More Fishers of Men January 29
Mark 1:19 When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. 20 And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.
James and John are “the sons of thunder,” as Jesus later calls them.
Jesus has called four working men to be His disciples. His ministry does not begin with those educated in the religion of the day. He is looking for workers whose skills can be remolded into His service.
That James and John have hired servants remaining to help their father is interesting. This implies that they are financially well off. But they have found something – Someone – better.
Like Simon Peter and Andrew, these brothers know of Jesus from the time of His baptism by John the Baptist. They have had their time to consider what they experienced with Jesus. During the time when Jesus was in the wilderness, perhaps they recognized where they were. When He called, they came out of their own wilderness.
James and John are like the bookends of the faithful disciples. James was the first of the 11 to die. He died by sword at the order of King Herod Agrippa. John was the last to die, the only one of the 12 to die a natural death.
Jesus taught multitudes the way back to God, to a personal relationship with their Maker. He taught a chosen few how to carry on His teaching after His death. Jesus fished for those who would continue to fish in all nations.
“Follow Me” is the precursor, the foundation of the Great Commission.
Regenesis January 30
Mark 1:21 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Mark has given no specifics on His early teaching. Matthew and Mark both record Jesus repeating the text of John the Baptist’s message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). John includes the teaching of being born “from above” to Nicodemus (John 3). Note that Strong’s G509 might be accurately translated as born “from above” rather than “born again.”
A rabbi in the time of Jesus is a traveling teacher of the Scripture who has disciples, travels from place to place, teaching correctly (“fulfilling”) the Law, using parables and such techniques to apply the Torah to daily life, and teaching the greatest commandment to follow (his yoke).
We see as did the people to whom He spoke that Jesus meets these qualifications.
We see from all the Gospels that he speaks of the Scripture already given to the nation of Israel and its application for the people who hear Him.
Reading His extensive teachings recorded in the other Gospels, the substance of His message is not different from what we have read in Mark’s account: regenesis, or regeneration, or being born from above. The message is the same regardless of the words.
That the people are astonished at His teaching is not surprising. Jesus offers a new perspective on God, on the individual, and on the relationship of the two.
He still offers this new perspective.
The Way January 31
Mark 1:21 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Jesus’ teaching is itself a regeneration, the rebirth of the messages of God’s identity and of mankind’s relationship with Him as intended from the beginning. He teaches an old truth, but it is new to those who hear Him speak.
Traveling the road of life, there are not only impediments, but divergent paths that turn us away from our intended destination. When a vision of the correct path is seen again, the appearance is so different from the present surroundings as to seem unreal, irrelevant to the place we find ourselves.
And yet there is a familiarity in this pathway of old that speaks to us, calls to the soul that has at one time been at One with the Creator. The message is at one time both foreign and familiar, unreasonable and inevitable. The contradiction demands resolution.
We choose to continue the current path, or retrace our steps back to the original way. The people listening to Jesus in the synagogue find themselves at a point of decision: to continue forward and away, or backward to return to The Way.
And this is a decision point at which we all find ourselves time and again – to continue further takes us away from our destination, but to have to retrace our steps seems like going backward.
Sometimes going back is the only route forward.
The Scribes February 1
Mark 1:22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
The scribes have a very large responsibility. They transmit religious and legal thought both within the Jewish culture and from one generation to the next. Originally, scribes were religious leaders. Ezra was a scribe and a Levitical priest (Ezra 7:1-6). By Roman times, many scribes are from the secular culture.
Their work must be accurate and literal. They are responsible for every jot and tittle of the Scripture. A jot, the smallest Hebrew letter “yod,” looks like an apostrophe. A tittle is a mark that changes a letter, like our line through the “O” that makes it a “Q.”
They are often consulted as to what is written in the holy writings, including the words of the teachers of the Scripture. They have the written law, and have put in writing the oral law. Their authority is limited to the literal written word rather than the figurative meaning or power.
Observant Jews often wear a tefillah (sometimes called a phylactery) on their forearm or forehead. The small black case contains verses from Scripture. This seems to have been a literal interpretation of four different verses in the Books of Moses. (As an example: Deuteronomy 6:6-8)
That they are placed on the arm (empowering work of the hand) and the forehead (mind) rather than on the chest (heart) seems to speak to the human tendency to put obedience in the class of work rather than of love.
The words in red are often examples of Jesus casting the words of God in a new light.
If we must have a doctrine, let it be the words in red.
An Unclean Spirit February 2
Mark 1:23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
The unclean spirits of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are something of a mystery. That we do not see them elsewhere gives reason to think about the term.
Unclean is a Greek compound word, akathartos, literally meaning, “not clean.” The Greek prefix “A” means “no” or “not”, and “kathartos” means clean (from which we get catharsis, an emotional cleansing). The word translated as “spirit” is G4151, pneuma, the same word used in Holy Spirit.
What if an unclean spirit simply means that it is not the pneuma, not the Spirit that God breathed into us at Creation? Is an unclean spirit necessarily a being under Satan’s dominion? Or can it be the will of the individual asserting itself against God’s will?
