What is this a picture of?

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Don Merritt

RI 022

I was really pleased at the way this picture turned out; what a beautiful old home! Don’t you get a sense of the charm of yesteryear when you look at it?  It just oozes the best of late Victorian living… can’t you just smell bread baking and hear the sound of playing children?

But not everything is what it appears to be.

This is a funeral home.

Yes, it used to be a beautiful turn of the century home, but now it is full of the business of death. This is a principle that goes all through the Bible, and there are many examples of things that are not what they appear to be.  Sometimes, this phenomenon even applies to people who appear to be leaders in the church.

 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

Matthew 23:27-28

All of us are susceptible to temptations and problems of the soul, and we must take care that we keep on the right track, and away from the slippery slope.  The other day I was speaking with a Christian brother who has struggled with temptation off and on and who remains concerned by the prospect of falling away from the Lord’s presence. I shared with him something that has helped me from time to time when I am tempted to go in the wrong direction and I’ll offer it to you.

I often ask myself two questions:

1. Do I really believe that what I believe is really real?

2. Will I remember to ask myself the first question when temptation is at hand?

When I do, the temptation is over, after all we have died to sin through Christ.  If I don’t ask myself those questions, I have a struggle on my hands.

Yes, as we go through the adventure of living with Jesus Christ, we need to be wary of the things of this world, and we should also be wary of becoming something of this world!

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Nakedness as a Metaphor in Scripture: Perspective

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Don Merritt

I’ve heard people say that nakedness is always bad in Scripture; pastors, professors, regular folks; this idea seems to be widely held. Yet as we have already seen in this study, it may be widely held, but it isn’t quite accurate. About ten years ago, I was teaching Genesis in a church Sunday school class, and one day I was covering chapters 2 and 3. As you know, at the end of chapter two there is the verse (2:25) that says “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Which is then followed by the Fall in chapter 3, and the scene in which they realized they were naked and wove leaves together as a covering as they hid themselves from God (Gen. 3:7 ff.). Of course the question of whom and/or what were they hiding from came up and the discussion ran pretty much along the same lines that we have had here in our study. After the class, the pastor came up to me and said that he had really enjoyed the discussion, that it had been very interesting, and then he said, “I don’t care what anybody says, being naked is a sin.”

I thought this was a really fascinating statement on his part, and replied, “Did you take a shower this morning before church?”

“Yes, of course, but nobody saw me.”

Isn’t that an interesting thing to say? So I said, “Hypothetically speaking, suppose that right at the moment you were stepping out of the shower someone, thinking the bathroom was empty, opened the door and walked in, seeing you there getting out of the shower. Who is the sinner; you thinking you were alone, or the one who thought the bathroom was vacant?”

His reply?

“I can’t stand around here chit-chatting I have to go greet people!”

That remark says it all…

By examining the three Hebrew words for naked/nakedness, we have discovered that naked, as a state of being is not in and of itself offensive to God, and if anyone doubts that at this point, I would have to remind them that God actually commanded Isaiah to go and prophesy naked for three years as a sign; God does not command us to do wrong of to commit sin (Is. 20:2). We also have the account of Saul in 1 Samuel 19 in which Saul took of his clothes and prophesied along with the other prophets, who were accustomed to doing their prophesying while naked. If being naked is a sin or offense before God, then it seems unlikely that the Holy Spirit would come upon a naked person to bring a message from God for the people.

Looking at the difference between the three Hebrew words we have studied, and looking at the context in which they fall, we can begin to discern that nakedness is as much a state of mind as it is a state of being, which will lead us to a concept that many of us are already quite familiar with which is called “naked before God”.

I think that I’ll wrap this post up with this:

The other day I received a call from a good friend who is a sociologist with many years in Christian counseling. He was calling because he had been following the posts here about the image of God and these on nakedness as a metaphor in Scripture, and had come to the realization that we were covering a basic human need. He said that the three most basic needs of any human being (and I hope I get this right in my paraphrasing) are first for safety from harm and danger, having basic physical needs met, and intimate relationship (not necessarily of a physical nature) with at least one other human being. He went on to say that this is what he is seeing in Genesis 2:25, the basic human need to be “naked and unashamed” before at least one other person, and God Himself; to be completely transparent, and to be safe when doing so.

That is what nakedness represents in Scripture, and we will see this more and more as we continue our study.

