Reflective Bible Study

As we continue our journey through the gospels, we come to an event where it appeared as though Jesus didn’t get His miracle 100% right the first time. All too often, I find myself picturing Jesus as succeeding the first time at everything He set out to do, and I imagine that even though Jesus faced struggles, problems, and challenges, my mind’s eye pictures Jesus as easily winning every challenge that came His way.

Jesus was always one step ahead of the trick questions of the religious leaders, He always seems to know the right words to say to help hurting people, and His touch, voice, or simply His presence healed people.

Knowing that Jesus succeeds with the tasks He set out to do then makes the miracle in our passage for this episode a little more fascinating. This is because the miracle in our passage seems to suggest that Jesus didn’t get the healing right the first time, and that He had to redo it in order for it to truly be successful.

Let’s read what happened. Our passage is found in the gospel of Mark, chapter 8, and we’ll be reading it using the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 22, Mark tells us that Jesus and His disciples:

²² [They] came to Bethsaida, where some people brought a blind man to Jesus and begged him to touch him. ²³ Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. After spitting on the man’s eyes, Jesus placed his hands on him and asked him, “Can you see anything?”

²⁴ The man looked up and said, “Yes, I can see people, but they look like trees walking around.”

²⁵ Jesus again placed his hands on the man’s eyes. This time the man looked intently, his eyesight returned, and he saw everything clearly. ²⁶ Jesus then sent him home with the order, “Don’t go back into the village.”

In this passage, as we were reading it together, a detail jumped off the page at me. In my mind, I find it fascinating that Jesus would take the man outside the village before healing him, and then after healing him, tell him to not go back into the village. I wonder if this is one more example of an event where Jesus wants to avoid receiving praise from people.

However, instead of focusing on this angle of our passage, let’s instead focus on the fascinating detail that Jesus’ first attempt at this miracle was only partially successful. After Jesus’ first attempt, the man responses that He can see movement, but that the people look more like trees than people.

This response is a clue for us that this man probably was not born blind. Instead, it is likely that at some point in his life, his eyesight failed or an accident took his sense of vision. I suspect this because someone who has never seen a person likely could not distinguish as quickly between a visual impression of a person versus simply what could be distinguished from the other senses.

However, regardless of whether this man really was born blind, or if he lost his ability to see at some point after he was born, it is fascinating that Jesus takes him out of the village and away from those who had brought him. Part of me suspects that Jesus could tell that those who had brought the man to Him were less interested in the health or well-being of the man and simply wanted to see Jesus perform a miracle.

If this was the case, Jesus separates the two desires in order to help this man: He desires to restore this man’s sight, but He does not want to satisfy the crowd’s selfish desire to see a miracle since they were unlikely to give God the glory for this miracle. To solve this dilemma, Jesus separated the man from the crowd, and led him out of the village.

At this point in the passage, I wonder whether the blind man had given up hope. If the blind man had given up hope of ever regaining his eyesight, he might have thought Jesus was separating him from the crowd because Jesus wanted to let him know that He might not be successful, or that this man’s blindness was incurable. While any speculation into what this blind man may have been thinking is impossible to verify, it would not surprise me to learn of at least one person coming to Jesus who was uncertain if Jesus could help their specific situation. In other words, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone believed Jesus could help everyone else, but that their own situation was unsolvable.

If this man had given up hope of ever having full eyesight again, he may have agreed to let the crowd bring him to Jesus because he was willing to see if Jesus could at least improve his eyesight a little. If this was what the man was thinking, then it explains what actually happens in this two-step miracle.

After Jesus leads the man away from the village and places His hands on the man’s eyes for the first time, we see the first step of this miracle take place. In other passages, the gospel writers seem to indicate that the level of faith present in an event could dictate how many people were healed. Usually this was the faith of the person who was being healed, but there are recorded cases where a friend or companion’s faith is sufficient.

Since this man was away from the crowd and away from other people who would clearly have enough faith, the faith necessary in this miracle was completely his. If the man’s faith was so small that all he expected was a slight improvement and a partial healing, then that is what would ultimately happen. The man came hoping to have his sight improved, and this ultimately resulted in him getting eyesight that was not perfect, but could at least help him get around without running into things.

However, from the first step of this miracle, the man received more than this. From seeing improvement in his eyesight, the man’s hope and faith in Jesus grew. With his increased level of faith, the second step of this miracle results in a complete restoration of the man’s eyesight.

