The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog

We follow the New Testament from the preaching of John the Baptist through the 70 weeks from the baptism of Jesus until the baptism of the disciples with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

August 24, 27 A.D.  Do not be Afraid Any Longer #48

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

Week 28 ———  Do not be Afraid Any Longer
Matthew 8:18 – 9:26  — Mark 4:35-5:43 — Luke 8:22-8:56

(**Note: Portions of the following are from a sermon done on 9/1/2024.  Some material is repeated from #47, “Jesus Calms the Storm.”)

Last week, we discussed the woman with the issue of blood that touched Jesus.  We talked about what a busy week that was for Jesus.  He calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee; he cast demons from a man on the Gentile side of the Sea.  He was teaching in Capernaum when he was interrupted by a man whose daughter was dying, and on the way to heal his daughter, he was touched by a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. 

This week, Jesus sent the disciples on a three-week mission trip to the Galilee. We know that during those three weeks, Jesus spent time teaching and healing near Capernaum, but because none of the disciples were around, we don’t have any specific accounts of that time. Next week, we will talk about Jesus sending out the 12, but today, I want to go back and look at some of the previous week’s events that we didn’t cover.  

Mark 4:35-41   On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”…  And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.   But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”   And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”  And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The Sea of Galilee is not actually a sea but a lake.  It is about 8 miles wide and 13 miles long.  But the area’s unusual geography can cause this small lake to have waves that were measured at 10 feet in 1992. Shirley and I had a chance to witness 4-5 feet waves on our first trip to Israel.  Our boat trip was canceled, and looking at those waves, I didn’t want to be out there.   Here is a picture of waves on the sea looking from the eastern side to the west.   The steep northern slope of Mt. Arbel is visible on the other side of the sea.

The boats used on the Sea of Galilee in Jesus’ day were not large.  A drought in 1982 exposed the hull of a first-century fishing boat that had sunk and was covered in mud.  It is in a museum on the shore now.  This is what it would have originally looked like:

It was 27 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and only 4 feet high. It could carry 13-15 people. Its very shallow draft allowed it to get very close to shore, but this also made it susceptible to taking on water from wind and waves. 

So, the 13 of them are in a small boat in a storm with large waves.  Some of these men with Jesus were professional fishermen.  They were very familiar with this boat and this lake.  But the storm that blew up that night was especially violent.  Mark tells us that the boat was filling with water, and Jesus was sleeping in the stern.  They wake Jesus, saying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Or “How can you possibly be sleeping when we are all about to die?”  They were scared to the point of death.  They were scared of death.

Have you ever been scared of death?  I have.

We were on a flight, and the turbulence got bad. The plane was bouncing all over and, at one point, dropped straight down about 10 feet. Many were getting sick and using those bags in the seat back pocket. And everyone, if they would admit it, was scared.

One winter night, we were on our way to Memphis on a two-lane road and hit a patch of black ice. Our vehicle began spinning round and round, and an oncoming car was heading toward us. We had no control of the car. We were all scared.

I was lying on a stretcher one morning alone in a room before a major surgery.  As a medical student and resident, I saw many things go wrong in the Operating Room.  I had seen very healthy people not wake up after simple surgeries. I saw a young man have a severe reaction other than anesthesia and never make it to the first incision.  And for a few minutes, fear swept over me to the point I broke out in a cold sweat.  

But I would bet that everyone here in this room has had a few times in their life that they were scared they were about to die.

These disciples thought they were about to die.   And what was Jesus doing while they were scared to death?  Jesus was sleeping in the back of the boat.  They couldn’t imagine how Jesus could be sleeping when they were scared to the point of death.  But Jesus couldn’t imagine how they could be so concerned about a storm when they were in the boat with God.

He asks them, “Why are you afraid?”   What kind of question is that? Are you kidding?  As Max Lucado says, it is like one swimmer asking another, “Why are you wet?”1  

“And Matthew records that he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”  In Matthew 17:20, Jesus describes ’little faith’ as faith less than the smallest thing he can show them, a mustard seed, so ‘little faith’ means no faith at all.  That is how Mark said it in the passage we just read: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”  They had “no” faith.

 Why did Jesus say they had ‘no faith’?  Because, at this point, they really don’t understand who Jesus is.   Oh, they have seen him perform miracles and heal people.  But they knew the stories of prophets in the Bible who had done such things.  They thought he was a great prophet, perhaps even the Messiah.  But they didn’t have the full knowledge of who Jesus was.

God spoke the sea into existence. They are in the boat with the creator of the sea, and they don’t know it.  They don’t yet have that understanding, or, more importantly, they don’t have that relationship. Remember that understanding or knowledge in the Bible means relationship.  You don’t know something until you experience it for yourself.  They knew a lot about Jesus.  Some of them have been with him for months. They know him as a great teacher, prophet, and healer.  They know him as a great man of God — but they don’t yet know him as the man who is God.  And that is all the difference.  

There are a lot of people today who are, well, in the same boat.  They know Jesus as the man in the New Testament who did miracles and taught.  They may have sat in church for years and heard stories after stories of what Jesus did.  They may be church members, give money to the church, or hold office there.  But none of that will help when the time comes when you are scared to death.  You must have knowledge through a relationship with Jesus as the Son of God.  Unless you know him as your personal savior, then you have no faith.  As Billy Graham often said, there will be a lot of surprises on the day of judgment for people who thought they were good with God because they did all the right things, but then Jesus said, “Depart from me.” And why does Jesus tell these people to leave?  “For I never knew you.”  On the day of judgment, either you have a personal relationship with Jesus or you don’t.

But at this point, these disciples have zero faith.  But this week, Jesus is going to challenge their thinking. If they thought of him as just a prophet, he will show them how he calms a storm and later raises the dead. 

For you see, faith is trust built up through experience.  Our faith grows as we witness God’s trustworthiness.  God sees us through something, and our faith grows.  God keeps his promise, and our faith grows. This is one reason it is so important to study the Scriptures.  In them, we see the long history of God being faithful to his promises.  We learn more about God’s trustworthiness through the people’s experiences with God in history.  Perhaps we won’t have to learn every lesson for ourselves the hard way.  This is why sharing our walk with God with the people around us is so important.  Our faith can grow through each other’s experiences by telling the stories of God’s faithfulness.  We don’t spend enough time telling each other our stories.  With whom are you sharing your stories of your walk with God?

But these disciples are not there yet.  They have no faith so they are scared to death in a storm.

Then Jesus, who in the beginning, spoke the water into existence, calms the storm with a word.  The storm is over; the waters are calm, and the danger has passed.  So now the disciples should be relieved. But Luke tells us that they are afraid.

Luke 8:25  And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

What are the disciples afraid of now?  They had seen Jesus do miracles before, but he just turned off the forces of nature like we would flip a light switch. They were amazed and confused after this awesome display of power.   Who is this guy?  I imagine the rest of that boat trip was really quiet.   There were prophets of old who could heal or do miracles, but this controlling nature is God-stuff.  Whatever they thought of Jesus before has been challenged.  Just who is this man that speaks and the world obeys him?  Who is this guy who has the power of God himself?  And honestly, they are scared of the answers to those questions.

But the boat arrives safely, and we continue:

Mark 5:1-20   They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.  And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.   He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him.   Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.   And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.  

 The Bible doesn’t tell us how the disciples reacted to this, but don’t just read the words; picture them in your mind.  This man who is so strong no one can subdue him, strong enough to break chains and shackles, sees Jesus from afar and comes running out of a graveyard towards them, and he is naked.  Imagine how the disciples felt.  How do you think they reacted?  Were they afraid?  Did some of them start running toward the boat?

 “And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”  

The demons know something the disciples haven’t figured out yet: Jesus is the son of the most high God.  And they are terrified of Jesus.   They should be afraid, for they stand in opposition to God. James, in his discussion about belief without the obedience of good works, said it well: (James 2:19) “The demons believe [there is one God] and they tremble.”  

“For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”   And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”   And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.   Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside,  and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.”   So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

“The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened.   And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.   And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs.   And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.”

This man was possessed by many demons.  This whole area lived in fear of him.  But Jesus comes and heals the man; he casts out the demons, and then we see him clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.  So, how do the villagers respond?  Well, of course, they throw a big party.  They celebrate that this scary man is not scary anymore.  They celebrate that Jesus has healed one of their own.  Nope.  “They began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.”  They were no longer scared of the man; they were now afraid of Jesus.  Just like the disciples in the boat, they went from fear of a situation to fear of Jesus because they, too, didn’t understand who he was.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him.  And he did not permit him…

Notice the difference between the villagers’ and the healed man’s reactions.  The villagers beg Jesus to leave.  The man who was healed begged to stay with Jesus.  What is the difference?  It is faith built on experience.  This man has seen firsthand what Jesus can do.  He has experienced the power of God.   And this experience is the difference.   He is the only one in these two stories that gets it.   So, he wants to stay with Jesus.  But Jesus refuses to let this man stay.  Is it because he is not Jewish?  No.  Jesus has a mission: 

“Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”  And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

Jesus just sent this man, the former crazy, naked, strong man living in a graveyard, to be his witness in the Gentile area of the Decapolis.  And in about three weeks, Jesus will return to the same area that he was asked to leave. And you can’t believe how different the people will react to Jesus.  He will be welcomed, and thousands will stay for days to hear him teach and be healed.  And how in the world is it possible for things to change so much so quickly?  Who or what made these people change their minds about Jesus?  We’ll talk about that in 3 weeks.

But for now, they were asked to leave, so they headed back in the boat to Capernaum.

Jesus is then teaching in Capernaum, but he gets interrupted by one of the synagogue leaders, Jairus, whose daughter is dying.  Jarius is afraid.  He fears for his daughter’s life.  Nothing strikes fear in the heart of a parent or grandparent than a child who is sick or in danger.  On the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus is interrupted by the woman we talked about last week who is healed by touching the tassel on his garment.  While Jesus is talking to her, a man comes to Jairus and says, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”  Jairus’ heart sank.  His worst fears are realized.  His daughter has died—a parent’s worst moment.

But then Jesus interrupts:

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”

And Jairus stands in the middle between these two. Between horror on one side and hope on the other.   Between disaster and diety.   Between fear and faith.  Have you lived in that moment between the two?  That’s why Matthew is telling these stories.  In this troubled world, we are often thrust into the middle between fear and faith.  What are you afraid of?

The Greek word for fear in the New Testament is ‘phobos,’ the base for our word phobia.  There are currently more than 550 named phobias.  The four most common are: 1. Social Phobias (fear of crowds, social situations, speaking, etc.)   2. Fear of Animals (dogs, snakes, insects, or mice), 3. Claustrophobia (fear of closed-in spaces), and 4. Acrophobia (fear of heights).   However, how words are used changes over time, and this can cause confusion when reading what the Bible says about fear.  For example, if I asked you to quote a Bible verse about fear, you might say:

Proverbs 9:10   The fear of the LORD [Yehovah] is the beginning of wisdom.

And then I might ask you, “Are you afraid of God?”  Does that seem like an odd question?  These days, when God is pictured as a ‘kind old man’ or ‘your best buddy,’ it may seem strange.  But I remember hearing many “fire and brimstone” sermons as a child that made me very scared of what God might do.

The Bible is not telling us to be afraid of God.  As a matter of fact, the most common command in the Bible is “Do not be afraid.”  So what is Proverbs 9:10 saying?  Remember that the way words are used changes over time.  Think back to the days when people were ruled by kings who held absolute power over their subjects.  To ‘fear the king’ did not mean the same thing as to ‘be afraid of the king.’  To fear the king meant to be utterly loyal to the king, carrying the idea of awe and respect in the realization that this king has absolute power over you.  In contrast, to be afraid of the king was to be scared of what the king might do.  So “the fear of Yehovah” in this verse is about having absolute loyalty and obedience to God, with awe and respect.  

There can, however, be a good reason to be afraid of God, as Jesus implies:

Matthew 10:28-31 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

For those who oppose God (like the demons we talked about earlier), fear of God’s justice is warranted. This fear can lead some to repentance. However, contrary to my childhood experience of scary sermons, this should not be our primary tool for evangelism.

Now, we can see how the disciples’ reaction to Jesus in the boat differs from that of the people across the lake.  The disciples witnessed Jesus do more than any prophet had ever done before.  They have awe and respect after that display of power.  After learning that Jesus had cast out the demons from the man into the pigs, who ran into the sea, the villagers were scared of what Jesus might do next.  They were already missing 2000 pigs and weren’t happy about that.  These are two different displays of fear.

The difference in these reactions is significant.  This is the place Jairus was standing, between fear and faith. The difference is your worldview.  What kind of world do you live in?  

Skip Moen said it this way:

“There are two different worldviews competing for your allegiance.  The first is the world of constant familiarity.  It is a world of risk and fear.   It is the world of the nightly news where tragedy, risk and trauma are given prime importance.  This world is the world of security concerns, insurance protection, hedge funds and hurricane warnings.  It is the world of the terrorist, the thief, the con man and the kidnapper.  In this world, being afraid is an important component of capitalism.  We are taught to be afraid of bad breath, crooked teeth, wrinkles and out-of-fashion clothes.  This kind of fear produces all sorts of actions in attempt to reduce risk.  But in the end, this world is unpredictable, hostile and dangerous.  When I believe that the world is ultimately fearful, nothing I can do will actually overcome my dread of the future.  I will always confront “but what if”.

The second paradigm is God’s view of the world.  It is not based on fear.  It is based on the fact that God loves what He creates and that He can be trusted to manage His creation.  From God’s perspective, the only proper fear is the fear of Who He is.  That fear is designed to bring me to repentance and seek Him.  That fear produces faith in His grace and trustworthiness.  When I believe that the world is actually in the hands of an almighty God Who loves me and has my best interests at heart, I no longer dread the future.  In fact, I can give up trying to manage the consequences of my life.  I stop living with the myth of control and start living with the reality of submission.”2

One view says God is irrelevant and that we should all live scared to death of many things. The other says God is sovereign—in complete control of everything—and we need not be afraid of anything or anyone, but we are to be loyal, obey, awe, and respect God alone.

The airplane drops 10 feet, and  I get scared.  Oh, me of ‘little faith.’  
The car spins on the ice, and I am afraid.  Oh, me of ‘little faith.’
I imagine everything that can go wrong as I enter surgery, and I become frightened. Oh, me of ‘little faith.’   

Moen said, “Fear produces faith.”  How does that work?   

The airplane drops, but we are all okay. The car spins, and through a miracle of God, the ongoing vehicle doesn’t hit us. On the day of my pre-surgical fear, God’s voice comes to me as clear as you hear me now and says, “Don’t worry; I’ve got this. ” Though I could look at my previous fears as failings, God used them as experiences where my faith could grow.  

Aristotle said the thing to be feared most is death because it appeared to be the end of everything.3

Mark 5:36  (NASB)  But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.”

Hear the good news as Jairus did!  You do not need to be afraid any longer!   You do not need to fear storms, weird people in the graveyard, or even death.  (Aristotle was wrong about this and pretty much everything he ever said.)  Jesus said, “Fear not anything that can kill the body.”  You aren’t leaving this earth until Jesus says so.  This past week, my friend Danny died.  He was a wonderful man of God who spent his whole life as a teacher and coach, influencing young people for Jesus.  Let me tell you, Danny did not fear death because Danny knew Jesus, not just knew of him, but had an active relationship with him. 

The most common command in the Bible:  “Do not be afraid!”
The most common promise in the Bible:  “I will be with you.”

Do you see how these fit together?  We do not need to be afraid because God is with us.  This is the message of the Bible from beginning to end.

Psalm 23:4   “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.”

John 14:1-2  (NLT)  “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.  There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.  If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am.

God has promised to always be with us.  We need not fear the storms because Jesus is in the boat with us.  We need not fear death because when we leave this world, God does not abandon us – He will be with us forever.  

Hebrews 12:1-2  Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

Danny outran me to the Father’s house.  I will see him soon.  There is plenty of room.  I look forward to seeing you there also.

  1. Lucado, Max.  Fearless.  Page 6.
  2. Moen, Skip.  “Do Not Fear”  February 9, 2005
  3. King, R.A.H. Aristotle on Life and Death. 2001.