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Feeding and Not Knowing

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Don Merritt

Mark 8:1-13

Parallel Texts: Matthew 15:32-16:4

Once again, we are near the Sea of Galilee with Jesus, the disciples and a very large crowd of people. Apparently they have all been there for quite a while, because Jesus feels that the people need to be fed. As He says, some have come from a long distance and need nourishment before they head home.  In this, He shows His compassion for these people who have come to hear His teaching, and yet as the disciples point out, there was simply not enough food for such a large crowd; there’s four thousand people out there!

Have they forgotten that Jesus had no problem with five thousand?

As He did before, Jesus had the disciples gather up their supplies and directed it be distributed to the crowd, and when their provisions were passed, everyone had their fill and they had more leftovers than they had started with. After they had eaten, Jesus sent the people home, and He and the disciples crossed the Sea again. Note that Mark doesn’t record any conversation between them at this point.

Later, Mark doesn’t specify exactly when, Jesus is chatting with some Pharisees.

The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.

Mark 8:11-13

In John’s account of Jesus feeding the five thousand in chapter six, those same people, on the very next day ask Him for a sign. here, in Mark’s account of His feeding of the four thousand, the Pharisees ask Him for a sign. I’m reminded of a story; you’ve probably heard it too:

A man heard that a great flood was coming, so he went up to the roof of his house. As the waters began to rise, his neighbor comes along in a boat and tells the man to get in, but the man declines saying that he knows God will save him.  A few hours later, with the waters several feet higher, someone else comes along in a boat, but the man gives the same reply. Still later, with the waters creeping up the roofline, a helicopter comes by with a lifeline to pull him aboard, but the man maintains his position that God will save him. Finally, with the floodwaters waist-high and standing at the very highest point of the roof, in desperation the man calls out: “Oh Lord, I have faith that you will save me, when will you deliver me?”

Suddenly, the man hears a loud and booming voice from above the clouds saying unto him, “Man I have sent you two boats and a helicopter already. What do you want from me!?”

After all of the miracles and miraculous signs that Jesus has provided, and after just having fed four thousand people miraculously, the Pharisees ask for a sign… as if one more would make any difference!

Gee whiz, this reminds me of another story; lucky you!

There’s a scene in Herman Wouk’s book War and Remembrance in which a group of men are sitting around a table in occupied Europe during the Second World War. These men have all seen and heard things, enough for them to understand what the Nazis are up to and they have been trying to get word out about the Holocaust, but nobody will listen to them. Why? Why won’t anybody listen or look at the evidence? One of them utters what is possibly the most brilliant line I’ve ever read in modern literature: “They have the will to not know.”

Did you catch that? It’s very subtle… the will “to not know.” It isn’t that they don’t understand, it isn’t just that they don’t want to be bothered, it’s that they want to remain ignorant. Jesus was there because God so loved the world that He was preparing to sacrifice His one and only Son, and Jesus was willing to be that sacrifice; He wanted all men to be saved by it. Thus, we must conclude that if one more sign would save these Pharisees, He would have given them a sign. He knew, however that they wanted to not know who He was, and as a result no amount of miracles would change anything for them because they didn’t want it to.  These Pharisees were not confused or unconvinced; they were working for the other side.

Jesus left them where they stood and got back into the boat.

What do you suppose God is showing us in this passage?

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Hearing and Speaking

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Don Merritt

Mark 7:31-37

Parallel Text: Matthew 15:29-31

After some days in the region of Tyre, Jesus and the disciples moved on in the direction of Sidon, crossing into modern-day Syria, making their way finally to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee where they were confronted by large crowds; many were healed. Mark tells the story of the healing of one man in particular, a man who was both deaf and nearly unable to speak.

Jesus took the man aside, away from the commotion, and began His work. In so many cases, just touching Jesus’ garment brought about healing, in others, Jesus spoke and the job was complete, but in this case, the recipient of the healing was deaf, so Jesus made plain to the man what He was doing in other ways. First Jesus put his fingers in the man’s ears, picture in your mind what this would look like. Then Jesus spit! Apparently, this was a sign for the man to stick out his tongue, because Jesus was able to touch it. If you have the picture in your mind, Jesus has a finger from each hand in the guy’s ears, and probably one or both thumbs on his tongue.

At this point, Jesus looks to heaven, sighs deeply and says in Aramaic, “Be opened” and the man can hear and speak; he is healed.

