Monthly Archives: June 2023

FOUR SOILS

Christian Life, ,

FOUR SOILS

“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering his seed, some fell along the path… Some fell on rocky soil…other seed fell among thorns…still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew, and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.” Mark 4:3-8 (NIV).

Although this is a long passage, this parable and its interpretation need to be read and understood together as one. This is a well-known story, but we can easily miss its meaning and importance. In the Hebrew way of thinking, stories were read for identification. Who am I in the story? According to Jesus, the Word of God is the seed. The soil is the attitude with which the seed is received.

Hard ground implies that beliefs and attitudes are so fixed that new ideas have no place in the mind of that person. He refuses to believe that he may be wrong and needs to change what he thinks and believes. He is not open to truth and continues to live by the lies he believes. The Word of God has no impact on his thinking, and he just keeps living the old way with his unsolved hang-ups and issues.

Shallow soil represents hearts that willingly receive the Word which begins to grow. However, the tender young roots soon meet with the resistance of a hard layer under the shallow topsoil. There is an expectation based on a belief system that this new life does not meet – and the heart begins to resist the tests that are part of the character-building God is busy with. The new life eventually withers and dies.

The third soil already has stuff growing in it. The new plants of Christian character germinate among the weeds but, since there is no room for both, and since troubles and trinkets have a powerful hold, the delicate plants of character lose their foothold and die.

The fourth ground is fertile and free of other things. The heart is open and willing to receive the truth and patiently applies it, learning to submit to discipline and receive the grace that transforms the life through a mind that is being renewed day after day. The fruit of the Spirit is being formed in the life; the character of Jesus slowly becomes real and there is eventually a full harvest of righteousness that imitates God’s character.

When we read stories like this, it makes us realise that becoming a believer in Jesus is not easy. The gospel message meets with all kinds of resistance, from what we believe already, what we expect God to be like and to do for us, our troubles and problems and even what family and friends may think of us.

To be a genuine and faithful follower of Jesus, we must deal with all these things and decide whether following Jesus is what we really want to do, because turning back from following Him is a serious decision to make.

EVERYTHING CHANGES!

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EVERYTHING CHANGES!

“Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they told Him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’

‘Who are my mother and brothers? He asked.

“Then He looked at those seated in a circle around Him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’” Mark 3:31-34 (NIV).

It’s difficult to pick up the mood of Jesus’ human family in this short record. Why were they here, as a family, to see Jesus? Were they on some kind of rescue mission, seeing that they had all come together? Did they think He needed protection from Himself because His popularity was getting out of hand? 

Once again Jesus emerges as the sanest of all the people in this scene. His agenda was long term. His life as a human being on earth was only a passing phase in the scheme of things, and He knew it. His mission was to restore and rebuild His Father’s family – those who would reconnect with God by faith through His death on the cross. He would have to endure this early popularity in His ministry because there would come a time when people would either become offended by Him because of the cost of following Him, or they would go on seeing and believing who He really was and believe in Him regardless of the cost, because they understood His long-term mission to reunite them with the Father.

Hence Jesus did not set as much store on the relationship He had with His natural family as He did on His passion to win back God’s forever family. It may have initially seemed like rejection but, in the long term, every one of His natural family members had the same invitation and the same opportunity to become even more intimate members of His faith family.

There is a relationship that is more important than even the closest of family ties. Our human relationships will cease when we die but our relationship with God as our Father will never come to an end. Some people are afraid to give their lives to Jesus because it would cost them their place in the family. Some even face death if they turn away from their family religion. But in the ned it is a choice between being safe now or being safe for eternity in God’s family.

Paul declared that, when we are “in Christ”, everything changes. The old scheme of things is replaced by the new. Old family ties are replaced by new ones; our old nature with its bent towards independence, is replaced by a restored connection with God as our Father and its accompanying sense of identity and security because we now belong to a universal family forever under the benevolent control of our eternal Father.

BE WITH HIM – SEND THEM OUT

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BE WITH HIM – SEND THEM OUT

“Jesus sent up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve – designating them apostles – that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach.” Mark 3:13,14

Although these few verses read as an everyday event in Jesus’ life, they were one of the most significant moments in His public ministry. According to Luke, He spent the night in prayer before He chose the men to whom He would entrust His friendship, His love and the entire future of His mission on earth. If there were any bad apples in this box, His mission would be in jeopardy.

What about Judas Iscariot? What about Peter, James, and John whose characters He knew so well that He gave them nicknames? What hope did He have of moulding this bunch of ordinary men into disciples – learners and imitators of Himself? How was He going to persuade them that His yoke – gentleness and humility, love compassion and mercy – was more powerful than the yoke of the other rabbis in Israel whom the Pharisees followed slavishly?

Mark mentions His strategy in a single sentence. “The plan was that they would be with Him, and He would send them out to proclaim the Word and give them authority to banish demons.”  Mark 3:14,15 (The Message). Simple, yet effective. The key was “that they would be with Him”. They would accompany Him day and night. They would listen, watch, follow, copy until His thoughts became their thoughts and His ways became their ways – it was no easy task as their behaviour, words and questions revealed just how ignorant and ordinary they were.