August 22, 27 A.D.  A Woman Healed by Touching His Garment #47

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,

Week 27 ———  Woman Healed by Touching His Garment
Matthew 9:20-22 — Mark 5:24-34 — Luke 8:42-48

Luke 8:42-48     As Jesus went, the people pressed around him.   And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.   She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately, her discharge of blood ceased.   And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!”   But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.”   And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.   And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

Are you having a busy week? Let me tell you what Jesus was doing almost 2000 years ago this past week.  The Gospels tell us that Jesus began this week in 27 AD teaching in parables in Capernaum but then got in a boat with the disciples, and a storm came up, and Jesus calmed the storm just by speaking.  The next day, they arrive in Gadara, in Gentile territory, where Jesus encounters a demon-possessed man.  Jesus frees him and sends the demons into a herd of pigs.  The people are so scared by this that they ask Jesus to leave immediately.  So they get back in the boat and travel back to Capernaum. Jesus begins teaching to the crowd that gathered but is interrupted by a leader of the synagogue, Jairus, whose daughter is dying.  Jesus leaves to go to the girl, and the crowds all follow him, but on the way, he is interrupted again by a woman with a disease that no doctor can cure.  And you thought your week was busy.

A few weeks ago, I talked about Jesus healing the leper and the idea of uncleanness.  (https://swallownocamels.com/2024/07/15/july-15-27-a-d-jesus-cleanses-a-leper-40/)  Remember, three things can cause uncleanness: bodily discharge like this woman, the skin disease tsa’arat (often mistranslated as leprosy), and touching a dead body.   This woman was unclean due to her constant discharge of blood.  She was ostracized from society just as the person with tsa’arat would have been.  No one would come near her, and she could never worship in the Temple or offer any sacrifice.  To touch her would make you unclean, just as to touch a leper or to touch a dead person would make you unclean.  But Jesus had the power to provide not just a temporary solution to uncleanness but also a permanent solution.  He took away the skin disease; he healed this woman’s medical problem, and he brought the dead back to life.  And don’t miss that Jesus is on his way to Jairus’ house to touch the dead body of a girl we are told is 12 years old when he is interrupted by a woman who has been unclean for how many years? Twelve.  You aren’t supposed to miss the connection between these two times when Jesus cures that which can make us unclean.

Here is a video from “The Chosen” of the scripture above:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYEmdFyWBq8

We have heard this story many times.  But have you ever asked yourself, “What led this woman to believe that touching his garment would bring her healing?”  Where did she get that idea?  And it was not only her, but according to Mark’s Gospel, it was many people:

Mark 6:56 And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.

Fair warning:  This is a complicated explanation.  First, we must talk about the “fringe of the garment.”

The Greek word ‘kraspedon’ is translated in most translations (59 of 60 that I checked) as either ‘fringe of the garment’, ‘edge of the cloak’, ‘border of the garment’ or ‘hem of the garment’.  I only found one translation, Holman, that I think chose the most accurate English word to translate ‘kraspedon’.   The Holman Version says she “touched the tassel of his robe.”

Let me explain why that is the best translation.  Greek biblical dictionaries typically define ‘kraspedon’ as “a margin, specifically a fringe or tassel or border or hem.”1  One way to look deeper is to see if you can find ‘kraspedon’ in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.  This translation called the Septuagint, was done around 200 BC by Jewish scholars and is the version Paul uses when quoting scripture to a Greek audience. (As the old song goes, “It was good for Paul and Silas; it is good enough for me.”)

We find it here:

Numbers 15:38  The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make kraspedon on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the kraspedon of each corner.

‘Kraspedon‘ is the Greek translation for the Hebrew ‘tzitzit.’  And we know what tzitzit are.  Modern Orthodox Jews still wear ‘tzitzit’ on the corners of their garments.  The English translations have no problem translating them as ‘tassels’ in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, it is usually translated as hem, edge, or border.  It is like they are afraid to make Jesus look too Jewish.

The passage in Numbers 15 continues:

Numbers 15:39   You will have these tassels to look at, and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes.

The tassels are there to remember.  And don’t forget that, like all Hebrew verbs, remember is an action verb.  They are to remember, not just for the memory’s sake, but that you may obey.  It is not like they were walking along and their hand brushed against these tassels hanging from their cloak, and they say, “What’s that?… Oh, yeah, I must be Jewish!”

It is like wearing a wedding ring.  It is not for me to remember that I am married but to be reminded to keep the promises of the covenant I made when I got married.  It is almost cliche in a movie for a man to remove his ring before he goes (as the Bible says) “chasing after the lusts of your own heart and eyes.”  Now, it can also serve other purposes.  It can be for others to see and know I am married.  But the best reason is to look at and remember a commitment and the promises made.  

The tzitzit are similar.  They are there for others to see who you belong to.  They represent a bond with others because the way the knots are tied varies from tribe to tribe and from family to family.  They remind the wearer of a commitment and the promises made.  But what do the tassels have to do with remembering all the commands?

To understand this, you need to know about Gematria.  Gematria is very common in ancient languages. It is the idea that words have numbers embedded that can be important.  While most modern languages have letters (ABCs) and numbers (123s), most ancient languages, like Hebrew, did not, so their letters also served as numbers.

Here is the Hebrew language with number equivalents.

So, every letter and word can have an equivalent number.  

Here is an example to show how important this idea of Gematria was in those days. It is from an Assyrian inscription dating to the 8th century BC, the time of Sargon II.

“the king built the wall of Khorsabad 16,283 cubits long to correspond with the numerical value of his name.”

This king of Assyria built an almost 5-mile-long wall, but he built it precisely 16,283 cubits to match the number value of his name.  Gematria was an important concept.

We see it used in the Bible several times.  In Matthew’s first chapter, the author emphasizes Jesus as the son of David.  So, there is a genealogy that goes back to David and beyond.  But Matthew didn’t include everyone.  He carefully selected who was included and who he left out.

Matthew 1:17   So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

Why does 14 matter?  With Gematria, 14 is David’s numerical value.  Matthew’s Hebrew readers would have recognized that Matthew is saying in the genealogy, “David, David, David!”

The best-known example of Gematria in the Bible is in Revelation.

Revelation 13:18   This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

Many Bible translations have a footnote at that verse that says, “Some manuscripts have ‘616’.” Well, is it 616 or 666?  It depends on your Hebrew spelling.  Nero was notorious for his horrible torture and persecution of the Jews.  ‘Nero Caesar’ had two common Hebrew spellings; the number equivalent for one was 666, and the other was 616.  John was not saying Nero was the beast.  When John wrote Revelation, Nero was dead for over 20 years.  But the terror and persecution Nero brought upon the church is a picture of what the last days will be like.  Nero is a representative of a type of ruler that will arise.

Now that you understand Gematria, we can return to our question, “What do the tassels have to do with remembering all the commands?”

The numerical value of ‘tzitzit’ is 600, and each tassel is tied with eight strands into 5 knots.  600 + 8 + 5 =613.  The rabbis say there are 613 commandments in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible.  So, the tassels represent ‘all the commandments.’

Looking back at Numbers 15:38, why did God command a cord of blue in each tassel?

Numbers 15:38  The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.

Blue or purple dye was costly.  In ancient times, most blue dye came from a gland of a tiny snail that lived in shallow water.  It was a complicated process to extract the dye, and it is estimated that it would take 36,000 snails to make a teaspoon of blue dye.2   You can see why blue was the color of royalty; no one else could afford it.  (So sorry, all you classical artists out there, Mary, the mother of Jesus, did not likely wear blue.)  But blue was the color of the high priest’s robe, and it is thought that the strand of blue in the tassels was to remind the Hebrews of their role as a member of the ‘kingdom of priests’ (See Exodus 19:6).

Now that we have discussed the tassel that the woman touched let’s return to our original question:  “What led her and many others to believe that touching the tassels that hung from Jesus’ garment would bring healing?”  It comes from a verse in Malachi:

Malachi 4.2  But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. 

But what do ‘wings’ have to do with tassels?  (I warned you this one would be complicated.)  The Hebrew for ‘wings’ in the above verse is ‘kanaf,’ which means the extreme part of something.  For a bird, the ‘extreme part’ would be the wing.  For a piece of clothing, the ‘extreme part’ would be the hem or border, specifically the corner of the hem.

Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 22:12, “You shall make yourself tassels on the four kanaf of the garment with which you cover yourself.  

The tassels were to be placed on the four corners of the garment, the ‘wings’ of the garment.  So when Malachi prophesies that the Sun of Righteousness will come with ‘healing in his wings,’ it was interpreted that the Messiah would come with healing in the corners of his garment. The woman in our story today knew the Scripture and recognized Jesus as the Messiah, knowing there would be healing in his tassels.  Did you know that scripture in Malachi?  You should.  Most of you sing a song about this scripture every year.  It goes like this:

Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace!
Hail the sun of righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings, 
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that we no more may die,
Born to raise each child of earth,
Born to give us second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn king!”3

This song we sing at Christmas, heralding the Messiah, celebrates the Sun of Righteousness who came with healing in his wings.  (Now, hopefully, you are wondering about all the other phrases in songs you sing that you have never really thought about.)

This verse in Malachi was a very popular verse for the Israelites in Jesus’ day.  Living in a time when medicine was helpless in treating most diseases, there was hope for healing when the Messiah came.  This idea of the Sun of Righteousness, the Messiah, coming and bringing healing in his wings was well known.  There will be healing in the tassels of the Messiah when he comes.  So when Jesus came, and the people in Galilee saw his miracles and heard his teaching, they began to realize he was the promised Messiah.  This woman with the issue of blood, by grabbing Jesus’ tassel, is proclaiming him as the Messiah.

So Jesus tells her:

Luke 8:48    And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

It is not touching the tassel that made her well; her faith made her well.  She believed in her heart that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, the Sun of Righteousness, and then she acted on that belief.  She took a significant risk going into that crowd in her unclean state.  And she received more healing than she anticipated.  Jesus tells her, “Go in peace.”  And to Jesus, peace, Shalom, means total peace.  She has found peace with God.  Her relationship with God is in peace.

Twice, Jesus calls her ‘daughter.’  This woman’s family had likely rejected her because she was unclean, because of a medical problem that could not be cured.  But Jesus calls her ‘daughter.’  Jesus hasn’t just healed her; he has adopted her into his family.  As Paul says in Romans 8:15-17, “You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” …we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”

Let me finish with one more Old Testament prophecy about tassels:

Zechariah 8:23   Thus says Yehovah of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the tassel of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

Zechariah tells us there will come a day when people of all nations on the earth will take hold of the tassel of “a Jew,” asking to follow that Jew because they see that God is with that Jew.  That day is today.   People from all nations in the world are taking hold of the tassel of a Jew — Jesus — and saying, “I want to follow you.”

How important it is that we all take hold of the tassel of a Jewish man.  We can’t actually reach out and touch Jesus’ tassel today.  He is not walking around like he was in 27 AD.  But we can figuratively take hold of his tassel.  What does that mean?

Like this woman, to take hold of his tassel is to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Sun of Righteousness.  It is to demonstrate that belief by some public act.  Today, we come to the front of the church and say we believe Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God. and then we follow Jesus in baptism.  Then, remembering that the purpose of the tassel is to remind you of the covenant you made to follow God’s commandments, taking hold of his tassel is to commit to following Jesus’ commandments.  It is to see that blue string and remember that we are the the people assigned to be the kingdom of priests to this world..  We have a responsibility to carry Jesus’ message to those around us.  To take hold of Jesus’ tassel is to remember that there is still healing in his wings.  Jesus will heal us all – some now, some later, but all will be healed, and not only of their physical diseases but, even more importantly, their relationship with God will be healed.  And finally, to take hold of Jesus’ tassel is to be adopted into Jesus’ family.

Have you taken hold of Jesus’ tassel lately?   Do you need a fresh touch from Jesus?  Jesus is waiting for us to follow him.

  1. Strong’s Concordance. “Krasperdon“.
  2. The color of ‘tekhelet‘ and the processing of the Murex trunculus snail glands to produce dye is a very deep rabbit hole. You will find many articles online saying there is no way to produce blue dye in this manner and then several scientific articles detailing how it can be done. (There are also YouTube videos of peope producing the dye, of course.)
  3. “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”. Verse 3. (1739)

August 20, 27 A.D.  Jesus Calms the Storm #46

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

Week 27 ———  Jesus Calms the Storm
Matthew 8:18-27 — Mark 4:35-41 — Luke 8:22-25

Matt. 8:23-27     And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And beheld, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.   And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”   And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

The Sea of Galilee is not actually a sea but a lake.  It is about 8 miles wide and 13 miles long.  It is the lowest freshwater lake in the world at 686 feet below sea level.  Being that small, you would not expect it to have large waves, but it sits in an unusual geographic setting in the Rift Valley.  It is surrounded on three sides by hills that reach 2000 feet high. This results in significant differences in temperature and pressure that can send strong winds down the hills into the sea.  Since the sea is so small and shallow (200 feet deep), there is relatively little water to absorb these cascading winds, so the sea can become whipped up with violent waves, reaching 10 feet in a storm recorded in 1992.  I had a chance to witness 4-5 feet waves on my first trip to Israel.  Our boat trip was canceled, and looking at those waves, it was a good idea.    Here is a picture of waves on the sea looking from the eastern side to the west.   The steep northern slope of Mt. Arbel is visible on the other side of the sea.

Now add to the possibility of huge waves the small size of the boats they would have been using in Jesus’ day.   A drought in 1986 partially exposed an ancient boat that was trapped in the mud.  Two fishermen discovered it and informed the authorities, who quickly sent in a crew of archeologists.  It took 12 days to encase the wooden structure in foam so it would be preserved and could be floated out to be restored.  The remains of what has been now proven to be a first-century fishing boat are on display at a museum on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.  

The boat originally looked like this:

It was 27 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and only 4 feet high. It could carry 13-15 people. Its very shallow draft allowed it to get very close to shore, but this also made it susceptible to taking on water from wind and waves. 

So, the 13 of them are in a small boat in a storm with large waves.  Some of these men with Jesus were professional fishermen.  They were very familiar with this boat and this lake.  But the storm that blew up that night was especially violent.  Mark tells us that the boat was filling with water, and Jesus was sleeping in the stern.  They wake Jesus, saying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Or “How can you possibly be sleeping when we are all about to die?”  They couldn’t imagine how Jesus could be sleeping when they were about to die.  But Jesus couldn’t imagine how they could be so concerned about a storm when they were in the boat with God.  So he stops the storm like we would turn off a light switch.

“Peace, be still!”   The same God who said, “Let there be light,” the same God who calmed the chaos of the waters in creation and made dry land appear  — that same God is sitting in the boat with them.  How could they possibly be afraid when they were in God’s boat?  Have you ever been in a scary situation?

We were on a flight, and the turbulence got bad.  The plane was bouncing all over, and many were getting sick and using those bags in the seat back pocket.  And everyone, if they would admit it, was scared.  But a baby was across the aisle sleeping in their mother’s arms.  The baby wasn’t afraid.  It slept well, with the knowledge that its mother would protect it.  Oh, to sleep like a baby, without worries, cares, or fear.   Have you ever been unable to sleep because of concern about finances, illness, or violence?  Have you ever thought, “I wish I could sleep like a baby without worries?”  

Leviticus 26:6  I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.

David wrote a psalm about when he was on the run in the wilderness with people hunting him down to kill him, and he said, “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.  I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around (Psalm 3:5-6).

Perhaps you have never been where David was, on the run with someone trying to kill you.  I won’t forget the day our local District Attorney called me at my office.  He asked, “Have you seen anyone unusual around or anyone following you?”  “No,” I replied, “should I be worried?”   I had just weeks ago spent several days testifying in a court case to convict a man who had sexually abused a young girl for years.  Apparently, the man found someone in prison who hooked him up with a hitman.  The prison had intercepted some communication where the arrangement was made to kill several people who had been involved in the conviction, including me, the DHR worker, an attorney, and the judge.  Fortunately for us, because there was a credible death threat against a judge, the FBI became involved, and the hitman was arrested several days later, with weapons and the list with our names in his vehicle.  I don’t remember being too scared to sleep at the time.  I want to say that was because of my faith in the sovereignty of God, but I really believe it was because the whole event was too much like a TV show to seem real.  (Lest you think I don’t have fear, read about “The Day of My Fear” https://swallownocamels.com/2024/02/20/the-day-of-my-fear/  )

I love how Skip Moen said, “Circumstances do not dictate the outcome of life.  Relationship does.  I have nothing to fear if I am truly in the boat with Jesus.  We are riding the waves together.  The only time I need be afraid is when I am not in the boat with Him.”1

“And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”  We talked about “little faith” back on July 23 (See https://swallownocamels.com/2024/07/23/july-21-27-a-d-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-that-drops-by-41/).  Again, ‘little faith’ is described by Jesus as faith less than the smallest thing he can show them, a mustard seed, so ‘little faith’ means no faith at all.  At this point, the disciples in the boat are faithless.  They are in the boat with the creator of the sea, and they don’t yet have that understanding or, more importantly, that relationship.  Faith is trust built up through experience.  Our faith grows as we witness God’s trustworthiness in the Scriptures, in the lives of our friends and family, and in our lives.  That is one reason it is so important to study the Scriptures.  In them, we see the long history of God being faithful to his promises.  This is why it is so important to share our experiences with God with the people around us.  Our faith can grow through each other’s experiences by telling the stories of God’s faithfulness.  

