Defilement of the heart, Mark 7:1-16

Today we are going to look at a rather lengthy section of scripture in our ongoing study of Mark. It’s a bit longer than I normally try to present, but I think it’s all connected, and to break it up into two sermons would cause difficulties in trying to understand it. So for the sake of context, I want to consider the whole passage. But don’t worry, I will try to move quickly through it, so that it doesn’t take twice as long as I normally would take. Chapter six ended with Jesus having walked on the water to the

Read More…

How to walk on water, Mark 6: 45-52

How to walk on water, Mark 6: 45-52 As it is our practice to preach through the Bible verse by verse, I rarely have much opportunity to preach messages that are of a more instructional or motivational nature. Many pastors tend to preach nothing but motivational type of messages, like “How to have your best life now.” Or “You are very powerful.” Or “How to find success in life.” Those are actual messages from pastors that purvey the prosperity gospel, which is very popular. And Lord knows, I would like to be popular. So as I prepared for todays sermon,

Read More…

Jesus feeds the 5000, Mark 6:30-44

Today we have come in our study of Mark to a story that I’m sure is familiar to anyone who has been to church for any length of time or to Sunday school. It’s one of the favorite stories of the Bible that is often taught to children. It’s the story of Jesus feeding the 5000. And there is plenty to consider and learn about Jesus even if the story is told in a straightforward, simple retelling. On just a rudimentary level, even a child can understand that the Lord is compassionate and is able to do miracles. But this

Read More…

The Death of John the Baptist, Mark 6: 14-29

Tertullian, who lived as a Christian preacher and theologian in the second century, is credited with the expression, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” He wrote this phrase in a treatise which he sent to the governors of the Roman Empire, in to hope to quell the persecution of the early Christians. What he was basically saying is that the blood of Christians is a seed which multiplies the converts to Christianity, so rather than their persecution stopping Christianity, it causes the church to flourish. That’s a counterintuitive thing to consider, that persecution makes the

Read More…

The apostle’s mission trip, Mark 6: 7-13, 30     

This passage marks a significant transition in the ministry of Jesus Christ.  He has been preaching the gospel of the kingdom for about 2 years now.  He has called twelve disciples to be with Him, to follow Him, to learn from Him.  But up to now, He was the only one to preach, to heal, to perform miracles.  John the Baptist was another preacher sent as a prophet of God, but he has been arrested, and as Mark tells us in this passage, he has been put to death.  So Jesus is the only one preaching and doing the ministry

Read More…

The Damnation of Unbelief, Mark 6:1-7 

The Bible teaches us that to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God is the basis for our salvation, the means by which we become a child of God, for receiving eternal life. In John 1:12-13 we read, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Believing in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the means by which

Read More…

Help for the hopeless, Mark 5: 21-43

A cursory reading of the scripture before us today might lead one to conclude that the point of Jesus ministry was to relieve misery and suffering in the world. And by extension, the ministry of the church should be the same.  Our mission should be one of social justice. I was reading the website of a very  large, old Presbyterian church that I saw in Wilmington the other day.  And on their website they mentioned they were about the transformative power of God’s grace.  That sounds good.  But if you read further, they defined their ministry as dismantling structural racism,

Read More…

Delivering the Demoniac, Mark 5:1-20  

Last week we looked at Jesus and the disciples, after a particularly exhausting day, crossing the Sea of Galilee in a boat in the evening, when they were overtaken by an extremely powerful storm. The boat they were on almost was sunk and their lives potentially lost, but Jesus, who had to be awakened from a deep sleep, stilled the storm and caused it to be completely calm. There was in ancient times a popular superstition that such powerful storms were caused by the devil. Sometimes I am tempted to believe that the devil does have some control over the

Read More…

Testing in a tempest, Mark 4:35-41   

We come today to the end of chapter four, but the story of Jesus’s ministry does not stop there.  He is simply traveling from one place to another.  And He does so in this story by means of a ship on the sea.  It’s a simple story, but one which provided a teachable lesson for the disciples, and which should be a lesson for us as well. It’s been a very long day of preaching and teaching and working miracles.  At one point the crowds were so large that Jesus and His disciples were not able to eat.  So  at

Read More…

The Parables of the Kingdom, Mark 4:21-34

Last week we looked at the parable of the sower. And Jesus indicated in explaining that parable it provides the key to understanding all the parables. I think that is because Jesus uses some common symbols or figures in that parable which he interprets privately to his disciples, and so we can use that interpretation in other parables which use the same symbols or figures. That hermeneutic principle is called “expositional constancy.” It means that the meaning of symbols or figures used in one scripture tend to mean the same as similar symbols or figures in another scripture. I think

Read More…