Speech and Hearing May 28
Mark 7:31 Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. 32 Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.
Jesus travels back to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, to the Decapolis (Ten Cities). These cities had been established for Greek settlement after Alexander the Great conquered the land. The Greek population is more aligned with Rome and celebrated when Rome ended Israel’s brief independence in 63 BC.
All of this history is to say that the region is by no means Jewish. As with His experience with the Gadarenes, Jesus is in a Gentile territory not receptive to people of Israel.
A man is brought to Jesus who is deaf and has an impediment of speech. The Greek for impediment of speech is a compound word meaning “hardly talk.” Those who are born deaf have an almost impossible task in learning to talk since they cannot determine how other people make sounds or know what sounds they are making.
Figuratively, Jesus is with people of the Greek religion of gods and goddesses. They have never heard the truth of their own identity and would not be able to speak the truth of the nature of the world or of themselves.
Until we are aware of our identity and our place in relation to God, other people, and the world, we are unable to hear truth and therefore unable to speak truth. Everything that enters through our ears is interpreted based on a lack of understanding, and our speech reflects this lack.
Be Opened May 29
Mark 7:33 And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
35 Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.
Jesus pulls the man from among the people who have brought him, literally, setting the man apart from the crowd. Such are those whom Jesus has chosen and made whole.
The sigh in verse 34 may be related to this, or to the predicament of disease in a world that is not whole. It is the audible if not palpable grief that Jesus feels, His compassion expressed.
If the man could have heard, Jesus might have said, “I will open your ears and loosen your tongue to speak by praying to My Father in heaven.” Because the man is deaf, Jesus performs the words rather than speaks them, thus letting the man know the method of healing step by step.
The man is healed of deafness and muteness. The miraculous nature of the healing is compounded by the immediate ability to speak. As with the man who had been lame for 38 years but did not have to learn how to use his legs again, the mute man is able to speak without a lengthy therapy and re-education on speech.
Jesus does not give wholeness piecemeal.
He Has Done All Things Well May 30
Mark 7:36 Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
Jesus told the man freed of a demon in the region of the Gadarenes not to follow Him but to return home and tell his friends. Here, the healed man’s friends are with him and already are aware of the miracle. There is no need to spread the news beyond those who know the man.
Second hand news is less reliable, third hand even less reliable, and the truth becomes more remote with each retelling. Those predisposed toward this good news enlarge upon it, and those who see Jesus as bad news enlarge upon the negative view.
Jesus did not come to show His works. He came to spread the Good News about God. When God is seen in the light of this Good News, truth is restored in the form of harmony between God and mankind, and between mankind and the rest of Creation.
He does not want people to reach their conclusions from retold tales of a miracle rather than from the life changing experience of an encounter with the spiritual world.
A tidal wave of retold stories becomes rumors and unfocused stories. The Good News, the point of Jesus’ mission, gets lost in the sensational events. This is about God. It is about life in the kingdom of God now, while living on earth. Follow Jesus and find it has been here all along.
Miracles are not the news but are simply a confirmation of the Good News.
Old-time Revival May 31
Mark 8:1 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them,
The intersection between the spiritual world and the secular world occurs quite often if you think about it.
A regular day is well under way, and someone suggests going to listen to a speaker who is supposed to be pretty good. The guy is some kind of modern day Messiah. And they say He heals people, and His words sound like they come from the Scripture itself.
They are hoping it will be an all-day event, so you get some bread, put some grapes in a bag, and get some water. And you join a small group of people heading into the countryside. Others join in the flow, and there is quite a crowd when you finally arrive.
People are covering the hillside. It’s like a massive family reunion. This man, Jesus, is talking with people one on one. They are lined up to see Him. His helpers are keeping the line in order and interviewing people to see who should be next to talk to Jesus one on one.
Every now and then, Jesus stops what He is doing and speaks to the crowd for a few minutes. He says strange things, totally at odds with almost everything you have heard about religion.
That’s because He is talking about God, from Scripture and, more importantly, from experience. Theory and tradition have no place with Him.
You want to spend time with Him and this extraordinary group of strangers around you. Your secular being is unconsciously harmonizing with His Spiritual Being.
Compassion June 1
Mark 8:2 “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.”
The afternoon passes.
There are stories of healing, both of bodies and relationships.
There are stories of forgiveness and mercy.
There are words of love and grace.
And you see the evidence in the people around you. This is real.
People come and go, but a core crowd stays through the night, and the next day, and another night, into the third day. What you brought to eat was finished for breakfast yesterday. Someone shared some food later in the day.
Physical hunger is real. It is undeniable.
The spiritual hunger that you had felt but could not identify is gone. You could stay here with Jesus longer, but now you are physically hungry, starving.