Are there any storms brewing in your life?  When you get in the boat, ensure it’s the one with Jesus in it.

  1. 1. Moen, Skip. In “In the Boat” from https://skipmoen.com/2008/03/in-the-boat/

August 16, 27 A.D.  Jesus Speaks in Parables #45

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , ,

Week 26 ———  The Parable of the Four Soils
Matthew 13:10-23 — Mark 4:10-25 — Luke 8:9-18

Matthew 13:1-10   That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.   And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach.   And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow.   And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.   Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.   Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.   Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.   He who has ears, let him hear.”

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist on February 16 and then spent 40 days in the wilderness.  He returned to John, who proclaimed him the “Lamb of God.” His ministry began on March 30 when some of John’s disciples asked to tag along.  Jesus is preaching, teaching, healing, and casting out demons, and he goes viral.  In just a few months, he has gone from the unknown son of a carpenter in a tiny crossroad town to the most talked about person in Galilee.  He also attracted the attention of the religious leaders, who began to plot ways to have him killed, a task they would accomplish eight months later on April 28.   

We are in the time when Jesus of Nazareth is at the height of his popularity.  People are coming from everywhere to hear him speak or to be healed.   Here in Capernaum, he goes out in the morning to the beach, and great crowds gather.  So he does as he has done before; he goes out in a boat so they can stand on the beach and hear him.  There is a cove near there, which people today call “the cove of the sower.”  You can see from this drone shot below that this would be a great place to teach a crowd, a natural amphitheater.  As the people stand there on the beach, behind them are fields.  This time of the year, the final harvesting of the wheat crop is completed, so the fields are sitting, waiting for the fall rains to soften the ground so they can be plowed and planted in September.  So the crowd can overflow from the beach to the field.

Jesus has something important to teach.  And for the first time, he teaches primarily in parables.  And the first parable he tells, the parable of the soils, is a parable about parables.  I want to deal with the last verse we read this morning first because the disciples ask a question that I have heard many people ask about Jesus:

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

As you read the gospels, one-third of Jesus’s teaching is in parables. Why parables, Jesus? Why don’t you just say what you mean?

Jesus didn’t invent parables. There are many in the Old Testament. In Hebrew, they are called mashals.  For example, there is the one in Judges of the trees who wanted to crown themselves a king of the trees.  There is the parable that Nathan told David of the poor man who only had one lamb, but the wealthy neighbor came and took it.  Solomon often taught in parables.  The rabbis around Jesus’ day and afterward often taught in parables, and we have hundreds recorded in the Talmud.  But why teach in parables?

A parable is an ordinary life story told to make a point or teach a lesson.  One definition says a parable is “an allusive narrative which is told for an ulterior motive.  The well-known situation in the story disarms the listener, who is then hit with the lesson.  Soren Kierkegaard (a Danish theologian) said it this way: Parables are a form of indirect communication intended to deceive the hearer into the truth.

We see this in the parable of Nathan in 2 Samuel 12.  David has committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband.  But David is king and accountable to no one but God.  So Nathan tells David the story of a poor man with only one lamb.  Then, a wealthy man with many herds of sheep takes the poor man’s lamb from him, leaving him with nothing.  The king then becomes angry and says this wealthy man deserves to die. Nathan responds, “You are that man!”  Nathan told a story with an ulterior motive, and it worked.

Jesus uses parables to teach, but as with Nathan’s parable, they often involve a lesson people do not want to hear. Jesus uses parables for difficult lessons, usually lessons that challenge what people have been taught for years.  

So, let’s jump into Jesus’s first parable. He tells this one first because it is a parable about parables.

Some call it the parable of the sower, but it is really the parable of the four soils.  Many rabbinic parables compare four things.  Let me give you an example of an ancient rabbinic parable that is similar to this parable of Jesus because it is about how to listen:

There are four types among those who sit in the presence of the rabbis: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer, and the sieve. “The sponge,” which soaks up everything. “The funnel,” which takes in at this end and lets out at the other. “The strainer,” which lets out the wine and retains the dregs. “The sieve,” which removes the chaff and dust and keeps the grain. (Pirke Avot, 5:17)

So which do you think is the better student?  You might be tempted to say the sponge that soaks up everything is the best type of student.  They get it all.  And the worst listener is the funnel, for it just lets everything run through.  But look at the wine strainer.  It allows all the good wine to pass through but retains the dregs and contaminants.  Compare that to the sieve.  It removes the chaff and dirt but retains the seed. This is how the rabbis wanted their students to learn, to retain the essential lessons, but filter out the rest.  Paul, who was rabbinically trained, felt the same way about the people who listened to him:

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11

Don’t just listen to a message or bible study like a sponge.  Filter what you hear through the scripture.  Carefully consider how the scripture applies to your life, pray for God to open your eyes to his wisdom, and look for ways to be obedient to the Word.

Many of Jesus’ parables are agricultural because many of his listeners were farmers, and all of them depended on the success of the farmers to survive.  You teach using examples people are familiar with.  God even scheduled their religious observances around the farmers.  The beginning of the new year was determined by the first new moon after the barley reached the near-ripe Aviv state. Passover and the feast of Firstfruits happen just before the barley harvest.  Then, 50 days later, it is Pentecost, the wheat harvest time.

But our story today happens in the late summer.  The wheat harvest has ended.  The ground sits fallow for a few months. They wait until after the early rains come in October, which will soften the ground so they can plow it.  But the farmer does not rest.  Two things had to be done before the early rains came.   First, they must burn off the thorns.  If they don’t, then whatever they plant will be choked out.  Next, they must remove the rocks from the field.  Rocks are constantly pushed up to the surface or exposed by the rain.  Typically, farmers collect these rocks on the borders of their fields, as shown in this picture.  

So in the parable, you have seed sown on the path, the rocky ground, among the thorns, and on the good soil.  We talked about this parable in my men’s group last year, and my friend Shane asked, “Why would you sow seed in those other places anyway?  Remember that all their work to farm the land was done by hand.  The seed for wheat was thrown and scattered as they walked through their fields.  So, some would be blown on the rocky places or the paths around the fields.  

Now we move on to the explanation of the parable:  “The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11).   This is a parable about hearing the word of God.   Notice that the seed that falls in these four places is the same.  Now it is possible that when you plant your garden you might get bad seed.  But that is not the problem here.  God’s word is the seed, and it is always good.  This parable answers why different groups of people can hear the same word but respond in entirely different ways.  So, as you read this parable, you should ask yourself, what kind of soil am I?

Matthew 13:19-23  When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.  As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.  As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.  As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

The seed on the path, the hard ground. It just sits there.  The birds come and eat it.  Jesus says this represents the evil one ‘snatching it away.’   How does the evil one snatch what you hear out of your head?  It is easy.  Because the ground is so hard, the seed never gets in.  These people listen, but they hear nothing.  They are hard-hearted.  They are the funnel in the rabbi’s parable.  It all just passes in one ear and out the other.    They don’t care about the word. It is like me watching that documentary on British Royalty that my wife was watching on Netflix.  I was in the room and heard the TV, but when it was over, I knew nothing about British royalty.

Then, there is the seed on the rocky ground.  They receive it with joy.  Oh, they like being in church.  They know everyone; they clap and sing and may raise their hands in praise.  But outside the church, being excited about God may not be convenient.  What happens if it is not popular to talk about God? They get quiet. These are the people who like the idea of God and the idea of “going to Heaven,” but they don’t have a genuine personal relationship with the Father.  But Jesus says, “When tribulation or persecution arises.”  We in the US know very little about persecution.  For many years, Christianity has been popular in the US.  For a time, it was good for a business person to be involved in a church.  That helped his business.  It is still true to some extent in the South.  But times are changing.  Church membership may be a negative in some areas.  But tribulation and persecution?  We haven’t yet known that to any degree here.  But in the rest of the world, persecution abounds.

This is a map from opendoors.org that shows the countries in the world with very high and extreme levels of persecution of Christians. 

One in seven Christians in the world is under persecution.  Last year, 4998 Christians were killed for their faith. There are no rocky ground listeners in these countries.  There are no ‘casual Christians.’  If you sit in a church meeting (typically a home church), then you could be arrested or, in several of these countries, killed on the spot.  These people must count the cost anytime they gather to discuss scripture or pray.  They have removed the rocks from their fields.  They desire a deep relationship with God.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have taken the risk.

Then there is the seed sown among thorns.

 “Matthew 13:19-23  …As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”   The cares of the world.  Distraction.  I am constantly amazed by an incredibly bizarre thing that happens every Sunday morning in churches all over America. It has happened in every church I have ever attended.  Everyone sits and listens for 30 minutes to someone talk about scripture, about this amazing God who had the power to speak words to make the universe come into existence. And about a heavenly Father who loves us so much that Jesus was willing to suffer for us, to die for our sins and be raised from the dead.  And then afterward, everyone pretends that it didn’t happen.  The last hymn is sung, and then everyone pops up, and it is like this:  “How about those Braves?  Oh, I like your dress!  Did you see ‘The Bachelor’ this week?  That storm last night was intense.  What’s for lunch?”  You may get challenged by God by something said or sung in church.  But as soon as the last hymn is over, your mind turns to other things.  The cares of this world: the weather, the previous ballgame, what’s for lunch?  And whatever it was that challenged you from God’s word is forgotten, and you are none the better.  Or is it that we hear the benediction and assume that God-time is over?   Okay, we did the God stuff for an hour, and now, we’ll move on to the rest of life.

Let me be honest with you for just a minute.  When someone comes up to me after the service and says something like, “I appreciated what you said,” or “Thanks, that really spoke to me,” I desperately want to respond, “Great, what exactly spoke to you? What did you hear that meant something to you?  How will that make a difference in your life?”  But I am guilty of just letting it go.  We all move on to other things.  God-time is over.  But it isn’t.  We are all surrounded by thorns.  Too quickly, we move on because someone somewhere said,  “There are two things you never discuss in public: politics or religion.”  If we can’t talk to each other about how scripture affects us and what God is doing in our lives, then we aren’t people of God.  God was never meant to be a one-hour-a-week God.  He doesn’t take up residence in our hearts on a part-time basis.  If he is our Lord, then it is 24/7.  

But we are taught to separate the world into sacred and secular as if they are two different things. Secular is defined as “denoting  attitudes, activities, or other things with no religious or spiritual basis.”  Let me ask you, where in this world is God absent?  Where do you go without the Holy Spirit within you?  Our whole life, our entire time on this planet, is sacred.  Nothing is outside God.  For a Christian, there is no such thing as secular. 

But we are so easily distracted.  There are always ten other things that clamor for our attention. This is why I take notes when I listen to a sermon.  It helps me focus so I can go home, look up the scripture, and consider things.  Don’t let the cares of this world take away your chance to grow as a Christian.   This is why we have trouble finding time to study the word, pray, or do whatever God has asked us to do.  We are too distracted. 

I’m not saying we can’t be social and talk about current happenings.  But don’t turn off God’s presence in your life.  Find time to share your life with God with others.  Don’t let the thorns get you.  Don’t let the cares of this world steal your chance to be who God wants you to be.

This world is full of people who work hard to avoid thinking about their lives and where they are headed. They constantly seek distraction because they don’t want to think about things with eternal meaning.  Victor Frankl said it this way:

“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”

Remember when Jesus went to Mary and Martha and Lazarus’ house, and Mary sat at Jesus’ feet to listen to his teaching: 

Luke 10:40-42  “But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”  But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Sometimes, we are distracted by good things.  Serving is a good thing, but there is a time to serve and a time to listen.  There is a time to talk about the weather or the ball game and a time to study scripture.  Be careful not to let the evil one snatch away all your opportunities to grow in God’s word.

Then, there is the seed on the good ground that has been properly prepared.  The thorns have been burned off, and the rocks have been removed.  The soil has been tilled and plowed.  It is ready for the seed.  “this is the one who hears the word and understands it.”  The word “understands” means considering and contemplating what he hears.  Then Jesus says, “He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”  Note the reverse order of the yield. Usually, we would say, “30 times, 60 times, a hundred times.” A hundred times the yield is a harvest almost beyond belief.  Jesus is here emphasizing the hundredfold because he wants his Bible-aware listeners to remember someone in the Bible who harvested that amount.

Gen. 26:12   And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. Yehovah blessed him.   

Jesus is telling his listeners that they can be blessed like Isaac, one of their patriarchs, one they revered. The story is even richer if you know the context.  If you don’t, then go back to the first verse of Genesis 26: 

Gen. 26:1   Now there was a famine in the land.   

Isaac is reaping this massive crop amid a famine in the land.   Everyone else can’t find food, and Isaac raises this amazing bumper crop.   We are living in a time of famine, a moral famine.  The world has pursued pleasure to such extremes that morality is no longer considered important.  Right and wrong are no longer the standard.  For most of the world, God is becoming irrelevant.  The spiritual famine is real.  But Jesus says that despite this famine, you can bear fruit in a fantastic harvest if you are the good soil. 

You must properly prepare yourself to hear the word of God.  How do you prepare?   Have an ongoing relationship with God, listen and carefully consider the Word, and don’t let the cares of this world choke out your life.  If you do this, you will reap blessings you can’t even imagine.

Matthew 13:10-15   Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”   And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.  For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.  Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:
“‘“You will indeed hear but never understand,
and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
   For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.’

This makes it sound like Jesus is hiding the truth of scripture on purpose from some.  But you have to know the context of the quote he is giving here from the book of Isaiah.  Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6 because things are as they were in Isaiah’s day.  It was a time when people had turned away from God.  Even the priests and religious leaders had settled into a pattern of going through the motions of religion without truly honoring Yehovah.  They heard the Scripture, but they could not understand.  God called Isaiah to try to get the people to return to God and repent.  But they did not listen.  Jesus finds the people in the same situation.  The people listen to the scripture but do not “hear” it.  For Jesus, the word ‘hear’ is the Hebrew ‘shmah’, which means listening and obeying.  Jesus sees the people listening to God’s word and then ignoring it.  Without obedience, they haven’t really heard. And that is why Jesus says:  “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Jesus says this a lot.)  You only understand it if you know the Hebrew verb shmah.  He says: ”If you are able to listen, then you had better obey.”

Notice that every soil gets the same seed.  The difference is the soil.  Everyone hears the same words from Jesus.  Some respond with thankfulness and worship, and others respond with anger—the same words but very different responses.  And Jesus says the difference is what type of soil you are. 

Brad Young tells the story of being in Israel during the time of year when farmers were working hard to prepare their fields.  They had burned off the thorns and were working to get the rocks out of the field.  Some were lugging heavy stones back to the boundary; One was pounding on a huge rock to break it up so it could be moved.  And he watched him for a while, sweating in the hot sun, and heard God whisper to him.  “Are you willing to do that kind of work to prepare your field, your heart for my words?”

Are you willing?

August 2, 27 A.D.  The Man with the Withered Hand #43

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,


Mark 3:1-6   Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.  And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.   And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.”   And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.   And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”  He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.   The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Sometimes, when studying a passage of Scripture, you must stop and address one of the ‘big picture’ ideas found in the passage.  So we will look at this story as we primarily discuss this phrase:  “Jesus looked around at them with anger…”

Jesus…angry?  Yes.  If you thought Jesus was only meek and mild and never angry, then you had better read the Bible again.  And this word translated as anger here is the Greek ‘orge’ (pronounced ‘or-gay’).  It is not saying Jesus is irritated or mildly annoyed.  This is a word of violent passion.  Jesus is steaming mad.  He is boiling over with anger.  Does it bother you that Jesus is described with such fierce anger?  (It must bother some people, for there are many translations that ‘water down’ Jesus’ emotions.)

