Mark 7

Posted by Rach | Posted on 15-11-2006

Category : Bible, Mark

Hey there…well I trust that this finds you well and up for a bit of bible study. I’m posting my somewhat random thoughts on this chapter…so I hope it gets you thinking and hopefully we can chat about it in the forum. It’s always interesting to hear from other people as I find different people offer different perspectives and I always end up seeing things I’ve overlooked!
Clean and Unclean: Mark 7:v1-23

A recurring theme throughout Mark and the other gospels is that people (disciples, pharisees, average Joe/Joesephine) just aren’t getting who Jesus was. It doesn’t matter if He raised he dead, walked on water, got rid of demons etc…it just wasn’t registering that he is the son of God! Have you ever looked at one of those magic eye puzzles? I used to go cross eyed for hours over those things and just didn’t see what was before my very eyes! All I could see was fuzzy dots! Jesus was right before their eyes, performing miracles and relating to them in parables but still nothing. At the beginning of this chapter it is the Pharisees who have hardened their hearts to Jesus and they are all het up about the disciples eating without having washed their hands. Now this bothered them becasue they had strict rules about these sorts of things:

“The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come to the market place they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles” Mark 7: 3-4.

The Pharisees were obsessed with tradition and this is the key word in this passage, and they expected others to heed these traditions. Jesus acknowledeged that the disciples hadn’t washed their hands, and said:

“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “These people honour me with their lips, but there hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules”. Mark 7:v6-7.

This is a rebuke, and a reminder that Jesus looks at our hearts not at our outward appearance. Jesus impies that ‘traditions’ suck and that really isn’t what is important. He sees beyond the ritual and sees the truth of our motives. I’m wondering if as Christians we are worrying about traditions that God really isn’t interested in? What do you think?

Jesus then stresses that it’s what comes out of us that makes us unclean, not what goes in. Jesus gives a sobering example of what types of things can come out of us:

“From within, out of our hearts , come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly, All these evils come from inside and make you unclean”. (Mark 7:v20-23).

Reading those verses, made me think of all the rubbish that comes out of me and so often I don’t take responsibility for my thoughts and actions, but they are coming from inside me and I am desperately in need of God’s grace. Thankfully, because of Jesus, God’s grace is available to us, lets draw near to him and ask him for forgiveness.

Moving on and skipping past the middle section, beacause I don’t think I have any insights to offer (please post yours) about the healing of the Greek woman’s daughter…sorry…we get to Mark 7:v31-37 ‘The healing of a deaf and mute man”.

Jesus comes across a deaf and mute man, who has been brought to Jesus for healing. Jesus takes him aside and places his hands on him, spits and touches his tongue, and:

“He looked up to heaven with a deep sigh said to him be opened!” Mark 7:v34.

I think Jesus looked up to heaven to show the man that the power was coming from prayer . The man is healed and I think although this is a physical healing it shows that Jesus can enable us to hear him. The Pharisees couldn’t hear Jesus but Jesus could open their ears and he can open ours! I remember when I wasn’t a Christian and people would talk to me about Jesus, but I didn’t hear it. But one day Jesus opened my ears and I received him into my heart. I think this is really encouraging and it gives me hope for my family and friends who are deaf to Jesus.

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Mark 6v7-56

Posted by Rach | Posted on 17-10-2006

Category : Bible, Bible Study, Mark

So we’re onto Mark 6v7, which begins with ‘Jesus sends out the twelve‘. This is where Jesus quite literally sends out his disciples into the world, to preach the good news and to have authority over evil spirits.

These are Jesus’ instructions “Take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the that town” Mark 6v8-10. The items mentioned vary in the gospels, but that isn’t what matters. What it’s basically saying is that this message is so urgent that you don’t need to worry about where your staying, what you’ll eat or wear! The business of evangelism is that of life and death. Taking nothing with us means that this mission takes faith, these verses are focused on looking out not in at ourselves.

John the baptist beheaded

Well the title of this passage tells you exactly what happens, John is beheaded because the daughter of Herodius asks the king to bring John’s head to her on a platter. The king arranges the beheading and John is murdered. John was a humble leader who could of taken the glory but He always brings it back to Jesus. What a great role model for Christians today! This is reflected back in chapter one, where John says “After me wil come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie” Mark 1v7. It’s interesting to see what happens for John. He’s probably one of the first martyrs in the Bible and I wonder how he expected his life to end? As John arrived and ushered in the ministry of Jesus, pehaps his death is a sign of things to come. Sometimes as Christians we expect a good outcome, and aim for success but things don’t always work out how we expected them to.

