For NIV reading click here
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%209:42-10:31&version=NIV
Today's readings include a warning about causing others to fall away as well as one's own falling away, a hard saying about divorce when tested by some Pharisees, and sayings about receiving the Kingdom like a child, finally wrapping up with another Kingdom teaching warning about the power of wealth.
Let's prayerfully converse and apply.
There is also a new page to the right with additional readings for Holy Week from a daily lectionary if you're interested.
Good morning friends. At a loss for this saltiness business, I came across some text ( on the net ) supposedly written by John Wesley. Burnt offerings evidently were salted . Here's Wesley:"....everyone who, denying himself and taking up his cross, offers himself as a living sacrifice to God,shall be seasoned with grace.....for the purifying of your hearts and lives, and for spreading the savour of my knowledge......wherever ye go.......see therefore that grace abide in you , and that ye no more contend , who shall be greatest. "
ReplyDeleteI love 10:21:
ReplyDeleteJesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
Jesus saw into this man's heart. On the outside, he looked like he was doing the right things. Surely, he expected to praised for keeping the commandments. Instead, Jesus identifies the one thing in this man's life preventing him from truly knowing Christ. And he did it with love.
This speaks to the grace of God. He didn't condemn the man, but looked on him with love and wanted him to make the right choice.
We never know what happens to this man. I hope he went away and prayed for a transformed heart.
This passage reminds me to re-check my life and identify what may be getting in the way of my relationship with Christ. On the outside, I might look like I have it all together, but Christ knows where I am lacking.
Thanks for the information about the burnt offerings being salted. Reading the Bible can be difficult at times if you don't have the historical context.
ReplyDeleteMk.10:30 If we leave home , family , and fields for Jesus and His gospel , we will receive a reward in this age as well as the coming age ?
ReplyDeleteI've always felt kind of especially blessed since rededicating my life to Jesus . There have been some tears and periods of trial , but in general
something different about my life . Blessed is the only term I can think of to describe it .
Good things happen to me , there's times of peace and fulfillment now that were not as evident before .I worry less about things that used to eat me up . Is that the reward in this age ?
9:41-50 strikes me as about two things: not causing others to stumble (fall away from faith or keep from getting started in faith) and willingness to be purified...and I can't help but think the two are related. The strong language requires our willingness to be judged by God (=evaluated, not condemned) and purified, cleansed, transformed. For those who have been reading Mark carefully (you), causing others to stumble may mostly mean getting in the way of people's faith by criticism, unbelief and judgment seen mostly by the Pharisees and religious leaders...and sadly, some Christians and churches today keep that tradition alive.
ReplyDeleteComing from a family in which divorce is throughout, this passage is hard to take, but I have to default to Jesus. Divorce is against God's intention...plain and simple. There are a few specific loopholes that the New Testament allows (in particular, for adultery. In this passage Jesus implies that if it is a marriage that God has not 'joined together,' that may provide that loophole, but this is to try and manipulate the profound theological reality of marriage...it is the coming together, physically and spiritually of a man and woman...something God intended. Divorce is a settling because of hard hearts.
ReplyDelete10:13-16 oddly enough illustrates what it may look like to be a stumbling block...in this case to children. Didn't Jesus just teach His disciples not to cause others to stumble?! Children often didn't have much status until they were older, so Jesus present a radical Kingdom value here, and then describes children as being a model for adults in terms of acceptance of the Kingdom (=God's rule).
ReplyDeleteThe next story is one we would all like to ignore, because we are all rich! I heard a pastor once get to the heart of this story with a question: what causes more anxiety for you, (1) there is no God (2) there is no money in the account? Now most of us would like to answer (1), but in terms of how we actually live, operate, feel and think, most of us (me included) are dangerously fearful of (2). The Christian faith is about full-life trust in God's rule/Kingdom.
ReplyDeleteWendy, love the comments on the rich man story...it seems not only people but wealth can be a stumbling block...and we all thought it was poverty that was the stumbling block. Glad Jesus looks at us with love...let's us now how to follow.
ReplyDeleteDoc, 'blessed' is a great word of it!
ReplyDelete