Some people have a problem with Jesus being angry in the New Testament and an even bigger problem with how angry God gets in the Old Testament.  I have heard people describe God as an “angry God” in the Old Testament. Just because someone gets angry occasionally, do you call them an angry person?  Now, if I see a mass shooting at a school and I get angry about someone indiscriminately killing children, you can describe me as angry, but does that make me an “angry person”?   Now, if I am in a hurry to drive somewhere all the time and the person in front of me is on their phone and not noticing the light is green and I start blowing my horn and yelling — if I do that a lot, maybe then I am an angry person.  But if I jump out of my car and attack that person…, that is another thing.  It makes a difference: 1. what situation causes the anger and 2. How do you act in your anger.

We have mentioned Exodus 36:4 several times in the past weeks, where God uses five character traits to describe himself.  “Yehovah passed before him and proclaimed, “Yehovah, Yehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” “Slow to anger,” the middle description, makes it clear that God is patient. Still, his patience has a limit. (The Hebrew literal translation is “long nostrilled,” because anger is typically described in Hebrew as your ‘nose burning hot,’ so if you are ‘long of nostrils,’ it takes some time before you get your nose overheated.  If you think that is odd, remember that we do something similar in our culture.  We use the term ‘nosy’ to describe someone who is a ‘busybody,’ always ‘getting their nose in someone else’s business.’  Languages are fun.)

Now, my friends who read the Old Testament and complain that Yehovah is an ‘angry God’ talk of Sodom and Gomorrah or the flood in Genesis, or the warfare in Joshua and following.  Interestingly, there is no mention of God being angry in the book of Genesis (and only three times in Exodus.)   At the time of Noah and the flood, God is described not as angry but as grieved or hurt.   He was heartbroken that his image-bearers had abandoned his ways and descended to the depths of evil.  The flood is a necessary act of judgment but not an act of anger.

You may know someone who rarely gets angry.  That is an excellent, godly trait.  How about someone who never gets angry?  Is that a good trait?

Think about the time you got the most angry in your life.  What did you get angry about?

Let me tell you about the most angry I have ever been.  My 5-year-old daughter had the day off from Kindergarten.  I took the day off to spend the day with her.  She first requested to have breakfast at McDonald’s and to play on the playground.  While I was paying for the meal and waiting for the order, she wanted to get her drink, and I let her.  Apparently, it took her a while, and she kept the next person waiting a bit to get his drink.  I hear him huffing behind me and see him force his way beside her as she finishes so he can fill his drink in the dispenser.  I hear him say, “Damn half-breed,” and something else I won’t even repeat.  I ask my precious bi-racial child to go out to the playground.  After she gets outside, I have a ‘discussion’ with this man.  In Hebrew terms, my nose was a blazing inferno.  I really wanted to slug him, but I instead corrected him with a not-so-gentle spirit.  God forgive me.  The lesson to learn from this is, first, that it matters what you get angry about.  Getting angry because your child is treated wrongly, bullied, or abused is expected.  If a parent watched another adult abuse a child and didn’t get angry about it, then something is wrong with that person.  Secondly, anger rises up much faster when it involves someone in relation to you, someone you love.

What kind of God would Yehovah be if he had no emotional reaction when one of his children was mistreated or abused?  Would you really want to have a God who never got angry?  Some anger is not only justified but is necessary.  The Bible gives three primary reasons for God’s anger:  human suffering, evil, and betrayal of a covenant.

The first time God is described as angry in the Bible is when God meets Moses at the burning bush on Mt Sinai.  

Exodus 2:23: “The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning…”

Things had gone from bad to worse for the Hebrew slaves to the point that the Egyptians were committing genocide, drowning their babies.  Egypt is abusing God’s children.  God then comes to Moses and says, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings.” (Exodus 3:7)  God asks Moses to go back to Egypt and lead his people out of bondage.  But five times, Moses refuses to go, giving excuse after excuse, and when he runs out of excuses, he tells God, “Just send someone else.”  At this point, Exodus 4:13 tells us, “The anger of Yehovah was kindled against Moses.”  Why was God angry?  It was not just because Moses was refusing to obey, but because Moses was refusing to care enough for his own people, his own family, to do anything.   His people were being tortured, and their babies drowned, and Moses didn’t want to become involved.  God may be patient with disobedience, but a frank disregard for people who are suffering will arouse God’s anger much faster.  Human suffering is one of the three primary reasons God gets angry.   The Bible is full of God’s reprimands to Israel for failing to care for those who can not care for themselves, especially widows, orphans, and strangers in the land. If you ignore the suffering of others, God will get angry.

That is the reason for Jesus’ anger in our story today.  This man has a ‘withered hand.’  He is not able to work and provide for his family.  It likely resulted in him becoming a beggar.  Jesus can restore him.  But some in the synagogue don’t see this man as someone desperate for healing.  They see a chance to further their agenda to trap Jesus.  If Jesus heals on the Sabbath, they can accuse him of breaking the Sabbath rules.  But God never said that healing was not allowed on the Sabbath1, and Jesus makes it clear that God would never say that.  That was a rule the Pharisees added themselves.  Notice that Jesus calls the man up in front of everyone.  He tries to point out to these ‘religious leaders’ that he is a child of God who is in desperate need.  But their agenda to trap Jesus prevents them from having compassion and requires them to ignore his suffering.  After he is healed, they should be celebrating the miracle with him.  But what do they do?  Just as God became angry with Moses for his lack of care for those suffering in Egypt, Jesus became angry with these Pharisees for their refusal to care about this man.  Do not miss this lesson. If we have the means to prevent suffering and choose not to get involved, we make God angry.  Even today, some people don’t have compassion for others; instead, they see all people as pawns to further their agenda.  We call these people politicians.  How do we view people who are in need?  Are they inconvenient burdens that interrupt our day?  Or are they opportunities to minister and show the love and mercy of God?  We should thank God every time we cross paths with someone in need because God has given us another opportunity to be compassionate and obedient.

The second time we see God described as angry is due to evil.  Just a few chapters later in Exodus, God’s anger is due to the evil of Pharaoh.  Even after the ten plagues, including the death of the firstborn of Egypt, Pharaoh is too hard-hearted to let the Hebrew slaves go, and he pursues them into the parted waters of the sea.  God has had enough of this evil leader, and he and his ‘chosen officers’ suffer the fury of God’s anger and are drowned (ironically, just as they were drowning the Hebrew male children.)  No one can argue that God wasn’t patient (slow to anger) with Pharaoh, but evil will always eventually be dealt with.  Jesus created this world, and evil was never meant to be a part of it.  Death and illness were also not supposed to be part of this world.  Several times in the gospels, we see Jesus react with deep emotion when facing the death or illness of others.  For example, when Jesus is faced with the death of his friend, Lazarus, the ESV translates that Jesus was “deeply moved,” but the Greek word used is one of anger and rebuke.  We see this again when Jesus is faced with illness.  It is okay to be angry when someone dies, or someone gets a horrible diagnosis.  But don’t be angry at God; be angry at death and disease.  Just as God became angry at evil in the world, Jesus is angry at death and illness, two things that should not exist in God’s creation but are the result of a world fallen in sin.

The third time God is described as angry in the Bible is at the incident of the Golden Calf. God had just established a covenant at Mount Sinai with the nation. As we discussed last time (#42), the covenant at Sinai was like a marriage. Both parties promised to be faithful to each other. They are expected to act with chesed towards each other, faithful covenant love and mercy.  Then Moses ascends the mountain, and while he is up there with God, Israel builds a golden calf and worships it.

Exodus 32:7-10   And Yehovah said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.   They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”   And Yehovah said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.   Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

Can you imagine someone committing adultery six weeks after the marriage?  Israel made this covenant with God; they exchanged vows and made a commitment.  And just six weeks later, they break the covenant and worship other gods. God calls this adultery, and they have done it on the honeymoon.   Betrayal of a covenant leads to anger.

God takes commitment very seriously.  Betrayal of the expected loyal covenant love (chesed) is the third reason for God’s anger in the Bible.  We see this happen repeatedly in the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Israel betrays God and worships the idols of other nations.   The Bible has three important recurring phrases seen in God’s reaction to Israel’s betrayal: God “hiding his face,” “handing them over,” and “drinking the cup” of wrath. Pay attention when you see these phrases as you read your Bible.

Deuteronomy 31:16-18   And Yehovah said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then these people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them. Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’ And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.

God “hiding his face” represents God withdrawing his sustaining power over his people.  In the beginning, God’s act of creation was to make order out of chaos. And God did not create the world and then walk away to let it run on its own.  Without God’s continual intervention in this fallen world, things return to disorder. (In Physics, you may have learned this concept as the 2nd law of thermodynamics.)  The Bible makes it clear that without God’s sustaining efforts in our lives, we would all perish.  Who knows how many catastrophes God prevented this past week that we never knew about?  When God ‘hides his face,’ he stops intervening and allows us to reap the consequences of our poor choices.  Paul in Romans describes this action of God removing his protection and allowing people to suffer the natural consequences of their sins, God ‘handing them over.’

Over and over, Israel sins by worshiping the gods of another country or (against God’s plan) involving themselves with another country politically or by taking wives from that country.  Eventually, God’s anger is aroused, and he ‘hides his face.’  Typically, then, Israel is attacked by that very country.  God allows this country to invade as the natural consequence of their unholy alliance with that country.  We see this with many nations in the Bible, but the classic example is Babylon, which invaded Israel, destroyed the temple and took away a large percentage of the population in 586 BC.  Isaiah and Jeremiah had warned the people that this would happen.

Jeremiah introduces another important symbol relating to God’s wrath:

Jeremiah 25:15-16   Thus Yehovah, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.   They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.”

We will discuss the importance of this symbol of the cup of wrath when we look at Jesus’ final days. He repeatedly mentioned the cup he must drink, and in his prayer in Gethsemane, he asked if the cup could not be taken from him. Jesus is not making this symbol up but using a well-known Old Testament phrase.  If we don’t understand how Jesus uses it, we miss some of the richness of his message.  We see the cups of wrath again poured out in the book of Revelation.  Again, if you don’t understand Jeremiah, you can’t understand Revelation.

For those who believe the Old Testament is about wrath and the New Testament is all about grace, you might want to read the last 1/3 of the Bible again.  The first three books all begin with John the Baptist warning people that the wrath of God is coming and they need to repent.  He is preaching the same message as Old Testament prophets Isaiah or Jeremiah: change your ways, or God will bring destruction.  He says the one coming after him (Jesus) has a winnowing fork in his hand and will separate the wheat from the chaff and burn the chaff in the fire.  He says the ax is already at the tree.  John expects you to know the story of how this has happened many times before in Israel.  And how does God bring destruction in the Old Testament?  He hands them over to some foreign nation.  Assyria, for example, is called the rod [of correction] of God’s anger.  (Isaiah 10:5). 

In Jesus’ day, things haven’t changed.  Israel is still being disobedient, and God’s anger is coming to a point where he will hide his face as he did so many times in the Old Testament.  As before, a foreign nation will come in and bring destruction. But it doesn’t have to be that way.  As in Old Testament times, the prophet’s (John the Baptist and Jesus) attempts to convince the nation to turn and repent are largely ignored.

And as you know, Rome is waiting in the wings to be the latest rod of God’s anger.  In 70 AD, Rome destroyed the Temple and, according to Josephus, killed 1.1 million Jews, and 97,000 were enslaved.  We have drawn too thick of a line separating the “Old Testament” from the “New Testament.”  God has not changed.  What he does in Jesus is the continuation and completion of what he has been doing with his image-bearers all along. 

God does indeed get angry.  As God in the flesh, Jesus gets angry at the same things.  But God is ‘slow to anger,’ which tells us he is not only patient to a point but also very strategic in his response.  It is not a response of rage and rash action (though it appears God considered that response in the Golden Calf incident.)  But God’s action from his anger is measured and productive.  When God’s wrath is poured out on Israel, a remnant is always preserved, and the nation is never completely destroyed.  So Paul tells us:  “Go ahead, Be angry…” as we said, sometimes anger is not only justified but is necessary.

Be angry about what Jesus is angry about.   I told you that Bob Pierce (founder of World Vision) famously prayed, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God,”   Similarly, we need to pray, “Let us become angry at the things that make God angry.”  What made Jesus angry?

Jesus got angry when the disciples wanted to keep children away from him.  He got angry when he saw the money changers taking advantage of the poor in the temple. He got angry when he saw people caring more about religious traditions than a beggar’s needs.  Notice that he didn’t get angry when someone personally attacked him.  He wasn’t angry when someone’s donkey was going too slow in the left lane or not moving fast enough at a traffic light.  He didn’t get mad at the tax collectors or the prostitutes.

So be like Jesus. Be angry when the poor are taken advantage of.  Be angry at payday loan companies.  Be angry when children are abused or neglected or when unborn children are slaughtered.  Be angry at death; be angry at cancer.  Jesus hates cancer…it was not supposed to be part of the world he created.  Don’t be angry about a scene on television at the Olympics.  It is okay to be grieved about it but not angry.  Be angry about ethnic and economic injustice, abuse of any kind, sex trafficking, human slavery, adultery, refugee plight, or persecution.

But look at the rest of Paul’s verse in Ephesians:

Ephesians 4:26-27  Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. 

Be angry, but do not sin.  Respond strategically and measured. So much of our anger is rooted in our prideful, selfish, sinful nature.  Do not act in rage or retribution.  Vengeance is not ours to take.  If you feel the need to become angry at someone else’s sin.  First, you better look in the mirror.  Be angry at your own sin first.  Too many people walk around with logs in their eyes, yelling about splinters in other people’s eyes.  You can’t press God for mercy for your sins while at the same time yelling for judgment for their sins.  God is just.  Sin must be dealt with.  But Jesus was willing to drink the cup of God’s wrath for us. So we can be part of the remnant that escapes from the final cups of wrath poured out in Revelation if we are willing to covenant with Jesus and join his kingdom.

  1. There are 39 types of work that are forbidden on the Sabbath in the Bible.  Healing is not one of them.
















































    We will discuss the importance of this symbol of the cup of wrath when we look at Jesus’ final days. He repeatedly mentioned the cup he must drink, and in his prayer in Gethsemane, he asked if the cup could not be taken from him. Jesus is not making this symbol up but using a well-known Old Testament phrase.  If we don’t understand how Jesus uses it, we miss some of the richness of his message.  We see the cups of wrath again poured out in the book of Revelation.  Again, if you don’t understand Jeremiah, you can’t understand Revelation.



    For those who believe the Old Testament is about wrath and the New Testament is all about grace, you might want to read the last 1/3 of the Bible again.  The first three books all begin with John the Baptist warning people that the wrath of God is coming and they need to repent.  He is preaching the same message as Old Testament prophets Isaiah or Jeremiah: change your ways, or God will bring destruction.  He says the one coming after him (Jesus) has a winnowing fork in his hand and will separate the wheat from the chaff and burn the chaff in the fire.  He says the ax is already at the tree.  John expects you to know the story of how this has happened many times before in Israel.  And how does God bring destruction in the Old Testament?  He hands them over to some foreign nation.  Assyria, for example, is called the rod [of correction] of God’s anger.  (Isaiah 10:5). 



    In Jesus’ day, things haven’t changed.  Israel is still being disobedient, and God’s anger is coming to a point where he will hide his face as he did so many times in the Old Testament.  As before, a foreign nation will come in and bring destruction. But it doesn’t have to be that way.  As in Old Testament times, the prophet’s (John the Baptist and Jesus) attempts to convince the nation to turn and repent are largely ignored.



    And as you know, Rome is waiting in the wings to be the latest rod of God’s anger.  In 70 AD, Rome destroyed the Temple and, according to Josephus, killed 1.1 million Jews, and 97,000 were enslaved.  We have drawn too thick of a line separating the “Old Testament” from the “New Testament.”  God has not changed.  What he does in Jesus is the continuation and completion of what he has been doing with his image-bearers all along. 



    God does indeed get angry.  As God in the flesh, Jesus gets angry at the same things.  But God is ‘slow to anger,’ which tells us he is not only patient to a point but also very strategic in his response.  It is not a response of rage and rash action (though it appears God considered that response in the Golden Calf incident.)  But God’s action from his anger is measured and productive.  When God’s wrath is poured out on Israel, a remnant is always preserved, and the nation is never completely destroyed.  So Paul tells us:  “Go ahead, Be angry…” as we said, sometimes anger is not only justified but is necessary.



