back to indexGospel of Mark 5-9
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So, it's kind of loud. Can you lower the volume? No? Okay, cool. 00:00:14.000 |
We're going to get started because even though we're only covering about two chapters, it's a lot of material. 00:00:21.000 |
So, we want to just get right into it and start this study. 00:00:26.000 |
So, let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll start. 00:00:33.000 |
Father God, we thank you again so much for tonight and just allowing us to study your word 00:00:41.000 |
without any pressure from the world of any kind of persecution or what not. 00:00:47.000 |
We thank you that you have given us your word that through it we may understand more of who you are 00:00:53.000 |
and what you have done for us. We thank you so much that you have given us the Gospel of Mark, 00:01:01.000 |
that through the Gospel of Mark, Lord, we're able to understand better and more deeply, Lord God, our Lord and Savior. 00:01:11.000 |
And I pray, Father God, that the study of your word would truly transform our lives, our minds, our hearts, 00:01:18.000 |
so that, Father, we may be more inspired, Lord God, to live out our lives in faith. 00:01:25.000 |
I pray, Father God, that as we begin our study, that you will give all of us attentive minds and hearts, Lord, 00:01:33.000 |
to be able to just really understand the text and to find ways to apply it in our lives, Lord. 00:01:41.000 |
And that, Father, that the study of your word will not simply end with us, but, Father, may it be transferred over, Lord God, 00:01:49.000 |
to someone else, perhaps a non-believer who does not know Jesus Christ or perhaps a believer who is in need of encouragement. 00:01:57.000 |
We pray, Lord God, that the study of the Gospel of Mark would accomplish that. 00:02:03.000 |
And so, God, I pray for much fruit to come forth from not only tonight's study, but for the studies ahead. 00:02:11.000 |
And that, Father, ultimately this would be used to glorify you. 00:02:15.000 |
So, God, we thank you, and in your name we pray. Amen. 00:02:21.000 |
So, just very briefly, we're going to do a little review here. 00:02:29.000 |
And the review basically is, we're going to, you know, we have a three-fold purpose of the Gospel of Mark, and that's found in verse 1. 00:02:38.000 |
The first purpose is to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:02:43.000 |
Secondly, to teach that Jesus is the Son of God. 00:02:46.000 |
And thirdly, to present Jesus as the servant of God. 00:02:55.000 |
But again, this is something that I really want to press onto you guys as much as I can. 00:03:01.000 |
We covered last week a lot of material, but here are some significant hits. 00:03:08.000 |
We call that the battle cry because that was when Jesus was baptized and he began his ministry. 00:03:14.000 |
Again, remember the veil was, the heavens were torn open as a connection back to the veil being torn 00:03:26.000 |
We also covered the beginnings of his ministry where he healed many people, he casted demons out of the synagogue. 00:03:34.000 |
And also we covered the four offenses of Christ where he offended the religious teachers of the day, 00:03:42.000 |
and thus ending with the Pharisees and the Herodians gathering together to plot to destroy Jesus. 00:03:50.000 |
Again, very vivid words, vivid language, and Mark is using that so he can make his point. 00:04:01.000 |
Again, I thought this was important just so that we can have in our minds just the progress of movement 00:04:11.000 |
We notice that in the first 13 verses of chapter 1, Jesus is in Judea. 00:04:17.000 |
And then from chapter 1 verse 14 until the end of chapter 9, he's in Galilee conducting his ministry. 00:04:24.000 |
Starting from chapter 10, that's when we have a turning point. 00:04:28.000 |
We would call that, I guess, the hinge of the Gospel of Mark where he begins his journey towards Jerusalem. 00:04:34.000 |
And then from chapter 11 verse 1 all the way to the end, we see Jesus in Jerusalem 00:04:40.000 |
where he will ultimately be sacrificed for our sins and will be resurrected from the dead. 00:04:47.000 |
And so that's the basic outline. I include that in your notes again. 00:04:51.000 |
It may be there next week. I don't know. I have a very short memory, so I don't know. 00:05:04.000 |
We're going to cover basically two parts of—I broke off today's text into two different parts. 00:05:11.000 |
We have the rise of the opposition, and that's from Mark chapter 3 verse 7 until the end of the book, 00:05:20.000 |
And then we have the planting of the parables, and that's from Mark chapter 4 verse 1 until 34. 00:05:28.000 |
And so that's basically the breakdown of today's text. 00:05:38.000 |
Oh yeah, if you guys haven't checked in yet, just go ahead and check in. 00:05:41.000 |
You have your names there and stuff like that. It'll be good for attendance sake. 00:05:45.000 |
So I can know who's coming and who's not coming. 00:05:50.000 |
Chapter 3 verse 7 begins with Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples, 00:05:57.000 |
and a great multitude from Galilee followed, and also from Judea, 00:06:00.000 |
and from Jerusalem, and from Edomaea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon. 00:06:07.000 |
A great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him. 00:06:13.000 |
And so again, what we see here is Jesus' ministry expanding. 00:06:20.000 |
We have people from nearby region of Galilee. 00:06:23.000 |
We have people coming from Judea and Jerusalem, which is all the way down south. 00:06:27.000 |
So people are traveling this great distance to go see Jesus. 00:06:35.000 |
Something worthy of note is that that's Judas Iscariot's hometown. 00:06:43.000 |
If I remember you guys from the Genesis Bible study, this would be considered Edom. 00:06:51.000 |
We also have people coming from beyond the Jordan River. 00:06:57.000 |
I believe the Jordan River would be somewhere around here. 00:07:06.000 |
