Month: October 2019

Luke 13-16 includes a good deal of material found only in Luke’s gospel, and nearly all of it is Jesus teaching.  The content exclusive to Luke is all of Luke 15, and the first part of Luke 16.  Luke 15 is another of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible, because we read about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.  Each is eventually “found,” and each shows us how much God loves the lost.  My sense of urgency to see lost people come to know Jesus has always been fueled by Luke 15.  The incredible story of the Prodigal Son, as well, as the story of the elder brother show us the amazing love of our gracious God and Father.  Any time, I think about how much God loves us, the “Father” in the parable of the Prodigal Son comes to mind.

Luke 9 is one of the longest chapters in the book.  Luke included thirteen different events in the chapter, ranging from Jesus sending out the twelve on their first mission, to the feeding of the five thousand, to Peter confessing Jesus as the Christ, to the Transfiguration, to Jesus being rejected by a Samaritan village.  That these events happened is confirmed in the other synoptic gospels, but once again Luke’s order differs.  He told us in Luke 1, he had undertaken to write an orderly account that all had happened in Jesus’ life.  In Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy or seventy-two of His followers on a mission.  Their return brings rejoicing.  The rest of the chapter is devoted to two events found only in Luke: The Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the account of Martha and Mary.  Luke 11 also has a number of events squeezed into a chapter, starting with the Lord’s Prayer and some additional teaching on prayer, and concluding with Jesus pronouncing woes against the religious leaders.  The overall theme of Luke 12 is readiness, although we find the Parable of the Rich Fool in the chapter.  We’re moving to the point in the book, where the focus is going to shift to Jesus setting His face toward Jerusalem, but not before an extended section of teaching in the next six and a half chapters.

As we return to Luke 5-8, let’s make an overall point about the “synoptic” gospels, that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  These three are called “synoptic,” which means “seen together,” because they present most of the same material about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  The order varies as we see when we read the three, but the content is parallel.  It is possible to create a parallel of these three gospels where we can read the same events in Jesus life from each side-by-side.  When we do this, we find an amazing consistency among the accounts that are included in all three or in two of the three.  The accounts seldom have precisely the same details, but they are quite similar.  Some have noted the “stories,” must be just that–stories, because they aren’t exactly the same.  Yet, we know from daily life, when two or more people witness the same event, they don’t offer their account of the event with exactly the same words.  In fact, when I was growing up, my Mom always knew when Kenn and I had created a story about something wrong we had done, when the words lined up perfectly. (That wasn’t too often, because we were usually too busy trying to convince Mom the other one had done it!) Anyway, as you read Luke 5-8 again, you’ll see many parallels to Matthew and/or Mark.  You might even want to read the accounts side-by-side to see the similarities and differences in them. 

Today marks the beginning of our third time through Luke’s gospel.  We won’t offer a great deal of detail here, because you can go back to days 147-194, if you want in depth comments on each chapter, but we’ll look at “chunks” of Luke each day, to see how they connect, or to select highlights of the chapters.  Luke 1-4 offers us the explanation of how the births of John the Baptist and Jesus were foretold and happened.  They also offer us the beginning of John’s ministry and Jesus’ ministry.  Luke offers us a brief glimpse of a moment from Jesus’ pre-teen years.  He also offers a genealogy of Jesus, which traces all the way back to Adam!  Luke 4 offers us the account of Jesus’ 40-day temptation in the wilderness after His baptism, that led to Jesus’ initial victory over Satan.

As we return to Mark 13-16, we read the events that led to Jesus’ death, His death, and His resurrection.  These are such powerful events for the course of history and eternity!  Without Jesus’ perfect life, He could not have died in our place.  Without His death in our place, we would still be under the Law of Moses!  Because Jesus rose from the dead, we know we have the hope of resurrection as well.  Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, and we have the opportunity to let people in our spheres of influence know that every single day.

In Mark 9-12 Jesus’ ministry turns toward Jerusalem.  Mark 9 was literally the “high point” of Jesus’ earthly ministry, as He was transfigured on a mountain top with Moses and Elijah.  As we continue forward Jesus tells the disciples a second and third time He is going to be betrayed, arrested, condemned, crucified and buried, but He will rise on the third day.  Each time the disciples fail to understand and show more concern for their own benefit than what Jesus was telling them.  In Mark 11, we read of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, and of the moment when the people recognized Him for who He was–the Messiah, and Son of God.  This marks the beginning of “Holy Week,” the last week of Jesus’ life before His death and resurrection. 

Again, I don’t need to offer extensive explanation of Mark 5-8, because we’ve read it six times now.  I will add once again, that Mark 5 is one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible, because it shows Jesus’ tremendous compassion and power to heal.  Compassion and power aren’t always combined in our world, but when they are the statement it makes is so amazing.  Jesus combined the two every day of His ministry, because He was reminding us of what the Kingdom of God is like: love (and compassion) and power! 