    Be angry about what Jesus is angry about.   I told you that Bob Pierce (founder of World Vision) famously prayed, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God,”   Similarly, we need to pray, “Let us become angry at the things that make God angry.”  What made Jesus angry?



    Jesus got angry when the disciples wanted to keep children away from him.  He got angry when he saw the money changers taking advantage of the poor in the temple. He got angry when he saw people caring more about religious traditions than a beggar’s needs.  Notice that he didn’t get angry when someone personally attacked him.  He wasn’t angry when someone’s donkey was going too slow in the left lane or not moving fast enough at a traffic light.  He didn’t get mad at the tax collectors or the prostitutes.



    So be like Jesus. Be angry when the poor are taken advantage of.  Be angry at payday loan companies.  Be angry when children are abused or neglected or when unborn children are slaughtered.  Be angry at death; be angry at cancer.  Jesus hates cancer…it was not supposed to be part of the world he created.  Don’t be angry about a scene on television at the Olympics.  It is okay to be grieved about it but not angry.  Be angry about ethnic and economic injustice, abuse of any kind, sex trafficking, human slavery, adultery, refugee plight, or persecution.



    But look at the rest of Paul’s verse in Ephesians:



    Ephesians 4:26-27  Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. 



    Be angry, but do not sin.  Respond strategically and measured. So much of our anger is rooted in our prideful, selfish, sinful nature.  Do not act in rage or retribution.  Vengeance is not ours to take.  If you feel the need to become angry at someone else’s sin.  First, you better look in the mirror.  Be angry at your own sin first.  Too many people walk around with logs in their eyes, yelling about splinters in other people’s eyes.  You can’t press God for mercy for your sins while at the same time yelling for judgment for their sins.  God is just.  Sin must be dealt with.  But Jesus was willing to drink the cup of God’s wrath for us. So we can be part of the remnant that escapes from the final cups of wrath poured out in Revelation if we are willing to covenant with Jesus and join his kingdom.





    1. There are 39 types of work that are forbidden on the Sabbath in the Bible.  Healing is not one of them.


August 9, 27 A.D.  When Jesus Doesn’t Meet Your Expectations #44

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog ,

Week 25 ———  John the Baptist has Doubts about Jesus
Matthew 11:2-30 — Luke 7:18-35

(A note from David: I am still catching up after three weeks of being away (our annual camp meeting and then ten days in Alaska). So here is today’s blog entry, but #43 from August 2 will be posted Sunday.)

Matt. 11:1   When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.  Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 

Jesus has had a busy week.  He healed the man with the withered hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath (#43).  The following day, great crowds gathered to be healed.  Then Jesus spent the whole night in prayer on a mountain (Luke 6:12).  The following day, he chose 12 of his disciples to become apostles (ones who are sent out).  (Remember that some of these twelve had been following Jesus for over four months.)  Then Jesus preaches another sermon to a group of people, heals a centurion’s servant, and then raises a widow’s son in Nain.  So Jesus is moving among the towns of Galilee, not just teaching and announcing the Kingdom of God, but also bringing it into reality by what he does, the healings, signs, and wonders.  He is gaining more and more public attention, and word gets back to John the Baptist, who is in prison.

John has been imprisoned for several months in Herod Antipas’ fortress of Macherus, located east of the Dead Sea in what is now Jordan.  I have been there. I have sat in the place John sat while waiting to be beheaded.  And regarding our passage today, I have been where John is…I can identify with John in this passage. There have been times Jesus didn’t do what I expected him to do. Perhaps you have been there also.

Jesus mother, Mary, and John’s mother, Elizabeth, were related, but the Bible does not specify how.  We know that Mary visited Elizabeth during their pregnancies.  However, John and Jesus did not grow up together.  Jesus grew up in Nazareth, while Luke tells us that John “grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel” (Luke 1:80).  John saw the Spirit of God descend on Jesus at his baptism and pronounces him as the ‘Lamb of God.’ 

John publicly rebuked Herod because he married his brother’s wife, Herodias.  So Herod had him imprisoned.  Mark tells us that “Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly” (Mark 6:19-20).  

Prisoners in the first century were not fed or provided with clothing. If you had family or friends, they would bring you food (and anything else you needed), or you would starve. Presumably, John’s disciples visited him regularly and filled him in on the news about Jesus, so John sent his disciples to Jesus to ask him a question.  However, the question is not likely the one you would have expected John to ask.

Now, if you were John and had the opportunity to ask Jesus a question— the one you baptized, saw God’s spirit descend on, and called the “Lamb of God,” what would you ask? “Wow, all this healing and preaching sounds wonderful; how can I pray for you?”  “Can you use a few extra disciples?”  “Do you need to borrow some camel hair clothes?”  But here is the question John asks Jesus:

“Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  (Matthew 11:3).

John is asking him, “Are you the Messiah?“ 

If you look at how Matthew has structured his gospel, you see that chapter 11 and the following chapters contain stories of how people react to Jesus (John, Jesus’ family, the Pharisees, etc.).  So John hears what Jesus is doing, and it doesn’t convince him that Jesus is the Messiah.  He begins to think he was wrong.  Remember what John said about the coming Messiah: 

Matthew 3:7-12   “But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them. “You brood of snakes!” he exclaimed. “Who warned you to flee the coming wrath?   Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.   Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.   Even now, the ax of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.”

“I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.”

So, John’s message is much like the Old Testament prophets. God is sending a Messiah, and there will be a time of judgment—harsh stuff. Then John baptizes Jesus, and the heavens open, and the spirit descends, and the voice from heaven says, “This is my son….”

Everything is going just as John expected. But then Jesus started his ministry, and John began having second thoughts.  His disciples tell him that Jesus is healing everyone, teaching, and having banquets with sinners and tax collectors.  And John thinks, “Hey, wait a minute!  Where is the ax?  Where is the fire?  Where is the winnowing fork and the never-ending fire? If he can do miracles, then why am I still in prison?  This is not what I expected from a Messiah.”

Matthew 11:4-6   And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.  And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” 

Jesus summarizes his activity.  And since Jesus knows that John has Isaiah memorized, each of those six things is from passages in Isaiah.  Jesus uses a teaching moment to open the scriptures and show how they reveal the Messiah.  Since there may be a few of you that don’t have Isaiah memorized, here are the references from Isaiah that speak of what will happen when the Messiah comes:

In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. (Isaiah 29:18)

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.  For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;  (Isaiah 35:5-6)

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.  You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!  For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. (Isaiah 26:19)

So Jesus tells them to report back to John, “You were right. I am the Messiah, and I have come to inaugurate the kingdom. And it doesn’t look like what you thought it would. But it is just like Isaiah described it if you remember the verses.  And then Jesus adds, “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” Or, as some versions say, “Blessed is anyone who doesn’t stumble because of me.”  The Greek word translated as ‘offended’ or ‘stumble’ is ‘skandilizo’, from which we get our words ‘scandal’ and ‘scandalous.’  As an adjective, scandalous is defined as “causing general public outrage by a perceived offense. “  We have seen how Jesus is causing a good bit of outrage among the religious leaders of the day because they perceive him as offensive.  To them, Jesus is scandalous.  But Jesus says that it is the ones who don’t see him as scandalous but who see him as the true Messiah who are blessed.

But this is hard for John because he taught the Messiah was coming to kick butt with a chainsaw and a flame thrower. Instead, Jesus comes healing and teaching and having parties with tax collectors while he is rotting in prison.

And I am sure John was thinking about a different verse in Isaiah that Jesus preached from in Nazareth:  

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;1 he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound”  (Isaiah 61:1).

John is missing something important, but put yourself in John’s sandals.  Think back to the last time you were in a first-century prison waiting to die, and you told everyone who Jesus was and talked about what Jesus was going to do —- and now he is not doing that, and you’re still in prison.  John had a picture of how things would go and what exactly Jesus would do—and it was not going at all the way he expected. We may not be able to identify with John in prison, but we can all identify with this: We have all suffered disappointment when our expectations didn’t come to reality.

Perhaps you’ve had a crisis of faith — maybe when your expectations weren’t met — a friend or child died, people let you down, a good friend burned you in business, or prayers that weren’t answered how you wished.  When this happens, and you question your faith, you need to ask yourself what your faith is in.  Is your faith in Jesus, or is your faith in a picture of what you expect Jesus to be?  This is why Jesus was a scandal to the Pharisees.  They had a picture of what the Messiah would be: a warrior who would conquer Rome and restore the kingdom to Israel.  When he failed to meet their expectations, they were outraged and conspired to do away with him.  

The same is true of our understanding of Jesus. Many people follow Jesus, expecting him to solve all their problems and make their wildest dreams come true—and then when their dreams don’t come true, or the opposite happens, they are scandalized by Jesus and what he is doing.  How about you when your friend or family member passes away, your business fails, a significant illness strikes, or your home is destroyed?  Ask Job about it.  If your faith is in the god of your imagination and not the God of the Bible, it will fail.

Then John’s disciples leave, and Jesus speaks to the crowd:

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: 

Matthew 11:7-11   “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?   What, then, did you go out to see?  A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.   What, then, did you go out to see?  A prophet?  Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.   This is he of whom it is written,
“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.   

Jesus has nothing negative to say about John and affirms him as the messenger that would come before the Messiah.  But John will die in prison before Jesus completes his mission.  Those in the Kingdom are greater because they will be privileged to see Jesus bring the kingdom to its great beginning.

Matthew 11:12-14   From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 

John and Jesus are bringing the kingdom on in unexpected ways, and they have met a lot of opposition from the Bible scholars and teachers, the Pharisees, the temple Sadducees, and the government.  Herod has imprisoned and will kill John. And the religious leaders and the government will condemn Jesus.  But just because there is a lot of opposition, Jesus says, don’t think for a moment that God’s plan is being thwarted.

Matthew 11:13-15   For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear. 

The kingdom is here, but it doesn’t look like what John or anyone thought it would look like. He is the Elijah figure predicted (Malachi 4:5) to come before the Messiah. You have to be willing to accept it as it is, even though it is not at all like you expected.

Matthew 11:16-17  “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,
  “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’

So Jesus uses a village parable of kids in the marketplace.  They play a flute for people to celebrate and dance, but no one dances.  They sing a funeral song, but the mourners (usually paid professionals) would not mourn.  Like the villagers who do not respond as expected, Jesus and John don’t act as expected.

Matthew 11:18-19   For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 

Jesus says, “You wouldn’t like it no matter what we did because we don’t fit into your mold.”

Matthew 11:19 “Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Here, Jesus is borrowing from proverbs, personifying wisdom.   You will see that this is right when you see it happen.  Jesus realizes he will never convince them with words.  Or, to say it another way, words do not prove wisdom — it’s not what you say will happen that matters; it’s what actually happens.

We know what is going to happen very soon.  John is going to be beheaded, and Jesus is going to face even more opposition, be put up on false charges, and put up on a Roman cross where he suffers and dies.   They both die.  And Jesus’ opponents will see that as a sign of their failure.  Many people in the 200 years before Jesus claimed to be the Messiah.  And the Jewish leaders would mostly just sit back and watch them until they died, and then they would say, “Well, you see, they are dead, so they weren’t the Messiah.”

But Jesus was different.  Because he didn’t play the expected role of the Messiah, he “did it all wrong.”  So they said from the beginning he wasn’t the Messiah.  And when he died (which they hurried up to get rid of the troublemaker), then they could say beyond doubt, “See, we were right; he wasn’t the Messiah.”

But Jesus was different because he didn’t stay dead.  Their expectation of the Messiah was to defeat the great enemy— the one that had been a thorn in their side and persecuted them for years –  and that great enemy was the Roman Government and soldiers and any sympathizers.

But Jesus was different.  He saw the great enemy — the one that had been a thorn in their side and persecuted them for years –  and that great enemy was evil —sin and the penalty of sin —death.

Jesus did not come to meet everyone’s expectations or solve everybody’s problems, but to be God’s gift of love to us, to be the solution to the problem of the barrier between God and man.  So don’t choose to follow Jesus if you expect him to solve all of your problems and cure all of your diseases.  It didn’t work that way for John the Baptist, and it didn’t work that way for Jesus.  Choose to follow Jesus because he loved you enough to suffer and die for you.  Choose to follow Jesus because following Him is the only way to defeat evil, sin, and death and be reunited with your creator. 

July 26, 27 A.D.  Jesus Calls Matthew #42

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,

Week 23 ———  Jesus Calls Matthew
Matthew 9:9b-14 — Mark 2:14-22 — Luke 5:27-39

Matt. 9:9   As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.   And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”   But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus is passing by the edge of the town of Capernaum (likely the eastern border because the tax collector booth would be near the border of Herod Antipas’ territory, where the Jordan River enters the Sea of Galilee.) He would be there to collect customs duties on items brought into the territory and taxes on the town members. Verse 10 mentions “many tax collectors” at the banquet, so Matthew’s was one of many in Capernaum.  

“Tax collectors and sinners” is a common phrase in the Bible, revealing how the Jewish community regarded this profession.  Tax collectors seem to be universally held in poor regard, especially in this situation where they were seen as collaborators with an oppressive occupation government.  Added to that is the common knowledge that these tax collectors frequently became wealthy by overcharging people and keeping the overages.  The Pharisees would never consider calling a tax collector to be a disciple.  Jesus calling Matthew would have been quite a surprise to everyone, almost as surprising as Matthew’s decision to give up a wealthy position and become a disciple.  

We are not told how the disciples react to Matthew’s calling, though The Chosen series was not afraid to make a fictionalized response that I think is in keeping with the personalities involved as we know them.

So Matthew joins Jesus, and then Jesus has him throw a banquet at his home for all the other tax collectors.  (Jesus is not embarrassed to invite himself to anyone’s home (the Centurion in Matthew 8, or Zacchaeus in Luke 19. )  He certainly doesn’t escape the notice of the Pharisees who ask Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  

But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 

Jesus repeats what he said in the Beatitudes at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount.  The Beatitudes are descriptions of who will be part of Jesus’ kingdom.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” There are two Greek words for poor, ‘penes’ and ‘ptochos’.  ‘Penes’ describes the poor person who is surviving day-to-day.  They hope to make enough money today to pay for today’s food.  ‘Ptochos’ describes the completely destitute, homeless street beggars.  They are totally bankrupt.  They are dying.  They have nothing and have little hope of ever escaping their poverty.  They have had to learn how to beg, and because they are starving, they have developed a single-minded purpose in life: to find grace from someone or die.  Jesus uses the word ‘ptochos’ for the ‘poor in spirit,’ and he says the people who realize they are in this state spiritually (bankrupt) are the fortunate ones.  Because of them, the kingdom of God exists.  

There is a temptation to fight against this realization that we are all spiritually ‘ptochos.’  We attempt to cover our spiritual poverty with material wealth.  We build ornate church buildings to attend; we dress in our finest clothes; we magnify the parts of scripture that seem to pronounce judgment on others and ignore the words that might convict us.  We come and donate money, sing songs, and then return to our self-sufficient grand lifestyles, scared to admit that we are beggars.  Jesus sent a letter to a church like that.  You can read it in Revelation 3:14-22.  He says, “For you say I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. (Rev. 3:17)

Jesus has this same idea in mind in the story of the two men who went to pray:

Luke 18:10-14   “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.   The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’   But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’   I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

It is the man who knows the depth of his spiritual need who will be justified.

Also, there is the story that Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus (whom Jesus describes as ‘ptochos’). Unless we understand our need to come before God as beggars, we can not be ready to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Finally, in Matthew 21, Jesus tells the chief priest and elders a parable of two sons and then tells them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.”  

Pope Francis said it this way:  “There is a poverty that we must accept, that of our own being; and a poverty that we must seek instead, from the things of this world.”  But there is a quote I think summarizes Matthew 5:3 even better.  I found it on my daughter’s Instagram page as her bio quote. (We don’t know the original source.)  It takes a phrase Forbes magazine made popular: having a seat at the table, which means being a part of the decision-making process in business.  Her quote is, “I brought nothing to the table, and he gave me a seat.”   Only those who recognize their complete spiritual poverty can become part of the Kingdom of God.  So Jesus goes to those people who will understand: the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the poor, and the outcasts.  As a physician, I get it, Jesus; it is hard for those who wrongly feel they are healthy to understand the need for treatment.