And if you notice that there is no mention of Samaria in this list of this great crowd that's following Jesus. 00:07:16.000 |
If you guys could move up front. I won't name names, but I'm looking at you. 00:07:27.000 |
I'm looking over there too. Yeah, I see you too. 00:07:32.000 |
So again, we have this great mixture of people coming from different areas of Israel. 00:07:43.000 |
All the areas that are listed are heavily populated with Jews. 00:07:47.000 |
But it wouldn't escape our minds if there were some Gentiles that are part of, 00:07:52.000 |
that are coming in and wanting to see what's going on with Jesus. 00:07:58.000 |
Oh yeah, I mean there is significance that there's no mentions of Samaritans coming to the crowds. 00:08:12.000 |
Mainly indicating the, I guess the spiritual aloofness of that region. 00:08:18.000 |
That they're not aware of the Messiah because they're so caught up with the Old Testament. 00:08:24.000 |
Not just the Old Testament, but the Pentateuch in general. 00:08:29.000 |
And so they're so caught up with that, that any kind of prophecy about a Messiah was kind of lost on them. 00:08:35.000 |
And so I think that gives great accredence to John, I think chapter 3 or 4, 00:08:43.000 |
But again, there's no Samaritans that are coming to see Jesus in this kind of great crowd that's following him. 00:08:54.000 |
So despite the miracles and the teachings that are going on, 00:09:02.000 |
And another thing is that again, we see in verse 10. 00:09:09.000 |
We start in verse 10, "For he had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him." 00:09:16.000 |
And we see in verse 11 that he heals people from their unclean spirits. 00:09:24.000 |
And so all this is to say that within this great crowd, it's becoming more and more dangerous and disorderly. 00:09:33.000 |
Mark is using very, again, detailed language depicting how dangerous it was. 00:09:39.000 |
They were surrounding him. They were almost crushing him, pressed around him to touch him. 00:09:46.000 |
I don't know if you guys deal well with large crowds. I don't, and I'm a big guy, so I tend to like try to create space. 00:09:59.000 |
And I'll kind of explain verse 9 where he says, "Have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they will not crowd him." 00:10:09.000 |
I guess the image that Mark is trying to portray for us in this section is to show that 00:10:16.000 |
even though there's a large crowd of people coming to see what Jesus is all about and the healings that he's conducting, 00:10:25.000 |
they really were there just to satisfy their interests and their physical needs. 00:10:29.000 |
And nothing was being noted of them actually following Jesus. 00:10:33.000 |
And again, that falls in line with his ministry. 00:10:38.000 |
Remember in John chapter 6, verse 66, where many of his so-called disciples fell away 00:10:48.000 |
after Jesus was giving some very strong teaching. 00:10:52.000 |
But, so what we see here again is that even though there's a large crowd of people around him, 00:11:01.000 |
They were just simply there to see a spectacle and to perhaps even get healed from their sicknesses. 00:11:07.000 |
And so that's something to take note of with this section of the text. 00:11:16.000 |
Okay, moving on. Is that okay? Can we move on? Alright. 00:11:23.000 |
Next part is called "The Appointment of the Twelve," and that's Mark chapter 3, verse 13 through 19. 00:11:29.000 |
And it says, "And he went up to the mountain and summoned those whom he himself wanted, and they came to him. 00:11:37.000 |
And he appointed twelve so that they would be with him, and that he could send them out to preach 00:11:42.000 |
and to have authority to cast out the demons." 00:11:44.000 |
And then after that, from 16 until verse 19, is the list of the apostles, or list of the disciples. 00:11:51.000 |
And so this is a turning point in Jesus's ministry. 00:11:55.000 |
Whereas before, he was just generally teaching and he had general disciples kind of following him, 00:12:02.000 |
but now Jesus has called the twelve. He has called out the twelve to him. 00:12:07.000 |
And so this is a turning point in Jesus's ministry. 00:12:11.000 |
He is beginning to see that, you know, he's initiating a new part of his ministry 00:12:17.000 |
where he could focus on just twelve individuals to pass on his teachings to. 00:12:23.000 |
This appointment by Jesus was not simply based upon merit or ability, 00:12:30.000 |
but it's an appointment motivated by love and service. 00:12:34.000 |
That's something to take note of. We see in verse 13, he says, 00:12:39.000 |
"And he went up on the mount and summoned those whom he himself wanted." 00:12:43.000 |
Again, there's an emphasis on Jesus and what he wanted. 00:12:47.000 |
And they came to him. And in verse 14 it says, "So that," again, the reason why he appointed them, 00:12:57.000 |
And so there's great significance there with Jesus just really loving his disciples. 00:13:03.000 |
And it's like part of the reason why he called them out is that he could spend more time with them. 00:13:17.000 |
[audience member] I have a quick question on the list of the disciples. 00:13:20.000 |
He listed almost in order of his likes to the very last Judas Iscariot. 00:13:26.000 |
Is that something you see or is it just random? 00:13:30.000 |
I think the ordering of the disciples is by significance. 00:13:35.000 |
Yeah. And so you notice it starts off with the inner three. 00:13:39.000 |
Even within the twelve, there was an inner three that was involved with Peter, James, and John. 00:13:43.000 |
And then you have the next set of three, which starts off with Andrew, Philip, and Bartholomew. 00:13:49.000 |
And you have Matthew, Thomas, and James, and Thaddeus, and then Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot. 00:13:58.000 |
So yeah, so yes, the answer to your question. 00:14:02.000 |
And that's something that's really significant. 00:14:19.000 |
