[NOTE: For those who are continuing the 1-year Bible reading plan we started on April 1, 2018, just go to the end of this entry and you will find the Day 285-Zechariah 9-11; John 10 summary!]
In our readings for today, Mark offers six major events in Jesus’ ministry in one chapter, while all three chapters from Genesis cover only a few significant events. Let’s turn to Genesis 34-36 first.
In Genesis 34 we read the account of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, being raped by Shechem the Hivite. This tragic event led to Jacob agreeing with the Hivites to let Schechem marry Dinah, and to have the groups intermarry with one another. But Simeon and Levi, two of Dinah’s brothers, placed a condition on the arrangement: all their men would have to be circumcised. Schechem’s father convinced the people to go along with the agreement. While the men were recovering from the “surgery,” Simeon and Levi went into the town and slaughtered them. We see again, God didn’t choose Jacob and his family for their goodness. The Bible records so many examples of God’s people not acting at all as if they were God’s people. Yet, God continued to relate to them, and to call them His people.
We see this clearly, as we move to chapter 35, because God not only continued to relate with Jacob, but gave him a new name, something God often did as a sign of His covenant with His chosen leader. Jacob means one who grasps the heel. He received the name, because he was grasping Esau’s heel when they were born. His new name, Israel, can mean many things, but one of the more likely possibilities is “Prince with God.” Jacob or Israel wrestled with his brother, with God, with telling the truth and with himself. Yet God continued to work in and through Jacob/Israel, and ultimately his descendants would become the people of Israel.
I placed chapter 36 in parentheses, because it consists of the genealogy of Esau, along with a listing of the rulers of Edom. While, some might find it interesting reading, it’s one of those passages I typically skim through on my way to the next chapter!
Moving to Mark 10, we find Jesus addressing the matters of divorce, blessing children, a rich man’s desire to obtain eternal life, Jesus again predicting His impending death, James and John’s request to sit on His right and left hand, and Jesus addressing that, and Jesus’ healing of a blind man named Bartimaeus. Wow! That’s a lot in a single chapter. Remember, though, the chapter and verse markings weren’t original to any book of the Bible. They were added later to make it easier to locate specific passages. Mark didn’t record these events as six events in chapter 10, but as six important events from Jesus’ life and ministry.
It’s important for us to remember as we’re reading the Bible, the first task we have is to understand what was happening at the time the event occurred. We want to read “out of the text” what is there. The fancy word for that is exegesis. The challenge is we tend to “read into a text” what we know from our own experience and situation or what we want it to mean. That is called eisegesis. Exegesis is good, while eisegesis is not. For example, when we read Jesus’ comments about divorce in Mark 10:1-12, we tend to think about divorce from a 21st century perspective, or we might think about it based on our own biases regarding divorce. What we need to do is consider the context and meaning of divorce in Jesus’ day. When the religious leaders came to Jesus, they had a specific question about divorce, “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?”
Jesus offers us a helpful strategy for reading out of a text what is there, rather than reading into it what we think. He asks another question, “What did Moses say in the law about divorce?” Jesus turned the question back on the religious leaders. He knew the religious leaders knew what Moses had written about divorce. Jesus also knew those leaders were seeking to trap Him into saying something that would go against that law, so they could discredit Him. The religious leaders told Jesus that Moses permitted divorce. Jesus’ answer is instructive. He told the religious leaders God permitted it only because of the hardness of human hearts. Then Jesus referred back to God’s original intention for marriage in Genesis 2. There we see marriage was instituted by God in the fabric of creation. Marriage is to be between a man and a woman, and to last throughout the couple’s life.