If the faith necessary for this miracle was based on the faith of the man being healed, then we should not be surprised to learn that this miracle came in two parts. All too often, our faith in God is small at first, and only after we have experienced God working in our lives will our faith grow.

Also, this miracle challenges us with the truth that God will not stop blessing and healing as our level of faith increases. God is not going to give up on us if we don’t get our faith in Him right the first time. God is a God of second chances, and God is okay with us asking for a “do-over”.

Through Jesus’ sacrifice, God gave us the ultimate do-over card that we can use to restart and redirect our life towards Him no matter the number of times we stumble or make mistakes. God is the ultimate Giver, and most definitely a God of second chances.

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 so you don’t need to ask for that “do-over”. When choosing God and following His will for your life, while times in this life may not be easy and while we may stumble, know that we have our future life with God secured.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself so you can learn about who Jesus is and what He did for you and I. Through the pages of the Bible, discover just how much Jesus loves you and what He went through to save you and me!

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

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, the Jewish leaders as a group actively opposed Him. However, I don’t think that these leaders believed they were opposing God’s Messiah. Instead, I suspect that these leaders had wrapped their beliefs up inside their tradition, and when God sent Jesus as His chosen Messiah, He didn’t fit the description their tradition had created or ultimately formed.

However, the Jewish leaders could not deny that Jesus was special, that He had the ability to work miracles, and that He focused on helping those who were hurting. But what they could not wrap their minds around was how Jesus fit into their mold – because if Jesus didn’t fit into their mold, they concluded that they could not trust that He was from God.

It is with this backdrop that we come to an event where two opposed religious groups team up and ask Jesus for something. We will be looking at this event from Matthew’s gospel, and it is found in chapter 16. Starting in verse 1 and reading from the New International Version, Matthew tells us that:

¹ The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

² He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ ³ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. ⁴ A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.

What I find amazing in this passage and event is that Jesus criticizes these leaders for wanting a sign, before telling them that they will actually get a sign, but that the sign will come in a way that they did not expect.

Likely up to this point, no one had thought of Jonah’s rebellious life and attempt at running away from God as a Messianic symbol, but after Jesus made this connection with these religious leaders, the connection is clear. Jonah himself probably wouldn’t believe it if someone had suggested to him that his attempts at running away from God would be used as a sign pointing out the Messiah.

However, the challenge Jesus shares with these leaders is one that should prompt us to pause. Jesus says in verse 4, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it…” Part of me wonders if Jesus really meant to say that a wicked generation demands a sign. If this is the case, then these leaders, who were trying to test Jesus by challenging Him to give then a sign from heaven, would be implicated, but those living at various points in history who were diligently seeking God and looking for the ways God is moving around them would not be guilty. I can understand those who frame Jesus’ statement in this way.

But while the heading in my Bible titles this section as a demand for a sign, the wording of the verses themselves speak more on the looking and seeking a sign rather than demanding a sign.

When we look a little deeper at what Jesus is describing in these verses, specifically in the context of these leaders’ request, we find an interesting clue about what Jesus is speaking out against. The leaders who had come to Jesus came with the idea that if Jesus would perform a miraculous sign for them, then they would choose to believe in Him.

This is a key distinction between of the two angles we can understand Jesus’ response. In Jesus’ own words, evil and adulterous people desire to see signs and miracles before believing, whereas other people who are paying attention don’t have to demand signs or miracles because they have opened their eyes to see what God is already doing all around them. Those who are paying attention to God’s moving and working have all the evidence they need for their faith, while those who demand to see miraculous signs will never be truly satisfied with what they see.

But tucked within these leaders’ demand for a miraculous sign is another trap that is less visible on the surface. I don’t even believe the leaders themselves realized it was there. The demand to display a miraculous sign is very similar to one of the temptations Satan brought to Jesus in the wilderness. In this temptation, Satan takes Jesus, places Him at the highest point of the temple, and challenges Him to jump off, quoting a scripture about God promising to protect Him.

The subtle temptation in both of these situations is for Jesus to do something miraculous to draw attention to Himself. The trap present here is that Jesus did not come to draw attention to Himself, but instead to give glory to God the Father. Everything Jesus did was intended to point people to the Father and to give people an accurate view of the Father. The Father poured His Holy Spirit out onto Jesus to validate this mission, and even at a few key points in Jesus’ ministry, the Father speaks His approval of Jesus.

