Reflective Bible Study

As we approach the halfway point in our year moving through prophecies and connections between Jesus’ ministry and the Old Testament, we arrive at a fascinating prophecy that marks a shift in the prophecies that point towards Jesus. As we will soon read, tucked within a prophecy about one of Israel’s neighboring nations being judged and punished, we discover a little bit of space being dedicated to pointing forward to the coming Messiah.

With this said, let’s read this prophecy, and unpack what we can learn from what is shared about the Messiah.

Our passage and Old Testament prophecy are found in the book of Zechariah, chapter 9, and we will read using the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1, Zechariah writes:

¹ The burden of the word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach, with Damascus as its resting place (for the eyes of men, especially of all the tribes of Israel, are toward the Lord),

² And Hamath also, which borders on it;
Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise.
³ For Tyre built herself a fortress
And piled up silver like dust,
And gold like the mire of the streets.
⁴ Behold, the Lord will dispossess her
And cast her wealth into the sea;
And she will be consumed with fire.
⁵ Ashkelon will see it and be afraid.
Gaza too will writhe in great pain;
Also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded.
Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza,
And Ashkelon will not be inhabited.
⁶ And a mongrel race will dwell in Ashdod,
And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.
⁷ And I will remove their blood from their mouth
And their detestable things from between their teeth.
Then they also will be a remnant for our God,
And be like a clan in Judah,
And Ekron like a Jebusite.
⁸ But I will camp around My house because of an army,
Because of him who passes by and returns;
And no oppressor will pass over them anymore,
For now I have seen with My eyes.
⁹ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
And the bow of war will be cut off.
And He will speak peace to the nations;
And His dominion will be from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.

In this set of verses, not only do we find a fascinating picture of Jerusalem’s king riding into the city victorious on the back of a donkey, we also get a picture hinted at that God will ultimately purify and accept certain groups of gentiles that many people might think God wouldn’t be interested in.

Primary among these newly accepted groups is the Philistines. There is no shortage of stories in the Old Testament where the Philistines show up and oppose Israel and Judah, appearing first within the stories of Abraham, and moving forward from prior to Israel even entering the promised land, through the judges and the united kingdom, up until the exile and Babylon conquering all of the nations in the region. As I say this, I don’t recall the Philistines showing up in a significant way after this point, but throughout Israelite history prior to Babylon, we find many places where this nation appears.

It is interesting in my mind that immediately after describing how God will purify the Phillistines and make them like one of the clans of Judah, we find God promising protection and pointing forward to a powerful symbol of the King of His kingdom riding into His city on a young donkey.

Moving forward into the New Testament, one of the most well documented events in Jesus’ life is His entrance into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey at the start of the week leading forward to His crucifixion. One place this event is recorded is in Mark’s gospel, chapter 11, which begins by saying:

¹ As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, ² and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. ³ If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.” ⁴ They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. ⁵ Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶ They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. ⁷ They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it. ⁸ And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. ⁹ Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting:

“Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;
¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;
Hosanna in the highest!”

In this amazing event, Jesus directs His disciples to go and borrow a young colt for Him to ride on. In a somewhat random thought I just had, if there were no bystanders present to confront the disciples taking the colt, what happened would have looked no different from a theft. It is also interesting in my mind that nothing in these disciples’ instructions to the owners of this colt is any mention that Jesus would be the one using it.

I don’t know if the owner of this colt, or the group of bystanders present, would have been sympathetic towards Jesus’ plans to ride on this young donkey. In this slightly cryptic set of instructions, Jesus basically tells the disciples to say that God needs to borrow the animal, and when God was finished, He would return it to the owner.

Not only was Jesus’ instructions to His disciples a small-scale prophecy, that was fulfilled when they went to borrow the colt, but the colt they ultimately borrowed was one specially set aside in the story of eternity as being the one designated to hold the King of the universe.

It is also amazing in my mind to take one more step back when looking at the fulfillment of this prophecy to realize that when Jesus made the way of salvation open to humanity, the way was made open not just for God’s people in an exclusive sense, but the way was made open for people from every nation to be invited into and adopted into God’s family. On the surface, of Israel’s neighboring nations, God makes the promise that He is willing to forgive, purify, and adopt the nation best known for being against His people.

Forgiveness is a key piece of God’s character, and we can take this prophecy as a promise that even though our past is filled with the stains of sin, mistakes, and regret, God is more than willing to adopt us into His family, and He is willing to purify us and make us one of His children. God loves you and He loves me, and Jesus made possible the way for God to show His love for each of us through what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

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

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life and place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus. Thank Jesus for what He made possible through His death and humbly come before God asking for His help cleaning and purifying your life as He is willing to adopt you into His family.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to discover just how much God loves each of us. Discover in the pages of the Bible a God who is more in love with you than you might first realize, and a God who is more interested in redeeming you than you might be interested in being redeemed.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In our own lives, we should intentionally spend time sitting and listening to Jesus to stay connected with Him. While serving Him is always a good thing in the big picture, we must never lose our connection with God while being focused on serving Him. In our lives each day, let’s take time to be with Jesus while we also spend time serving Him!

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

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life. Choose to take time to spend with Him and simply be with Him. We can serve God in our lives, but if we serve God to the point of becoming disconnected from Him, we will ultimately lose the life He has called us to be a part of. We can become disconnected from God even while doing great things for Him, and the longer we are disconnected from God, the farther we can drift from Him.

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

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