There is a significant affection that Jesus has for Judas. 00:14:23.000 |
Even him, you know, even the one who was going to betray him. 00:14:27.000 |
And it's a beautiful picture of Jesus' act of love. 00:14:33.000 |
So that he could garner his disciples so that he could be with them. 00:14:38.000 |
And so that he could send them out to serve the kingdom of God. 00:14:42.000 |
And so something that I was kind of thinking about in practical application is like, 00:14:52.000 |
how often do we think that by us serving the church, we're in fact investing into our relationship with Christ? 00:14:59.000 |
That's something that I was really struck by when I read the text. 00:15:04.000 |
That was something that I realized was causing me to be off balance in my service to the church, 00:15:14.000 |
Sometimes we serve the church and think of Christ as being our master. 00:15:19.000 |
And usually what that results in is usually a burnout. 00:15:23.000 |
You know, we feel so burned out that we can't serve the church anymore. 00:15:27.000 |
But one of the things that this section of the text really reminds us 00:15:33.000 |
is the fact that when Jesus called us, when Jesus saved us, 00:15:37.000 |
and he's calling us to serve the church, he's not just calling us to just serve. 00:15:41.000 |
He's calling us so that we could serve with him. 00:15:44.000 |
You know, this appointment was of love and of concern and care. 00:15:49.000 |
And so again, for any service in the church, it's absolutely vital to channel our motivation 00:16:00.000 |
Again, that's something that Mark really wants to capture in this text. 00:16:13.000 |
And so, you know, something to pause and ponder is this question. 00:16:22.000 |
You know, in what ways does your relationship with Jesus Christ 00:16:27.000 |
affect your service, ministry, or fellowship in the church? 00:16:33.000 |
I guess sometimes we can just, again, get so caught up in just serving the church 00:16:40.000 |
and serving others that we lose sight of the fact that our act of service is really 00:16:46.000 |
an act of service that's motivated by a relationship, a divine relationship with Jesus Christ. 00:16:52.000 |
And so I think that's something to really consider. 00:17:06.000 |
Most of us are Asian here, so I don't know if we'll say anything or share anything. 00:17:12.000 |
So in what ways does your relationship with Christ affect the way you serve the church 00:17:44.000 |
I mean, if you're really walking with Christ, like, you can't help but have genuine worship towards Him. 00:17:50.000 |
And because you have genuine worship towards Him, you're inspired. 00:17:54.000 |
I mean, it's a response to, like, your service is a response to your inspiration with Christ. 00:18:01.000 |
And so you just become more genuine in whatever you do for the church. 00:18:10.000 |
That relationship with Christ often gets neglected when we serve. 00:18:15.000 |
And I just can't emphasize that enough, that if our own private devotion time with Christ 00:18:20.000 |
is not so hot or is not doing well, then it's going to greatly affect our service to anyone. 00:18:27.000 |
It doesn't even have to be service to the church. It can be service at work. 00:18:32.000 |
And I think that's so important, the fact that we need Christ as our motivation in order to serve the church. 00:19:09.000 |
From verse 20 to verse 35, we're beginning to see the apex of the opposition. 00:19:18.000 |
And really the pinnacle of the rise of opposition is going to occur in verses 20 to 30. 00:19:24.000 |
What we see first is that it begins with family opposition, right. 00:19:28.000 |
It says that Jesus came home, or into a house, 00:19:34.000 |
and a crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. 00:19:40.000 |
Verse 21, "When his own people heard of this," which could be translated as his own family or friends, 00:19:47.000 |
"when they heard of this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying he has lost his senses." 00:19:53.000 |
Or in other translations, he's being out of his mind. 00:19:58.000 |
And so his family from Nazareth, they're hearing all this news about Jesus, 00:20:03.000 |
and they're beginning to say, "Man, this guy's crazy. We need to bring him back home." 00:20:09.000 |
And so the reason why I put another map up here is because I want to show you guys where they were. 00:20:17.000 |
And they're coming up to Capernaum, which is basically where the majority of Jesus' ministry took place. 00:20:25.000 |
And so, as you can see, it's inconvenient for them to go and do this, 00:20:29.000 |
but because of the fame and just the widespread news of Jesus' ministry and his teaching being spread out so quickly, 00:20:38.000 |
they were convicted. They were convicted to bring him back home. 00:20:43.000 |
They felt they were doing Jesus a service by saying, "Here, we're going to take you back home 00:20:47.000 |
and take care of you so that you're not as out of your mind." 00:20:52.000 |
And so we see that going on, but you have to keep that there because they're traveling, 00:20:57.000 |
so some time elapses over. And we go into verse 22. 00:21:03.000 |
In verse 22, we see the scribes who came down from Jerusalem are saying, 00:21:08.000 |
"He is possessed by Beelzebul, and he cast out the demons by the ruler of the demons." 00:21:18.000 |
Again, right here, this is a tremendous, tremendous accusation that these scribes from Jerusalem are making. 00:21:30.000 |
Again, remember the first week, we described Jerusalem as being the scholastic center of Israel, right? 00:21:39.000 |
All the smart people want to go to Jerusalem to study. 00:21:42.000 |
And so these scribes from Jerusalem are coming, and they have this proposition, this explanation 00:21:51.000 |
to explain everything that Jesus was doing. How was Jesus casting out these demons? 00:22:01.000 |
And these scholarly scribes come up with this proposition that the reason why Jesus is casting out these demons 00:22:09.000 |