Those who are always looking for and seeking signs will ultimately be disappointed. While Jesus does point these leaders to a sign that they can look for, the sign Jesus gives them is nowhere near the one they wanted to receive or the one they expected.

The sign Jesus points them to look forward to is a sign that is outward focused. People cannot raise themselves from the grave, but God can do so if He chooses. Another way to say this idea would be that if God the Father did not want Jesus to return to life after the crucifixion, there would have been nothing Jesus could have done to raise Himself from the grave. Jesus returning to life after the crucifixion is one of the clearest ways God gave to validate Jesus’ ministry.

In our own lives, we should not look for or seek after miraculous signs in order to build a foundation for our faith and trust in God. Instead, we should build our trust in Him based upon what He has promised us, and then keep our eyes open to what God is doing around us. There are plenty of signs available for us to see, but we must be paying attention and willing to acknowledge God’s interest in being involved the world today. It is easy to discount coincidences as simply that, but what if every coincidence was instead providence that gives us additional evidence of God moving in the world today.

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

Continue seeking God first, and choose to place your foundation on His promises and on what Jesus has done for each of us. Don’t look for miracles or signs to build your faith on, but instead look for these things as a way to validate the commitment you have already made.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to personally grow closer to God each day. Through prayer and personal Bible study, we are able to invite Jesus into our lives and hearts and let Him transform us from the inside.

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

As we continue our first year chronologically looking at events from Jesus’ life and ministry, we come to an event where Jesus heals someone, gives the person He healed a specific instruction, and then finds out later that the man He healed completely disregarded Jesus’ request.

While on the surface this seems almost unbelievable, what we’ll soon discover as we read our passage for this episode is that this is exactly what happened, and one of the most amazing themes in this event is surprisingly relevant for our lives today.

If you have ever felt shy, uneasy, or unsure about sharing Jesus with someone in your life, this passage may gain new significance in your life after we read it together.

Our passage for this episode is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 7, and we will read it using the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 31, Mark tells us:

³¹ Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. ³² There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

³³ After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. ³⁴ He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). ³⁵ At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

³⁶ Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. ³⁷ People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

In this passage, we find a very counter-cultural idea. Perhaps counter-cultural might not be the best way to describe it, but it is a very counter-cultural-to-our-current-world idea. In this passage, when a group of people eagerly bring a deaf and almost completely mute man to Jesus, the first thing Jesus does is lead the man away from the crowd. Jesus feels love and compassion for this disabled man, but while we might expect Jesus to heal the man because of His compassion for this child of God as soon as he is brought to Jesus, there is something bigger at play in this scene, which prompts Jesus to pull the man aside to heal him apart from the crowd.

As we read this event, I cannot escape a clear counter-cultural idea in Jesus’ actions. When many people in the world today are clamoring for the spotlight, the stage, and for attention from others, Jesus steps off stage, and He takes the man needing help away from the crowd in order to heal him.

While Jesus heals this man with a strange set of actions, I don’t for an instant believed this was the reason Jesus pulled the man aside. Instead, I suspect that Jesus pulls the man aside because He isn’t looking for fame or glory in this event. While healing and helping others was making Jesus famous, Jesus isn’t interested in the fame. By taking the man away from the crowd to heal him, Jesus appears to be actively pushing fame away. Fame and glory are being pushed towards Him, and Jesus understands that the glory for all the miracles and help He was providing should never rest on Him. Jesus wanted all the fame and glory to point upwards towards His Father. Jesus wanted God the Father to receive all the glory.

If you have hesitations in your mind about this angle of looking at this miracle, what Jesus does immediately after healing this man is significant. After healing the deaf and mostly mute man, Jesus tells everyone present to not tell others what happened.

Looking from the perspective of our culture of fame, glory, and status, Jesus’ actions don’t make any sense. If Jesus wanted to draw attention to Himself, as culture pressures us to do, then Jesus should welcome all the publicity He can. Jesus’ miracles prompted people to talk and it was the best free publicity any marketer would dream to get. If Jesus came to this world as a marketer or a PR manager, we would discover He would not stop talking about God the Father and how amazing God is.

