Reflective Bible Study

If you have ever wondered what Jesus’ most important habit was, an unassuming passage in Mark’s gospel likely gives us a big clue about it. In it, we find Jesus doing something that the disciples did not expect, and it is something that we can just as easily do today as Jesus did back in the first century.

While this event is included in two of the four gospels, specifically Mark and Luke, for our time together in this episode, we’ll be reading from Mark’s version. This event, clue, and habit are found in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, and we’ll read it from the New International Version. Starting in verse 35, Mark tells us that:

³⁵ Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. ³⁶ Simon and his companions went to look for him, ³⁷ and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”

³⁸ Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” ³⁹ So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

This passage may be easy to skim over, but if we do, we miss an important key into Jesus’ private life. While most of the gospels focus on Jesus’ public life, which included His healing, preaching, and teaching, Jesus’ private life was focused in on finding time to be alone to pray.

In a humorous turn of events, Jesus’ habit catches these early followers off guard, because while they are suppose to be following Jesus, they seemed to have lost Him and have to go out and find Him.

There are plenty of other examples we find in the gospels about Jesus taking the time to pray, and there are both public examples as well as private ones. But here in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, I believe he wants to give us a baseline of Jesus habits. In a subtle way, Mark draws our attention onto Jesus’ private prayer life as the foundation of His public ministry.

But this isn’t the only habit that is hinted at in these short verses. While prayer is the most significant habit in this passage, it would be nothing without the habit that is demonstrated after the disciples find Jesus praying.

After the disciples exclaim that everyone from the town they were just in is looking for Jesus, we see Jesus reply with something that is a little strange. Instead of going back into town to find the people who were also looking for Him, Jesus redirects the disciples by saying in verse 38, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

The second habit that is demonstrated in this passage is that Jesus followed the Holy Spirit’s prompting that came from the close relationship He had with God through his prayer life. It is entirely plausible that God directed Jesus to the best private place to pray that morning, and He kept Jesus hidden from everyone else until the early disciples found Him. And during this prayer time, God prompted Jesus to leave this town and go to the other villages nearby and continue teaching, preaching, and healing there.

In this passage, when we stop and look at Jesus’ foundation and private life, nothing that is described is something we cannot do. The only things truly stopping us from carving out time for prayer are feeble excuses, such as not having any time, or being too busy. These excuses are weak because we can easily prioritize that which is important to us. If prayer was as important to us as it was to Jesus, we would be praying as much as Jesus prayed.

While too often we stay up too late, which then cascades us into sleeping in and rushing our mornings, this is ultimately a choice we are making. For most people, going to bed a little earlier so that getting up a little earlier is not as rushed is completely doable. This might mean not watching as many movies or television shows, or giving up some other activity, but whatever we must do to adjust both the evening and morning routines to make time to pray is vital to our spiritual lives.

After we have made time to pray, we must also choose a place to pray where we are less likely to be distracted by our surroundings. While most people, myself included, cannot get away from 100% of the distractions, I am able to minimize the number of things that are able to distract me by simply being strategic about where I choose to pray.

It’s quite likely that I am sharing what many in our listening audience already know and do. Many of us, if you have been following the challenges I end each podcast with for any length of time, will already have an active prayer life. If this is you, perhaps you know someone who would benefit from these messages and challenges.

But where many people stumble, and this includes me as well, is with the second habit that we see present. While prayer is crucial for our spiritual lives to be strong, we must not pray in a vacuum – both literally and figuratively. What this means is that we must take our Bibles into our prayer time, reading and claiming promises that God has shared throughout the Bible narrative, and then choosing to move forward with what He has impressed upon our hearts to do that align with His Word. God will not contradict Himself by telling us to do something opposite from what He told those in the past. While the circumstances and situations may be different, the themes and principles He shares won’t be.

Many of us take our Bibles with us to pray, but we don’t let the Holy Spirit speak into our lives or into our situations. Others will pray and be impressed to move forward but will chicken out or dismiss the prompts that God has given to us while we pray. However, when we don’t let the Holy Spirit speak into our lives, and when we don’t move forward with what the Holy Spirit has prompted us to do, we unknowingly stop our spiritual growth and our walk with God – and when described this way, we all can agree that stopping our walk with God is not something we would intentionally choose to do.