Jesus often became frustrated with them because of their faithlessness and their slowness to learn. But with great patience and infinite love He gave them opportunity after opportunity to practise what they saw Him doing. He had faith in them even though, at that time, they didn’t seem to merit it. He knew that His Spirit in them would energize all they learned and practised so that they would become powerful imitators of their Rabbi. His call was a simple one. “Follow me,” but held in it a world of possibilities.

We don’t know much about most of the disciples but Peter, James, and John, who were closest to Him, always had a lot to say, especially Peter. Peter was the big mouth who kept opening it to put his foot in! James and john were the aggressive ones whom Jesus called “the sons of thunder”. What would it take to change these men?

The secret was in the first part of Jesus’ strategy, “that they might be with Him”. Spending time with Jesus gave them first-hand experience of who He was. This was very important for them, and it is just as important for us. If we don’t spend time with Jesus, we will never get to know Him and His ways. Without knowing Him intimately, we cannot faithfully represent Him to the world.

POPULAR JESUS

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POPULAR JESUS

“When they heard all He was doing, many people came to Him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. Because of the crowd, He told His disciples to have a small boat ready for Him, to keep the people from crowding Him. For He had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch Him.” Mark 3:8-10 (NIV)

From the synagogue to the lake, Jesus was like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn; so much excitement that He was in danger of being trampled. The news of what He was doing had swept through the land like wildfire, even outside the borders of Israel. People came from as far away as Tyre and Sidon and Trans Jordan, and from every corner of Israel.

It’s no wonder that the people ran after Him, especially since sick and disabled people were being miraculously cured. There was no doctor anywhere that could do what He was doing. The people were full of hope that they could be cured of their diseases and delivered from their suffering.

There is a twist in this story. The people who mobbed Him were only interested in what happened to them in their everyday lives. They didn’t seem to realise that God’s kingdom was present with them. What was it that attracted them to Jesus? Was it not what He was doing for them? Here was someone whom they needed around. If He were their king, He could provide food for them, heal them, and make their lives happy and comfortable.

They had not yet grasped that Jesus was inviting them to live in the kingdom of God where He reigned in love and peace and would teach and give them the power to live with other people in love and peace.

But, amid this noise were voices from another world – demonic spirits from the unseen realm of darkness who, up to this point, had been able to do exactly what they liked with the people. When Jesus came on the scene and began disturbing their control over people, they knew and spoke the truth when they acknowledged Him because they understood His authority over them. Although they deceived the people all the time, pretending that they were in charge, they knew who Jesus was and they could not help but blurt it out because they were afraid. They were squatters in human beings who belonged to God and, when Jesus told them to get out, they had to go.

Jesus reacted to them promptly, telling them to be quiet. He did not need them to tell people who He was because every human being needs to find out for himself based on the evidence. We don’t need demons to tell us who Jesus is. We need to look at Him, listen to Him, weigh up the evidence and then decide who He is so that we can make the choice to follow Him.

DRAWING THE BATTLE LINES

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DRAWING THE BATTLE LINES

“Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a withered hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched Him closely to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath.  Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’” Mark 3:1-3 (NIV).

The Pharisees’ dispute with Jesus over His attitude to the Sabbath was turning into a running battle. It was almost as though Jesus was baiting them by purposely healing people on the Sabbath. The difference between what they thought was righteousness and what He taught and practised was becoming clearer and was widening into a chasm.

The Pharisees thought that “righteousness” was about not doing certain things. They had many rules about what they were not allowed to do on the Sabbath. For them, to be righteous meant that they didn’t break any of their rules. By contrast, Jesus was showing them both God’s heart and theirs by using the Sabbath as an opportunity to help people who needed help. His attitude was: “What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?”

God is always filled with compassion for people who need help. To Jesus, it was far worse not to help people in need than to break a Sabbath ‘rule’. A lot of the time people do sinful things in order to manage their emotional pain, for example, becoming addicted to cigarettes, alcohol or drugs or engaging in bad habits. Jesus had more to say to the Pharisees who kept religious rules to cover up their failure to be merciful than to people who engaged in sinful behaviour to cover up their pain. He showed us what sin really is by showing mercy to people who sinned. To Him sin was not doing good rather than doing evil. The most wicked behaviour was to ignore someone in need rather than to commit adultery.

This speaks loudly to us because our most natural behaviour is to look inward and keep taking care of our own needs and our own “reputation”. This is what the Hebrew people called the “yetzer harah” – the evil eye. The eye of light keeps looking at God and sees other people’s needs. God’s greatest measure is: What do I do when I see another’s need and I have the power to meet it? To ignore people when we can help them is to act unrighteously. To take care of other people’s needs is the righteousness which flows out of the righteousness Jesus has given us by faith. We cannot have Jesus’ righteousness without it showing in the way that we act generously towards other people.

Every time Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath, He was acting out God’s righteousness by showing mercy no matter what day it was. He was showing people what it was like to be free of rules that forced them into behaving selfishly because they were always careful about their own behaviour.