An unclean spirit is one that substitutes someone else, perhaps the self, for God. This manifests in actions inconsistent with having the Holy Spirit.
Picture a person focused only on “self” in the synagogue. The self is not there to worship God. He is there for selfish reasons, not to give glory to God. He must have betrayed his motives in some obvious way, perhaps putting on a show of great religious fervor inconsistent with his daily life. Or perhaps he is sowing discontent, undermining faith, or otherwise is against what is good.
In the presence of Jesus, the spirit of self still resists.
A House Divided February 3
Mark 1:23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
Is the command for the evil spirit to come out of the person the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is it a call for the person to repent and release the ungodly spirit that inhabits and controls the person?
The unclean spirits in this verse resist. They ask Jesus to leave them alone because they are not hurting Jesus. All they ask is for the self they have claimed as their own.
There is a part of this man that fears because he knows Jesus’ identity.
Another part of this man hopes because he knows Jesus’ identity.
Think about being addicted to a thought rather than a substance. For instance, being addicted to abuse (giving or receiving) or rage or despair or another negative state. Each is an example of possession by an unclean spirit, a spirit not intended for us. Such a spirit is not of the kingdom of God.
Even as we are addicted, drawn to repeat the same sin over and over again, we wish that we would not do it, that we could be free from it.
Here is a man divided against himself. Is there a crack between his two halves for the light to get inside?
Be Quiet February 4
Mark 1:25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” 26 And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.
Mark has told us already that Jesus speaks “as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (vs.22). He speaks truth and light, not reason and logic.
Rebirth: a change to a new life lived without a particular unclean spirit, one that has become part of the person’s identity. Losing even an “unclean” part of self is too much of a change, more than one is willing to endure. Made whole, a person might repent, might change.
In this verse, the man with the unclean spirit may have been conflicted, a house divided against itself. He is addicted to some state of mind that is not good – anger, fear, violence, or whatever fruit of the flesh. And yet he also wants to be free from this bondage, desiring the fruit of the Spirit.
The man allows the light of Jesus to enter the crack between his divided halves. Jesus speaks the Spirit, and the man receives it willingly.
The unclean spirit does not leave peacefully or quietly. The Greek word translated as “convulsed” is a violent word, along the lines of “mangled,” or as in “convulsed with epilepsy.”
As the spirit came out, it “cried out with a loud voice.” The word translated as “voice” can be human, bestial, or artificial. Since Jesus has commanded “quiet,” the unclean spirit can say nothing. The cry is not a human voice, for it has been separated from humanity. It is but a hollow gasp.
The man is whole again with one body, mind, and Spirit.
Next day
Mark 1:19 When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. 20 And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.
James and John are “the sons of thunder,” as Jesus later calls them.
Jesus has called four working men to be His disciples. His ministry does not begin with those educated in the religion of the day. He is looking for workers whose skills can be remolded into His service.
That James and John have hired servants remaining to help their father is interesting. This implies that they are financially well off. But they have found something – Someone – better.
Like Simon Peter and Andrew, these brothers know of Jesus from the time of His baptism by John the Baptist. They have had their time to consider what they experienced with Jesus. During the time when Jesus was in the wilderness, perhaps they recognized where they were. When He called, they came out of their own wilderness.
James and John are like the bookends of the faithful disciples. James was the first of the 11 to die. He died by sword at the order of King Herod Agrippa. John was the last to die, the only one of the 12 to die a natural death.
Jesus taught multitudes the way back to God, to a personal relationship with their Maker. He taught a chosen few how to carry on His teaching after His death. Jesus fished for those who would continue to fish in all nations.
“Follow Me” is the precursor, the foundation of the Great Commission.
Regenesis January 30
Mark 1:21 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Mark has given no specifics on His early teaching. Matthew and Mark both record Jesus repeating the text of John the Baptist’s message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). John includes the teaching of being born “from above” to Nicodemus (John 3). Note that Strong’s G509 might be accurately translated as born “from above” rather than “born again.”
A rabbi in the time of Jesus is a traveling teacher of the Scripture who has disciples, travels from place to place, teaching correctly (“fulfilling”) the Law, using parables and such techniques to apply the Torah to daily life, and teaching the greatest commandment to follow (his yoke).
We see as did the people to whom He spoke that Jesus meets these qualifications.
We see from all the Gospels that he speaks of the Scripture already given to the nation of Israel and its application for the people who hear Him.
Reading His extensive teachings recorded in the other Gospels, the substance of His message is not different from what we have read in Mark’s account: regenesis, or regeneration, or being born from above. The message is the same regardless of the words.
That the people are astonished at His teaching is not surprising. Jesus offers a new perspective on God, on the individual, and on the relationship of the two.
He still offers this new perspective.
The Way January 31
Mark 1:21 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Jesus’ teaching is itself a regeneration, the rebirth of the messages of God’s identity and of mankind’s relationship with Him as intended from the beginning. He teaches an old truth, but it is new to those who hear Him speak.
Traveling the road of life, there are not only impediments, but divergent paths that turn us away from our intended destination. When a vision of the correct path is seen again, the appearance is so different from the present surroundings as to seem unreal, irrelevant to the place we find ourselves.
