May 7th 2012

Did Jesus keep the Oral Law?

Read Mark 3:1-6 and journal your thoughts

First we need to talk about what the Oral Law was. If the Law or Torah was God’s Law, then the Oral Law was simply a set of interpretations of how to keep God’s Law, and over time the Oral Law turned into traditions. Normally, Christianity tends to look back at all these things and talk about how they’re not important anymore. The problem with this is that they seem to be very important to Jesus.

Notice in how Jesus asks this question about whether it’s keeping God’s Law if someone heals on the Sabbath? In their time there was this debate about how much someone could heal on the Sabbath without it being considered “work”. The general conclusion was you could heal to save a life, other than that you could heal as long as you didn’t have to touch the other person. If you had to touch them, then it could be considered to be work.

Jesus never touches the man. He heals him with his words. Have you ever wondered why sometimes Jesus heals with a touch and other times with just his words? Every time Jesus heals with his words it falls on the Sabbath (with one debatable exception I dare you to find it). Jesus is keeping the Oral Law.

This raises the question; if it was important to Jesus then should it be important to us?

May 6th, 2012

Is keeping the Law important to Jesus?

Read Matthew 9:18-26 and journal your thoughts

Have you ever been reading about God’s Law and thought that some of those commands were a bit trivial? Why do we need to do that? In Deuteronomy 22:12 God commands His people to make these tassels and to wear them on the corners of their robes (NOTE: how are you supposed to be tassels on the corners of round robes, since the robes God commanded the priest to wear are round?). God commands His people to do this to help remind them of His Law.

What’s crazy is God commands His people to wear these tassels twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. At some point wouldn’t that seem to be a bit trivial? Some of us put Scripture up on our mirrors or refrigerator, but after about a week or so how many of us even notice it anymore?

One thing we should note is this woman believes very much in a prophecy in Malachi 4:2 that talks about how the Messiah will have healing in his tassels (“wings”). What if Jesus decided not to wear the tassels that day? What would have happened to that woman if she touched his sandal or something else? Could it be if neither of them were faithful to God’s command, that woman would have died?

This story is a reminder that God is faithful to us when we are faithful to Him

May 5th 2012

Yesterday we looked at what it means that Jesus taught with “authority” today let’s look at where he got it.

Read Mark 1:9-11 and journal your thoughts

The question we need to ask is how did a rabbi get authority (S’mikeh)? Traditionally, a rabbi could only get authority from not one, but two other rabbis with authority. The two rabbis with authority would lay their hands on the other rabbi’s head and declare that they had “authority”. Where did they get this idea? In the book of Exodus when Moses choses 70 judges (advisors) to help him lead the Hebrews, they were anointed when both Moses and Aaron lay their hands on their heads. This is just one of those ideas that stuck with their culture, so this is how someone got authority.

So where did Jesus get his authority? Seriously, when was there a time when two rabbis with authority laid their hands on Jesus? In our Scripture for today we have the baptism of Jesus where John baptizes Jesus. Now John was a rabbi with authority, and we know this since he had disciples (NOTE: Only rabbis with authority had disciples). Also Jesus makes reference to this in Matthew 21:23-37.

So who is the other rabbi? Notice how in Mark 1 we see heaven torn open, and this Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove and proclaims “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is the only rabbi in history to get his authority directly from God.

May 4th 2012

What does it mean that Jesus was a rabbi with authority?

Read Matthew 7:28-29

As we read through the Gospels we come across passage after passage that mentions how Jesus spoke with “authority”, but what exactly does that mean? In our culture, we imagine someone who speaks with authority maybe as someone who speaks very boldly or powerfully or maybe someone who is famous in some way. In Jesus day, a rabbi with “authority” meant something very specific.

During the time of Jesus there were two types of rabbis, the first were known as Torah-teachers. These were people who went all the way through the Jewish education system, and knew the Torah (1^st 5 books of the Old Testament) by memory. They were teachers of the Law, but could only teach what the community believed to be a proper teaching of the text. This is like being an ordained pastor; they are allowed to teach what is believed within their denomination. Torah teachers were also master teachers, meaning they knew how to speak to people’s hearts where they would get it. This is very different from teaching theology, this is practical, emotional teaching.