A few of the crowd have drifted away while others sit listlessly, intent on Jesus but too weak to step toward Him or to leave in search of food. Most appear to be waiting, patiently waiting for something.
Jesus looks at you, and you see that He is aware of your plight. He has compassion.
This man, this Jesus, has offered so much, but what can He do about the physical hunger that surrounds Him?
Counting Blessings June 2
Mark 8:4 Then His disciples answered Him, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?”
5 He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.”
The disciples see the reality of the situation. They have reduced the problem to one of numbers. This is common in our culture, also, reducing everything to an accounting entry.
Numbers are often misleading. We like them because they are hard facts. Seven is the number after 6, so there is one more than 6.
In the Old Testament, a number is far more important as a quality than a quantity.
God is One, complete in the Oneness. Six is the number of Mankind, and also signifies incompleteness.
The number seven means complete. It is the summation of two numbers, a mathematical formula:
1 (God) + 6 (Mankind) = 7 (Completeness).
This is not to say that the story is untrue or the number of loaves is inaccurate. This only confirms that when God is added to the equation, the answer may appear miraculous.
Like the disciples, we see the number seven with a small “s,” a glass much less than half full. We have reduced the equation to two numbers, 7 divided by 4,000. The result is a very small number.
Perhaps we have not rightly understood the question.
Setting the Table June 3
Mark 8:6 So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude. 7 They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.
Jesus pauses the work He is doing, the healing of body, mind, and spirit. These three are one, and each part must be fed. He knows their bodies have been on a sustained fast, and it is time to break that fast.
His teaching has fed their minds, helped them to envision things greater than what the eyes can see. He has fed their spirits as the sun feeds the green plants, drawing them heavenward from their earthbound roots.
But the bodies grow weary from hunger. The mind grows dull without physical nourishment. Focus on spiritual things will grow dim.
Jesus commands that a physical inventory of available food stores be taken. This is for the purpose of showing not how much is available, but how little store they have from which to draw.
The concept of a feast is reversed – rather than more food than the guests can consume, there are more guests than there is food for them.
Jesus gives thanks for the loaves, and the bread is distributed. There are a few small fish, for which He also gives thanks before they are distributed.
Perhaps this is a lesson in perspective as to what constitutes an abundance. Or perhaps the lesson is in the perspective of what is needed to fill an emptiness.
Next day
Mark 7:31 Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. 32 Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.
Jesus travels back to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, to the Decapolis (Ten Cities). These cities had been established for Greek settlement after Alexander the Great conquered the land. The Greek population is more aligned with Rome and celebrated when Rome ended Israel’s brief independence in 63 BC.
All of this history is to say that the region is by no means Jewish. As with His experience with the Gadarenes, Jesus is in a Gentile territory not receptive to people of Israel.
A man is brought to Jesus who is deaf and has an impediment of speech. The Greek for impediment of speech is a compound word meaning “hardly talk.” Those who are born deaf have an almost impossible task in learning to talk since they cannot determine how other people make sounds or know what sounds they are making.
Figuratively, Jesus is with people of the Greek religion of gods and goddesses. They have never heard the truth of their own identity and would not be able to speak the truth of the nature of the world or of themselves.
Until we are aware of our identity and our place in relation to God, other people, and the world, we are unable to hear truth and therefore unable to speak truth. Everything that enters through our ears is interpreted based on a lack of understanding, and our speech reflects this lack.
Be Opened May 29
Mark 7:33 And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
35 Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.
Jesus pulls the man from among the people who have brought him, literally, setting the man apart from the crowd. Such are those whom Jesus has chosen and made whole.
The sigh in verse 34 may be related to this, or to the predicament of disease in a world that is not whole. It is the audible if not palpable grief that Jesus feels, His compassion expressed.
If the man could have heard, Jesus might have said, “I will open your ears and loosen your tongue to speak by praying to My Father in heaven.” Because the man is deaf, Jesus performs the words rather than speaks them, thus letting the man know the method of healing step by step.
The man is healed of deafness and muteness. The miraculous nature of the healing is compounded by the immediate ability to speak. As with the man who had been lame for 38 years but did not have to learn how to use his legs again, the mute man is able to speak without a lengthy therapy and re-education on speech.
Jesus does not give wholeness piecemeal.
He Has Done All Things Well May 30
Mark 7:36 Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
Jesus told the man freed of a demon in the region of the Gadarenes not to follow Him but to return home and tell his friends. Here, the healed man’s friends are with him and already are aware of the miracle. There is no need to spread the news beyond those who know the man.
Second hand news is less reliable, third hand even less reliable, and the truth becomes more remote with each retelling. Those predisposed toward this good news enlarge upon it, and those who see Jesus as bad news enlarge upon the negative view.
