Sometimes It Is What It Is

The discussion in class on parables really got me to thinking the other day. I understand that some of the parables Jesus told had obvious allegory. What blew my mind was the allegory that so many of early church fathers tried to "force" into the parable, especially the good samaritan parable. I had almost forgotten about it when I overheard a classmate talking about a story they were reading in an english class. They were talking about symbolism and how sometimes a "cat" is just a "cat". I thought about that in relation to the parables. Sometimes there not some deeper meaning and some try to put more than is actually there into the parable.

Aaron Abbott

Is there more? Does it matter?

After class monday I thought about what I believed about how Mark ends. I decided if I had to pick one of the five choices that it would be out of the three most popular ones. I'm not a fan of the Longer Ending because I just don't think it sounds like the rest of Mark. So that narrows it down to two. As I thought more about it I wondered, "what IF there was more?!" I thought about what was accidently lost could have been important. Only a few seconds later I decided that if there was more and it's content was important, God would have preserved it like He did the rest of the text.
It reminded me a question a girl in my youth group asked me not too long ago. She wanted to know what if there were other books that could have gone in the Bible that were lost. I told her the same answer I ended up telling myself about the end of Mark. If they belonged in the Bible they would be there.

-Aaron Abbott

Jesus Must Be Having An Idendity Crisis

I had heard for a while now that the disciples weren't always the brightest characters. This is something I did not learn in Sunday School, however. I had always thought of the disciples as the people who knew what Jesus was all about almost as well as Jesus Himself. After really getting into the Gospel of Mark, though, I can see just how little the disciples actually did understand. Even Peter, one of the closest people to Jesus, did not totally get it. It just blows my mind to think that the disciples really didn't understand the messiahship of Jesus until after the Resurrection.
I imagine I would have been in the same boat as the disciples. Unlike the disciples before the Resurrection, I have the privilege of knowing how the story ends.

Missing the Cross

I really liked what Garland had to say on the contempory significance of Mark 11:1-11. As Easter approaches this year I am already in anticipation. This year I plan on putting more of a focus on Good Friday that I have before. Personally I have never made a big deal about Good Friday. I remember hating having to go to church on that Friday night when I was younger. I didn't realize the significance of it. I think a lot of people are like that today. Palm Sunday and Easter are nice because we get to feel good, but we forget about Good Friday, the day our Savior died. In this passage the crowd is all excited because their "messiah" has come. The think that Jesus will be who they expect He is. They abandon him, however, when they realized that He didn't come for the reasons they thought. Jesus did not come to give us glory. He came so that we can give him glory for what He did on the cross.

Aaron Abbott

Help Me To See

As I tried to figure out which miracle passage to do my paper over I noticed some interesting things in the text. My decision for a passage came to between the blind man at Bethsaida or blind Bartimaeus. While looking at these two passages I realised how nicely they fit into the bigger picture of what was going on.
The first of the passages is the blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26). This blind man is healed in two stages. After the first stage he can see, but not clearly. This passage comes right before Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, but then shows he has no idea what it means for Jesus to be the Christ. Just like the blind man, Peter could see that Jesus was the Christ, but could not see clearly because he didn't know what this meant.
The second of the passages is blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). It is the second and last time a blind man is healed in the book of Mark. Barimaeus' sight is completely healed and then he follows Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. This comes right after Jesus teaches on what it means to be a disciple. It seems that Mark once again was making a bigger point with this miracle story.
Was it just coincidence that these miracles happen just as Jesus is trying to get his audience to understand something or is the providence of God (Jesus Himself) at work here? I'll take the latter.

Silly Disciples...

I have often heard of how idiotic the disciples seemed to act at times in the gospels. I never put much thought into it, but after reading DJG I pondered it a little. The article makes a point that Jesus while they seem to be uncomprhensive of a lot of what Jesus did, they were specifically selected by Jesus and empowered by Him to do ministry in Israel. Jesus thought these guys were worth something. Sure Jesus was unhappy with them at times for their inability to understand, but they were still his disciples -- the guys he selected to help start his Church. One thing I get out of this is that we do not have to be able to completely understand everything in order for God to use us. This is not to say we should be lazy and not worry about trying to understand. Secondly and similarly, we learn from the disciple in that we should learn to try to think in terms of the Kingdom of God rather than in worldly terms. Sometimes this requires a blind faith and can be difficult, but we must strive to do it.
I think it is easy for us today to look back on the disciples and see how unbelieving they were when we would have been the same way and often ARE the same way. We should realize that we are not better than they were... the only thing that makes us different is the time in which we live and that we know how the story pans out -- a luxury the disciples did not have until after the Resurrection.

Aaron Abbott

FAITH: before & after

I had never thought much about how big a part faith played in the miracles of Jesus until now that I have going through the Gospels again for class. As I read I began to notice that Jesus almost always tells the recipients of His miracles that it is their faith that has healed them. At least this seems to be the case in the synoptic gospels. While reading DJG I again read about how faith seemed to be a prerequisite for faith. John, however seemed to put more emphasis on the faith that came after Jesus performed miracles. All this does not mean that the writers of the synoptics didn't think Jesus' miracles produced faith from all those who observed or that John did not think faith was required before Jesus would perform a miracle. I think that is just shows that the different authors were trying to emphasise different things. John wanted his readers to realize that when Jesus performed miracles faith resulted and Matthew, Mark and Luke wanted their readers to realize that Jesus healed people because of their faith.

-Aaron Abbott

Victory In Jesus!

In the twenty-first century the word "gospel" has pretty well been established as a book or story about Jesus, especially in the Bible belt. I found it interesting that the greek word for gospel, evangelizo, was used as an announcement of vicotry after battle. Not only that, but many of the "gospels" first readers would have used the term as the birth of an heir to the empire. I bet calling the stories of Jesus gospels really ruffled some feathers back in the day. For believers, however, I can see how it would give them hope. The savior of the world had come and established Himself as King!
Mark is careful, though, to make sure his readers know what it will be like to live in this Kingdom with Jesus as their king. He wrote down parables and what Jesus had to say about how hard it would be to follow him. Christ did come and His Kingdom is here, but following Christ will be hard. There is no way around it. If life is easy, one should be worried. There is hope for the future, though. Jesus not only told us it would be hard, but He also told us He would be with us and that He is coming back.

Aaron Abbott

in a jew's shoes

I really liked Monday's class. I've heard for a while now that you should look at a biblical text in a historical context. That is a lot easier said than done. Foster did a great job of really laying out what it would have been like to have lived in Israel. It's too easy to think of the gospel stories through a personal frame of reference. The list of forbidden things to do on the Sabbath was especially a nice part of the lecture. It really does make since that the priests would list those things because that is exactly what the people would be doing if they could.
AARON ABBOTT