GOSPEL MEDITATION # 182
Mark 3:23-35
Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit & Jesus’ Mother & Brothers
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- Blasphemy—slanderous words spoken against a deity or religion.
- In our passage Jesus properly reacted against a form of blasphemy. His miracles could not be covered up so a more stringent tack was required by Jesus’ enemies, in this case, attributing the miracles and casting out of demons to the power of Satan.
- Jesus relies on common logic to counter the charge—the reality of it is indisputable.
- There is a problem of another, more dreadful consequence of attributing the works of Jesus to Satan or Beelzebub, meaning the lord of the flies, a Canaanite evil demon. This blasphemy is the committing of an unforgiveable sin.
- Most Biblical commentators think it means that believing and confessing that Jesus has an unclean or evil spirit means an utter and complete rejection of Jesus and thus His work on the cross.
- We would all like to know more about this but the passage does not make a clear answer possible.
- Jesus’ family, mother, brothers (4 of them) and many old manuscripts have “sisters” as well, are still without understanding of the mission of Jesus and only see that He is acting strangely and not caring for His physical needs. They literally think He has lost His mind.
- When informed that His family would like to see them, He apparently ignores them. At least we are not told that He went out to them or even that on some other occasion, He spoke with them and calmed their fears.
- Jesus uses the incident to teach something that is nothing less than incredible: His family consists of those who follow Him.
- These people would be His immediate disciples whom He had just recently called to be with Him.
- To believe in and follow Jesus is be become a member of His family.