The second group of rabbis were rabbis with authority (S’mikeh). So what did it take to be one of these rabbis? First they had to have the entire Old Testament memorized, not just the Torah. Secondly they had to be master teachers (like the Torah teachers). Third they had to be recognized by the community. Another trait of these rabbis with authority is that most of these rabbis could heal people (Note: Only Jesus raised the dead). Ever wonder why people didn’t immediately believe Jesus after he healed someone? It was expected.

If you fit into these categories, then you could become a rabbi with authority. Now, these types of rabbis were extremely rare, in the 100 years around Jesus’ life there were a little over a dozen of these rabbis. Once a rabbi had authority, they would be able to make new teachings about what the Scriptures means, or how to live it out.

With this in mind, take some time and mediate on just how special Jesus was not just to us today, but who he was in his time.

May 3rd 2012

This week we are going to take a little time and get to know Jesus, who he was in their culture, where he lived, and why these things are important.

Read Mark 2:1-2

So often when we think about Jesus’ home we think of Nazareth, and thanks to the disciple Nathaniel (John 1:46) we think of Nazareth being a sort of backwoods place. Seriously, how often when we think of Jesus’ home do we get this sort of backwoods farm town image? But what we know from the Scriptures is that Jesus tends to base a large part of his ministry around Capernaum. In fact in today’s Scripture there is even a reference to it being a home.

This raises the question, what do we know about Capernaum? Contrary to the view of a backwoods farm town, Capernaum was considered to be the religious educational center during that time. Archeologists have found the remains of a massive synagogue school which would have been dated at the time of Jesus. In fact no other synagogue school from that time would have come close to its size.

So what does this mean for our understanding about Jesus? This means that Jesus is not some backwoods farm boy who comes out of nowhere to show all of these religious leaders what God is really doing. Instead Jesus was considered to be one of the best at what he did. That massive synagogue school would have been a place where Jesus would have taught. This would be like teaching at any Ivy League school today. This means the movement Jesus began wasn’t just with everyday people (which it was), but it was also with the religious elite, the driving force of what it meant to follow God in their day.

Today meditate for a bit on what it means that Jesus was considered to be (during his time) the best at what he did.

May 2nd 2012

So what is the lesson from this story?

Read Luke 4:13-30 and journal what you think the lesson is

The people of Nazareth thought that they were special because of where they were from, they thought they were good with God because the Messiah was going to (and eventually did) come from Nazareth. There are times when we in the church do the same thing. So many times we put our faith in our church, in the building, the denomination, the pastor, but we never really have faith ourselves.

The question Jesus raises with the people of Nazareth is the same for us where do we put our faith? In our church, our parents, our upbringing. Or do we find ourselves like the widow or the leper, people who don’t have the right upbringing, who don’t know all the answers, who may not even have a church home, but put their hope and their faith in God. Essentially, Jesus tells us that we don’t get the Kingdom of God because of where we are from, or which church we are a part of, or which denomination we are a part of, it’s our faith.

The question for us is does our faith look more like the Nazarenes or the widow? Are we putting our faith in the things around us, or are we in our deepest struggles in our most desperate hours putting our faith and trust in God?

May 1st 2012

Yesterday Jesus compared the people of Nazareth to the people of Israel during their most faithless times. How do you think they would respond?

Read Luke 4:13-30 especially verses 28-30 and journal some thoughts

To say that they were angry is a bit of an understatement! They are furious; they are on the verge of exploding! We are Nazarenes! How dare this rabbi say we don’t have enough faith! They are so angry that they set out to have him killed on the spot by stoning him.

In order to understand what happens next, we need to understand a little about stoning in their world. Traditionally the person to be stoned would be taken to a cliff which was about 18 feet tall, they would have their hands bound behind them. Then the victim would be given a chance to confess. Note if they confessed they were still stoned but they would then go to heaven. Then anyone who thought the victim was guilty would pick up a stone and throw it at the person. If the person survived the stoning (see Paul) that meant that God thought they were innocent.

So often when we read verse 30, we read something mystical into it. It’s almost like at this moment Jesus becomes a Jedi from Star Wars and does a mind trick on everyone as he walks through the crowd. But let’s ask ourselves a quick question; what has Jesus done wrong that would deserve stoning? He called them faithless, but that’s not a stonable offence. He claims to be Messiah, but once again Jesus was a rabbi with authority (S’mikah) and lots of S’mikah rabbis claimed to be Messiah, so nothing there worthy of being stoned. Jesus has done nothing wrong, he’s not guilty of anything and so he walks through the crowd untouched.