The Diagnosis of the Great Physician, Mark 2:1-12  

The Diagnosis of the Great Physician, Mark 2:1-12 Psalm 130 As most of you know, I’ve been sick for the last couple of weeks. It became pretty obvious to everyone who heard me and saw me, that I had some sort of a virus or something. Just to be careful, I took a Covid test which came back negative. But after about 8 days or so though I decided maybe I should see the doctor and see if there was something they could do for me to help me get better. I think we tend to give too much credit

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THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST Mark 1:21-45      

Mark writes in a rather concise style and he moves quickly through events without spending as much time detailing them as do the other gospel writers.  It’s almost disconcerting to notice how often he uses the word “immediately.”  But I guess it’s emblematic of his style to keep moving and give highlights, rather than a lot of biographical details. I think the thread that ties this next passage together is found in another word used twice in this passage, but implied more often than that,  which is the word “authority.”  In  verse 22, “And they were astonished at His .

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Jesus calls His disciples, Mark 1:14-20

We are continuing in our study of Mark and we left off last time in vs 13 with the temptation of Christ in the wilderness.  That temptation happened directly after he was baptized by John the Baptist.  Today we pick up in Mark’s account with vs 14, which begins with the phrase “Now after John had been taken into custody…”  What that indicates is that there is an interval of about one year in between vs 13 and vs 14. So Jesus’s ministry began with His baptism, and He has been preaching and teaching for about a year in both

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The beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ, Mark 1:9-13

Baptism is a term that has a variety of meanings or applications when found in scripture.  For instance, in vs 4 a version of the word baptism is attached to John’s name, John the Baptizer.  Then Mark says John came preaching a baptism of repentance.  And in vs 5, they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River.  So that’s three different connotations of the word in those two verses. Then John adds another application of the word in vs 8 “I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” So clearly, though the

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The crux of the gospel, Galatians 6:11-18 

Do you know any magic tricks?  I have never really been able to do any that actually fooled anyone.  I can sort of do one trick, which I performed for my wife with a plastic cup and a lemon.  I think I might have fooled her with that one.  But from what little I know about magic tricks, the trick is to distract the person with one hand, while doing something else with the other hand.  So you distract on the one hand and then deceive with the other.  Or at least that’s a simple explanation for a lot of

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The practicality of walking by the Spirit, Galatians 6:1-10

Paul has established in his letter to the Galatians, that we are not under the burden of the law, but are to walk in the Spirit. That the flesh and the Spirit are diametrically opposed to one another. And if we walk in the Spirit, then we will keep the spirit of the law, but not be under the bondage of the law. At the end of chapter 5 he also gave us characteristics of living in the flesh as opposed to walking in the Spirit. He says in vs 19, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which

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Walk by the Spirit, Galatians 5:16-26

How are we to conduct ourselves as Christians? Paul has argued exhaustively that we are not under the law. We do not regulate our lives according to the Old Testament law that was given to Moses. We do not cut off our flesh in circumcision in order to live the Christian life. We do not observe the Sabbath or other Jewish feast days as a restriction in order to accomplish the Christian life. We do not restrict our diet in order to live the Christian life.On the other hand, Paul has made it clear we do not have license to

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The law of love, Galatians 5:13-15 

Galatians is Paul’s dissertation, from a judicial standpoint, on the doctrine of salvation. And he has spent the brunt of his argument delineating the merits of grace versus law. He has shown in detail the difference between salvation by grace alone, as opposed to salvation by faith plus works. In particular, he was answering the Judaiser’s teaching that you needed to be circumcised and follow the dietary and ceremonial laws of the Jews in order to really be saved. Paul called such legalism “slavery.” And he described salvation by grace through faith as “freedom.” But some of the difficulty comes

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Christmas 2022, Luke 2: 1-20

Today we celebrate the birthday of Jesus.  Though the exact day of His birth is not known, what is known without any real dispute, is that Jesus was born and lived in Israel around 2000 years ago. That’s an historical fact, attested to as much as any historical fact.  Wikipedia, which has a section on the historical Jesus, says that “Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically.” While they may hold to many differences in opinion about the life of Jesus, most historians agree that He was baptized by John the Baptist and that He was

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Freedom in Christ, Galatians 5:1-12

Paul has reached the last stage of his legal argument for the doctrine of justification by faith.  During his missionary journey’s to the region of Galatia he had preached the gospel, and the Galatians were converted and he had established churches there for them.  But then not too long afterwards certain men from Jerusalem had come to those churches and began to teach these new converts that they were not fully saved until they had become circumcised and adhered to certain ceremonial and legal requirements of Judaism. So Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians refuting that false teaching and

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