Jesus did not come to show His works. He came to spread the Good News about God. When God is seen in the light of this Good News, truth is restored in the form of harmony between God and mankind, and between mankind and the rest of Creation.
He does not want people to reach their conclusions from retold tales of a miracle rather than from the life changing experience of an encounter with the spiritual world.
A tidal wave of retold stories becomes rumors and unfocused stories. The Good News, the point of Jesus’ mission, gets lost in the sensational events. This is about God. It is about life in the kingdom of God now, while living on earth. Follow Jesus and find it has been here all along.
Miracles are not the news but are simply a confirmation of the Good News.
Old-time Revival May 31
Mark 8:1 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them,
The intersection between the spiritual world and the secular world occurs quite often if you think about it.
A regular day is well under way, and someone suggests going to listen to a speaker who is supposed to be pretty good. The guy is some kind of modern day Messiah. And they say He heals people, and His words sound like they come from the Scripture itself.
They are hoping it will be an all-day event, so you get some bread, put some grapes in a bag, and get some water. And you join a small group of people heading into the countryside. Others join in the flow, and there is quite a crowd when you finally arrive.
People are covering the hillside. It’s like a massive family reunion. This man, Jesus, is talking with people one on one. They are lined up to see Him. His helpers are keeping the line in order and interviewing people to see who should be next to talk to Jesus one on one.
Every now and then, Jesus stops what He is doing and speaks to the crowd for a few minutes. He says strange things, totally at odds with almost everything you have heard about religion.
That’s because He is talking about God, from Scripture and, more importantly, from experience. Theory and tradition have no place with Him.
You want to spend time with Him and this extraordinary group of strangers around you. Your secular being is unconsciously harmonizing with His Spiritual Being.
Compassion June 1
Mark 8:2 “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.”
The afternoon passes.
There are stories of healing, both of bodies and relationships.
There are stories of forgiveness and mercy.
There are words of love and grace.
And you see the evidence in the people around you. This is real.
People come and go, but a core crowd stays through the night, and the next day, and another night, into the third day. What you brought to eat was finished for breakfast yesterday. Someone shared some food later in the day.
Physical hunger is real. It is undeniable.
The spiritual hunger that you had felt but could not identify is gone. You could stay here with Jesus longer, but now you are physically hungry, starving.
A few of the crowd have drifted away while others sit listlessly, intent on Jesus but too weak to step toward Him or to leave in search of food. Most appear to be waiting, patiently waiting for something.
Jesus looks at you, and you see that He is aware of your plight. He has compassion.
This man, this Jesus, has offered so much, but what can He do about the physical hunger that surrounds Him?
Counting Blessings June 2
Mark 8:4 Then His disciples answered Him, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?”
5 He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.”
The disciples see the reality of the situation. They have reduced the problem to one of numbers. This is common in our culture, also, reducing everything to an accounting entry.
Numbers are often misleading. We like them because they are hard facts. Seven is the number after 6, so there is one more than 6.
In the Old Testament, a number is far more important as a quality than a quantity.
God is One, complete in the Oneness. Six is the number of Mankind, and also signifies incompleteness.
The number seven means complete. It is the summation of two numbers, a mathematical formula:
1 (God) + 6 (Mankind) = 7 (Completeness).
This is not to say that the story is untrue or the number of loaves is inaccurate. This only confirms that when God is added to the equation, the answer may appear miraculous.
Like the disciples, we see the number seven with a small “s,” a glass much less than half full. We have reduced the equation to two numbers, 7 divided by 4,000. The result is a very small number.
Perhaps we have not rightly understood the question.
Setting the Table June 3
Mark 8:6 So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude. 7 They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.
Jesus pauses the work He is doing, the healing of body, mind, and spirit. These three are one, and each part must be fed. He knows their bodies have been on a sustained fast, and it is time to break that fast.
His teaching has fed their minds, helped them to envision things greater than what the eyes can see. He has fed their spirits as the sun feeds the green plants, drawing them heavenward from their earthbound roots.
But the bodies grow weary from hunger. The mind grows dull without physical nourishment. Focus on spiritual things will grow dim.
Jesus commands that a physical inventory of available food stores be taken. This is for the purpose of showing not how much is available, but how little store they have from which to draw.
The concept of a feast is reversed – rather than more food than the guests can consume, there are more guests than there is food for them.
Jesus gives thanks for the loaves, and the bread is distributed. There are a few small fish, for which He also gives thanks before they are distributed.
Perhaps this is a lesson in perspective as to what constitutes an abundance. Or perhaps the lesson is in the perspective of what is needed to fill an emptiness.
Next day