Let he who has an ear hear, let him who has a tongue praise God.

It would be a matter of conjecture for me to explain why Jesus sighed deeply or why He didn’t just say “So ordered” when He was asked to heal this man, for the text itself does not say.  It could be that Jesus thought of all of those who were deaf and mute who would not be healed that day. It might be that He took the effort to use His hands so that the man would be aware of exactly what was going on so that he would know that Jesus had done this… maybe.

Then Jesus once again goes the next step and asks the man not to tell anybody what happened. Of course, that people would see this man hearing and talking would make the question of what had happened inevitable, and it would be pretty much impossible for him not to say.  Why did Jesus make this request?

Earlier in Mark, we were told that He wanted to keep the numbers in the crowd under control, but it was a little late for that now.  The text doesn’t tell us, so I don’t know. Yet, I can offer an observation: Jesus had become a rock star at that point, but He wasn’t like the rock stars we might think of. Jesus was our role model, or better put, Jesus IS our role model!  He was not healing and restoring people to wholeness to get His picture in the papers, He was fulfilling God’s will on earth.

What are we supposed to be doing? Aren’t we supposed to be leading people to Jesus so they might be made whole again? Are we supposed to be self-promoting in the process, or are we called upon to be humble as He was humble?

If nothing else, I should think it’s something to ponder.

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Demons, Dogs and Foreign Scenes

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Don Merritt

Mark 7:24-30

Parallel Text: Matthew 15:21-28

A quick reading of this text will tell us that Jesus heals someone’s daughter, but quick readings don’t always yield the whole story, for there are those times when we are better off slowing down just a bit; this is one of those times.

This is the first time that Jesus has entirely left the country, as we would say today, for He is in Lebanon. It would seem that He has withdrawn entirely from Galilee with His disciples after more than a year of frantic activity and ever-growing crowds. It is to be a time of rest, and can I say it? A vacation or “retreat” of sorts. Yet He has become famous, and even in this Gentile land, His presence will not be a secret for very long. Mark goes to great lengths here to make it clear that the woman who approaches Jesus for help is a Gentile. He tells us that she is a Syrian of Phoenician extraction, rather more personal information than is really necessary, but he does so because her being a Gentile is the point of the story.

She asks Jesus to help her daughter, for her daughter is possessed by an unclean spirit. Jesus responds to her plea with a strange remark:

 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Mark 7:27

So is He telling the woman that He can only help the girl if she’s just eaten? No, I don’t think so. The woman sure had a comeback…

“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Mark 7:28

It was not uncommon in those days for people to have dogs as pets and as workers in the fields. In those days, they didn’t have a special aisle in the grocery stores for all of the various kinds of dog food, and so the dogs ate table scraps. After a meal was finished, they would feed the leftovers to the dogs. During the meals, the dogs would have to wait, but if crumbs fell from the table, the dogs would snatch them up. Jesus and the woman were using a metaphor.

Jesus is telling the woman that He has come to preach the Kingdom to the Jews (children) and the Gentiles would receive the message after the Jews have had the first opportunity for salvation, for this is what God had promised them. The woman, being a Gentile, would have to wait. This was one sharp lady who fully comprehended what Jesus was telling her, and expanded His metaphor to the dogs snapping up crumbs that fall from the table, as she entreats Him to help her child.

Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”

Mark 7:29

This Gentile woman demonstrated more faith and understanding that the religious leaders of the Jews ever did! As a result of her faith, she was able to snatch up a “crumb” from the table, and the demon was gone from her child… and the child wasn’t even there.

An amazing story: Jesus demonstrated another aspect of the Kingdom He was preaching: The Good News would be preached first to the Jews and after a time, it would be taken with power and authority to the Gentiles, for all Nations would be blessed by the seed of Abraham, as God had promised so long before.

