June 10, 2024: Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 10:32-34
May the Blessing and Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you this morning as we turn from the busyness of this day to the Word of God,
It is really easy for us to rise in the morning, and to forget our relationship with God because we have so many other things for this day that lie ahead of us, and we often feel the need to get started because the list is almost always pretty long. I am hopeful that the on-line Bible studies that we are doing every week help us to refocus on the most important relationship of our lives, the one that is ours through Jesus Christ with our Father in Heaven. I am so thankful for the writers of the Gospels and the letters of Paul. They really do help to keep the love of Christ for our lives alive throughout the week as we consider the writings of the Gospel of Mark and the O.T. book of Nehemiah. We are truly blessed to be able to have these ancient texts available to us whenever we choose to turn to them.
This next Sunday, the education hour starts at 9AM, and worship begins at 10AM. I am hopeful that you will find the time to make it this week. I know that there is always plenty to do, even on Sundays. Our son James is on a summer league for basketball, and some of the games are scheduled for worship time on Sunday mornings. I know he is disappointed that he is not able to play the early scheduled games because of our commitments to Sunday morning services, but he knows that we are willing to give over any other time of the day to his getting to play with his teammates from high school. This Friday and Saturday are Synod assembly days in Phoenix. Sharyn Burt and I will be attending as the representatives for American. This year the assembly will elect a bishop for who will be in the office for the next 6 years. Please keep the assembly in your prayers and keep our driving back and forth to Phoenix in your prayers as well. It will be some really long days. Thank you so much for your partnership in prayer every day.
We begin in Mark 10 this morning with the beginning of Christ's determined journey to Jerusalem. Mark makes it very clear for us in this passage 10:32-34 that Jesus has placed himself in front of the disciples on the road. He knows what lies ahead, and there is no one else who can really understand, or soften the difficulty of His choice to now head south to Jerusalem and the end of His life. In the next passage for today we will see that the disciples are still thinking that they may receive some benefit from what Jesus has chosen to do, and that is certainly a part of their conversations as they walk behind Jesus. Note that when Jesus pauses to talk to the disciples that His Words are really precise. Here there is no lingering theological teaching. Instead, it is just the plain fact that what is coming is now immanent, and it will mean that this final physical and emotional attack on Christ will end with His death on the cross. Earlier in the Gospel Mark’s description of what will happen has been more vague and out there some time in the future for Jesus, but now the end is rapidly approaching, and it will be more terrible than the disciples have ever imagined. Jesus tells them precisely what will happen. What they have really never had to think about very much would now be constantly on their minds the closer they got to Jerusalem. The disciples had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and, as I stated a little earlier, they knew that eventually He would die, but it had really been on the back burner of their thinking. Of course, you and I know that will definitely change in the very near future for them. But, based on the next part of our passage for today, it was obvious that some were thinking of what we might call a power grab in the Kingdom.
After a while, Jesus turned to the disciples and as the earlier part of our passage today tells us clearly told the disciples the harshness of the His coming ordeal. But during this journey back to Jerusalem, two of the disciples were preparing to ask Jesus for a "give".
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