Then Jesus says to them:

Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

“Go and learn” is a common rabbinic phrase used to persuade listeners to dig into a portion of scripture to learn its true meaning.  So, did you do that?  Did you go back to Hosea 6:6, research the context, and seek the text’s true meaning through the Holy Spirit, prayer, and fasting?  This is the way you read the Bible. (If you don’t know about the Bereans, read that section in #35.)

First, here is a little context on the book of Hosea.  I recommend that anytime you start studying a Bible book, watch the 5-7 minute corresponding video at bibleproject.com.  Dr. Tim Mackie and his team have developed excellent yet simple videos for each book of the Bible that give you the context, the organization, and the overall message of the book.  Here is the link for the video on Hosea:

If you can’t watch it now, I’ll summarize.  The book’s first part is about Hosea’s marriage to a woman named Gomer.  She is brazenly unfaithful in her marriage, sleeping around with multiple men.  God tells Hosea that despite her unfaithfulness, he is to remain faithful to his marriage vows, find her, pay off the debts to her lovers, and commit his love and faithfulness to her again.  Hosea’s story is then an object lesson.  God enters a covenant relationship with Israel at Sinai, like a marriage.  Israel is unfaithful, committing adultery with other gods.  God had every right to break off the covenant relationship, but he chose to pursue Israel and reestablish the covenant only because of his ‘chesed.’  Mackie says the central theme of Hosea is “Israel has rebelled, and God will bring severe consequences, but God’s covenantal love and mercy are more powerful than Israel’s sin.”

Jesus quotes from Hosea 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

“Steadfast love” is from the Hebrew ‘chesed.’ This word appears 249 times in the Old Testament and is translated variously as “love,” “kindness,”  “grace,” “loyalty,” “mercy,” “favor,” “lovingkindness,” and others.  Since your browser has already been on the Bible Project site, check out the video on Chesed: https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/loyal-love/.    

Chesed is one of the five characteristics God uses to describe himself to Moses. (We looked at this in Exodus 34:6 last time (#41).  Chesed combines unconditional loyal love, mercy, and kindness, all based on a covenant relationship.  Both parties in this covenant should show chesed to each other.  Hosea tells Israel in 6:6 that chesed is what God wants from his people.  Jesus feels the religious leaders of his day were very good at the mechanics of religion, sacrifices, tithing, etc., but failing at what God really desired – chesed.  

Then Hosea says God prefers the “knowledge of God” to burnt offerings. 

When I was in Egypt in 2016, we were staying in a hotel on an island in the middle of the Nile.  We had taken a boat south on the Nile that morning, stopping at various places. It had been a long, hot day; we had hiked 6 miles and were returning north on the Nile to our hotel.  We pulled the boat up to the dock, expecting to walk from the pier to the hotel for supper.  But we instead transferred to some sailboats.  We sailed a short way further north down the Nile, a very peaceful, restful trip with some Egyptian music playing and the sun beginning to set, with only the wind driving the boat.  We stopped on an empty beach on the banks of the Nile, and our teacher said, “We have been on the Nile or just beside it all day.  Do you feel like you know the Nile?”  He then went on to explain the Biblical concept of knowing something. 

The Hebrew root word for ‘know’ is ‘yada,’ which comes from the word for the palm of the  hand, ‘yad.’  Biblically, to know something is to hold it in your hand, experience it, and have a relationship with it.  (This is why the Bible says, “And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and they conceived and bore Cain.”)  So, our leader instructed us to drop our packs, remove our hiking boots, and get to know the Nile.  And we got to know the Nile up close; we swam and splashed around for a while. Yada is relational knowledge.  This is what God desires.  Not just an intellectual understanding of him, but a knowledge based on relationship and experience.  Again, going through the motions of religious practice, no matter how well you do it, is no substitute for an intimate, ongoing relationship with the Father.

Jesus said he came to call the sinners, not the righteous.  Only those who know they are sinners are capable of repentance.  If you feel you are righteous, then you do not need the righteousness of God.  So Jesus spends most of his time with sinners because he has something to offer them.  Who do you hang around with?  Do you seek out people who need help or prefer to spend your time with those who have no needs?

July 21, 27 A.D.  Jesus Heals a Paralytic that Drops By #41

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog ,

Week 23 ———  Jesus Heals a Paralytic that Drops By
Matthew 9:2-8,  Mark 2:1-12,  Luke 5:17-26

Mark 2:1-12   And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.  And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them.  And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.   And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.   And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts,   “Why does this man speak like that?  He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”   And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?   Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?   But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—   “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”   And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

“And when Jesus saw their faith”    

This is a concept we desperately need to understand.  Faith is something you can see.  We often talk about “faith” as if the word is simply a belief you have.  “What faith are you?”  Do you have faith?  Is your faith strong?  That is not the way Jesus talks about faith here.  This faith is not a belief or idea in your mind but an action you can see.  

These four friends went to a lot of trouble to get their paralytic friend to Jesus.  They tore a hole in the roof and dropped him in, knowing they would be responsible for repairing it.  They would not have gone through this trouble if there was any doubt in their mind that Jesus could heal their friend.  

Let’s look at this differently.  Say these friends had a ‘little bit of faith’ in Jesus.  They thought there was a possibility that Jesus could heal the man, but they weren’t quite sure.  I would imagine that they would have gone back home when they approached the home and saw it was impossible to go to the door.  So, this ‘little bit of faith’ would lead to inaction.  Is that really any faith at all?

In Matthew 17, there is a story about a boy possessed by a demon. The disciples are unable to help him. Jesus rebukes the demon, and the boy is healed. This has the disciples wondering.

Matthew 17:19-20   Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Here, “little faith” (Greek oligopistia) means having faith less than a mustard seed.  The black mustard plant in Israel grows all over in the wild.  I have seen it on the banks of the Jordan and the side of highways outside of Jerusalem.  This mustard seed is even smaller than your local grocery store’s 1 mm mustard seeds.  Jesus is saying that any faith less than that size is, in effect, no faith at all. “Faith,” in Matthew, means the confidence that God can and will act on his people’s behalf; without that, however much a person may “believe” intellectually, they are, for practical purposes, “faithless.”

R.T. France, in The New International Commentary on the New Testament, says it this way:

“Faith is not a measurable commodity, but a relationship, and what achieves results through prayer is not a superior “quantity” of faith but the unlimited power of God on which faith, any faith, can draw. The disciples, Jesus implies, had failed to bring any faith at all to bear on this situation.”1

“Fatih is a relationship,” France said.  You can think of it as trustworthiness.  Our faith in God is never blind.  It is the result of built-up trust over the years. In what is perhaps the most important verse in the Old Testament, Exodus 34:6, God describes himself to Moses with five character traits, the final one being faithfulness.  The Hebrew word there is ‘emet,’ a derivative of the commonly used transliterated word ‘amen,’ which means “that is true.”  

Throughout the Old Testament, we see God’s faithfulness in keeping his promises and being a reliable covenant partner. Trust builds in the relationship as one repeatedly shows himself to be true to his word. Our faith is not blind but is based on a long history of God always keeping His promises in the Bible and our relationship with Him, in which we likewise experience the reliability of His word and covenant with us.  Your trust in God, your faith, grows with every day you experience God’s reliability in keeping promises to you.  

So the paralytic and his four friends know that Jesus can heal.  They probably heard of his healing others and likely witnessed some healings.  Perhaps one of the friends was healed himself.  Regardless, their faith was not blind but was based on experience.  When they picked up the bed on which their paralyzed friend lay, they were making their faith visible.  Jesus saw their faith not just of the one who would be healed but of all of them.  This is not the only time in the Bible that the faith of an outside party led to the healing of another.  It was the Centurion’s faith that healed his servant in Matthew 8:10-13.  It was the faith of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 that healed her daughter oppressed by a demon.  This is why we lift up others in prayer.  We come before the Father, trusting in His promises to be a loving, merciful God who wants to work all things for good.  Our faith in God can lead to the healing of others.

Is your faith visible?  Can Jesus see your faith?  

James 2:14-20   “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?   So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.   You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!   Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?”

Don’t misread James.  James is not a proponent of “works-based righteousness.”   Martin Luther was not a big fan of the book of James because, for a while, at least, he felt it contradicted Paul’s idea of justification by faith alone.  He called James an “epistle of straw” [from his preface to the New Testament.)  He considered it a ‘lesser book’ because it “has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.”2 

This tension of grace and works is something we have invented — it wasn’t a problem for Paul.  Paul states in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  But in the very next verse (10), he says what the result of salvation is: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  Paul had no trouble seeing that God’s saving us leads to us doing the good works that he created us to do.  Works are not the cause of our salvation, but they are a natural result of our salvation.  Our faith has to be visible.  It is manifest in our works.

We will continue this conversation of faith, “little faith,” and doubt as we move through Jesus’ ministry. But I want to briefly discuss Jesus’ statement to the paralytic that his sins were forgiven and the scribes’ response to this statement.

Jesus surprises everyone by saying, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  To this point, Jesus has not demonstrated that forgiving sins are a requirement for healing.  Certainly, in the day’s culture, many believed that all illnesses resulted from sin. (Jesus will specifically contradict that idea later.)  Faith, not forgiveness, seems to be the prerequisite for healing elsewhere.  Here, the pronouncement of forgiveness is related to the healing of illness only because the proof of Jesus’ authority to forgive is the healing of the paralysis.  

“Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts,   “Why does this man speak like that?  He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Jesus “perceived their thoughts.”  The Greek word for ‘perceived’ carries the idea of seeing or witnessing. Jesus ‘saw what they were thinking.’  This doesn’t mandate the use of Jesus’ supernatural power to know people’s thoughts, though the Gospel writers are not hesitant to show that Jesus has this power (Matthew 12:25 and 22:18, for example). We all have experienced occasions where it is easy to discern what others are thinking by their expressions or body language.  (Perhaps, like me, you have a friend whose facial expressions are always in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!)

They think Jesus is committing blasphemy because he has just claimed to have the power only God has – to forgive sin.  Then Jesus responds “ “Why do you question these things in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?”  Notice that Jesus didn’t ask them what was easier to do, but what was easier to say?  Clearly, forgiving sins is the more difficult task. Many Old Testament prophets were able to heal, but none forgave sins.  We have the ability (and requirement) to forgive others when they wrong us, but I like how Chad Bird says it:  

“Sometimes we treat forgiveness like it is our property… we’re going to decide to whom we can give it because it is ours to give.  But in Christianity, forgiveness is never your property…forgiveness always belongs to Jesus…When we forgive someone else, really, what’s happening is that the stream of forgiveness, which flows from the heart of God our Father through Jesus Christ, passes through us and into the heart of someone else.  We just don’t dam it up. We don’t stop it.  It is not our property.”3

But Jesus said, “Which is easier to say…”.  Anyone can say, “Your sins are forgiven,” because a claim to forgive is not easily tested, but a claim to cure paralysis is easily observed immediately as true or false.  So, Jesus uses his healing power to prove his ability to forgive.  And the scribes think, “But only God can do that,” to which the story proclaims, “Exactly.”

Before we conclude, remember that I often ask you to put yourself into the story.  Especially the very familiar stories in the Gospel.  See these stories through the eyes of all those involved.  So, just for a moment, put yourself in the place of the paralyzed man.  Consider how this has affected your life in the days of Jesus, when medical care was primitive by our standards. You have no wheelchair (much less motorized).  If not for friends, you are immobile and unable to care for yourself.  There are no social programs to support you.  You have to depend on friends for food and shelter, or you have to beg.  Then, one day, you have hope.  This prophet is in your area.  He is healing many diseases.  You have heard about it.  You know he can heal you if you can only get close.  Some friends are kind enough to carry you there.  But the crowd is so thick you can’t get anywhere near Jesus.  Disappointment.  Then, one of your friends has the crazy idea of dropping you down through a hole they cut in the roof.  It sounds ridiculous, but this is your only chance, so you agree.  Carrying you up the ladder to get to the roof was sketchy, and now your friends demolished this person’s home.  They tie ropes to your bedding and lower you down in front of Jesus.  How will he react?  Will he admonish you for destroying property?  Will he have mercy and heal you?  Then he says, “Take heart, my son. Your sins are forgiven.”  

How do you respond to Jesus’ statement?  You didn’t come here for forgiveness; you came for healing.  What good is forgiveness if you can’t walk?  Can’t Jesus just heal?  Consider the moment while Jesus has the interchange with the scribes.  Why didn’t Jesus heal me?  “Didn’t you see what horrible shape I am in, Jesus?”

Indeed, Jesus saw.  Jesus saw that this man’s greatest need was not for legs to be made new but for a life to be made new.   His primary need was not for his legs to be strengthened but for his heart to be strengthened.  “Take heart, my son,” Jesus said.  What you need most is to know your heart has found peace with God, to know that I have called you son. 

After that brief pause, Jesus heals this man’s paralysis and proves his authority to heal and forgive. But we will not all find healing so quickly. Some of us will not be healed until Jesus comes again. But we can all find that peace with God if we desire it.  All who seek healing will not be healed in this life, but the gift of salvation is free to all.  

Finally, we have to compare ourselves to the four friends. They would stop at nothing to bring their friend who needed healing to Jesus. They were willing to demolish a roof. What are we willing to do in order to bring our friends to Jesus. Do we bring our sick or troubled friends before God’s throne in prayer with this kind of fervor? Are we willing to go out on a limb or put ourselves at risk to make sure our friends find Jesus. God forgive us for taking our access to you for granted.

  1. France, R. T.  The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdsman. (2007).
  2. Luther, Martin.  Word and Sacrament Volume 1.  page 362.
  3. Bird, Chad.  From a TikTok video: https://www.tiktok.com/@chadbird1517/video/7197510765635669294]  

July 15, 27 A.D.  Jesus Cleanses a Leper #40

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , , , ,

Week 22 ———  Jesus Cleanses Someone You Thought Had Leprosy
Matthew 8:1-4,  Mark 1:40-45,  Luke 5:12-15

This entry is the text of a sermon I gave this past week at the first meeting of an annual Camp Meeting we have attended for many years. (It is my favorite ten days of the year.)  It will read a little differently than my usual blog (including an invitation.)  

Jesus just finished the sermon on the Mount on this day, 1997 years ago. What does he do next?

In the sermon, he describes just who will be the initial people of his kingdom—and they are the people no one would expect. He explains God’s heart behind the Old Testament law, teaches them to pray, and tells them how to be members of God’s kingdom and how to act in God’s kingdom. 

Now, he will demonstrate what he just taught them because actions speak louder than words.   Actions teach better than words. Sunday school teachers, are you listening? Small group leaders, did you hear that?   Pastors?   You can give a well-crafted lesson or sermon, but people will learn more from watching how you live your life than they will ever learn from what you say.  Sometimes, we who preach spend too much time talking and not enough time letting people see how we live it out.  If we aren’t demonstrating what we are saying, then why would anyone listen?  Matthew reports what Jesus taught in chapters 5-7. The following two chapters will be about how Jesus lives it out — demonstrating his teaching by action.

So, let’s join the crowd following Jesus down the mountain.  His first encounter after the sermon is an important one, where Jesus will first put his words into practice.  So walk down the mountain with me, and let’s see who Jesus first meets after he preaches these messages:

Matthew 8:1-4
When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”

Okay, Jesus heals a leper. It’s a great story. I’ve heard it a hundred times. Let’s sing a song and eat some ice cream. Not so fast, my friends. I want to give you some context. I want you to see this story like Andrew, Simon, and the crowds saw it.

First, I must put my doctor’s hat on for just a minute.  Matthew tells us a man with leprosy comes to Jesus.  Well, that is not exactly what Matthew said.  You can read much about leprosy in the Old Testament — except it is not leprosy.  When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek about 250-200 BC (the Septuagint or LXX), the Hebrew word ‘Tsa’arat’ was translated as ‘lepra.’   That was a good word choice because ‘lepra’ was the Greek word Hippocrates used to describe a variety of relatively minor skin disorders (eczema, psoriasis, vitiligo, scurvy), all of which involved flaking skin or whitening of the skin. Now, fast forward to 383 AD, and Jerome, a Bible scholar, is translating the Bible into Latin. He translated the Greek word ‘lepra’ into ‘leprosy,’ the Latin word for a very different disease.  It was an honest mistake.  ‘lepra’ and ‘leprosy’ sound similar. 

But Tsa’arat or lepra has nothing to do with what we call leprosy or Hansen’s Disease today.   Hansen’s disease did not exist in the Middle East until over 1000 years after the time of Leviticus and Moses.  Tsa’arat in the Bible is described as white, flaky skin, occasionally with white hair within it.  Modern leprosy lesions are always dark, never white.  Tsa’arat in the Bible can affect buildings and clothing.  Hansen’s Disease is caused by a bacteria.  It cannot affect inanimate objects.  They are entirely different diseases.

