Saltiness Matters
I have always had a certain fondness for salt. As a child, I loved salty potato chips, salty peanuts, and salty just about anything. I can still remember my mother saying to me, “Mark, why do you salt your food before tasting it?” The answer was simple: Salt is good.
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Sin Matters
How are we to understand this text? How are we to obey it? If we take Jesus seriously, does this mean we should seriously think about cutting off our body parts if they’re involved in sin?
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Welcoming Children and Others
Why children? Not just because they are cute and sweet and say silly things. God’s identification with children has more to do with their social location, their lack of power and prestige. Throughout the Scriptures, God consistently identifies with people like this, with those who are poor, fatherless, widows, and aliens.
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An Example of Servant Leadership
In yesterday’s devotion, I stated that the best leadership embodies servanthood. The call of Jesus to be “the servant of all” does not end when you become a leader of people. Rather, through your leadership you can serve others.
Sometimes, however, the discussion of servant leadership can seem rather academic or theoretical. What does it really look like in practice? I want to offer an example of servant leadership.
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A Call to Servanthood
Jesus’ call to humility and servanthood was as counter-cultural in the first century A.D. as it is today.
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Caught in the Act
Several years ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Holy Land. My trip included exploration of Capernaum, a small town along the Sea of Galilee in which Jesus was active during his early preaching ministry. Among the ruins of ancient Capernaum is a fifth-century A.D. octagonal church that was built on the site of the house of Peter, who lived in Capernaum before he departed to follow Jesus. Though Mark 9:33 does not specify which house Jesus visited in Capernaum, it could quite possibly have been Peter’s house.
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The Mysterious Power of Prayer
When Jesus and his disciples were finally alone, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” To this Jesus replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer” (9:28-29). Mark does not record for us more of the conversation. Had I been present, I would have wanted to know: “What kind of demon are you talking about? What kind of prayer? When should this prayer happen? How should I pray? Are there certain things I should say when facing down a demon?” I might also have asked, “Jesus, you gave us authority over impure spirits (Mark 6:7), so why was this spirit able to resist our authority?” But Jesus doesn’t answer any of these questions. He says, simply, “This kind [of demon] can come out only by prayer.” Period. End.
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Unbelieving Belief
“I believe, help my unbelief.” I’ve prayed like this before. Many, many times. Perhaps you have too. When I cry out to God for help, I am praying in faith. Yet sometimes I feel the shakiness of my convictions…
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How Long Will Jesus Put Up With Me?
As I read these words of Jesus, I shudder inside. I can just imagine Jesus saying about me, “Mark, you unbelieving disciple. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” You see, there are times when I doubt the Lord; times when I fail to trust him even though he’s been so utterly trustworthy throughout my whole life. I wonder if Jesus feels exasperated with me, much as he did with his first disciples.
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Seeing Jesus Rightly and Fully
Truly, the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus is one of the strangest in the Gospel of Mark…
This scene, shrouded in mystery, reveals something of the divine nature of Jesus. He was certainly much more than a human messiah, that’s for sure. But the presence of Moses and Elijah also reminds us of something that is crucially important about Jesus, and sometimes overlooked by Christians.
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Do You Need God’s Power in Your Life?
Do you need God’s power in your life? I expect your answer is “Yes.” I know I do. Yet the power of God is sometimes elusive, sometimes mysterious, sometimes present yet sometimes puzzling.
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Will You Gain the Whole World, Yet Forfeit Your Soul?
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” Mark 8:36 As I read this verse today,…
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How Can You “Take Up Your Cross” Today?
In today’s passage, Jesus connected his suffering as the Son of Man with the experience of his followers. If you want to come after me, Jesus said, you must deny yourself and take up your cross, and follow me” (8:34). When we hear Jesus speak of the cross, we naturally and rightly associate it with his sacrificial death. But his first disciples would not yet have made this association.
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Do You Ever Find Jesus Confusing?
Last Thursday we began reflecting on the story in Mark’s Gospel in which Jesus asks his first disciples, “Who do people say I am?” They answered Jesus: “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets” (8:28). Then Jesus became more incisively personal: “But what about you? . . . Who do you say I am?” (8:29).
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Who Do You Say Jesus Is?
We all have to answer crucial questions in life. When we’re young and our grandmother asks, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” we can say “Superman” or “Wonder Woman” without following through. But, in time, the “What will you do with your life?” question requires a mature, thoughtful answer. Then there’s the question that changes our lives forever. In my case it was, “Mark, do you take Linda to be your wife?” Now that’s a serious question!
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