September 9, 2024: Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 13:3-6, 21-23
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Good afternoon to you. I know that you expect this study to be out on Monday Morning. However, I had annual med meetings for two of our boys today early, and then I have been picking up the pieces from having my debit card and some credit cards hacked over the last two weeks which mean that life ins, car ins, and some regularly deducted payments needed to be changed for them to remain in effect. It is certainly not my happiest way to spend my time. Today we continue in Mark 13, but as I told you before we began in this chapter, we were going to move around, not taking the verses in order. Today's reading is no different. We will be looking at verses 3-6 and verses 21-23. Yesterday we celebrated the Baptism of Elan, Vanessa's baby. What fun it was to share this event with her family and with the congregation. We shall all continue our prayers for Elan, and for his father, Alain, who finally got his Visa approved to come to the U.S. to be with Vanessa and the baby. May the LORD shower His richest blessings on this young family. Please keep Della J in your prayers too as she has spent some recovery time dealing with dehydration. We hope to see here soon at church.
What we see in these two pieces of chapter 13 is Christ's giving to His disciples even more information about what they should expect after His death. And, indeed, these things happened quite often. Jesus warns the disciples about the fake messiahs who will come after him telling their own versions of their power and authority and truth. He also says there will be many who come to lead the faithful astray with their heresies. There would be more than enough danger for the disciples from the enemies of Christs, and it would be much easier for the faithful to buy into the lies of those who came making their messianic claims. Let's remember the ways that heresy arises in the face of God's Truth.
Heresy arises from constructing doctrines which suit the needs of the one who creates them for their own benefit. People have an unusually large ability to tell the truths that please them. (and often groups of others who are willing to listen). I am willing to bet that Jesus is addressing the religious leaders of the day who in His time continue to add to the body of the Torah by writing out all of the ways one must behave in order to be right with God. Many of those rules were written for the personal convenience of the Pharisees and Scribes. They brought them wealth and authority! There are plenty of moral fools today, not necessarily unintelligent, but morally lacking in the sense of what pleases them.
Heresies arise from stressing only one part of the truth. The clearest that I can make this is to say if we only believe that God is Love, and that is all we address, our religion becomes a mushy half-truth. There is so much more to our God. We certainly know that God loves us, but we also know that He understands our short-comings and down-falls and the sins which we accept when we think that sinning is OK because it raises the amount of love and forgiveness that we will receive from God. Another way we might move is to only be able to think about God as Holy, and then to make that the center of what we believe, which means that we eliminate any possibility in our thinking of an intimate relationship with our Father in Heaven. If you and I get caught up in thinking solely of God's justice and judgement, then we will see Him sitting on His throne with anger and hostility toward His whole creation. One of the many reasons that it is so good to study the Bible is that it gives us a much more complete understanding of God and His place as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of Life.
Heresy develops when a person divorces himself from Christian Fellowship. If we do not gather where the Truth of God is proclaimed, we are bound to come up with some pretty strange self-fulfilling theology without the input of scholars, clergy, and people of faith who surround us in worship and church. Can you believe in Christ when you have allowed yourself to stay away from corporate worship and the faith community whose purpose is to undergird and strengthen one another’s' faith in God's promises! The flame of the Spirit dwindles when we pull away. Always remember what happens when a burning branch is pulled away from the fire. It's flames less brightly, and ultimately extinguishes and when pulled back to the main fire it rekindles.
Heresy arises when we try to be completely intelligible - to explain everything. God is beyond our full comprehension and understanding. He has revealed to us what we can know, and kept from us all of what we can only contemplate, and perhaps not even begin to think about. You and I are bound to learn and grow in our understanding of God, and yet we are finite, and God is infinite. We have what we need to know now, and in heaven it remains to be seen what we will come to understand. Now we must worship, wonder, and adore.
Thanks for taking the time to be with me today.
God bless your always, Pastor Kim
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