapter 11, and we will be reading from the Contemporary English Version. Starting in verse 1, John tells us that:

^1-2 A man by the name of Lazarus was sick in the village of Bethany. He had two sisters, Mary and Martha. This was the same Mary who later poured perfume on the Lord’s head and wiped his feet with her hair. ³ The sisters sent a message to the Lord and told him that his good friend Lazarus was sick.

⁴ When Jesus heard this, he said, “His sickness won’t end in death. It will bring glory to God and his Son.”

⁵ Jesus loved Martha and her sister and brother. ⁶ But he stayed where he was for two more days. ⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “Now we will go back to Judea.”

⁸ “Teacher,” they said, “the people there want to stone you to death! Why do you want to go back?”

⁹ Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours in each day? If you walk during the day, you will have light from the sun, and you won’t stumble. ¹⁰ But if you walk during the night, you will stumble, because you don’t have any light.” ¹¹ Then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, and I am going there to wake him up.”

¹² They replied, “Lord, if he is asleep, he will get better.” ¹³ Jesus really meant that Lazarus was dead, but they thought he was talking only about sleep.

¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead! ¹⁵ I am glad that I wasn’t there, because now you will have a chance to put your faith in me. Let’s go to him.”

¹⁶ Thomas, whose nickname was “Twin,” said to the other disciples, “Come on. Let’s go, so we can die with him.”

¹⁷ When Jesus got to Bethany, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Bethany was only about two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many people had come from the city to comfort Martha and Mary because their brother had died.

²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus had arrived, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² Yet even now I know that God will do anything you ask.”

²³ Jesus told her, “Your brother will live again!”

²⁴ Martha answered, “I know that he will be raised to life on the last day, when all the dead are raised.”

²⁵ Jesus then said, “I am the one who raises the dead to life! Everyone who has faith in me will live, even if they die. ²⁶ And everyone who lives because of faith in me will never really die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷ “Yes, Lord!” she replied. “I believe that you are Christ, the Son of God. You are the one we hoped would come into the world.”

²⁸ After Martha said this, she went and privately said to her sister Mary, “The Teacher is here, and he wants to see you.” ²⁹ As soon as Mary heard this, she got up and went out to Jesus. ³⁰ He was still outside the village where Martha had gone to meet him. ³¹ Many people had come to comfort Mary, and when they saw her quickly leave the house, they thought she was going out to the tomb to cry. So they followed her.

³² Mary went to where Jesus was. Then as soon as she saw him, she knelt at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³ When Jesus saw that Mary and the people with her were crying, he was terribly upset ³⁴ and asked, “Where have you put his body?”

They replied, “Lord, come and you will see.”

Let’s stop reading here for this episode, because we have hit a number of huge themes already, and we haven’t even hit the point in our event where the miracle happens.

The first thing I see is that looking at the spans of time given in the first part of the miracle, there would have been no way for Jesus to have arrived on time to save Lazarus – unless God had made the situation known to Jesus before the news officially arrived. We can conclude this using simple math: Jesus stayed where He was for two more days, and when He ultimately arrived, Lazarus had been in the grave for four days. The best-case scenario was that Jesus arrived two days earlier and Lazarus had been buried the day or two before that. It’s likely that the messenger who brought the message to Jesus learned that Lazarus had died after arriving back telling those present that he found Jesus and gave Him the message.

It may have even been a four-day journey between where they were and where Lazarus was buried because it appears that Jesus didn’t even start traveling in that direction until after describing Lazarus as asleep, or more specifically as dead.

This leads us to conclude that sometimes when it feels as though God, or Jesus, arrives too late, it may be because Jesus has a miracle in mind. If we focus on what we think should have been, then we might miss the miracle God really wants to accomplish. John writes in verse 15 that Jesus tells the disciples this event will now give them the chance to put their faith in Jesus. Maybe the disciples had been hesitant about putting their faith in Jesus, or maybe Jesus is giving them one more reason to believe in Him. Regardless of the reason, this miracle that hasn’t actually happened at this point in our event is pointing us towards a reason to believe in Jesus!

We discover what Jesus may have wanted to teach the disciples in this event when He repeatedly uses the concept of sleep to describe death. If Jesus did not want His followers to connect the idea of sleep and death together, then this would have been a great opportunity for Him to stop the analogy. Instead, everything in this event points to a believer’s death being temporary, just like sleep is temporary, and that we don’t need to fear it.

For a follower of Christ, death is insignificant because it is temporary. Death simply pauses consciousness like sleep pauses consciousness. If Jesus didn’t want us to think this way, this event would have been the perfect place to correct His followers.

Instead, Jesus stresses the sleep metaphor in both His conversation with the disciples, and in His conversation with Martha, Jesus reiterates how death, like sleep, is temporary.

The last big idea that we have time for in this episode is the truth that Martha shares about Jesus before going to get Mary. Martha tells Jesus in verse 27, “I believe that you are Christ, the Son of God. You are the one we hoped would come into the world.”

Martha has one of the most powerful declarations about Jesus anywhere recorded in the gospels, and it’s likely Mary would have had a similar conversation except for the crowd of people present with Mary who weren’t there when Martha talked with Jesus.

In the first portion of this event, there is a lot we can discover, and when we pick back up with this event in our next episode, discover what else we can discover as we focus in on the longest miracle in the gospel record.

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

Always seek God first and put your hope, faith, trust, and belief in Him. Believe, like Martha, that Jesus is the One God sent into the world, and the One that God promised would come to pay the penalty for our sins. Trust in the ministry of Jesus, both the ministry that happened while He was here on earth, and the “ministry of intersession” He is doing now in heaven on our behalf.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God. Through the Bible, we can learn what God wants to teach us about life, and about the future life He has promised for all His followers.

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