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

This passage starts out fairly normally with Jesus is with the disciples, and a large crowd joins them. It says “when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd , he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things” (Mark 6v34). As the people had been there all day and they were hungry the disciples mention to Jesus that the crowd are hungry and need food. Jesus replies ” You give them something to eat” (Mark 6v37). The disciples as usual panic and say something along the lines of how will we do it, it’ll cost a nearly a years wages! Here they show their lack of faith and belief in Jesus’ authority..all they can see is a few loaves and a few fishes and five thousand hungry people! Does this scenario remind you of yourself? Time and time agin God does something in our lives and it’s a miracle – but doubt creeps in and our memories are just too short! Jesus gives thanks to God and provides! To reinforce this miracle it happens again in Mark 8 but this time its four thousand people! Ultimately, one of the things that stands out to me is that Jesus had compassion on the crowd and the disciples, this is the same compassion that he shows us on a daily basis.

Jesus walks on water

After Jesus has fed all of the crowd, He retreats for a time of prayer on the hillside. Later, as darkness falls, Jesus spots the disciples having difficulty in the boat on the lake. He goes to help them and walks out onto the lake, directly towards them. What do the disciples do? They panic, they cried like babies! They are afraid. Jesus said “Take courage. It is I. Don’t be afraid” (Mark 6v50.) The miracles that have happened before, just don’t seem to have registered. I’m not knocking the disciples becasue I am a modern day disciple, with the same short memory and lack of faith!

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Mark 6: 1-6: A Difficult Homecoming

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Posted by Rob Borley | Posted on 04-10-2006

Category : Bible, Bible Study, Evangelism, Mark

I feel like I�ve copped out a bit this week only tackling 6 verses but while reading chapter 6 of Mark I simple couldn�t find a satisfactory way to group it all together and do it justice. This little passage also came up in conversation with a friend recently so it seemed appropriate to just take these 6 verses.

This passage offers a fascinating little insight into what happen in Jesus� home town when He returned there following the commencement of His ministry years. Jesus started in the usual way when He went to a new place; He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach.

Not taking that from the local boy

The locals were astonished by Jesus� teaching. Not only, as usually was the case, because of the insight and authority which He carried, but mainly because of who He was. They knew Him; Jesus was the local boy that they had watch grow up. The eldest son of the local carpenter, you know Mary�s boy.

They watched him grow, they had seen his parents, rightly or wrongly, discipline Him (I don�t want to get into the debate of was Jesus a perfect child here). They had seen Him burst into tears when He fell and grazed His knee, they had seen Him brake the hearts of their daughters, it had been their window He had put a football through (well, you get the idea.) Jesus was not some amazing new phenomena to them; He was the lad they all knew and had already made judgements about.

So, instead of responding to Him as so many others had they were offended by Him. They simply were not interested. Jesus was even enable to do ââ?¬Ë?mighty workââ?¬â?¢ (v5) in their midst; except for the odd healing. (That always makes me smile, what constitutes a mighty work if it doesnââ?¬â?¢t include healing? *smile*)

Not easy to go home


I think that this gives us great insight into why we often find it so hard to effectively spread the gospel amongst the people who knew us best before we joined this great adventure we call Christianity. The friends we had before we were Christians and our family are often the most resistant to our new found faith. Why? Because they know exactly what we are ââ?¬Å?reallyââ?¬Â like.

Also, we can often find it hard to move into leadership positions in Churches where the foundations of our faith were laid. Again, they saw our mistakes (of course we still make those), our misunderstandings, our immature demands and delusions of grandeur and it very hard for many people to see past that.

Don’t be discouraged


This can be so discouraging. Often the people we want to introduce to Jesus the most, and the places we want to see most radically impacted by the Gospel, are the very ones that take us the least seriously. Or they simply carry on as if nothing had changed and find offence when we try to point out that life is somewhat different for us now. It seems that even Jesus had this problem. To the folk that knew Him in His formative years He was always going to be that ââ?¬Ë?snotty little adolescentââ?¬â?¢ and they certainly were not going to take any life changing teaching and ministry from Him.

While I�m saying that we shouldn�t be discourage by this I�m also not saying that we shouldn�t try. Something I have always found helping in introducing such people to Jesus is to introduce them to some of my Christian friends who I think they will get on with. Mix up your friendship groups and people get the opportunity to get to know other Christians that don�t meet their stereotypical views and the penny might start to drop that you are for real.

If this has been a problem for you then don�t be discouraged, if Jesus struggled with it, then I�m sure He understands that we do too *smile*. Does anybody have any good advice for this particular situation or any stories of how they have overcame it? Let us know what you think.

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