Mark Chapter 3
2024 - This verse: 'And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ' Mark 3:2 ESV. We shouldn't be like this. If we go to church and spend our time looking around to see who is doing church wrong, we are being Pharisees. Church is not for seeing who is under dressed, overdressed, inappropriately dressed, too loud, too timid, hair too long, hair too short...you get the idea. I'm not saying there is no line about church. There were several issues that Paul discusses in the Corinthian letters that had to be addressed. I'm thinking the likelihood of running into one of those problems is too low to waste time thinking about, much less appointing ourselves judge and jury of other people's worship choices. Think about Paul and Silas. Chained up, dirty, beaten, bleeding probably, bruised certainly, surrounded by unbelievers and skeptics, and...singing. Absolutely unpresentable in any kind of polite company, and yet they were worshiping God and given the results, I'd say their worship was acceptable to God. When at church, we ought to focus on ensuring that our own worship is acceptable to God, and very little else.
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The healing of the withered hand. Jesus' asks them this question:
4 And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. [Mar 3:4 ESV]
These two questions say that the law is not Boolean. It is not only about yes and no. It is not a "dead" rule. It is about doing right. When faced with a choice, right is best, not law. If the result of strict compliance is evil, then another option is called for. Hagar broke the law of the king to hide the spies. Because turning them over would have been evil. But this is such a dangerous concept...Moral relativism must have come from this view, and that is clearly not right either. In any case, Jesus wants them to wake up. To think. To escape tradition for tradition's sake.
The amazing thing about this story is this summary verse:
"6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him." [Mar 3:6 ESV]. A hand was miraculously restored, and it prompted not rejoicing and praise and awe, but hatred and conspiracy.
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A crowd follows Jesus as he leaves. Just as in Matthew. In Mark, Jesus admonishes the demons who recognize him to keep quiet, not those he has healed.
Mark says Jesus here picked out his 12, and called them apostles, and gave them power to cast out demons. They are listed. Then Jesus goes home, but the crowd knows he is there and crowd around so heavily that they cannot even eat. So Jesus' family - brothers, sisters, Mary? - show up to seize him because "He is out of his mind".
2020 - Oh my!!!! This explains Jesus strange answer that these who are sitting around him are more his brothers, sisters, and mother than his own family. At this moment, his family believes he is having some serious problems with delusions of grandeur! They want to take him home and shoot him up with thorazine until he calms down and gets normal again. His family was in fact trying to stop him because of their own unbelief. He was right! Those who believed in him were his family at this point! Why has no one ever pointed this out before!!! Looking in the Harmony, this spot where it says Jesus' family suspected mental illness is not in the same place as when he says his family is those who believe. So you have to infer that this was still their attitude later - in this case in Mark 3: 31-35 instead of here in vs 21. But it finally makes some sense!
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Mark's account is very much like Matthew's. Unforgivable sin.
2020-BUT, Mark gives us a little bit of an extra clue right here:
28 "Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"-- 30 for they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit." [Mar 3:28-30 ESV]
So...shortly after Jesus' own family thinks he's had a mental break, the Pharisees decide his behavior is explainable by demon possession. They think Jesus has the same problem as the person from whom he just expelled a demon. Perhaps their point is that the demon in Jesus is dominant enough to make the other demons obey him and leave. So they aren't really crediting Satan himself, but are saying Jesus has one whale of a powerful demon and this powerful demon is deluding people so that they will believe in him (the demon). So this is all a big satanic show and has nothing to do with God. But the only Spirit that Jesus had was the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, and the Pharisees were calling that Spirit - because they saw such things as casting out demons as spiritual matters - a demonic spirit. THIS is why this is different, why it is so serious, why Jesus took such offense.
SOOOO much new information today. And I decided to just read right through Mark and both these things have opened up to me today!
2022 - This verse:
"27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house." [Mar 3:27 ESV]. In this statement, Satan is the strong man. Jesus counters the Pharisees accusation that he is possessed and so casting out weaker demons by saying the truth is that he is not only stronger than the demons, but stronger than the prince of demons. He is saying that he is stronger than Satan himself and is making great inroads into the "house" of Satan, and stealing away the lost that Satan "owns" and bringing them home with him. He is telling them that their vision is limited, that they need to think this through, and if they will, they will stand in awe of what they are seeing, rather than attributing the power being exercised to the one who is losing the war.
2022 - These verses:
"32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you." 33 And he answered them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers!" [Mar 3:32-34 ESV]. I was sitting alone at the Good Friday service, feeling lonesome and dejected because so many were coming in together and sitting and laughing and talking. And out of the blue, this passage came to me. I don't have it memorized, but the story came to mind. And I looked around, and I thought "I am not alone here. I am surrounded by brothers and sisters and parents. I am NOT alone." What a difference it made!
When Jesus' family comes to retrieve him, and can't get to him because of the crowd, they send word that they are there. Jesus says his family are those who do the will of God. He has set aside earthly family for spiritual family.