I suspect that something about the crowd present for this miracle prompted Jesus to know that they weren’t as interested in glorifying God through Jesus’ miracle. I suspect that Jesus could discern selfish motives in their hearts while also understanding that they wanted Him to receive all the credit for this healing.

Because of this, Jesus heals the man away from the crowd, and then Jesus challenges all those who knew about the miracle to not share it with others.

It is at this point in our passage where things get extra interesting. After Jesus asks the people to be quiet, this small group disobeyed Jesus in order to share what God had done for this formerly disabled man. They went against Jesus’ instructions in order to share what God had done.

In an odd twist of events, what happens in this event is 100% opposite of where most people are today. Too often, when given the opportunity to share Jesus with others, we minimize, ignore, or shy away from the subject. Before ascending to Heaven, Jesus challenged His followers to share the great news about Him with the world. When thinking about the great commission, many of us don’t share Jesus with others. However, when Jesus asks a small group of people to stay silent, they disobey Jesus in order to share what Jesus did.

This group of people disobeyed Jesus to give glory to what God had done through Him. They probably gave all the credit and glory to Jesus, which is what He was trying to avoid, but like the passage says, the more Jesus tried to get the people to stay quiet, the more these people talked about it.

Oddly enough though, Jesus never has told you and I to be quiet about what God has done for us. Instead, as followers of Jesus, we are challenged to share Jesus with the world. As I think about this, I don’t recall any event where Jesus asked His followers to be quiet and not to tell others about Him. In this passage, the instruction was given to people who were not followers of Jesus. The only exception to this that I can think of is Jesus asking Peter and the disciples to stay quiet about Peter’s declaration about Jesus until after Jesus was raised back to life. Since Jesus has now been resurrected, there is no God directed limit regarding if we should share the truth about Jesus!

God did amazing miracles through Jesus, and people could not help but talk about what happened. When God does miracles in our lives today through the Holy Spirit, will we stay silent, selectively share it with only those who already believe in God, or will we tell everyone we meet about what God did for us?

Regardless of what would happen, whether we would lose friends, or whether we would be rejected by people, as followers of Jesus, we have been given the command to go and make disciples, and disciples are not made by people who stay quiet.

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

As I always begin each set of challenges by saying in one way or another, remember to keep God first in your life. Intentionally follow through with the challenge Jesus gives us to follow Him and to invite other people to follow as well.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, intentionally pray and study the Bible for yourself and learn who Jesus is through what He taught and what He did. Through the gospels, discover what God is really like and just how much He loves you through what Jesus did for you, both during His ministry as well as on the cross.

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!

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, it seemed as though He always ran into conflicts with a religious group known as the Pharisees. The Pharisees had become the predominant religious group in Israel at that time, and they had used their position in culture to develop a set of rules that was supposed to keep the people from coming close to breaking God’s laws. However, by the time Jesus entered history as a man walking the earth, things had gotten a little out of hand, and what began as a good idea had spiraled out of control.

The gospel of Mark describes an event where Jesus’ disciples appear to offend the Pharisees, and how Jesus responds to their reaction. For our episode this week, we will be reading from the gospel of Mark, chapter 7, using the Contemporary English Version of the Bible. Beginning in verse 1, Mark tells us that:

¹ Some Pharisees and several teachers of the Law of Moses from Jerusalem came and gathered around Jesus. ² They noticed that some of his disciples ate without first washing their hands.

³ The Pharisees and many other Jewish people obey the teachings of their ancestors. They always wash their hands in the proper way before eating. ⁴ None of them will eat anything they buy in the market until it is washed. They also follow a lot of other teachings, such as washing cups, pitchers, and bowls.

⁵ The Pharisees and teachers asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples obey what our ancestors taught us to do? Why do they eat without washing their hands?”

⁶ Jesus replied:

You are nothing but show-offs! The prophet Isaiah was right when he wrote that God had said,

“All of you praise me
    with your words,
but you never really
    think about me.
⁷ It is useless for you
    to worship me,
when you teach rules
    made up by humans.”

⁸ You disobey God’s commands in order to obey what humans have taught. ⁹ You are good at rejecting God’s commands so that you can follow your own teachings! ¹⁰ Didn’t Moses command you to respect your father and mother? Didn’t he tell you to put to death all who curse their parents? ¹¹ But you let people get by without helping their parents when they should. You let them say that what they own has been offered to God. ¹² You won’t let those people help their parents. ¹³ And you ignore God’s commands in order to follow your own teaching. You do a lot of other things that are just as bad.