and healing the sick is because he's possessed by Beelzebul and by the prince of demons. 00:22:22.000 |
And so, they make this accusation, and Jesus responds. 00:22:36.000 |
And again, this is the first mention of the word "parable" or "parables" in verse 23. 00:22:42.000 |
And again, there's going to be a shift now. There's a shift now. 00:22:48.000 |
There's a shift, but in regards to Jesus' teaching ministry. 00:22:53.000 |
There's a shift where he's going to be teaching mainly in parables, and he's no longer making calls to repentance. 00:23:00.000 |
Or Jesus is. And so now, he's going to reply back in a parable to them. 00:23:07.000 |
And he talks about how can a kingdom stand on its own if it's divided against itself? 00:23:13.000 |
If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 00:23:17.000 |
And he gives them like three responses to their preposterous proposition. 00:23:24.000 |
And then he concludes by saying in verse 28, "Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men. 00:23:31.000 |
And whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, 00:23:37.000 |
but is guilty of an eternal sin, because they are saying he has an unclean spirit." 00:23:43.000 |
And so this accusation that Jesus was working in cahoots with Satan 00:23:52.000 |
really brings up this concept of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. 00:24:01.000 |
The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is broken down into three significant parts. 00:24:07.000 |
The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is when you have a clear knowledge of Christ and his identity and the source of his power. 00:24:16.000 |
We see that in Matthew chapter 12 verse 28. It's a parallel section with this event. 00:24:22.000 |
And Jesus makes it clear. It's like, this is the spirit of God working. 00:24:29.000 |
He made it loud and clear to the scribes that were in the room. 00:24:33.000 |
And yet they still made up this accusation that he was working in cahoots with Satan. 00:24:37.000 |
So these scribes already had a clear knowledge of who Christ was and the source of his power. 00:24:43.000 |
So there you go, that's checkmark number one. 00:24:47.000 |
The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit also consists of an intentional rejection of Christ's identity. 00:24:54.000 |
And again, we see that when the scribes accuse him of working in cahoots with the devil, with Satan. 00:25:00.000 |
And then the third one, maliciously attributing the works of the Holy Spirit to Satan. 00:25:05.000 |
And so we see here with the scribes that they had all three lined up against them. 00:25:12.000 |
And so in essence, you could say that they committed the eternal sin. 00:25:16.000 |
They committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit against the Holy Spirit. 00:25:25.000 |
And so I guess the question that is often asked today is whether or not, 00:25:33.000 |
can people still commit the eternal sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit today? 00:25:40.000 |
Can people still commit the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? 00:25:43.000 |
And my answer is yes, people can still commit the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. 00:25:50.000 |
I don't know of anyone who've committed all three of these facets of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, 00:25:56.000 |
but it can still happen today where people know who Jesus Christ is, 00:26:01.000 |
they will acknowledge that he is the Son of God, and he is the Savior of the world. 00:26:05.000 |
And yet, despite all that, they may still turn around and still say that he still works with Satan. 00:26:11.000 |
So yes, I agree that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit can still occur today. 00:26:18.000 |
Now you might meet people who might just simply say they have a clear knowledge of Christ's identity 00:26:22.000 |
and the source of his power, and they still reject Christ's identity. 00:26:27.000 |
But does that mean they committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? I don't think so. 00:26:33.000 |
Nonetheless, those who don't believe Christ will still suffer the consequences of their sins. 00:26:41.000 |
And so in the end, they're going to fall into the same consequences of those 00:26:44.000 |
who are committing the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit anyways. 00:26:50.000 |
But I think that's something of significance for us to just clarify and to just understand that 00:26:56.000 |
that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit still can occur today. 00:27:14.000 |
So you're saying I go to three conditions that if fulfilled, 00:27:19.000 |
it would be considered blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which ultimately is the eternal sin. 00:27:27.000 |
So are you saying it's more like, because I don't know, what I would think is more than just the utterance of it, 00:27:33.000 |
more than the saying or belief of it, I thought it was more like a state of mind type of thing 00:27:38.000 |
that's kind of consistent over the duration of an entire life. 00:27:45.000 |
Like once you have that thought, it's pretty much always going to be there, 00:27:57.000 |
Usually those who get to the point where they deny Christ that harshly or that passionately, 00:28:29.000 |
I don't know if that would really be a blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. 00:28:32.000 |
Looking at the context of what's going on here, you have people who are very much aware of the prophecies 00:28:38.000 |
in the Old Testament, you have these scribes coming up, you have people who are well-versed in the scriptures, 00:28:43.000 |
and yet they still came to this conclusion that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, 00:28:51.000 |
And so, yeah, so if it was someone young and they're saying all these different things, 00:28:57.000 |
I think it would just be maybe a little bit different. 00:29:00.000 |
