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Wednesday, November 21, 2018
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Monday, November 19, 2018
Discipling Through Devotionals (4)
Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:31b-37
Besides coming to reconcile the
world to the Father through His substitutionary sacrifice of Himself on the
cross offered once for all, the main focus of Jesus’ ministry appears to have
been to mobilise a disciple making movement by transferring His spiritual DNA,
as it were, to those who followed Him, primarily through teaching and
modelling. Jesus did not only teach them what they needed to know, He showed
them how to apply truth to ordinary every day situations as well as situations
that were rather out of the ordinary.
Neither Mark nor Luke recorded
the precise content of Jesus teaching at the synagogue that day. The reason for
this apparent omission is simple: it was not their primary focus. His authority
was. “The authority of Jesus’ teaching is a major theme in this unit. This is
highlighted quite explicitly: people are amazed at Jesus’ authority at the
beginning of the scene, and they comment on it again at the end. The exorcism
itself visibly demonstrates the theme.”[1]
Jesus’ authority was two-fold –
His teaching and His authority over demonic forces. Both were totally unlike
what would have been considered the norm at the time. Exorcisms were usually
performed by means of rituals or incantations.[2]
In stark contrast, Jesus simply told the demon to be silent and to leave the
man. “There had been no technique, no spells or incantations, no symbolic act.
There had been only the word…(the people had) been confronted by a word
invested with power to which there were no analogies in their experience.”[3]
Likewise, when we encounter the demonic there need not be any elaborate
methodology employed. Jesus has given us His authority and His power to deliver
possessed and oppressed people from the demonic.[4]
It seems that Mark was making a
statement about Jesus from the very beginning of the Gospel bearing his name.
Jesus had come to restore creation – He had come to take what was lost through
the disobedience of our ancestors away from the usurper.[5]
In Genesis chapters one and two, we are told that God created humankind to be
His vice-regents over His creation. By submitting
to the authority of Satan rather than to that of God, our common ancestors
forfeited this role and Satan became what Jesus called “the god of this world”,
ruling over the hearts and minds of all people. But God promised that someday
the “Seed of the woman” would come to reverse the effects of what is commonly
referred to as the “Fall” by bruising the head (i.e. permanently damaging the
authority) of the devil.
As we have already seen in the
section on the wilderness temptations, Jesus bound the strongman so that He
could plunder his household. The true King had come and one of the signs that
His Kingdom had arrived was the casting out of demons.[6]
There are two very interesting
aspects to this particular story. The first is simply the location. The
demoniac was found in a place of worship, namely the synagogue. The lesson
learned is that we will find non-believers in religious places as well as
non-religious places.
The second is that, while human
individuals did not identify Jesus’ divinity, the demons did. “That the demonic
powers possess a certain knowledge of Jesus’ identity is clear from the cry of
recognition, ‘I know who You are, the Holy One of God.’”[7]
In recording this, Mark was clearly telling his readers right from the start that
Jesus was no ordinary human, even though His followers only realised the fact
much later. His absolute authority over the demons revealed Who He was…“For one
dramatic moment the curtain is parted and everyone sees who is really on the
throne.”[8]
The lesson here seems to be that
while the real identity of Jesus is known in the spiritual realm, it is not
always clearly seen by people. Some may be quite willing to acknowledge Him as
a good person or a great moral teacher, but not as God.
Jesus was and still is both God
and Man.[9]
The same authority displayed here in the synagogue in Capernaum is ours in His
Name.[10]
Like Jesus, we who walk as He walked are called to announce His kingdom come in
bearing witness to His authority as legitimate owner of this world through
teaching, healing, and resisting the demonic forces and principalities of
darkness.
[1] Interpreting Gospel Narratives: Scenes, People, and Theology,
Timothy Wiarda, B&H Academic, Nashville, TN, 2010, 82
[5] “For Jesus
and the evangelists, they (the exorcisms) signaled something far deeper that
was going on, namely, the real battle of the ministry, which was not a round of
fierce debates with the keepers of orthodoxy, but head-on war with the satan.”
Jesus and the Victory of God, N.T. Wright, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN,
1996, 195
[8] Sitting
at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, Ann Spangler, Lois Tverberg, Zondervan, Grand
Rapids, MI, 2018, 199.
Friday, November 16, 2018
Discipling Through Devotionals (3)
Call of the Four
Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20;
Luke 5:1-11
Disciple making is a process that
begins simply with the development of relationships. In the case of Jesus’
disciples, their relationship with Him began quite a while before they made the
final decision to drop their nets[1]
and to follow Him…and even then, that commitment was tried and tested on
several occasions right up to Jesus’ death and resurrection![2]
As far as Andrew, perhaps John,
and Simon Peter were concerned, this relationship began shortly after Jesus’
baptism and temptation and before Jesus began His public ministry (cf. John
1:35-42) with a simple invitation to “come and see”. John the Baptist was
baptising at Bethany beyond the Jordan, just north of the Dead Sea. Every Jew
would have understood the significance of this location as it was the same area
where Joshua[3]
crossed the Jordan after the generation of the unfaithful had died during the
40 year long wilderness wandering period. Messiah fever was high at the time
John made his first appearance and his call to repentance would have been
interpreted in terms of a preparation for some form of renewal or
reconstruction of the nation[4].
