Playing catch up today on One Year Bible is like listening to a magnificent symphony. Having been travelling on business for a week and losing track of OYB, I read seven days today to get up to date.
All the Law in Leviticus 9 to 19 provides a sombre bass theme with detailed specification of the definitions of unclean food and circumstances of daily life which make one unclean, the sacrifices to be offered and the procedures to be followed to become clean again and the cases where the sin or defilement is such that banishment or death are the only remedies.
Mark provides the dominant theme of the Glory of the coming Kingdom. Mark is very compact, so in a week of readings we get through a lot. Jesus is travelling around the Galilee area. Huge crowds gather and follow wherever he goes because he is healing all the sick and driving out demons. We see the miraculous feeding of huge crowds twice. Jesus walks on the water and calms a storm. Even when he gets away to the Mediterranean coast for peace and quite, people find him and seek healing for their sick. But it seems the disciples are still not really getting it. They experience all these miracles, they hear the teaching about the nature of the Kingdom, Jesus gives them personal inside tutorials on the parables. But some how they are blinded, until Peter is inspired, "You are the Christ" (Mark 8:29)
The week's readings from Psalms and Proverbs provide counterpoint themes the joy of the individual soul in praise and worship of God and the fruits of living according according to His wisdom, contrasted by the deep torment of the soul separated from God by throwing up a barrier of sin with sudden breakthroughs of hope in the mercy and steadfastness of God and the possibility of meeting Him again through repentance and redemption.
Specific points which struck me were the contrast of all the detail of the Law of clean and unclean in Leviticus and the section in Mark 7:8-23 where Jesus shows that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law have "let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men". And He goes on to teach that 'unclean' does not arise from outside physical circumstances but comes from the heart of man. So the whole system of clean and unclean food and behaviour is overlayed by the New Covenant.
I wondered about the Greek Phoenician woman (a gentile) who disturbed Jesus' holiday on the Mediterranean in Mark 7 by asking him to heal her daughter of a demon. Jesus at first seems not to want to help her. He has come for the Jewish people, "the children" of God:
"First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
"Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."
Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter." (NIV)
This seems like clever banter, playing with words – the woman seems to give Jesus a rather cheeky answer, yet he respected it. When do we go over the line in 'being too clever' in responding to God? Or is this a different way of knowing and expressing truth than we are used to?
There is an interesting instruction in Leviticus 9:17:
Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour frankly so you will not share in his guilt. (NIV)
So if we have a problem with some one's behaviour, we are not to bottle it up, but frankly point out his fault, otherwise we share in his guilt.
The section in Mark 8:36-38 is a call to all out dedication to Jesus:
"What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (NIV)
Being of the world and regarding the Kingdom as a hobby is not enough.
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