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THIS WEEK’S BIBLE INSIGHTS ARE BY:
Amy Boucher Pye and are based on Mark 2 & 3 (NIV)
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ MORE ON THIS WEEK’S MAJOR THEME:
John chapters 14-17
16 When the Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
CH3v7...Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 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. 9 Because of the crowd he told his
disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.
13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons.
Sunday June 1 - The Messiah
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Mark 2:16
As we saw last week, in his gospel account Mark zeroes in with his narrative, ignoring some of the other stories that the later gospel writers include in their accounts. And we don’t have any of Jesus’ birth narrative or other genealogies, but rather Mark holds a laser focus on how Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. This week we’ll dig into the gospel’s second and third chapters as we see how they set the scene for Jesus’ ministry. They detail the opposition Jesus faces from the religious leaders and recount how he calls his disciples to follow him. He preaches and heals, and although the ruling religious teachers discount his authority, the demons do not.
Mark shows how Jesus has come to usher in the kingdom of God. Because the Saviour desires that people would experience the freedom of God’s love, he preaches and heals. In Chapter 2 we see Jesus setting free the paralysed man who was lowered through the roof (Mark 2:1-12), and Jesus eating with the social outcast Levi, the tax collector (vv 13-17).
While noting how the Pharisees are quick to question Jesus’ motives as they wonder why he’d eat with sinners, we can also ask God to reveal to us our own judgmental attitudes. His Spirit will gently reveal to us where we too jump to conclusions wrongly.
Loving God, please show me where I stray, that I might repent and come back into your loving arms. Amen.
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PRAYER FOR TODAY