So, Jerome’s simple mistake in 383 AD led to a tremendous misidentification. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate became the primary Bible for over 1,000 years and is still used today in the Catholic Church. This incorrect translation persists today, even in modern biblical translations done in the past ten years.  Even though we know better now, they still keep the mistranslation going.  Tradition wins over correctness again.

So, the man Jesus encounters in Matthew 8 coming down from the mountain does not have the contagious, disfiguring disease we know today as leprosy. He had tsa’arat, or lepra, a skin disease with white, flaky skin that was not contagious.  Yes, the skin lesions were not contagious.   You could not catch it from touching someone.2

Why, then, do we have all these Bible stories of people with tsa’arat having to live outside the camps if it is not contagious?  Why were they avoided as if they had the plague?  Why couldn’t they go into the Temple?  Why is it such a big deal for Jesus to touch this man in Matthew 8?

Because it is not about a contagious medical problem; it is all about ritual purity.   Now, bear with me a bit here because ritual purity is something we poorly understand. If you want to understand anything in the Bible, you have to go back to the beginning. 

God designed a world where he could dwell with us.  The Garden was made for man to dwell with God.  But man chose to sin, and the earth became a place of sin and death — no longer a place where man could dwell with God.  So, the Garden was shut down.  The rest of the Bible after Genesis 3 is the story of God’s plan to return the world to a place where he could dwell with mankind.  God chose one man, Abraham, to build a nation that would be a nation of priests to teach all the other nations about God.  They end up as enslaved people in Egypt.  God rescues them and leads them to a mountain. (I’ll bet you saw that movie.)  There, God enters into a covenant with them.  He wants to restore that Eden relationship with man.  So God tells Moses on Mount Sinai, “Build me a tabernacle that I may dwell…in it”…. No! Not that God may dwell ‘in it’… but God says, “Build me a tabernacle that I may dwell with you.” (Exodus 25:8). God wants to dwell with man.

But there must be some rules if God is going to dwell with man. To see those rules, we go back to your favorite book of the Bible, Leviticus:

Leviticus 11:44-45   For I am Yehovah your God. Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not make yourselves unclean with any defiling things.  For I am Yehovah who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

The key word in this passage: ‘holy.’   And in this passage, we see that the opposite of holy is ‘unclean.’  God is holy and will place himself in the middle of Israel, so they must be holy, too.  We think of holiness more in terms of morality, and that is a part of it.  But ‘holiness’ carries more of an idea of being unique, set apart, and pure.

There are two types of impurity in the Bible, and if you don’t understand this, then you will misunderstand a lot of what Jesus says because he talks about impurity a lot.  There is moral impurity and ritual impurity.

Moral impurity is the result of sin. If you never sin, you are morally pure; if you sin, you become morally impure. We understand this. Moral impurity is not contagious. The person sitting beside you can’t spread their sin to you by touching you.  Moral impurity is cured by punishment or atonement. The wages of sin is death.  

Ritual impurity is very different.  First of all, ritual impurity is not sinful.  You don’t become ritually impure by sinning, and it is not sinful to be ritually impure.  Ritual impurity is unavoidable.  Everyone who lives life will become ritually unclean.

Numbers 5:1  Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead.” 

You can become ritually impure by touching a dead body, touching bodily fluids, and tsa’arat.  All these things represent corruption or death.1  And death is foreign to God.  He created a world without death.  Death was not to be a part of the world he made.  Death is not part of who God is.  So you don’t bring death or the forces of death into God’s presence. To enter the temple in an impure state was a sin.  Again, it is not sinful to be ritually impure unless you go in that state into the temple.   And unlike moral impurity, ritual impurity is spread by contact.  If you touch the fluids, if you touch a corpse, if you touch someone with tsa’arat, then you become ritually impure.  

  The cure for ritual impurity was simple:  washing with water and a time of waiting.  However, everyday activities in life would routinely cause people to become ritually impure again.  So they set up these pools to immerse themselves (mikveh) all around the temple, so everyone would ritually wash before entering the temple, in case they had become ritually impure.  Unless you had tsa’arat, the skin disease.  You couldn’t be clean as long as you had the skin lesions.  So, people with tsa’arat could never enter the temple.  They could never go in and sing the psalms of praise.  They couldn’t make an offering to atone for their sin.  They were banned from God’s presence.  And no one would touch them.

Now, that all sounds a little weird to us.  But you need to realize that every time you open your Bible to read, you are traveling to a foreign country with a different culture.  Now if I travel to Boston and make fun of them and call them ignorant because they don’t have sweet iced tea or grits, and they talk funny, then you call me a dumb intolerant hick from Alabama.  Just because a culture is different doesn’t mean it’s wrong.  Every culture has standards of purity and defilement.   The Hindu will not touch people of lower caste.  Certain sicknesses are taboo to touch in many societies.  Come on, it hasn’t been that long since COVID-19.  “Keep 6 feet away from people.”  “Wear masks.” “Don’t breathe their air.  “Don’t touch them.”  I half expected to see people out in public ringing a bell, “Unclean, Unclean!”   We became very good at fearing medical impurity.  (If only we feared moral impurity with such commitment.)

I have seen people afraid to touch some of our homeless people. I understand. Several times, I picked up homeless hitchhikers, and about 30 seconds later, I realized that I was going to be reminded of their journey with me every time I got in my truck for the next several months. Some odors really linger. 

You may think you have trouble grasping the concept of a holy set aside place where you must be clean to enter.   But there is a unique set-aside place in my hospital.  We call it the operating room.  And it is a place to promote life.  It is a place where the forces of death are defeated, and life is brought into the world.  But not just anyone can go walking in there. There are barriers.  You have to wear special clothes (scrubs), special head coverings, masks, and gloves, and everyone must wash away all uncleanness thoroughly before entering.  It is a unique set-aside place.  Maybe it is not so strange a concept.

When the Israelites were taken captive in Babylon for 70 years and the temple was destroyed, there became much more focus on ritual impurity over moral impurity.  After all, they couldn’t deal with any moral impurity (sin) because there was no temple at which to sacrifice.  But they could still concentrate on the ritual impurity because there was water to cleanse in Babylon.  When they returned and rebuilt the temple, then sin sacrifices could resume, but the focus on ritual impurity remained through the days of Jesus.  But the biggest deal for God was always moral impurity.  It was sin that caused death and the separation of men from God.  

So God wants to dwell among Israel in the Tabernacle.  But there were barriers— fabric walls around the tabernacle with only one opening.  You had to be ritually pure to enter.  Then, there was a holy place where only the priest could go after they washed in the bronze basin.  A barrier of thick curtain, a veil, separated the holy place from the most sacred place that contained the ‘mercy seat’ for the presence of God.  

The religious leaders liked these barriers.  They liked them so much that they created more when they built the temple.  They constructed a five-foot-high wall to keep Gentiles from coming too close to the temple, under threat of death.  (One of the signs listing the threat of death to Gentiles that entered was recently found by archeologists.)   Women could go a little further, but not where the men could go, not where the ‘real worship business,’ the sacrifices were made.  Men can go where the offerings were made, but only priests can go further, and then, as in the Tabernacle, only the high priest can enter the holiest place through the veil.   

There were barriers.  (By the way, ladies, that whole ‘court of women’ thing was not God’s idea.  God never prescribes it in the Bible. It is the creation of man. (So don’t blame God for that.)

Enter Jesus.  Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus breaking down barriers of anything that separated people from God.  Jesus goes charging down the mountain after the sermon on the mount, and the first person he runs into has a skin disease; he is unclean.  He has not been able to go to the temple for a long time, and unless his skin disease is cured, he never will again.  He is an outcast by the religious leaders. He is outcast by the people, but he is not outcast by Jesus.   What does he say to Jesus, “If you are able, you can make me clean.”  No, that is not what he says.  He says, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”  See, this man has no doubt that Jesus has the power to make him clean.  He is just not sure Jesus is willing to do it.  His past experience with holy men was that they walked a wide berth around him.  They give him the Covid 6 feet.  They don’t give him the time of day.  They ignore him.   If robbers beat him up and he was lying half-dead on the side of the road to Jericho and these holy men came by, they would just leave him there on the side of the road because they didn’t want to become ritually impure.  (That would make a good story.)

I see this in some of our neighbors without homes today—they know the church can help them; they know the church is able to help them, but they have had some past experiences with church people who ignored them and were afraid to touch them.  They are not sure if the church is willing to help them, so they stay away.  They are like the man in Matthew 8 who is wondering, ‘Does Jesus care about me? ‘Is he willing to cleanse me?’

Let me make this easy for you. Jesus is always willing to help you. I don’t care how unclean you think you are or how much sin you have committed.  Jesus is always willing.

He runs down that mountain. He can’t wait until he finds a man with tsa’arat so he can show the people the power of the Gospel.  Jesus is not afraid of this man.  And Jesus doesn’t stop there.  The next thing he does is offer to go to a Gentile Roman soldier’s house to heal his servant.  The crowd gasps.  ‘Go to a Gentile’s house?  No way, Jesus, they are so unclean!’  And then, in the next chapter of Matthew, Jesus is on his way to a dead girl’s room — What?  That is the worst form of uncleanness!   But on his way, the woman with the issue of blood touches the tassel on his garment. 

Do you see what Matthew is doing here?  He has shown Jesus face down all the causes of uncleanness known in the two chapters following the sermon on the mount.  Jesus is breaking down all the barriers that keep people from God.  He is not just talking about it; he is doing it.  

Now, don’t get from this that Jesus is throwing away the purity laws.  Jesus doesn’t think the laws from Leviticus were wrong or bad.   He wrote the laws; he gave Moses the purity laws. He tells the man who is unclean from skin disease to obey the law of Moses and show himself to the priest. This is important: Jesus doesn’t do away with the laws of impurity; he does away with impurity itself.  

When Jesus reaches out and touches the man with the skin disease, you can almost hear the crowd gasp.  Because they thought the man’s uncleanness would make Jesus unclean.  But it didn’t.  Because when Jesus touched the man, his skin disease was gone.  Jesus didn’t touch a man with tsa’arat.  He touched a man who had been cleansed of tsa’arat.  Jesus didn’t get contaminated by the woman with the issue of blood.  Because that is not who grabbed his tassel; it was a woman who had been healed, a woman who used to have a problem that Jesus took care of.  Jesus didn’t touch a corpse; he touched a girl who was dead but was now alive. Every time Jesus encounters a corpse, it comes to life.  Jesus was not afraid of ritual impurity because he took away the cause of the impurity.  

And we need not fear ritual impurity today; that same power of Jesus, the same power that took away uncleanness, the same power that raised Jesus from the grave, lives in us.  Jesus overcomes all uncleanness.  And this should not have surprised anyone. The prophets had predicted a time when all uncleanness would be dealt with: 

Ezekiel 36:25-29    I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from fall your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. (moral and ritual impurity)  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. .. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. 

It is the same way with moral impurity.   Jesus is not scared of sin.  You may have heard before, “God can not stand sin in his presence.”  That is not Biblical.  You may have heard that God turned his back on Jesus when Jesus took on our sins on the cross.  Jesus shouted, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”   Jesus wasn’t saying God forsook him.  He was quoting Psalm 22.  (Remember, they didn’t have chapter numbers in Jesus’ day.  He couldn’t say, “Hey, remember Psalm 22.”  So their method of pointing someone to a particular passage of the Bible was to quote the first line.)  Look it up.  Psalm 22 is the story of the crucifixion.  The Psalm says, “For God has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted one and he has not hidden his face from him, [he has not turned his back on him.] but had heard when he cried to him.”  The Psalm tells us Jesus was not forsaken but would be vindicated, and all the nations will come and praise the Lord because God has done this great thing.  The Psalm ends with this one Hebrew word, ‘Asah,’ which can be translated: ‘He has done this,’ or as Jesus said, “It has been done (finished).”

How can you say God cannot stand sin in his presence?  God put his Tabernacle right in the middle of the children of Israel.  Do you think they were without sin?   God looked at this sinful, lost world.  He didn’t stay away from this world of sin; he chose to enter it himself as a baby.  Jesus is not scared of sin.  He runs down the mountain, looking for the worst sinners he can find to build his kingdom.  He is walking through Jericho and finds the most wicked cheating businessman he can.  He invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ house.  The crowd grumbles, but Zacchaeus repents of cheating people and vows to repay them plus more.  And then Jesus says, “The son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  Jesus came seeking out sin.  Jesus doesn’t avoid sinners because he conquers sin.  Jesus doesn’t avoid touching corpses because he conquers death.  

Do you sometimes feel distant from God?  Do you feel like some sin you have committed makes God want to be distanced from you?  What is it that separates us from God?  Sin?  God says no, I have that covered.  What keeps God out of my life is not my sin.  What keeps God out of my life is I don’t make space for him.  If we make space for God, he will fill it.  God told the Israelites, “Build me a tabernacle that I may dwell with you.”  If they don’t build a space for God, then he can’t dwell with them.  If you don’t make room for Jesus in your heart, he can’t dwell with you.  If you don’t make room for God in your life, then he cannot be a part of your life. From the beginning of time, God’s desire was to live with his children and walk with them as he did in the Garden.  

Jesus came to break down those barriers.  On the cross, he broke the last one, the biggest one.  When he died, that last barrier, that thick veil in the temple that separated all people from the place reserved for God the holy of holy place, That veil tore in two top to bottom, letting you know that the barriers are all down. 

 Being a Gentile will not keep you from God, being unclean will not keep you from God, and being a woman will not keep you further away than men.  The veil is torn.  God has left the building.  His presence will not be contained in a small room that only the high priest can enter.   Sin will not keep you from God. Death will not keep you from God. God will live with you, within you, if only you will make a place.

Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount over several days. The sermon begins with Jesus teaching his disciples, but as he teaches, the crowds gather.  People gather from all over, coming together to hear messages from God.   And here we are today, 1997 years later, gathered from all over.  We will listen to messages from God this week.  When this week is over, we will leave here.  This week comes and goes — as the sermon on the mount did almost 2000 years ago last week.

We can leave this place in 10 days, as some left the sermon on the mount.  Some left saying, “I like that line about the ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”   “And that prayer he taught was nice.  Short and sweet.  Yeah, Jesus did a good job; let’s invite him back and do this again next year.” You can leave this meeting like that, saying it was a good meeting with some good sermons.  It was hot as Hades, but the music was good.  You can leave here feeling good but not be changed.  Or you can be like that crowd after the sermon on the mount who decided they needed more Jesus; like them, you can follow Jesus down the mountain to see what he will do next.  When we leave here in 10 days, and you are traveling down from this mountaintop experience, I will pray that God puts somebody right in front of you that the world thinks is unclean.  I’m praying that God stops you in your tracks so you have an opportunity to live out your faith.

For so many years, I think we have left this place and left blessings on the table. There is so much God wants to give us, but we come and listen and go. You can leave this meeting in 10 days just exactly as you came, or you can leave with a renewed spirit, a renewed energy to live as Jesus wants you to live, a renewed knowledge of scripture, a renewed heart for people, and a renewed dedication to do life differently. Jesus would call it doing life abundantly.

Right now you can decide how you will leave in 10 days.  You can make the most out of this time with Jesus or let it pass by.  We are going to sing, and our altar is open.  Maybe you have never made space in your life for Jesus.  Perhaps today is the day you open your heart to the one who can cleanse you.  Maybe you just want to come and say to God and everyone that you want to dedicate this time to God as a time for you to grow as a disciple.  Whatever God has laid on your heart, you are welcome. 

Jesus is always willing, are you?

  1.   Why these three things?  They all represent corruption or death.  Touching a corpse is self-explanatory, but bodily fluids?  These are particular bodily fluids that are a part of the formation of life (semen, menstrual flow, etc.)  Tim Mackie of the Bible Project explained it as well as I have heard, and I paraphrase:  ‘If you and another person both spit on the ground, then new humans don’t spring up there.  So saliva is not a special fluid and will not make you unclean.  But bodily fluids that are involved in the production of life are included.  Life is sacred, and there is something unclean with encountering these fluids outside the place where they are involved in creating life.’  Tsa’arat represents a corruption of normal skin and is included for that reason.  I don’t expect you to understand exactly how that works, for this concept was formed in a completely different culture, and we will likely never understand.  (And that is okay.  I also don’t know why a “thumbs up” sign is seen as a positive response in the US but interpreted differently in parts of Africa.)
  2. One of the diseases Hippocrates included in his ‘lepra’ category of skin diseases that whitened skin was fungal diseases.  Some of these can occasionally spread from person to person, but never by incidental contact, only by prolonged, close contact.

