GOSPEL MEDITATION # 196

Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand

Mark 8:1-10

1. Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
2. Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
3. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
4. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
5. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
6. Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
7. Matthew’s account, 15:32-39, reads almost identical to Mark’s. 4000 this time, 5000 last, and this crowd without food for 3 days. They had bread but of a different kind. When this is available, nothing else matters much.
8. Jesus, not the disciples, see the need. He has compassion but the disciples do not have. Do we?
9. 7 loaves only, and these are seed cakes, flat bread. Also a few fish. Jesus maintains order, has the people sit down on the ground, not green grass as before.
10. Jesus gives thanks, twice, once for the loaves and then for the fish. Possible the fish were presented later on. The prayer was one of thanksgiving not a “blessing” on the food.
11. The miracle, as in the 5000 feeding, must have occurred in the hands of Jesus as He broke the bread cakes and fish. Imagine the strength and patience it must have required.
12. Everyone was satisfied, content, as it always is when Jesus feeds us.
13. 7 baskets were needed to collect the leftovers. But the word for baskets is different from that used in the 5000 feeding. There the word means small baskets, the kind most travellers carried with them. Here it means a hamper, a large basket, the kind used in Acts 9:25 to describe the basket Paul was lowered down in.
14. Jesus then flees with his disciples via the boat again.

GOSPEL MEDITATION # 195

Jesus Heals a Deaf Man

Mark 7:31-37

1. Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
2. Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
3. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
4. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
5. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
6. Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
7. Jesus retreats to the Decapolis (ten cities) on the eastern side of the Jordan River. He encounters another Gentile.

8. To be deaf and have trouble speaking makes sense.
9. Those who brought the man to Jesus are not identified. This has become a pattern for us; this is what we do too.
10. They “begged Jesus” to heal him. This reminds us of what happened in Mark 7:26. The idea is that, for whatever reason, Jesus did not respond immediately.
11. Jesus shows courtesy to the man by taking him aside. However, might Jesus have wanted this encounter to remain quiet?
12. We must ask then, if the healing was private how do we know of it now?
13. Jesus often spoke a word to heal, now a touch. Would not a spoken word have achieved the desired healing?
14. Jesus must have touched the man’s ears, then a second action, He spit and touched the man’s tongue with a wet finger. Might this have looked differently?
15. In Aramaic, “Be opened.” Here now was the word.
16. The man spoke plainly (incredible, a multifaceted healing), and Jesus wants the man to be quiet.
17. The man simply could not obey.
18. Jesus does do all things well.

GOSPEL MEDITATION # 193

Traditions and Commandments &

What Defiles a Person

Mark 7:1-23

1. Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
2. Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
3. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
4. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
5. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
6. Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
7. We tend to be legalists, yes even evangelicals who preach grace. It is common to the human condition. In the Judaism of Jesus’ day many sought to honor God by being observant of a myriad of rules and regulations.
8. The Oral Law, on top of the 613 laws found in Scripture, 248 permitted acts, 365 prohibited acts, many of them had to do with food and personal hygiene.
9. Jesus, an observant Jew, nevertheless rejected much of the Oral Law, the traditions of the elders, and thus ran afoul of religious extremists. Little has changed.
10. Pride follows in the wake of doing works that are thought to be righteous. Jesus pointed out that it is not the external but the internal where the problem lies.
11. What was true for some of the Jewish religious leaders is true for us today.
12. It is out of the heart and mind and the will–the core of us–where sin and evil begin. And we are surrounded by it in the culture we live in.
13. We are in the world, not of it, but we are all vulnerable to the forces that would destroy us.
14. Legalism does not protect us from that which defiles, and the list Jesus gives is very comprehensive.
15. The reality is, we are all susceptible to being defiled.

Maybe adultery and murder won’t get us, but pride,

slander, envy, or coveting may.

GOSPEL MEDITATION #197

The Pharisees Demand a Sign & The Leaven of the Pharisees

Mark 8:11-21

1. Find a quiet place without distractions.
2. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
3. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
4. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
5. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
6. “Show us a miracle and we will be satisfied.” Then one more would be requested, and then another. Heal someone, cast out a demon – then we will believe. But they did not.
7. Seems like a miracle would be enough but it never is. Faith is always a gift, blind eyes must be opened, deaf ears must be made to hear.
8. Jesus had feed 5000 then 4000 and yet the apostles were worried about the apparent lack of bread. Did they want to see another miracle?
9. The guys somehow had forgotten the two most incredible miracles ever, one which showed up the fundamental law of nature – new energy or matter cannot be created. We live in a closed system.
10. Right in front of them, as it had been for the religious leaders, they beheld the miraculous. It was not enough.
11. As yet there was no inner working of the Holy Spirit, who alone confirms forgiveness and salvation. It is a miracle unseen, which is far superior to even a resurrection from the dead.
12. There would be the resurrection of Lazarus, which was like casting pearls before swine; then Jesus’ own resurrection was denied.
13. The Pharisees are like all those who trust in doing good works. Theirs is despair and a longing for proof undeniable.
14. Good deeds are observed while real faith cannot be.