I guess just realistically, I can see the first two things kind of happening with people, 00:29:09.000 |
They go to church early, or their friend goes to church, but they reject Christ's identity as God. 00:29:18.000 |
They might have an understanding and have a knowledge of Christ's identity, but reject that also. 00:29:44.000 |
Maliciously means intent, so there's great intent in attributing the Holy Spirit's work with Satan's work. 00:29:56.000 |
So, like, I don't know if you've met people, other Christians, who've said that they've thought they've committed 00:30:04.000 |
This is like a helpful tool to guide them and show them that maybe they didn't. 00:30:11.000 |
I think there was a story with Spurgeon where someone was so concerned that they committed this sin 00:30:16.000 |
that they weren't able to be forgiven that Spurgeon had to remind them, 00:30:19.000 |
"The fact that you're so concerned about this sin shows that you haven't really blasphemed against the Holy Spirit," 00:30:26.000 |
So, again, you might meet Christians who are questioning this, and they're not sure if they blasphemed. 00:30:31.000 |
Rest assured that you can point them to this passage and show them that 00:30:35.000 |
these are truly the people who have committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. 00:30:39.000 |
Do you fit this model? And it's like, "No? Okay." 00:30:43.000 |
[audience member] What if they mentioned Apostle Paul before he was committed? 00:30:54.000 |
If someone comes up to you and says, "Apostle Paul committed this sin, how can he be forgiven?" 00:31:00.000 |
I don't think Apostle Paul really committed this sin. He never really maliciously attributed, like, 00:31:06.000 |
the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. I think he was just persecuting the Christians. 00:31:17.000 |
Yeah, I don't think Paul really committed that sin. 00:31:21.000 |
Yeah, because there's nothing in there where it shows that he was motivated because he wants to 00:31:32.000 |
kill these Christians because, "Oh, you know, they work for Satan, and I want to end Satan's rule on Earth," 00:31:37.000 |
or something like that. So, I don't really see that in the book of Acts. 00:31:41.000 |
It just seemed that he really just wanted to promote Judaism, and he wanted to go to extremes, 00:31:50.000 |
So I don't think that it would be right to attribute Apostle Paul as committing this particular sin. 00:32:00.000 |
[audience member] Would you say the same for Apostle Peter when he denied Christ three times? 00:32:13.000 |
[audience member] I'm sorry to keep on this, but, um, would this be similar to the Ananias-Sapphira? 00:32:23.000 |
[audience member] And how about the Hebrew 6? 00:33:16.000 |
I'll answer that question after class. Yeah, we gotta move on. 00:33:19.000 |
So, yeah. Okay, so I'll get back to you on that one after class. 00:33:23.000 |
Alright. Alright, any more questions about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? 00:33:27.000 |
Have any of you guys ever thought you committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? 00:33:40.000 |
We're gonna conclude this part of the opposition with the family. 00:33:46.000 |
Again, after all this happens, Jesus' family finally arrives in verse 31, 00:33:53.000 |
and they make a distinction between his mother and his brothers, 00:33:57.000 |
and standing outside, because the crowds are so great, they send word to him and call them. 00:34:02.000 |
And the crowd passed along this message saying, 00:34:05.000 |
"Behold, your mother and your brothers are waiting outside looking for you." 00:34:10.000 |
And Jesus replies back, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" 00:34:14.000 |
And looking at those who are sitting around him, 00:34:21.000 |
For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother." 00:34:26.000 |
Again, the main point of this part of the text is just showing 00:34:31.000 |
that Jesus is delineating a priority between the physical and spiritual family. 00:34:36.000 |
He's showing that his priority belongs to those who obey the will of God. 00:34:49.000 |
He's prioritizing the spiritual family over his physical family. 00:34:54.000 |
And perhaps this may have hurt him, perhaps he's probably discouraged 00:35:00.000 |
at the fact that his family doesn't understand what he's trying to do. 00:35:04.000 |
But nonetheless, he makes his point clear that the priority that he's gonna spend with people 00:35:09.000 |
are gonna be with those who obey or follow the will of God along with him. 00:35:24.000 |
Chapter 4, I titled it "The Planting of the Parables." 00:35:28.000 |
And I think the reason why I titled it that way was because 00:35:33.000 |
there's just a lot of parables in this chapter that deal with plants. 00:35:38.000 |
And so I thought it would be cool to call it "The Planting of the Parables." 00:35:43.000 |
And another reason why that's there is also because, again, there's a clear shift in teaching. 00:35:48.000 |
Jesus is no longer making direct calls to repentance. 00:35:52.000 |
He is now teaching the public using parables. 00:35:57.000 |
And this is the first portion of Mark that really emphasizes Jesus' teaching ministry. 00:36:03.000 |
And so that's something that we want to take note of. 00:36:14.000 |
The first parable that we run into is the parable of the sower, 00:36:19.000 |
which is a little bit misleading because the parable is not really about the sower, 00:36:29.000 |
So in this parable, we have the sower, we have the seeds, 00:36:37.000 |
And again, we have the side of the row, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and the good soil. 00:36:52.000 |
I'm going to move on really quickly, guys. Is that okay? 00:36:58.000 |
And so he gives us a parable of the soils, and then starting in verse 10, 00:37:04.000 |
Jesus is alone with his disciples, or the twelve and his followers, 00:37:13.000 |
And Jesus was saying to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, 00:37:17.000 |
