Reading Through The New Testament - Mark 7

Just to refresh your memory, I'm using the Discipleship Journal's reading plan to journey through the NT this year in my devotional reading. The plan has you reading a chapter a day 5 days in a row with a two day break for reflection. I've kept the pace in reading but journalling here - not so much. I'll try to catch up.

One of the challenges for me is not pulling out the tools I use when preparing to teach and just reading for the purpose of allowing the text to work on me. So if the comments seem to be "top of mind" and not theologically deep or particularly precise - that's by intention. I'm determined to let the Word work in my heart without my "help."

So, Mark Chapter 7

- Rituals and traditions and traditional people. Apparently Jesus didn't go through all the ritualistic washing of hands that the professional religious people did. And His disciples picked that up from him, or perhaps there was a big disconnect between what the common people did in practice and what the priests and those like them did. Always one of the biggest sources for friction in churches - one person or group decides what everyone should do/follow.
- They called out Jesus on it and He was having none of it. "Hypocrites!" Then He played the prophet card and quoted Isaiah.
8 For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”9 Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition.
Mark 7:8-9 (NLT)
- and He gave examples. This confrontation was sharp and personal. And Jesus kept giving example after example and said there were "many more." No doubt the Pharisees were furious.
- Then He called the crowd over and let them know what the specific problem with substituting man made tradition for God's way is - you live the wrong way - valuing the wrong things and not relying on God in everything.
- Then He left and went into a home to get some peace and the disciples pressed Him for more information. He tried to help them understand that following God wasn't about food or traditions but about how you lived in response to God's grace. Your actions - not what you ate or drank - helped you see where you are with God and determined whether you could count yourself as His.
- Then a curious episode with a gentile woman follows. Given the mess with traditional Jews just prior, this seems especially harsh on one end and especially Jew-centric as well. Given Jesus' response though, I think He was testing the woman to see if she had heresay faith in what Jesus could do, or faith in Him for Who He is.
- The chapter closes with a trip north to Tyre and Sidon where the crowds were warm and Jesus healed a deaf man in a way He never had done. Perhaps there was some regional belief that method played into - don't know as I read this. But the man was healed and miraculously was able to hear and to speak plainly.
37 They were completely amazed and said again and again, “Everything he does is wonderful. He even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak.”
Mark 7:37 (NLT)

Was Uriah Living His "Best Life Now"?

I cannot get the David and Bathsheba story out of my mind.

What David did was so wrong on so many levels it just slays me. And then I think about the man whose life was taken from - Uriah.

I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said that David and Uriah knew each other on a "Band of Brothers" level. They had after all been at war together, scrambling over the rocks and hiding in the mountains as Saul pursued David and his band. The respect Uriah had for David, and for David's God was obvious - he was a convert to Judaism who had given up his home, his heritage, and his gods to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

That along should have been enough to stop David from ever sleeping with Bathsheba.

But it wasn't.

And when called, Uriah came. But when David tried to get Uriah to compromise his integrity - he wouldn't. And that refusal ultimately cost him his life. Understand, Uriah had done absolutely nothing wrong. He was the epitome of a godly warrior. In the height of arrogance, David even trusted in Uriah's integrity by sending his death warrant in Uriah's own hands, knowing Uriah would not break the seal on the scroll.

And when the plan was told to Joab, he executed it well. Uriah was to be sent to the wall, and everyone else was to pull back, leaving Uriah to die alone.

But he didn't.

17 Then the men of the city came out and attacked Joab, and some of the men from David’s soldiers fell [in battle] ; Uriah the Hittite also died.
2 Sam 11:17 (HCSB)

Those men would not leave their trusted friend to die alone. What a testimony that Hebrew men would give their lives for a Hittite convert. Must have been an awesome man.

So tell me Joel Osteen, was Uriah enjoying his victorious life - his best life now?

I Don't Like That David

Yesterday the message was rooted in the text in 2 Samuel 11 where King David commits adultery with Bathsheba and just continues sinning. He descends into the gutter and digs a basement. His sin gets blacker and blacker, and blacker.

I do not like that David.

Did that come out like Dr Seuss?

“I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them Sam I am.”
"I do not like them here or there! I would not like them anywhere! I do not like green eggs and ham! I do not like them, Sam-I-Am!"

I'll have to look at the tape, but that's what my lasting impression of this morning's message was. But I was genuinely stunned to see the man spiral out of control and drop out of relationship with God. All week long I kept reading the passage. Even went back and read every single Scripture dealing with David's life to see where it was he might have gone wrong.

It just bothered me. Still does.

I don't want to be that David.

It seemed to me that God had given great guidelines for the Kings of Israel to follow, that would have prevented David from falling - had he followed them. In Deuteronomy, it's clear - "don't take a bunch of wives because they will turn your heart away from God. Don't get too wrapped up in stuff, because that too will take your heart away from a focus on God."

So David gets to be king of a united Israel and immediately adds a bunch more wives and builds a Taj Mahal of a palace.

Guess he's not the only one who has done that, and why campaigns that tell us "Don't drink and drive", "Just say no", even "only you can prevent forest fires", won't work on someone who has decided to do whatever he wants to do.

I don't like people like that. Who know what's right and then do what's wrong.

Especially when they are me.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy on me a sinner, and strengthen me through your power that I might reflect your love in my words and in my deeds. Lord hide me so far beneath your greatness that I can see nothing but you and desire nothing but to stay fixed to you.