And yet there is a familiarity in this pathway of old that speaks to us, calls to the soul that has at one time been at One with the Creator. The message is at one time both foreign and familiar, unreasonable and inevitable. The contradiction demands resolution.
We choose to continue the current path, or retrace our steps back to the original way. The people listening to Jesus in the synagogue find themselves at a point of decision: to continue forward and away, or backward to return to The Way.
And this is a decision point at which we all find ourselves time and again – to continue further takes us away from our destination, but to have to retrace our steps seems like going backward.
Sometimes going back is the only route forward.
The Scribes February 1
Mark 1:22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
The scribes have a very large responsibility. They transmit religious and legal thought both within the Jewish culture and from one generation to the next. Originally, scribes were religious leaders. Ezra was a scribe and a Levitical priest (Ezra 7:1-6). By Roman times, many scribes are from the secular culture.
Their work must be accurate and literal. They are responsible for every jot and tittle of the Scripture. A jot, the smallest Hebrew letter “yod,” looks like an apostrophe. A tittle is a mark that changes a letter, like our line through the “O” that makes it a “Q.”
They are often consulted as to what is written in the holy writings, including the words of the teachers of the Scripture. They have the written law, and have put in writing the oral law. Their authority is limited to the literal written word rather than the figurative meaning or power.
Observant Jews often wear a tefillah (sometimes called a phylactery) on their forearm or forehead. The small black case contains verses from Scripture. This seems to have been a literal interpretation of four different verses in the Books of Moses. (As an example: Deuteronomy 6:6-8)
That they are placed on the arm (empowering work of the hand) and the forehead (mind) rather than on the chest (heart) seems to speak to the human tendency to put obedience in the class of work rather than of love.
The words in red are often examples of Jesus casting the words of God in a new light.
If we must have a doctrine, let it be the words in red.
An Unclean Spirit February 2
Mark 1:23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
The unclean spirits of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are something of a mystery. That we do not see them elsewhere gives reason to think about the term.
Unclean is a Greek compound word, akathartos, literally meaning, “not clean.” The Greek prefix “A” means “no” or “not”, and “kathartos” means clean (from which we get catharsis, an emotional cleansing). The word translated as “spirit” is G4151, pneuma, the same word used in Holy Spirit.
What if an unclean spirit simply means that it is not the pneuma, not the Spirit that God breathed into us at Creation? Is an unclean spirit necessarily a being under Satan’s dominion? Or can it be the will of the individual asserting itself against God’s will?
An unclean spirit is one that substitutes someone else, perhaps the self, for God. This manifests in actions inconsistent with having the Holy Spirit.
Picture a person focused only on “self” in the synagogue. The self is not there to worship God. He is there for selfish reasons, not to give glory to God. He must have betrayed his motives in some obvious way, perhaps putting on a show of great religious fervor inconsistent with his daily life. Or perhaps he is sowing discontent, undermining faith, or otherwise is against what is good.
In the presence of Jesus, the spirit of self still resists.
A House Divided February 3
Mark 1:23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
Is the command for the evil spirit to come out of the person the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is it a call for the person to repent and release the ungodly spirit that inhabits and controls the person?
The unclean spirits in this verse resist. They ask Jesus to leave them alone because they are not hurting Jesus. All they ask is for the self they have claimed as their own.
There is a part of this man that fears because he knows Jesus’ identity.
Another part of this man hopes because he knows Jesus’ identity.
Think about being addicted to a thought rather than a substance. For instance, being addicted to abuse (giving or receiving) or rage or despair or another negative state. Each is an example of possession by an unclean spirit, a spirit not intended for us. Such a spirit is not of the kingdom of God.
Even as we are addicted, drawn to repeat the same sin over and over again, we wish that we would not do it, that we could be free from it.
Here is a man divided against himself. Is there a crack between his two halves for the light to get inside?
Be Quiet February 4
Mark 1:25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” 26 And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.
Mark has told us already that Jesus speaks “as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (vs.22). He speaks truth and light, not reason and logic.
Rebirth: a change to a new life lived without a particular unclean spirit, one that has become part of the person’s identity. Losing even an “unclean” part of self is too much of a change, more than one is willing to endure. Made whole, a person might repent, might change.
In this verse, the man with the unclean spirit may have been conflicted, a house divided against itself. He is addicted to some state of mind that is not good – anger, fear, violence, or whatever fruit of the flesh. And yet he also wants to be free from this bondage, desiring the fruit of the Spirit.
The man allows the light of Jesus to enter the crack between his divided halves. Jesus speaks the Spirit, and the man receives it willingly.
The unclean spirit does not leave peacefully or quietly. The Greek word translated as “convulsed” is a violent word, along the lines of “mangled,” or as in “convulsed with epilepsy.”
As the spirit came out, it “cried out with a loud voice.” The word translated as “voice” can be human, bestial, or artificial. Since Jesus has commanded “quiet,” the unclean spirit can say nothing. The cry is not a human voice, for it has been separated from humanity. It is but a hollow gasp.
The man is whole again with one body, mind, and Spirit.
Next day