Prayer, Bible study, and Holy-Spirit-inspired action are the foundations for any successful God-centered ministry. It is also the foundation for Reflective Bible Study’s framework. While you don’t need my help to pray, study, and be inspired by the Holy Spirit, I am happy to help via long-distance through the Internet if you would like it. At the very end of this episode, I’ll share more about how I can help, but before we close out another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Choose to seek God first and prioritize Him as most important in your life. Demonstrate to yourself that you have prioritized God first by making time, if you haven’t already, to add regular prayer into your schedule. Remember, if prayer was as important to us as it was to Jesus, we would be praying as much as Jesus prayed.

Also, take your Bible with you to pray. Open up and claim promises that God has shared through the various events, prayers, and songs that the Bible includes and ask God to be present and active in your life and situation. While I have no idea what God’s presence will look like for you, I know this is a prayer that God is happy to answer.

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!

Continuing our journey into the week Jesus was crucified, we come to one of Jesus’ more challenging, controversial parables. While the parable isn’t all that challenging to us living today, at least on the surface, it spoke in a powerful way to those living in the first century who heard Jesus’ words in the temple.

Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 12, and we will read it from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 1, Mark tells us that:

¹ Then Jesus spoke to them in parables: “Once there was a man who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to tenants and left home on a trip. ² When the time came to gather the grapes, he sent a slave to the tenants to receive from them his share of the harvest. ³ The tenants grabbed the slave, beat him, and sent him back without a thing. ⁴ Then the owner sent another slave; the tenants beat him over the head and treated him shamefully. ⁵ The owner sent another slave, and they killed him; and they treated many others the same way, beating some and killing others. ⁶ The only one left to send was the man’s own dear son. Last of all, then, he sent his son to the tenants. ‘I am sure they will respect my son,’ he said. ⁷ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the owner’s son. Come on, let’s kill him, and his property will be ours!’ ⁸ So they grabbed the son and killed him and threw his body out of the vineyard.

⁹ “What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do?” asked Jesus. “He will come and kill those tenants and turn the vineyard over to others. ¹⁰ Surely you have read this scripture?

‘The stone which the builders rejected as worthless
    turned out to be the most important of all.
¹¹ This was done by the Lord;
    what a wonderful sight it is!’”

¹² The Jewish leaders tried to arrest Jesus, because they knew that he had told this parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.

This passage is powerful because without clearly saying so, Jesus clearly challenges the religious leaders about their leadership and their attitudes towards God. While some in the crowd listening to Jesus might miss the parallel in Jesus’ choice of describing a man building a vineyard, this detail would not have been missed by the religious leaders. While He could have described any type of farm, Jesus chose a vineyard because it referenced a key challenge towards Jerusalem and Israel in the book of Isaiah.

In Isaiah, chapter 5, we discover a powerful parallel:

¹ Listen while I sing you this song,
    a song of my friend and his vineyard:
My friend had a vineyard
    on a very fertile hill.
² He dug the soil and cleared it of stones;
    he planted the finest vines.
He built a tower to guard them,
    dug a pit for treading the grapes.
He waited for the grapes to ripen,
    but every grape was sour.

³ So now my friend says, “You people who live in Jerusalem and Judah, judge between my vineyard and me. ⁴ Is there anything I failed to do for it? Then why did it produce sour grapes and not the good grapes I expected?

⁵ “Here is what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge around it, break down the wall that protects it, and let wild animals eat it and trample it down. ⁶ I will let it be overgrown with weeds. I will not trim the vines or hoe the ground; instead, I will let briers and thorns cover it. I will even forbid the clouds to let rain fall on it.”

⁷ Israel is the vineyard of the Lord Almighty;
    the people of Judah are the vines he planted.
He expected them to do what was good,
    but instead they committed murder.
He expected them to do what was right,
    but their victims cried out for justice.

When we read about the religious leaders being upset about Jesus’ parable in our passage from Mark’s gospel, we clearly can see that they saw the connection with Isaiah’s passage. Isaiah’s passage leaves no room for interpretation.

This parable Jesus shared is found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke as well. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus make’s His big climactic statement a question, which the people listening respond to Jesus’ question with Isaiah’s answer. In Luke’s gospel, the people respond with shock and a little disbelief.