Jesus’ answer established marriage as a permanent union between a man and a woman. He notes divorce is permitted for reason of adultery, but is not commanded, and is not God’s intention. He adds another comment to ensure the permanence of marriage, when He says, “…let no one split apart what God has joined together.” Jesus’ words hold a clear meaning for marriage, its definition, and its permanence. We can read other things into it, but if we only read out of the text what is there, Jesus told us marriage is between a man and a woman and God’s intention is for it to be permanent. We find Jesus applying an important principle of interpretation in His comments to the religious leaders: let one part of the Bible interpret another and let every part of the Bible be interpreted by the rest of it. While the religious leaders wanted to go back only to Moses’ law, because they condoned divorce, Jesus took them back to God’s original intention for marriage. Jesus then affirmed that original intention and deepened it with His comment about letting no one split apart what God had joined together.
As we read the remainder of Mark 10, we see Jesus going against the accepted norms in several areas. He took the time to bless the children brought to Him by their parents. The disciples thought this was a waste of Jesus’ time. When the rich young man came to Jesus to find out the key to eternal life, Jesus first told Him to obey the commandments. When the man said he had done so since his youth, Jesus didn’t even argue about whether he had, indeed, done so. He pointed to the man’s wealth and said that was the stumbling block to eternal life for him. The man was incredulous–as were the disciples. In those days, as often is still the case in our day, people thought financial “blessing” was a sign of God’s favor. Financial blessing can be a sign of God’s favor, but Jesus showed us in this example, the man’s money was an obstacle to his salvation.
When Jesus again predicted His death, James and John saw the opportunity to ask Jesus to place them at His right and left hand (positions of power and authority) when He came into His Kingdom. Jesus took the opportunity to show that “power” in God’s Kingdom is inverted from power in the worldly perspective. The greatness of a person isn’t found in lording over others, but in serving them. Reading out of the text what is there, will often leave us shaking our heads when Jesus is the subject of the passage. As Isaiah had told the Israelites 800 years before Jesus was born, “…God’s ways are not our ways…” Jesus made that so clear in His daily interactions with the crowds, the religious leaders, and His disciples. Thankfully, we have the records of many of those interactions, so we, too, can be impacted by them!
J
Day 285-Zechariah 9-11; John 10
Zechariah 9 starts with a proclamation of judgment against the nations surrounding Israel. Then the LORD foretells of the coming of the Messiah, who will be humble and riding on a donkey. This is the prophecy we turn to when we read Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Finally, we’re told the LORD Himself will appear and lead His people. What an amazing future we have to look forward to as God’s people! We also see how a prophecy can speak of the immediate future, the distant future, and the time of the consummation of history, when Jesus returns.
Zechariah 10 promises the restoration of Israel and Judah. The LORD starts with a rebuke of the false shepherds that have served in Judah but moves on to proclaim that although the people of Israel and Judah have been scattered, they will be brought back and they will be so numerous the land will not hold them. The LORD offers a powerful rebuke against Egypt and tells us the Nile will be dried up as part of the process of restoration.
Zechariah 11, we return to the LORD renouncing the wicked shepherds, and in the midst of that, the LORD tells us the shepherd will receive wages of thirty pieces of silver, precisely the amount Judas received for betraying Jesus. The thirty pieces of silver were poured out in the potter’s field, which again refers to the events in Judas’ life. While it isn’t always to make the connections between the prophecies we find in the Jewish Scriptures and the life of Jesus, in this case the connection seems much more obvious.
As we return to John 10, Jesus offers us the image of Himself as the Good Shepherd. For anyone familiar with the Jewish Scriptures or Old Testament, Psalm 23 comes to mind immediately. In it King David proclaimed, “The LORD is my shepherd. I shall not want. Analogously, Jesus tells us as the Good Shepherd, He lays down His life for His sheep. As we might expect, this once again brought disagreement among those who heard Jesus. The religious leaders condemned Jesus again. They said He had a demon, but others among the Jews said He didn’t speak as one with a demon. As the conversation continued, Jesus told them He and His Father were one, which brought about more condemnation. While we’re only half way through John’s gospel, it’s easy to see that the direction of Jesus’ interaction with the religious leaders is leading to His crucifixion.