but those who are outside get everything in parables." 00:37:21.000 |
And so basically, and then he quotes from Isaiah chapter 6, verse 9 through 10, 00:37:26.000 |
basically explaining why parables are being used. 00:37:31.000 |
And the reason why they're being used is because of Israel's spiritual blindness. 00:37:43.000 |
and it's basically stating the purpose of these parables, and it's, 00:37:47.000 |
"Christ's parables serve to veil the truth concerning the kingdom, as well as to unveil it, 00:37:53.000 |
depending upon the attitude of the hearer towards him." 00:37:59.000 |
saying that, "While seeing, they may see, but not perceive, 00:38:02.000 |
and while hearing, they may not hear and not understand, 00:38:05.000 |
otherwise they might return and be forgiven." 00:38:07.000 |
So it really is dependent upon the person who hears the parables, 00:38:11.000 |
whether or not that truth will be veiled or unveiled. 00:38:17.000 |
But to his disciples, but to Christ's disciples, he chooses to unveil it for them, 00:38:33.000 |
And so what we see in the first soil is, obviously, 00:38:36.000 |
he explains that, well, the seed is the word, right? 00:38:42.000 |
And then in verse 15, he describes the first soil, 00:38:44.000 |
and he talks about how the seed that's been casted beside the road, 00:38:50.000 |
when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. 00:38:56.000 |
And so, again, Jesus is emphasizing here that there's not much time given for the seed to grow. 00:39:10.000 |
Or, I guess, in other translations, it's described as immediately devoured. 00:39:19.000 |
In this context, in this soil, he just moves right in and takes it away. 00:39:25.000 |
The second soil, again, so this is something I just noticed today, 00:39:30.000 |
it was saying that, you know, it starts off with, "In a similar way, 00:39:35.000 |
these are the ones on whom the seed was sown in the rocky places, 00:39:39.000 |
who when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, 00:39:44.000 |
and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary. 00:39:49.000 |
Then when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away." 00:39:55.000 |
And so, Jesus kind of already setting the table up to describe the result of the second soil 00:40:06.000 |
We see that immediately the seed, there's a reception of the word, 00:40:12.000 |
there's joy, immediate joy in receiving the word. 00:40:17.000 |
And just as fast as it goes up, it comes down. 00:40:22.000 |
And he brings about, there's a taking away of that seed when persecution arrives. 00:40:40.000 |
"When affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they were offended." 00:40:45.000 |
So it's as if, like, they weren't expecting to be persecuted. 00:40:50.000 |
Or, "When suffering was demanded because of their faith, they didn't like it, so they just fell away." 00:40:57.000 |
In the Gospel of Luke, in this same account, a word is used to describe this as apostasy. 00:41:09.000 |
The third soil is, "They heard the word, but the worries of the world chokes the word out." 00:41:21.000 |
And in the fourth soil, what we have there is the good soil, and the seed produces fruit in accordance to the word. 00:41:32.000 |
And I'm sure most of you guys have wrestled with this text and have asked this question, right? 00:41:39.000 |
So which soil represents the genuine believers? 00:41:47.000 |
I remember when I was in youth group, I was taught that, you know, 00:41:52.000 |
definitely not the first soil, definitely not the second soil, but 00:41:56.000 |
possibly the third and the fourth soil represents the genuine believers. 00:42:02.000 |
However, the one thing that the third soil does not contain, 00:42:09.000 |
and again, what I would now view it as not being saved, 00:42:14.000 |
is the fact that there's no fruit, there's no bearing of fruit. 00:42:20.000 |
And that's the key component that differentiates the fourth soil with the other three soils, 00:42:31.000 |
And so, what we have here is like a grid, a grid of how we can view 00:42:44.000 |
Not just for ourselves in discerning, like, you know, maybe my non-Christian, 00:42:49.000 |
maybe my friend who claims to be a Christian, but doesn't really live a life like a Christian, 00:42:56.000 |
not only on top of that, but I think it also helps us understand how we need to pray. 00:43:02.000 |
How we ought to pray for non-believers, and even those who profess to be Christians, but maybe are not. 00:43:09.000 |
I know there's a lot of times where I share the gospel with someone, 00:43:14.000 |
and, you know, it looks like they may respond pretty positively, 00:43:18.000 |
but the next day I talk to them and they just like, you know, they just kind of lost interest. 00:43:24.000 |
And it's kind of sad, I mean, if I was going to categorize, I think I would categorize that under the first soil. 00:43:31.000 |
And so it helps me to pray, you know, especially when we're evangelizing, 00:43:37.000 |
to really pray and ask God, like, God, like, you know, don't allow this seed, this word, this gospel 00:43:43.000 |
to be planted into this person's heart and not have it be like the first soil, 00:43:47.000 |
where Satan immediately comes and takes away that gospel. 00:43:52.000 |
Or even the second and third soil, we pray for the fourth. 00:43:58.000 |
And so, again, I think this parable really helps us in understanding that, 00:44:03.000 |
and clarifies for us how we ought to pray as we evangelize. 00:44:17.000 |
Responsibility hearers. That's Mark chapter 4, verse 21 through 25. 00:44:24.000 |
I had a hard time understanding why this was placed here, and so, 00:44:30.000 |
and the understanding that I got from the study of this part of the passage was the fact that 00:44:35.000 |
Jesus is now changing subjects and he's focusing on those who are hearing the gospel, 00:44:40.000 |
who are hearing the teachings of Jesus, and what is their responsibility. 00:44:50.000 |