July 9, 27 A.D.  A Miraculous Catch of Fish #39

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , ,

Week 21 ———  A Miraculous Catch of Fish
Luke 5:1-11

Luke 5:1-11   On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret1, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.  Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word, I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.  They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.  But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Because we don’t read the gospels chronologically, we often miss that this particular miracle of the massive catch of fish happened twice.  And it was no accident that the setting of these two miracles was the same.  In the story we read just now, Jesus asked the four fishermen who had been with him on and off for several months to go all in.  He asked them to leave their boats and become full-time disciples.  The other occasion for this miracle is in John 21.  Jesus has been resurrected, and he is to meet them in Galilee.

John 21:1-12   After this, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias2, and he revealed himself in this way.   Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.   Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night, they caught nothing.

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.”   He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish.   That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.   Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”   So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn.   Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”

So, the disciples have seen Jesus several times since his resurrection.  He told them to go to the Galilee to meet him.  They are waiting around, and Peter decides it is time to go fishing.  I have heard people say Peter is returning to his old business.  He was a disciple, but now that has changed.  He saw himself as a colossal failure as a disciple.  The worst thing a disciple could do is betray their rabbi.  And he did three times. It is not a stretch to think Peter is returning to being a fisherman.  Or maybe he is just fishing while he is waiting on Jesus.  But like our other story in Luke, they catch nothing all night.  Then Jesus showed up, and there was a miraculous catch of fish.  By the way, isn’t it a coincidence that these professional fishermen had a bad night in both stories?  Not a single fish.  Who do you think kept their nets empty all night so He could miraculously fill it the next day?  Maybe there is a lesson for us there.  The next time you find yourself having an incredibly unproductive day, it might be Jesus prepping you for a miracle.  But you know what happens next.  Jesus forgives Peter and has him recommit to do the work of a disciple, or now an apostle. 

So you have these two stories of miraculous catches of fish, and both are followed by Jesus’ call to these men to be fishers of men.  The next time one of you catches a whole lot of fish, you had better listen up.  God may be calling.

But what I want to talk about is the miracle.  God is at work in so many ways: the birth of a baby, the wondrous workings of our complex bodies, and the incredible immense universe we live in.  But some things happen constantly, so we often begin to think of them as ordinary.   Do not forget that God is at work in all of it. There is nothing ordinary about the birth of a baby.  Every baby is a gift straight from God.  We shouldn’t take these everyday works of God for granted.

But God acts in extraordinary ways also.  The Bible calls these “signs and wonders”.  They are signs in that they point to something.  When you read about a sign or miracle in the Bible, you should always ask what the sign is meant to highlight or reveal.   What is the message of the miraculous catches of fish on these two occasions?  Both times, Jesus is inviting Peter and the disciples to join the work of fishing for men.  The catch of fish lets them know that he will be the power behind their efforts.  On their own, without him, they can’t even be successful as fishers of fish. What they will accomplish in their ministry will not be due to their abilities. It is God who will provide the catch.  And with these miracles, they can never forget this lesson— boy, does Jesus know how to teach a point!

You can read the Bible and get the idea that God “used to do miracles all the time.”  But the miracles in the Bible are primarily centered around certain people or times (Moses and the Exodus, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Jesus and his apostles.)  There are hundreds of years between times of miracles.  These disciples of Jesus saw a lot of miracles.  But what of the hundreds of thousands of other people living in the world in Jesus’ day?   In perhaps the largest-viewed miracle, over 5 thousand were fed with five loaves and two fish.  But there were (according to the Museum of Natural History) 170 million people living in Jesus’ day.  That’s only 0.006% of people who saw a miracle.   Only a tiny percentage of people living in the days of Jesus saw a miracle.   Why?  They weren’t where Jesus was.  They weren’t following Jesus.  You see, the closer you follow Jesus, the more miracles you will see.  Want to see more miracles?  Follow Jesus closely.

I want to be careful about not calling everything a miracle (A parking spot opened right in front of the store for me. “It’s a miracle.”)   I also want to be careful not to dismiss miracles, seeking to explain everything away as a scientific occurrence or as coincidence, for I know miracles still happen.  I find no evidence in scripture that God drew a line in time and stopped doing what he had always done.  Instead, I see more and more miracles after Jesus comes, all through the New Testament.  And I have seen signs and wonders more than a few times with my own eyes.  I’ll tell you a few of my stories today.

My wife was on a committee with some ministers in our county to see if there was a homeless problem that we could help with.    Some people told us there were no homeless people in Marshall County.  They didn’t see them on the streets with signs.  So they did some research and found there was indeed a large number of homeless, including many children in our schools who did not have homes.  So, about ten people met around a table one night and decided we had to do something about it.  We were about six weeks away from cold weather hitting, and we felt we needed some plan to help those without homes before the cold weather arrived.  But how could these few make the need known, raise money, and assemble a program to house the homeless in 6 weeks?  Someone said it would take a miracle to do that.  But we had prayed and asked God to break our hearts with the things that broke his heart.  So we jumped in.   6 weeks later, we organized ten churches, had a benefit that raised $30,000, and started housing people in an emergency cold weather shelter.  Was that a miracle, or just people responding quickly to a need?  You decide.  That ministry began with ten people and no money 12 years ago, and this year, we own two buildings that can house 40 people with over 30 acres of land (with no debt). It has served hundreds of people yearly and changed hundreds of lives.  Last year, it provided shelter and fed our neighbors without homes with the equivalent of over $750,000 in services.  Lives have been put back together, and people have come to Jesus.  God is doing a great thing.  Would you call this a miracle?  Or would you call it God just doing what God does through his people?  I’ll let you decide.

Let me tell you about a mission hospital in Ghana, Africa, where we have worked.  Our friends were big supporters of the ministry in the hospital.  Every year, they would gather supplies to support the missionaries.  They would spend months filling a large shipping container with donated bed linens, bandages, and other supplies.  They packed the container in February, and there was a little space left.  A local hospital had a baby incubator they were willing to donate so they went to pick it up.   When they arrived to pick up the incubator, there was a box of other old medical equipment.  The hospital said they were welcome to it.  It was all used and outdated, but they would throw it out if the mission couldn’t use it.  They had room in the truck, so they took it.  And there was enough room in the shipping container, so they threw the box in.   It takes months for a shipping container to be shipped from Cartersville, Georgia, to Nalerigu, Ghana.  Amazingly, it arrived in Ghana at the same time we did that summer.  So, our friends who had packed the container in February got to unload it in June.  The first thing off the container was that box of medical junk they threw on at the last minute.  They told my friend Tommy to carry the box to the supply room and that they would sort it out later.

Now, while my friends were unloading the shipping container, I had finished rounds in the Pediatric ward and was about to start seeing patients in the walk-in clinic.  I had just met an OB/GYN surgeon who had come in that week to work with the resident missionary doctors.  He was there to teach them a new procedure to help women who were having bladder problems after having difficult deliveries.  It was a common problem there where many women deliver babies outside the hospital.  They had 35 women set up to have that surgery that week while the visiting surgeon was there so he could give the missionary doctors good experience in the procedure while he helped refine their skills. He brought his equipment to do the procedures, including a special endoscope and planned to leave it with them when he returned home.  But his endoscope was damaged during the trip.  The light was broken, making it unusable.  They had searched for something they could use to replace it, but it was a specialized device.  Nothing else would work.  He was frustrated because now, they could not help those 35 women that week, and he would not be able to teach the procedure to the doctors there to help others.  He was walking back to help see patients in the clinic since they would have to cancel the surgeries. That is when he passed my friend Tommy in the hall carrying the box of junk.

He stopped Tommy.  “Hey, what’s in that box?” he asked.  “Just some medical junk,” Tommy replied.  He asked to take a look.  Guess what was in the top of the box.  The same brand of endoscope our surgeon had.  It’s not the same device he used, but one made by the same company.  Do you think there was any possibility the light would fit his broken device?  Of course, it did.  He could do the surgeries that had been arranged and train the local doctors to help countless more women.  Was that a miracle or a coincidence?  The very light device he needed just happened to be placed in a box of junk that would have been thrown away, but there just happened to be enough room in a shipping container that was packed in February, that just happened to arrive five months later at the same time as the surgeon whose device happened to get broken.  And they just happened to pass in the hall that day.  Was it a miracle, or was it God just doing God things?  It enabled the healing of many people and brought praise to Yehovah, so call it a sign, a wonder, or a miracle.  Every time I think about this story, I think about how good God is.

Look back at Peter’s reaction in our first story in Luke.

Luke 5:8-9  But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

   He reminds me of Isaiah, when he was in the temple and got a vision of God.  He falls down and exclaims, “Woe is me, for I am lost.  I am a man of unclean lips…”3  There is no other appropriate reaction when you see God move.   The ESV says they were “astonished.”   The NASB gives a more thorough translation of the Greek:  “For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.”   The Greek for ‘seized’ is  ‘periecho’ which means ‘wrapped up in’, ‘gripped by’, or ‘surrounded by’ amazement.  Seeing God act is overwhelming, and you are ‘wrapped up in emotion.’

Some other day, I will tell you other stories, of prayed-for rain that ended a drought, of a hole that opened in the sky to allow an evangelistic gathering to take place in Mexico, of a miracle spark plug in a cardboard box, and of an empty plastic pharmacy bin in Guatemala that kept supplying medicine for children for days of clinics.   And then there are the medical miracles I have seen.  Stage 4 cancer in a child that disappeared with no treatment (other than prayer), children born with large portions of their brain missing that should have died after birth, running down the hall years later shouting my name and giving me a hug.   I have not seen the dead raised to life.  Oh, I have seen people who flatlined their EKG come back.  But more impressively, I have seen the spiritually dead brought back to life.  I will never forget the night we left the house at 2 am to go pick up a young man who was determined to commit suicide.  He had a long road through returning to Jesus, defeating his drug addictions, working his way out of homelessness, and regaining custody of his young son.  Seeing him now, he is very successful in his job, happily married and raising his boy, owns his own home, is active in his church, and volunteers in the homeless ministry.  He is a picture of redemption and grace, God’s goodness.  Is that a miracle, or is it just what God does?

You will never see a miracle if you don’t throw out your net.  It made no sense for those disciples to fish when they had gone all night with nothing.  Galilean fishermen did not fish in the daytime.  They didn’t have the transparent plastic nets we have today.  They used linen nets.  They fished at night because, in the dark, the fish couldn’t see the nets.  In the daytime, they had no chance of catching fish.  Jesus asked them to do something impossible.  They could have thought Jesus was joking.  They could have said, “Jesus is a nice guy, but he’s no fisherman.”   But they said, “At your word, I will.”  What are you willing to try for Jesus?  Maybe you would be willing to try something easy.  Jesus might ask you to call a friend to encourage them.  Maybe you would be willing to do that.  Or perhaps He will ask you to do something harder.  Maybe he will ask you to talk to a stranger. Perhaps he will ask you to speak to a neighbor you’ve never met.  Maybe he will ask you to talk to a homeless person.  Maybe he will ask you to get them help.  Maybe he will ask you to bring them home to live in your house for a while.  (If this sounds wild to you, clearly, none of you have ever been married to my dear wife.  Yeah, it happened more than a few times.)   Maybe God will ask you to do something you think is pointless, difficult, or impossible.

Perhaps we don’t see miracles because we aren’t willing to throw out the net.  We live lives of relative calm.   Calm and peaceful lives.  That is what everybody wants, right?    Let me tell you one more story.  I love reading missionary biographies, and one reason is that you keep running into stories of miracles. This is one of my favorites. The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals.  Paton felt called to the South Sea Islands, where, in the 1800s, no one wanted to go. Today, these islands are highly sought-after vacation spots: Tahiti, Fiji, and Vanuatu.  But in John Paton’s day, the natives were all cannibals.  Talk about going into the deep waters.

He eventually established preaching outposts on several of the tiny islands there and other missionaries joined him there.  He tells of a time when he was seeking to replace the small sailing boat missionaries used to travel between the islands and distribute food and supplies.       

“The Missionaries on the spot had long felt this, and had loudly and earnestly pled for a new and larger Vessel, or a Vessel with Steam Auxiliary power, or some arrangement whereby the work of God on these Islands might be overtaken, without unnecessary exposure of life, and without the dreaded perils that accrue to a small sailing boat from deadly calms and from treacherous gales.”4

That phrase struck me – “deadly calms” and “treacherous gales.”   Now, I can certainly understand “treacherous gales,” but what about the “deadly calm”?  I’m not a sailor, so I didn’t realize what was deadly about the calm.  A sailboat, dependent on the wind for propulsion, becomes “dead in the water” when the wind is calm.  It falls victim to the mercy of the waves and may capsize, or you may be stuck in the middle of the ocean for days.  I think I need to learn to recognize the danger of the “deadly calm” in my life.  In my effort to control my schedule tightly, I may keep my life too calm.  Now, I am not talking about not being busy, for I am guilty of over-committing myself and leaving no empty space on the calendar. Instead, I am talking about only planning activities and projects that fall within my comfort zone.  I am only attempting things I know I can do.  When I read the Bible, I see that God continually calls people to leave their comfort zones and go places they have never been before —Abraham to “the land I will show you,” Israel to the promised land, or the disciples to Samaria.  God continually calls people to do things they have no experience with — Noah building an ark, Moses leading a people, or fishermen becoming preachers. God constantly calls people to do impossible or very unlikely things — conquering giants, fishing in the daytime, or walking on water.  If we choose to remain in our ‘calm’ lives, then we choose a life of disobedience, a life of missed opportunities, a life that is less than the abundant life Jesus promised each of us.

Jesus asked these fishermen to leave the shallow water and go out into the deep.  We won’t see miracles if we are fishing in the kiddie pool.  It is through experiencing God that our faith grows.  If we never put ourselves in situations where we must depend on Him, then we will never see His power come through.   I have most experienced this on medical mission trips to other countries. In my medical practice in Alabama, I am very careful only to see patients for whom I have the proper training and experience to help.  If someone would be better served seeing a surgeon or a psychiatrist, I refer them there.  I carefully control my schedule. That is good practice for a doctor.   But many times on these trips, I have found myself in situations where I had absolutely no control over the situation, as helpless as a boat with no oars. I have seen authorities confiscate all of our medicine at the border, leaving us without any means to treat the patients.   I have seen a large evangelistic event threatened to cancel in a storm.  I have faced medical situations that required my actions but were way beyond anything I had ever been trained to do.   But in these (and many other) situations, I saw God take charge and make things happen.  He miraculously provided; He swept back the clouds; He enabled me through His power.  Praise His name!  Through these experiences, my faith grew in leaps and bounds.   Where would my faith be if I had not left the ‘deadly calm’? 

God is still in the miracle business today — only if we allow him to be.  Jesus was rejected at Nazareth.  Mark tells us Jesus was shocked at their unbelief and relates a very sad scripture:  “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them” (Mark 6:5).    Jesus wanted to heal more and perform more miracles. But they were not interested because they had no faith in him.  We can be the limiting factor that keeps God from doing the good works He wants to do.

What about you?  I don’t know if you call these things that I’ve talked about miracles or not.  But I know God is still doing God things.  Things only God can do.  Do you want to see God do these kinds of things?

First, you must be a follower of Jesus.   You have to be with Jesus to see what Jesus does.  You have to have a relationship with God to have your eyes opened to see the wonders of the spiritual world.  Second, you must be willing to go where he asks you.   You must be willing to leave the shallow waters and go out into the deep, leaving the deadly calm of your neat, scheduled existence.  You must be willing to leave your comfort zone.  Finally, you must be willing to do what he asks you to do.  You must be willing to throw out the net.   It doesn’t matter if you’ve been throwing it all night with no results.  It doesn’t matter if it seems impossible.  Just be obedient.  If we only attempt to do things we can without divine help, then we don’t need God.  We must attempt God-sized tasks to leave room for God to do God things. 

  1. That is the Sea of Galilee.
  2. Again, the Sea of Galilee.
  3. Isaiah 6:5.
  4. The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals.  Paton, John Gibson and Paton, James.  Kindle Edition loc 2330.