This is our sixth time through Mark’s Gospel, so my hope is you don’t need me to comment on chapters 1-4.  You know without looking that Mark 1 tells us about John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus, and the start of Jesus’ ministry. Mark 2 tells us about the healing of the paralytic, which leads to Jesus’ first run in with the religious leaders.  We also find the call of Levi, and another run in with the Pharisees when Jesus’ disciples pick heads of grain on the Sabbath. Mark 3 offers us more examples of Jesus’ run ins with the religious leaders and of their decision to get rid of Him.  Jesus also calls the twelve disciples to be with Him, and to be equipped to carry His ministry to the nations.  Mark 4 offers us the first extended teaching section in Mark’s gospel, and Jesus offers us the Parable of the Sower (or the Parable of the Soils), and other parables of God’s Kingdom. If you have questions about any of these chapters, you can go back through the posts from this year, or by this time you might have notes in your own Bible to which you can refer.  (As we read through Mark this time, you might want to read it in a different translation than the one you’ve been using. It’s helpful to see how the English translators translated the Greek into our language.  The nuances and differences can sometimes add extra insights to our understanding.)

Matthew 26-28 record the events leading to Jesus’ arrest; the Last Supper; Jesus’ arrest, trial and condemnation by the Jewish leaders, His condemnation by the crowd, which led to Pilate’s condemnation of Him; His crucifixion, death, and burial; His resurrection and ascension (return) to heaven.  We have read these chapters several times now, but every time we turn to them, we are reminded of the amazing love God had for us that He permitted Jesus to endure what He did for us.  As the God of the universe in the flesh, Jesus endured the weight of every sin past, present and future on the cross.  When He rose from the dead, the miracle of the stone being rolled away from the tomb and the angels who accompanied it, tell us it came from heaven.  The guards at the tomb were overwhelmed to the point of “becoming like dead men,” at the coming of the angel and the earthquake.  Jesus proved His resurrection by appearing to a handful of people the day He rose from the dead. But the Apostle Paul tells us at the end of 1 Corinthians, Jesus was seen by 500 people after He rose, certainly an adequate number to convince us of the reality of the resurrection.  Before Jesus returned to heaven, He charged us to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations.  That “Great Commission” is repeated in some manner in all four gospels and the book of Acts. That tells us how important it is and how necessary for us to pursue it.

As the book of John closes in John 21, John offers us the account of Jesus reinstating Peter. In a powerfully simple scene, Jesus takes Peter aside and asks him three times, “Simon, Son of John, do you love me?”  Each time Peter tells Jesus he does.  When Jesus asked the third time, Peter was cut to the heart, because he realized this was the number of times, he had denied Jesus.  As the conversation drew to a close, Jesus told Peter a powerful truth: He would die bearing witness to Jesus.  He would be known not as the one who denied Jesus, but the one who stood fast even to death.  John closes the book by telling us Jesus did many other things not recorded in the book, and if everything were written down, all the books in the world wouldn’t contain them.  While that might sound like an exaggeration, think about it for a moment.  Jesus was with God the Father from the beginning.  In John 1, we’re told He created all that exists.  Imagine everything Jesus has done from then until now!  It wouldn’t be possible to write down each detail.  The great news for us is: That same Jesus loved us enough to die and rise again for you and me, so we, too can experience being reinstated from our sins, and given opportunities to love and serve Him now and forever. 

In Matthew 24 Jesus speaks of the coming destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  It would happen about forty years after His death and resurrection, yet the details are uncannily accurate.  He also continued to talk about various signs of the end of the age, or of His return.  While the details seem to apply in some manner to every era of history the key truth for us is Jesus tells us to be ready.  Being ready is a vital call and challenge for each of us as Jesus’ followers.

In Matthew 25 we read two parables about Jesus’ coming and one illustration of what will happen when He returns.  The first parable is the Parable of the Ten Virgins.  Each of the virgins awaited the return of a “bridegroom,” who is an image for Jesus.  Five were wise, and brought extra oil, in case the bridegroom came later than expected.  The other five were foolish and brought no extra oil.  When the foolish virgins’ lamps went out, they went to look for more oil.  That would have been impossible in the middle of the night.  As they were out looking, the bridegroom arrived.  The five wise virgins were permitted into the wedding banquet.  This is another way Jesus said, “Be ready!” The second parable is often called the Parable of the Talents, because a master went on a trip and left his money in the trust of three of his servants.  The measure of money was called “talents.”  The master apportioned the money differently.  One servant received five talents of gold, another two, and the third received one.  We’re told the master did this to account for variations in their abilities.  While the master was away, the first two servants worked diligently and doubled their master’s money.  The third buried the money.  When the master returned home, the first two servants were praised equally for their faithfulness and invited to share their master’s joy.  The final one was condemned for being lazy and wicked and cast out into outer darkness.  The point of the parable is not that we must work to be praised by God, but we must be faithful and ready when He returns.  In the final illustration, Jesus tells us when He returns the people will be divided into two groups: the “sheep”, and the “goats”.  The sheep are those who did Jesus’ will in small, everyday ways.  The goats are those who did not.  The illustration shows us Jesus values our daily efforts to meet the needs of His children, and rewards those who carry them out faithfully.

As we return to John 20, we read the account of Jesus’ resurrection. The key points of John’s account are: 1) Jesus appeared alive first to Mary Magdalene; 2) Jesus appeared to ten of the remaining eleven disciples (Judas had hanged himself) at one time; and 3) Jesus appeared to Thomas, who was missing during Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples, and Thomas fell before Him in worship. John tells us at the end of the chapter why he wrote his gospel: so that we might believe Jesus is the Messiah, and that by believing we might have life in His name!