And so, Jesus is saying to them, the disciples, 00:44:54.000 |
"A lamp is not brought to be put under a basket, is it? Or under a bed? 00:45:00.000 |
Is it not brought to be put on the lampstand? 00:45:04.000 |
For nothing is hidden except to be revealed, nor has anything been secret but that it will come to light. 00:45:13.000 |
And he was saying to them, "Take care of what you listen to. 00:45:16.000 |
By your standard of measure, it will be measured to you, and more will be given you besides. 00:45:20.000 |
For whoever has to him, more shall be given, and whoever does not have, 00:45:24.000 |
even what he has shall be taken away from him." 00:45:27.000 |
And so, again, the emphasis is the fact that what these disciples are learning from Jesus at this point, 00:45:32.000 |
about these parables, were not designed to be kept to themselves, 00:45:36.000 |
but it was meant to be distributed as the teachings of Jesus. 00:45:42.000 |
That's the responsibility that the hearers had. 00:45:48.000 |
And just like you, or just like me, we're all considered hearers of the word. 00:45:59.000 |
This is a personal call to responsibility for those who read the word of God. 00:46:08.000 |
Again, we might just read over this and be like, "Okay, like, okay, a lampstand not to be brought to the basket. 00:46:14.000 |
Okay, yeah, that's true. Like, a lamp is meant to be put on, you know, it's supposed to be put on display." 00:46:23.000 |
And so Jesus is making it clear, like, to those who are hearing, you guys have a responsibility with these teachings. 00:46:33.000 |
And basically, you know, we could sum it up as this, "The more one applies the truth given from the word, 00:46:38.000 |
more capacity will be given to understand more truth." 00:46:43.000 |
And so, as we understand the word of God more, as you understand the gospel of Mark more, 00:46:50.000 |
again, I'm hoping, I'm praying that the spirit will work within you guys to really take this Bible study and apply it to someone else. 00:46:59.000 |
You know, lead someone else through this book study, whether it be a Christian or non-Christian. 00:47:04.000 |
I'm really hoping that we can all be responsible as hearers of the word of God to apply this. 00:47:11.000 |
And I think it will pay rich dividends for you, as it did for me, as we just continue on with our study of the gospel of Mark. 00:47:19.000 |
So, again, making a little plug for the optional project in this class, but I'm hoping that some of you guys will find someone to go over the gospel of Mark with someone else. 00:47:40.000 |
The next parable is the parable of the seed, or the seed's growth. 00:47:49.000 |
And the purpose of this is to focus our attention upon the kingdom of God's growth. 00:47:58.000 |
And this particular parable is only distinct in the gospel of Mark. 00:48:03.000 |
So you won't find this in Matthew or Luke or John. 00:48:13.000 |
And the point of this parable is the fact that the kingdom of God is going to grow in ways in which man cannot explain. 00:48:25.000 |
You know, there are a lot of programs that try to promote church growth. 00:48:31.000 |
You gotta have this program in your church in order to make your church grow. 00:48:38.000 |
And, you know, it might be true, but from what I read in this parable, 00:48:52.000 |
And so, we can't explain how this church grows. 00:49:01.000 |
One of the things I like about Berean is like, we make mistakes. 00:49:08.000 |
We make mistakes on Sunday mornings. We make mistakes at Bible studies. 00:49:14.000 |
And usually people might be turned off by that. 00:49:21.000 |
And have you guys oversee those technical difficulties and whatnot. 00:49:26.000 |
And again, I think that attributes the fact that God is the one that's causing the growth of our church. 00:49:32.000 |
And so again, the parable of the seed is really to show the disciples and to show us that there really is no 00:49:40.000 |
explanation for the growth of the church other than what we find in the Word of God. 00:49:51.000 |
Parable of the mustard seed, again, the point of this is it's small beginnings of God's kingdom on earth 00:50:03.000 |
We see that the kingdom of God is gonna come in as something small, a band of 12 disciples. 00:50:09.000 |
And we come to centuries later and now we still have the church and it's grown so much. 00:50:20.000 |
And for those who are curious, there's a little Old Testament quote at the end of this parable 00:50:31.000 |
And you could cross-reference that to Psalm 104, verse 12, Ezekiel 17, 23, 31. 00:50:38.000 |
Ezekiel 31, verse 6, and Daniel chapter 4, verse 12. 00:50:42.000 |
And basically, that's all in reference to Gentile nations being part of the kingdom of God. 00:50:47.000 |
And so these birds of the air that are nesting in the mustard tree that has now grown to be so large 00:50:56.000 |
is really Christ's indication that Gentiles will be admitted into the kingdom of God. 00:51:03.000 |
And I believe we're all Gentiles here, since we all love eating pork. 00:51:14.000 |
For the fact that Gentile nations are admitted to the kingdom of God. 00:51:24.000 |
Mark chapter 4, verse 33 and 34 is just a summary of Jesus' parable ministry. 00:51:33.000 |
From here on out, we don't hear any more parables in the Gospel of Mark. 00:51:40.000 |
But we know that there are other parables given. 00:51:48.000 |
But yet again, Mark's point in his Gospel is not to emphasize his teachings, but to emphasize his acts of mercy. 00:51:57.000 |
Right? Because his audience is to the Gentiles. 00:52:01.000 |
And so he wants to emphasize and prove that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 00:52:06.000 |
And by doing that, he's going to focus more on his acts, and not so much on his teachings. 00:52:13.000 |
And so we know that Jesus taught a lot of parables. 00:52:17.000 |
This picture is the parable of the Good Samaritan. 00:52:21.000 |
And yet, this is where Mark ends Jesus' teachings concerning parables. 00:52:34.000 |