So we can only imagine what must have been going through the minds of those who
heard John preach! No wonder they were flocking to him to be washed clean in
preparation for God’s intervention!
We know that Andrew, Simon’s
brother was a follower of John the Baptist[5].
After hearing the witness of the Baptist regarding the Spirit anointing Jesus
and his identification of Jesus as the “Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of
the world”[6],
they met with Jesus and spent a few hours with Him. We don’t know what they
talked about, but something was said that convinced Andrew that Jesus was the
long awaited Messiah because he immediately left to find Simon, his brother. If
Simon was not a follower of John the Baptist (there is no indication in the
text that he was) then this “finding” would have involved a three or more day
trip back and forth to Galilee!
Andrew told his brother that they
had found the Messiah and Simon immediately went with him to meet Jesus. The
first meeting is interesting as it involved the giving of a name or a nickname[7].
Names were always significant in the culture at the time as with many African
cultures still today.[8]
At this point one would have expected Simon to respond with some statement of
gratitude or surprise or perhaps the question why? But strangely and perhaps
uncharacteristically, Simon said nothing and he did nothing. He obviously did
not drop everything to follow Jesus as the next time the two met, Simon was
still fishing.[9]
The second meeting with Jesus
went a little deeper. In Mark 1:16-18 Jesus’ challenge was no longer simply
“come and see”; He now called them to “come follow Me and I will show you how to fish for people”.[10]
Simon, Andrew, James, and John immediately followed Jesus and for a time watched
Him fish for people. They heard Him teach and preach, they saw Him heal and
perform exorcisms, they witnessed His compassion for people, and they heard Him
challenge them to “pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send more labourers into
the harvest field.”
And yet, in Luke 5:1-11 we find
them fishing for fish once again. We don’t really know why Simon Peter appeared
to be reluctant to follow Jesus. Perhaps he was not fully convinced that Jesus
was the Messiah. Many had made that claim before and had met with a rather
sticky end (cf. Acts 5:36-37). Or perhaps he was concerned that he would not be
able to adequately provide for his family. Or perhaps he was fearful that he
was not disciple making material and that he would fail.
In this account of the miraculous
draught of fishes, Jesus touched on all of Simon’s possible fears. After having
used Simon’s boat as a makeshift pulpit, Jesus told the seasoned fisherman to
launch out for a catch. Luke filled in the background to this story by telling
us that they had been fishing all night long[11]
and that they had not caught as much as a single fin. So it is not surprising
that at first Simon objected to the Lord’s suggestion. What exactly changed his
mind we do not know, but they did launch out and we know what happened…the nets
filled to breaking point and Simon had an “aha!” moment.
In this single event, Jesus
addressed all of Simon’s concerns. He demonstrated quite clearly that He had
power over the created order and was not a mere carpenter/stonemason/itinerant
preacher and teacher – He was the Messiah and there was no longer any reason to
doubt that. Secondly, He proved to Simon that He could provide exceedingly
abundantly more than he and his wife would need. No need to fret about finances
or food in the future! And finally, He dispelled the fear of failure by telling
Simon Peter that He would make him what he needed to be…there need be no fear
as he would receive personal, one-on-one, on the job training.
It is Jesus Who makes disciple
makers…they do not make themselves. No one need ever be afraid, as Jesus will
make us the kind of people we need to be and He has promised to complete the
good work He began in us! All we need to do is walk as He walked…follow His
lead…learn and imitate what He did in the Gospels…be attentive to the promptings
of the Holy Spirit as He was…and stay connected to the Father through constant
prayer. [12]
[1] See Matthew 19:27 - Dropping their nets and following Jesus
for the fishermen meant leaving behind a lucrative business. We would do well
to remember that Simon Peter owned his own boat (Luke 5:3) as well as his own
home (Luke 4:38 - more like a compound where family members and often those of
the same trade lived together in a shared space called an insula), had business
partners (Luke 5:10), and perhaps even hired hands (Mark 1:2).
[3] The name יֵשׁוּעַ “Yeshua” (Jesus) is a late form of the
Biblical Hebrew name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ “Yehoshua” (Joshua).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua
[5] There is another unnamed disciple many scholars
believe to have been John, the beloved disciple.
[7] The name
Simon had been revived during the Maccabean period and may have carried
overtones of national renewal. Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory: The New
Testament Apostle in the Early Church, Markus Bockmuehl, Baker Academic, Grand
Rapids, MI, 21. In this passage, Jesus tells Simon that he will be called
Cephas (Kephah), an Aramaic
word meaning stone or rock – in Greek it is Petros and in English Peter.
[9] Rule #1 for making disciples is always build real
relationships with unbelievers over time. People generally do not respond the
first time we meet them! Disciple making is a process.
[10] This process of ever increasing commitment
is important to the disciple maker. It begins with the disciple maker showing
the disciple how to do the work of the ministry while the disciple passively
watches. But this must move on to where the disciple actively begins to help
and slowly take over under supervision until he or she is able to do the work
on his or her own. The best way to train others to make disciples is through
modelling, to demonstrate first hand the model we find in the Gospels.
[11] In that
part of the world, those in the know always did net fishing at night, as they
knew the fish would move into the deeper cooler depths once the sun started to
bake on the surface.
[12] This devotion
was largely taken from an unpublished paper of mine, entitled Breakfast on the
Beach: The Making of Simon Peter, © 2018
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