This is the first in a new series, which takes it's title from the hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" by Martin Luther. In this series, we hope to see in a fresh way what the Bible says about itself.
In this study, we come to the death of Christ, which is a familiar topic to most of us because it is so central to the story of Jesus. However this familiarity sometimes works against us – we start to take things for granted, instead of taking them to heart. "What kind of death?" is this that we are going to look at? It is no ordinary death. Every part of Jesus’ death is out of the ordinary and we have to avoid making it ordinary so that we can fully understand it. Let's not come to Jesus' death in a flippant way. His death should be something we behold and treasure.
We move closer and closer to the cross, and in this study, we'll take a closer look at the trial that Jesus went through on the way to the cross. Mark 14:53 picks up right after Jesus was betrayed by Judas and arrested.
The book of Mark is disproportionately divided. The first half covers the first 33 years of his life, while the latter half covers the final week. Mark 14, which we are going to look at today, records for us the last hours of Jesus' life. In the final hours of his life, he was still in control, and he spends it with his friends. We're going to look at 3 different friends, and how they treated Him when He reaches the cross.
This passage is set on "the first day of Unleavened Bread'. Jesus and His disciples were celebrating the the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was commanded by God in Exodus 12. It was a celebration for the time when God passed over the sins of the Israelites in judgment, before they left Egypt. It is here that the Passover Lamb is sacrificed, to celebrate and remember God passing over the Israelite camp and sparing the lives of their firstborn. Thus, Jesus and his disciples were celebrating this, and participating in this Jewish ritual. This Feast was to become a statute and part of their law, because it was important enough for them to celebrate it every year. Exodus 12:14, 17 specifically calls for Israelites to remember God in their Exodus. In a way, this is the day Israel became a “nation”, they became independent, and it marked their freedom and deliverance by God.
Today's study takes us into a parable of Jesus. Parables were used by Jesus to illustrate specific points, thus we need to beware of reading too much into it, because they have been designed for a specific illustrative purpose. Jesus is addressing the scribes and Pharisees here, and this context will prove helpful as we look at what Jesus is trying to say, and what kind of a Judge He is.
Lent is meant to prepare our hearts for Good Friday and Easter, as we trace the steps our Savior took to the cross. The Bible, and these passages especially, gives and shows us Jesus. As we read these passages, the circumstances and scenes may seem very foreign to us, with all the mentions of cloaks, colts, etc. Yet our 2016 world bears some similarities to the New Testament world of the Bible. We live in a world of refugee crisis due to oppressive regimes and crimes abound in our society. We are not that far off from the life of the NT Jews in Mark. They too, live under the oppressive Roman rule, and are distressed and insecure. This is the world that Jesus entered.
This study coincides with the first day of Lent, and it is a great way to begin the Lenten season. After all, the Christian calendar -- Advent, Epiphany etc -- is meant to help us think through the life of Christ, and this study on blood helps us link Leviticus to the work of Christ. We sing so much about blood sometimes ("What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!"), and somehow in the Christian belief, blood is for washing, and makes us white and clean. This is somewhat counterintuitive, because certainly we don't use it for washing in our daily lives, and we know that blood stains!
Lev 17 helps shed light on the significance of blood to the Christian belief.
The important background to today's study comes from Lev 10:1-2. It records for us the death of Aaron's 2 sons from offering unauthorised fire to the Lord. They put fire and laid incense in their censers even though God did not command them, and as a result, fire came from the Lord and consumed them. This sets the stage for us to understand Lev 16.
This study looks at the cases of bodily discharges, but first, let us introduce ourselves to a NT case study of bodily discharge, in Mark 5:24-34. In Mark 5, the healing of this woman is sandwiched between more spectacular healing -- the healing of the demon-possessed man, and the dead child brought to life. The passage describes the woman's fear and stigma against her clearly. We are told that she "suffered much", "grew worse" and "spent all that she had" (v.26). It was with "fear and trembling" that she approached Jesus, and "fell down before Him and told Him and told Him the whole truth" (v.33). It is not hard to infer how she suffered. Why? It is important for us to understand Lev 15, for it forms the backdrop of this NT encounter.
How many of you have had spots on your skin before? Rashes, pimples, burns, etc. This passage might be of interest to you for it tells you how you can tell an unclean spot from a clean one. In fact, the passage has so many different types of spots that it is almost certain you could at least be suspected to be unclean.
In today's study, we look at another set of instructions to the people of God, this time, for after childbirth.
This is our first study in Leviticus, and this is certainly no easy book. Before we begin, it's important to consider one obstacle to understanding this passage. You see our secular mindset -- the philosophy and mindset of the age, the mind of the flesh, what we possess naturally -- causes us to approach the Bible and passages like Leviticus with man as the starting point. The secular mindset says man is the starting point of all things and man decides what makes sense and what is right and wrong. Problems, solutions and successes are defined according to man. This is why we struggle with the Bible and passages like Leviticus, because things don't make sense to us. Even Christians can be secular. How do you know if you have a secular mindset or not? How do you pray? If you pray around what you want, what you deem as needful or not, what is good according to your standard, chances are, you are still operating with a secular mindset. In contrast, the Spirit-filled mind (c.f. Rom 8) starts with God, letting God decide the agenda, praying that our Father in Heaven will have His name hallowed, and that His will be done in Heaven and on Earth. The Spirit-filled mind starts with God.
We end the year looking at the last of the Servant Songs. "The year of the Lord's favour" referred to in verse 2 was something that Israel was familiar with. From the verse, we see that this Servant will come to proclaim what happens in a year of the Lord's favour. As our year ends and a new one begins, this text shows us also what this means for us in the year ahead.
We continue our series in the Servant Songs of Isaiah, and in today's passage, we'll learn more about the heart of this Servant.
Today, we'll take a look at another Servant Song in Isaiah, one that could be more familiar to many of us. Let us take a closer look at these verses and see what the Servant of the Lord is like.
In this series, we're making our way through the prophecies of Isaiah, written around 742 BC – more than 700 years before Christ. Today, we'll look at the second Servant Song.
We begin with our first Servant Song in the book of Isaiah. Written 600 years before Christ, these were prophecies and presented a portrait of the coming Messiah for the people of God.
We're now in the final verses of Romans 8, and to understand the closing verses, we need to understand and recap the previous verses to understand what Paul has been trying to establish and build towards.
We've finally hit the parts of Romans 8 that are more familiar to most of us. In this study, we'll take a look at what it means that God is for us. Perhaps it's different from what most of us assume it is, and is actually so much more!