And again, something that's really interesting is that he spoke to the crowds using parables, 00:52:40.000 |
but he used illustrations that the crowds knew. 00:52:44.000 |
And we see that in verse 33, with so many such parables, he was speaking the word to them so far as they were able to hear it. 00:52:53.000 |
And so again, he took in mind of the crowds around him so that he's able to teach them these parables 00:53:06.000 |
And so in conclusion, we talk about the rise of the opposition. 00:53:11.000 |
You have the family coming up, and they're opposing Jesus. 00:53:15.000 |
You have the scribes from Jerusalem coming to oppose Jesus. 00:53:19.000 |
And then you have the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit by these scribes from Jerusalem. 00:53:28.000 |
And then you have Jesus' parable ministry, and then only four or three of these parables are mentioned in the Gospel of Mark. 00:53:40.000 |
So, we'll conclude here with, if you guys have any questions or encouragements, 00:53:46.000 |
maybe something that you've read in the Gospel of Mark that encouraged you. 00:53:51.000 |
I didn't get to read everyone's comments from last week. 00:53:57.000 |
I'll get it to you guys, hopefully next week. Yes. 00:54:31.000 |
I honestly think that Mary went along partly because, 00:54:37.000 |
if you notice in the text, Joseph is not mentioned. 00:54:41.000 |
Joseph is not mentioned in this track from Nazareth to Galilee. 00:54:48.000 |
And I think the reason why is because Joseph is already dead. 00:54:54.000 |
Joseph died already, and so I think Mary went along because, you know, the whole family went. 00:55:02.000 |
And I don't think she really doubted the works of Jesus. 00:55:07.000 |
I think she understood why Jesus was doing these things. 00:55:09.000 |
I think it was more the brothers that were in opposition to Jesus, 00:55:14.000 |
possibly putting a bad name, you know, to their family. 00:55:18.000 |
So I think Mary went along because she didn't want to be left at home alone. 00:55:31.000 |
It's like, dude, like, she met an angel, you know. 00:55:35.000 |
So I think she has a deep understanding of what Jesus was trying to do, or was doing. 00:55:55.000 |
So, you know how you said that he spoke in parables to separate, like, you know, like those who believe from those who, I mean, like, because of his real blindness. 00:56:07.000 |
And then he had to explain, like, the parable to the disciples. 00:56:11.000 |
Then how come the disciples didn't understand the parables? Why did he have to explain them to them? 00:56:17.000 |
So the lay person in the crowd who's hearing the parable, how would he have understood what it meant if he had to explain it to, like, his own disciples? 00:56:28.000 |
I think even the disciples had to be explained to. 00:56:35.000 |
And the fact that Jesus explained the meaning of the parables to his disciples is significant. 00:56:39.000 |
You know, this explanation of all these different parables 00:56:48.000 |
You mean, like, understand it right off the bat? 00:56:54.000 |
Yeah, because if they're really, like, the whole point is, like, if you're really, you know, know, like, then you'll understand it, like, right? 00:57:02.000 |
So then why would he have to explain it to his own disciples? 00:57:06.000 |
Like, even he said, like, how come you don't understand? 00:57:09.000 |
You know, why do I have to explain it to you, but I'll explain it to you. 00:57:14.000 |
So why did he have to explain it if they're really disciples, wouldn't they just know? 00:57:19.000 |
Because isn't that the point when he was, the point of why he was talking to them? 00:57:23.000 |
Well, I think they were, I think they were just like the rest. 00:57:29.000 |
It's just that Jesus had to, um, because they were his disciples, he had to teach them what these parables meant. 00:57:34.000 |
And again, we see, um, in verse 21 to 25, the responsibility of the hearers. 00:57:40.000 |
You know, if they're held responsible to pass on the teachings of Jesus to other people, 00:57:47.000 |
then they need to be equipped, and they need to know what are the meanings of these parables. 00:57:52.000 |
And so I think that's the reason why, one of the reasons why Jesus, um, took the time to explain to them, 00:58:00.000 |
even though, you know, we see in verse, um, verse 13, do you not understand this parable, how we understand all the parables? 00:58:08.000 |
And so I think part of it was to unveil it to them, and part of it too was also to, um, equip them, 00:58:16.000 |
um, to be able to dispense this teaching to others. 00:58:30.000 |
I am really emphasizing the encouragements, guys. 00:58:33.000 |
I want to hear what you guys think about the Gospel of Mark. 00:58:37.000 |
Maybe I'll just get it from your observations. 00:58:47.000 |
You know, like, when he names his disciples, how he changes Peter's name, 00:58:52.000 |
and it also says how he changes John's name to Glen, Glen, or something like that. 00:59:06.000 |
Because I know he mentioned Peter's name later, like, as the rock on the spot, on the building. 00:59:12.000 |
Yeah, um, I think the Sons of Thunder is just a reference to John and James' tendency to get angry. 00:59:24.000 |
Because you know how, like, usually when someone's name is in the Bible, 00:59:27.000 |
it's more like to kind of, you know, like when Eliam, or something like that. 00:59:34.000 |
So there's no other significance to their name? 00:59:43.000 |
Yeah, I think it was just a name that he gave them to describe who they were. 00:59:49.000 |
But it says that he--it doesn't seem to be named any of the-- 01:00:14.000 |
All right, break off into, or grab someone next to you, 01:00:18.000 |
or grab someone that you know who is in need of unveiling the truth, you know. 01:00:26.000 |
Someone you think who needs to be unveiled the truth. 01:00:32.000 |
Share any prayer requests, share encouragements. 01:00:35.000 |
I would really emphasize that, and then we'll close here.