This also marks the beginning of a new phase in Jesus’ ministry, for from here forward Jesus will be highlighting for the disciples, the marked contrast between the traditions of Jews as taught by the religious leaders, and the reality of the Kingdom of heaven in their midst. He did so in this scene by 1) talking with a Gentile woman (which a Pharisee would never do) and 2) by responding to her faith and healing her child, which a Pharisee would also never do. These contrasts will continue as Jesus’ foreign tour moves on to its next stop…

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To Be Defiled

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Don Merritt

Mark 7:1-23

Parallel Texts: Matthew 15:1-20; John 7:1

This is a great story… we could spend a week going over it piece by piece! A group of Pharisees have come up from Jerusalem and in our first glimpse of them they are looking for a fight. They approach Jesus complaining that His disciples are eating before they have gone through the proper hand washing ceremony… of all things. Jesus is having none of that:

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

Mark 7:6-8

It didn’t take Jesus very long to come to the point; He calls them hypocrites in the first sentence! The point is that they, who are such great law-keepers, just ask them and they’ll tell you, are pushing customs and traditions that aren’t in the Law. First He quotes Isaiah 29:13 to set up His counter-charge, and then goes right to the point:

And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother.  Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Mark 7:9-13

Here he quotes the commandment, and then reminds the nice Pharisees of their tradition. A man could set aside part of his property as a gift to God (Corban) and be relieved of his obligations to his elderly parents… and the Pharisees are perfectly fine with that, which of course defeats the purpose of the commandment. And here they were, trying to use one of these idiotic traditions to condemn His disciples! Well, now… we’re making friends today aren’t we?

Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” 

Mark 7:15

It didn’t make any difference whether His disciples did the traditional hand washing before eating their meal; what good is a ritual? The food would not make them unclean in any way, they would swallow it and nature would take its course. It’s what comes out of a person that makes them unclean, for what comes out of us reveals the condition of our hearts. If a man sees a beautiful woman, the sight of her does not make him a sex-crazed maniac… unless a sex-crazed manic was already inside of him.  If a person performs all of the right rituals and ceremonies and goes through all of the perfect motions on Sunday morning… so what?  Those will not cause anyone to love God and love their neighbor unless the love of God was already within their hearts.

Oh, sorry, did I make this about us instead of about those dastardly Pharisees?

Dear reader, all too often, we are the Pharisees!

So let’s see, what do we have here? Not only was Jesus some kind of a revolutionary preaching this new kingdom of His, not only was He healing the sick and lame, making the blind see, chasing out demons, forgiving sins and even raising the dead, and not only did He give out free food to his fans, now He was attacking the status quo by which the elites kept everyone in line:

Here’s another report back to Jerusalem that I wish we could read together!

Yep, those Pharisees were looking for a fight, and Jesus didn’t disappoint them.

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A Stroll on the Lake

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Don Merritt

Mark 6:45-56

Parallel Texts: Matthew 14:22-36; John 6:15-21

After feeding the five thousand, a murmur went through the crowd: “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”  Jesus knew they were about to seize Him and make Him king by force. (John 6:14-15) This is why the politicians, Herod, the Pharisees and priests, were so concerned about Him. They had two problems, first, they didn’t want to be replaced by Jesus, and they couldn’t have cared less if He was really the Messiah. Second, they had to be concerned about the Romans. Rome did not permit rebellion. They would allow a considerable amount of local autonomy and local rule, which as it turns out, was the secret to their success as an Empire. Rebellion, however, would be crushed with a brutality that had become well-known. Yes, these political types were in a tough spot.

Jesus sent the disciples across the lake in the boat and sent the crowds home; all things considered, that might have been another miracle. Then, He went off to pray alone. That He did so is probably material enough for an entire  lesson, for please take note: If Jesus had intended any sort of a Kingdom in this world, He could have had it right then and there.

During the night, another storm comes up out on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus knowing that the boys were struggling against the elements walked out on the Sea in their direction shortly before dawn.

One can hardly be surprised that they mistook Him for a ghost… or something… after all I haven’t seen a guy walking across a lake in the midst of a storm, and if I did, would I think it was Jesus when I first saw him? Well, that might not be the first thought to pop into my mind, and I have heard of this; they hadn’t. They cry out in fear, Jesus identifies Himself. According to John, Jesus calls Peter out to walk on the water, which he does until he thinks about what he is doing, and then begins to sink; Jesus rescues him. Mark, however, didn’t mention this detail, and says Jesus climbed into the boat and the winds were still.  Here’s an interesting thought: Mark, who left Peter’s incident out of the story, is thought by most scholars to have written his gospel under Peter’s supervision: Hmmm…

Matthew recounts something interesting when they reached the shore that Mark only hinted at. Mark says that their hearts had been hardened, but Matthew goes on to say that when they arrived at the shore, the disciples worshiped Jesus, saying that surely He is the Son of God. (Matt. 14:33). This is the first time they realize this, even though they should have understood it when He fed all those people, and from time-to-time, they would seem to forget it in the months ahead.