Seeing this minor discrepancy might make one doubt the gospel record, but these subtle differences draw our attention to the big truth that there were people present who responded in both ways. In this crowd, there were people present who made the connection to Isaiah’s prophecy before Jesus had even finished the parable, and people who were shocked to learn that there would be an eventual end to the owner’s patience.

However, this parable and Isaiah’s message point us to an interesting conclusion: While the evil tenants in Jesus’ parable are killed and the vineyard is turned over to others, Isaiah’s message describes the vineyard illustration as being equally about God and His chosen people. Isaiah’s message challenges those present by saying in verses 3 and 4: “So now my friend says, ‘You people who live in Jerusalem and Judah, judge between my vineyard and me. Is there anything I failed to do for it? Then why did it produce sour grapes and not the good grapes I expected?’”

Isaiah’s passage draws our attention onto the big truth that God’s character is on trial. God gave His people every blessing and advantage He could imagine, and they still rejected Him. This then becomes a challenge to those who don’t believe in free will. While we might not understand every choice we make, and while not all choices are easy or even positive, we have been given the freedom of choice. If humanity didn’t have a choice, then God is ultimately to blame for the state of this world.

God describes how He did everything for His people, and they still rejected Him. We could transpose this idea onto the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve eating the fruit, or even earlier when Lucifer and the rest of the angels were created in Heaven.

When the angels were created in heaven, Lucifer included, everything was created perfectly. If Lucifer had been created in a way that bent him towards sin in any way, then he would not have been perfect, and his choice to hold God accountable for his own choice would be a valid argument. If Adam and Eve were created with the desire to sin, then God would be at fault.

However, just because God knows the future doesn’t mean those He creates don’t have the freedom of choice. In a similar way, just because you can re-watch a movie and the characters do the exact same things as the first times you watched doesn’t mean that the characters in the movie had no choice. In all cases, God created a perfect scenario with free will being given to those He created, and those He created chose to reject Him.

Jesus tells us in His parable that the vineyard would be given to others. However, just because this could symbolize the end of literal Israel being identified as God’s chosen people, we shouldn’t forget the big truth this parable teaches:

God gives everyone the freedom to choose Him or not. (This truth we find in Isaiah.)

And God is looking for a people who will return His portion of fruit to Him. While those in Israel may have rejected God, pushing God to look elsewhere, don’t think for a moment that means we are exempt from the same expectation. If we choose to not be fruitful towards God, we will face the same realization that the Jews did in Jesus’ time: God will seek out another group to focus on.

The challenge for us to remember is to be fruitful towards God, and to return His portion of what He has blessed us with.

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

Always seek God first and be sure to thank Him for what He has blessed you with. Be sure to return to Him His portion of what He has ultimately blessed you with. Remember that without God giving you life, you would be nothing, and this means that everything you achieve is because He gave you opportunity.

Also, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow closer to God and to discover what He is really like. While a pastor or podcaster can give you things to think about, only through personal prayer and study can you discover this for yourself!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another never give up on, abandon, or stop short of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

While Jesus had the reputation for being a great teacher, and as Someone who could heal pretty much anything, early on in Jesus’ ministry, before word had spread about this, we find a powerful event in John’s gospel that when we look at the details, this event might just be an example for us to follow.

For time together in this episode, we’ll be reading from the gospel of John, chapter 4, out of the New Century Version. Starting in verse 46, John tells us that:

⁴⁶ Jesus went again to visit Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. One of the king’s important officers lived in the city of Capernaum, and his son was sick. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum and heal his son, because his son was almost dead. ⁴⁸ Jesus said to him, “You people must see signs and miracles before you will believe in me.”

⁴⁹ The officer said, “Sir, come before my child dies.”

⁵⁰ Jesus answered, “Go. Your son will live.”

The man believed what Jesus told him and went home. ⁵¹ On the way the man’s servants came and met him and told him, “Your son is alive.”

⁵² The man asked, “What time did my son begin to get well?”

They answered, “Yesterday at one o’clock the fever left him.”

⁵³ The father knew that one o’clock was the exact time that Jesus had said, “Your son will live.” So the man and all the people who lived in his house believed in Jesus.