Pausing our reading here, I want to draw our attention onto the fact that Jesus did not initiate this conflict, nor did His disciples. Instead, this discussion was prompted by a challenge from a group of Pharisees who believed their own traditions were ordained by God. This is a disturbing place to be, because only if you are 100% correct, which is not possible, can you truly have a foundation in your traditions. It is not possible because God is bigger than a set of rules or a tablet of phrases on a stone.

Relationships cannot be dictated by rules, nor can rules push relationships towards growth. Rules do help relationships by giving all parties involved a unified frame of reference, but it is up to the people included in the relationship whether the relationship itself will grow or die.

At this point, Jesus senses a teaching moment. Let’s continue reading from verse 14 and learn what happens:

¹⁴ Jesus called the crowd together again and said, “Pay attention and try to understand what I mean. ^15-16 The food that you put into your mouth doesn’t make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean.”

¹⁷ After Jesus and his disciples had left the crowd and had gone into the house, they asked him what these sayings meant. ¹⁸ He answered, “Don’t you know what I am talking about by now? You surely know that the food you put into your mouth cannot make you unclean. ¹⁹ It doesn’t go into your heart, but into your stomach, and then out of your body.” By saying this, Jesus meant that all foods were fit to eat.

²⁰ Then Jesus said:

What comes from your heart is what makes you unclean. ²¹ Out of your heart come evil thoughts, vulgar deeds, stealing, murder, ²² unfaithfulness in marriage, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness. ²³ All of these come from your heart, and they are what make you unfit to worship God.

The big, challenging thought we find in Jesus’ words in our passage is that our spiritual cleanliness is based on what we think, do, and say, because these things come from our heart. The state of our heart is what makes us unclean, because when our hearts are evil, evil actions, words, and thoughts will follow. The passage concludes by saying that these evil things make us unfit to worship God.

I suspect that some people living in the first century believed that the food that was eaten made one acceptable or not acceptable to God. While this is not the case, some people have taken Jesus’ words here to the opposite extreme with the idea that anything can be eaten freely. However, while all “foods” are fit to eat, it would be good for us to define what is intended to be a food for us and what is not. It would also be worth making the distinction that not all foods are equally healthy for us.

Nothing that goes into our mouths makes us less loved by God, but what comes out of our mouths can make us unfit for worship, because the source of what we say is what is inside our hearts.

I’m challenged by this because Jesus is essentially saying that regardless of how we look on a given weekend at church, if our hearts are unclean, then we are unfit to worship Him. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t worship, or that we shouldn’t pray for God to create a new heart within us, but it does mean that we shouldn’t make our worship all about us.

Worshiping with the frame of mind that says we are unfit to come and worship is the beginning of the realization that nothing we do, say, or think can make us more acceptable to God. Instead, this prompts our prayers to be requests for help and acknowledging that our lives are filled with sin – even if that sin is not known by anyone else.

I don’t believe Jesus shared this challenge to put these Pharisees in their place. Instead, I believe this was Jesus’ way of challenging them on their own terms, by pointing out inconsistencies with how they say they believed when compared to how they acted. If it were possible, I believe Jesus would have done everything possible to bring these religious people into a better understanding of God, but because their hearts were so hard and stuck on their traditions, even God couldn’t break in.

Part of me wonders if Jesus’ hard words actually did break through some of the hard shells of the Pharisees’ hearts. While there is no way to know on this side of heaven, I am curious if Jesus’ words reached someone in this group, even though everyone else was offended. I also wonder if these words challenged the disciples who were present with how they chose to worship God.

Perhaps this is even a challenge for us today.

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

Humbly come to God and seek Him first in your life. Understand that without Him, our hearts are bent towards evil and selfishness, and only with His help can we hope to be clean and fit to worship Him. The challenge for us living today is to continually, intentionally move towards Him and ask Him to help clean our lives up.

After making this commitment, it is extra important for us to not only study the Bible for ourselves, but to do so with a prayerful, humble attitude. As we pray and read the Bible, God will impress on our hearts what we need to get rid of and what we should add into our lives.

And when we receive this inspiration, know that it is designed to help us move into where God wants to lead each of us. Because of this reason, I always end each set of challenges by challenging each of us – including me – to 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!