They reach the shore after sun up, and are immediately recognized, and the people begin to bring their sick and lame for healing, and many were healed as the Kingdom Tour resumes, and the Pharisees are on the attack…

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Photo of the Week: March 9, 2016

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Don Merritt

CB2014 025

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Feeding the Crowds

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Don Merritt

Mark 6:30-44

Parallel Texts: Matthew 14:13-21; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-14

Mark jumps back to Jesus and the disciples, who have just returned after their journey through Galilee, giving us the impression that Herod’s musings about who Jesus was had gone on during the mission of the twelve disciples. Jesus hears their stories and suggests they withdraw to the other shore of the Sea of Galilee, to a place Luke identifies as Bethsaida. Mark has them heading there later that night, but either way, they’ve crossed the border. It strikes me as interesting that Mark has the story of Herod and John the Baptist inserted here, because as soon as the “away team” returns to Jesus, He leads them out of Herod’s jurisdiction…

Of course, the crowds have anticipated their destination and arrive first.  That is also interesting; did Jesus have a staff leak? Maybe I was in politics too long, but I can’t help wonder about that. Mark’s reason for their withdrawal was that the crowd was so big, they couldn’t even get a bite to eat, then the crowd, on foot, gets all the way to the other side of the Sea of Galilee before they can row straight across.  Jesus, never letting an opportunity get away from Him, begins to teach.  The disciples, seeing that it’s late in the day, ask Jesus to send the crowd off to get food, and what does Jesus do?

He tells the disciples to feed them. Of course the disciples object, citing the cost, and Jesus has them gather up what food they have and there are five loaves of bread and two fishes. You know the story, with five loaves of bread and two fishes they feed five thousand people and have more leftover than they started with.

So, let’s take stock: Jesus teaches the Kingdom, heals the sick and lame, makes the blind see, chases out demons, forgives sins, raises the dead and now provides free meals?  If you are a priest, a Pharisee or Herod, your political problems are getting worse!

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John Has a Bad Day

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Don Merritt

Mark 6:14-29

Parallel Texts: Matthew 14:1-12; Luke 9:7-9

The real “meat” in this text is found in verses 14-16, the part most commentators discuss and teach is in 17-29, unfortunately. Thomas Jefferson had a painting of John’s head on the platter hanging in his dining room, and I can attest that it is still there, yet the important part is not in what happened to John, it’s what people were saying about Jesus at this point in His ministry.

King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

Others said, “He is Elijah.”

And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”

But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”

Mark 6:14-16

“King Herod had heard about this” “This?” What was “this?”

In context, this passage in Mark’s gospel follows immediately the passage about Jesus sending out the twelve, it is relating to the Kingdom Tour, and we know that news and accounts of Jesus’ activities had spread like wildfire throughout the region; the Pharisees had already begun to consider how they would kill Jesus, and they were exactly the ones who either knew, or with reasonable diligence they should have known that Jesus was the Messiah. Herod Antipas was another matter. Recall that he was the son of Herod the Great who had slaughtered the baby boys of Bethlehem upon hearing of the birth of Jesus. He was the Vassal-king of Judea, serving under the Roman Emperor, a marginal Jew at best in a secular administration, who one day would have his own problems with the Romans.

Who was this guy up in Galilee?

Nobody could figure that out for sure, but there were rumors.

Elijah? A prophet? No, John the Baptist has been raised from the dead!

It’s clear that on some level, John had gotten to Herod. It’s also clear that as a result of a stupid party stunt, Herod has randomly had John murdered. If you are Herod, and you are feeling guilty for what you did at that stupid party because you shot your mouth off… probably after a few drinks, and you think that John the Baptist has come back from the grave with miraculous powers, how do you feel about this new situation?

This guy is a rock star, the people are loving Him… and He has miraculous powers and you think he is the resurrection of the one you had murdered. What do you do now?

You could repent and beg forgiveness, but how would that look in the morning papers on the Emperor’s desk the next day? (so to speak) How will that play on the nightly news? What will your approval numbers do with the people? (Remember, this guy was a politician in a tough spot)

Is there a way you could try to kill him again? But he doesn’t stay dead!

What you really need are powerful allies, and sooner or later He is sure to catch wind of a plot against Him. I have a strong hunch that we might see Herod’s fingerprints later in the story!

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