⁵⁴ That was the second miracle Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

I want to emphasize that last verse. This was only the second miracle Jesus had done after coming from Judea to Galilee. The first was turning water into wine – and though the water-wine miracle is impressive, it is nothing like healing someone who is about to die.

Perhaps Jesus had healed other people in Judea, and word had spread into Galilee about these healings and to the ears of this official. Regardless of the way news traveled, or even how this official knew to come to Jesus early on in Jesus’ ministry, the dialog between the official and Jesus is important for us to pay attention to.

John doesn’t tell us the official’s exact words, but his clear request in verse 47 was for Jesus to “come to Capernaum and heal his son, because his son was almost dead.” It is significant to note that this official came personally, instead of simply sending a servant or messenger with the request. This detail emphasizes that the official believed his request was too important to leave with a servant.

However, Jesus’ response is interesting. In verse 48, Jesus replies by saying, “You people must see signs and miracles before you will believe in me.” This response sounds odd in my mind. The official is asking for help with a clearly urgent need, and Jesus responds with a statement about belief. However, the reason Jesus answered the way He did was because the request was for Jesus to go to the place where the child was.

We don’t know if the officer had doubts in his mind or if he wanted to witness a miracle though this event, but with the way Jesus responds, it is logical to conclude that this may have been the case – that is, unless Jesus said what He said not for the man’s benefit, but for the disciples and those present following Jesus. Perhaps this response was aimed at pushing the crowd following Jesus and not as much at the official himself.

But in the official’s second request, we see persistence. Verse 49 tells us the official again asks Jesus, “Sir, come before my child dies.”

This persistence might be wise for us to model in our own lives. If God hasn’t appeared to answer a request the first time we ask it, perhaps we need to keep praying and pushing forward with our request moving forward.

Jesus’ second answer is powerful. While He doesn’t comply with the official’s actual request, He does challenge the official in a way that satisfies this father’s request for help. Up to this point in the requests and conversation, the emphasis has been on Jesus going personally to perform the miracle, but Jesus’ second response in verse 50 is simply, “Go. Your son will live.”

This answer satisfies the official, even if it doesn’t comply with his request, and John tells us that “The man believed what Jesus told him and went home.”

On the way, the official learns that his son has recovered, and that it happened at the exact time of his conversation with Jesus. This event concludes in verse 53 by saying, “So the man and all the people who lived in his house believed in Jesus.”

It is important to note that the official and everyone described in this last verse believed in Jesus, not because they had seen Jesus perform a miracle, but they believed in Jesus because of the promise Jesus had given the official. Someone skeptical of this event might dismiss this as a coincidence, but to everyone present in this event, Jesus’ promise about the official’s son living, which the official believed at face value, resulted in a long-distance miracle and a healed boy.

In our own lives, I wonder if John included this miracle as a way of challenging those who would read about this miracle to take Jesus’ promises at face value and believe Jesus’ words regardless of whether we see any change immediately. This may also be included as a challenge to bring our miracle requests to Jesus in prayer and believe that He will answer them even if we don’t see Him actively moving towards the situation.

This event includes a challenge for all of us about where our belief should be grounded. Jesus challenged those present on the idea that “seeing is believing”. Jesus and the official demonstrated a different approach: The official believed Jesus, and then afterwards, he saw the results of his belief. The official demonstrates a “believing before seeing” approach to faith.

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

As you are living your life, choose to believe God’s promises and Jesus’ words before you experience them personally. In some cases, you may need to obey before you see, similar to how this official had to obey Jesus on faith and start his homeward journey without Jesus with him. Choose to trust God’s promises and expect to see an answer to your prayers when God’s timing is right. He knows much more than we do about the events in our lives and what the future holds, and it makes the most sense to trust Him with the timing of our prayer answers.

Also, as you pray, read, and study the Bible personally, look for examples of events that demonstrate a believing before seeing approach to faith. There are many more examples than this one event, and as a collection, we learn how to grow spiritually with God and the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us.

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 doubt your way out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Coming right on the heels of Jesus kicking the merchants out of the temple, and the Pharisees challenging Him about what the children were cheering, we discover a new challenge. It would appear that the following day, as Jesus arrived in the temple and began teaching the crowds, the chief priests collectively had decided that what had happened the day before had broke the chain of command.

In our passage for this episode, we discover the chief priests challenging Jesus regarding what happened. In the priests challenge, we can see multiple layers, and we can see many ways that Jesus could fail. Let’s read what happened, and discover how Jesus responded to these religious leaders.

Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 21, and we will be reading it from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 23, Matthew tells us that:

²³ Jesus had gone into the temple and was teaching when the chief priests and the leaders of the people came up to him. They asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”

²⁴ Jesus answered, “I have just one question to ask you. If you answer it, I will tell you where I got the right to do these things. ²⁵ Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”

They thought it over and said to each other, “We can’t say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. ²⁶ On the other hand, these people think that John was a prophet, and we are afraid of what they might do to us. That’s why we can’t say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize.” ²⁷ So they told Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Jesus said, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do.”

Most people stop reading here, right after Jesus declines to answer these leaders, but Matthew continues by sharing more of Jesus’ response. After Jesus tells these leaders that He won’t tell them who gave Him the rights they are challenging, Matthew continues in verse 28 by telling us that:

²⁸ Jesus said:

I will tell you a story about a man who had two sons. Then you can tell me what you think. The father went to the older son and said, “Go work in the vineyard today!” ²⁹ His son told him that he would not do it, but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰ The man then told his younger son to go work in the vineyard. The boy said he would, but he didn’t go. ³¹ Which one of the sons obeyed his father?

“The older one,” the chief priests and leaders answered.

Then Jesus told them:

You can be sure that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will! ³² When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe.

In this passage, and in Jesus’ follow-up discussion with the religious leaders, we discover a powerful truth: Knowledge that is not applied is worthless. Verse 32 hits this point directly by saying, “When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe.”

The belief of the tax collectors and prostitutes was visible because they repented, turned to God, and away from their sin. The evidence of their changed lives should have been enough for these leaders to praise God, except that they were too inward focused. They couldn’t deny that John’s message brought results, but they didn’t like him because he wasn’t one of them – and because he challenged them regarding their character, too.

This also brings us to the truth that someone who knows they are living sinfully and apart from God’s will is more savable than someone who believes themselves to be living perfectly for God. It is harder for an arrogant follower of Jesus to be saved than it is for the most sin-filled, evil person who decides to change, come to God, and repent. Anyone who believes they don’t need to repent has just placed themselves in the same group these religious leaders are in, and this group risks losing their salvation.

Jesus’ parable in this passage teaches us a powerful truth that we all intuitively know to be true: Talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words. You know your true friends by how they act towards you and how they treat you more than what they simply say.

Nowhere in this passage or parable does Jesus ever imply that lying is okay. The clear ideal would be for one son to say that He would go and help, and then follow up by going and helping. However, when given the choice between someone saying they will do something and then deciding to do something else vs. someone who says they won’t help but who ultimately comes to help, you and I would always prefer the one who came.

This is the same with God. The religious leaders talked like people who followed God, but their actions, and the way they treated others were nothing like God. In a similar way, while there are many true Christians in the world today who live and love others like Jesus did, it is also not difficult to find people who claim to be Christians who are act nothing like Christ. Also, we can look among the growing number of people who are not followers of Jesus, and while many are living evil lives, there are plenty of examples of people who act like Jesus even if they don’t know who He is.

I believe Jesus is challenging these religious leaders with the truth that it is easier for someone who cares, loves, and desires good to come to Jesus and be saved, than it is for an arrogant person who claims they know Jesus to be saved.

In our own lives, we can also learn from this truth. Regardless of whether we never knew Jesus or if we grew up knowing about Him from as long as we can remember, this moment in time is a new moment, and it is a moment where we can decide to humble ourselves before Jesus and let Him into our hearts.

An arrogant pride stopped the religious leaders from discovering and accepting Jesus, and arrogant pride in our own lives and hearts risks our own salvation.

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

Always seek God first and humbly come before Him with a repentant heart and a teachable spirit. There will never be a time when we have learned it all, and so we should always be willing to learn, grow, and move closer to God through every experience we face in life.

As you continue seeking God and growing toward Him, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself, to grow that personal relationship. While other people can help you on your journey, your relationship should be your own, and you should never let someone else stand between you and Jesus. Through prayer and Bible study, you can personally grow closer to God.

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