Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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Church Has a Purpose, Part 5: The Short Range: Truth 

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Part 1: And It’s No Secret | Part 2: The Long Range | Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency | Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment

The first thing Paul tells the church to do in the short term, in order to reach maturity in Christ in the long term, is to stop being like a child in his inconsistency and naivete. The second thing comes in the first part of verse 15:

But speaking the truth in love …

Now, the Greek here is interesting. There’s no verbal “speaking”; the verb is rather simply the verbal form of the noun “truth.” We might translate it (woodenly) as “truthing.” “Speaking the truth” is not a bad translation—that’s ordinarily how one puts truth into action—but the word has a broader reference. We should be the truth; we should live the truth. We should be true to who (and whose) and what we are.

We should be true.

This in contrast to the childlikeness that Paul has just used to illustrate his point. Children are easily deceived; we shouldn’t be. Why is that? Because we know the truth; it governs our thinking and consequently our decisions and our actions.

We know that quarters don’t come out of our ears. We know that no one can know—without some kind of mischief—that we’re thinking of a grey elephant from Denmark.

And similarly, we know that discounting the value of the Scripture, or of the person or work of Christ, or of the legitimate unity of God’s people, does not come from those who are interested in God’s cause or our good.

We didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. This isn’t our first rodeo. We know better.

And why do we know better?

Because we know the Scripture, because we have pored over it and immersed our thoughts in it and rolled its truths over repeatedly in our minds, for the decades since he gave us spiritual life. And because we know Christ, both by that time and effort in the Scripture and by our daily walk and communion with him over those same decades.

I’ve been married for over 38 years. Each year I learn more about my wife, both because I’m a slow learner and because she has grown and changed since we began our life together. And now, approaching 4 decades of daily interaction, I know a lot about her. Because of that knowledge I don’t wonder what she’s going to think about this or that, or how she’s going to react to a given situation, or whether she’s likely to do something inappropriate.

I know her. And that answers a lot of questions even as it calms—or dismisses—a lot of potential fears.

If somebody tells me something about her that isn’t true, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to believe it.

Because I know her.

Now, I’ve known the Father, the Son, and the Spirit almost twice as long as I’ve known my wife. Shame on me if I fall for some lie about him, or some distortion of his motives or his ways. Shame on me if I start to believe that he isn’t good, or that his inaction demonstrates his inattention or his apathy.

And shame on us, his church, his people, if we find ourselves distracted by relatively trivial, temporary causes, or divided by temporary social or political issues, hating one another because of our support for this or that candidate or plebiscite or ballot initiative, or the color of our hats.

We need to see things as they are from the perspective of the one who lives forever and who has been working his great and gracious plan from before the world was.

We need to give our energies to that eternal plan.

We need to grow up.

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

Church Has a Purpose, Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment 

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Part 1: And It’s No Secret | Part 2: The Long Range | Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency 

Children have another quality that we want them to outgrow.

Because of their comparative lack of experience, they can be naïve, credulous, gullible.

In a child, that’s endearing.

In an adult, it’s a flaw.

In the second half of our verse, Paul changes his metaphor to add depth to his illustration:

carried about … by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Ep 4.14b).

The KJV’s phrase “sleight of men” (NASB “trickery of men,” ESV “human cunning”) uses the Greek word kubeia. It’s where we get our word “cube.” It comes from the use of dice in gambling and the associated cheating, trickery, fraud.

Nobody likes to be taken advantage of.

But like it or not, there are bad actors out there, who are more than happy to lighten your wallet. And in the field of theology, there are fraudsters who would like to make merchandise of you. It’s pretty obvious these days that professing Christians are suckers for such fraudsters, from miracle prayer cloths on down.

Sometimes they’re not after your money; sometimes they’re after your soul. Maybe they want your following; maybe they just want you to think as they do. But they peddle their doctrinal and practical perversity, and they attack the church “by craft, with an evil plan [methodia] to deceive”—they scheme to trick us into believing a lie.

God’s people are supposed to be streetwise enough that they don’t fall for the doctrinal legerdemain. And where does “streetwisdom” come from?

It comes from knowledge of Christ. Knowledge about him, and knowledge of him.

Too many Christians are still falling for Satan’s simple tricks: materialism, broken marriages, pride of recognition and acceptance. These are old tricks—which means Satan’s good at them, because he’s had a lot of practice—but precisely because they’re old tricks, we should be well aware of them and see through them.

Fool me once, and all that.

I occasionally use a little trick on my students when we’re talking about divine election and foreordination. I tell them to think of any positive number. Literally any one, from the billions available. Then I tell them to multiply it by 9. Then add up the digits of the product, and if the sum is more than one digit, add the digits again, until they get a single digit. Then subtract 5. Then take that letter of the alphabet—1 is A, 2 is B, and so on.

You with me so far? Ok, now think of a country that starts with that letter.

Take the second letter of the name of the country, and think of an animal that starts with that letter.

Then think of a color that animal could be.

Then I ask how many students are thinking of a grey elephant from Denmark, and there’s an audible gasp in the room.

I’m a mind reader—no, a mind controller, you see.

Nope. And you math people know exactly how the trick works. It’s all based on the fact that they multiply their number by 9.

For any multiple of 9, the digits will add up to 9. In magic, that’s called a “force”; no matter what they do, you’ve forced them to a certain result. They subtract 5 from their 9, and they have 4. The letter of the alphabet is D.

Now, I’ve learned that this trick isn’t as reliable outside of the US and Europe. Westerners tend to pick the country of Denmark, which is what I’m counting on. There’s Djibouti, and the Dominican Republic, and Dominica, and the DRC, but Americans and Europeans are highly likely to pick Denmark.

So the second letter is E, and they’ll probably pick an elephant rather than an ermine or an eel or an eagle or an elk.

And elephants are grey. Or at least that’s what everybody thinks.

It’s simple probabilities.

Don’t fall for it.

There’s one more directive in this passage. We’ll talk about it next time.

Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

Church Has a Purpose, Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency 

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Part 1: And It’s No Secret | Part 2: The Long Range 

God designed the church to grow—together—in unity and in the knowledge of Christ. What’s the process for doing that?

Paul gives us steps through which we work toward that goal. By using the term “steps,” I don’t mean to imply that they’re in series, so that we do the first one, and then, once we’ve accomplished it, we work on the second; rather, they’re presented in contrasted form: don’t do these things, but rather do this other thing instead.

I suppose I should start by acknowledging an unstated assumption here. I’ve assumed that the church hasn’t yet arrived at the long-range goal of unity in Christ. I suppose I could give evidences, but truthfully, I don’t know anyone who would argue that we’re fine just as we are. Both as individuals, and as a body, we’ve got issues. So I’ll just acknowledge that I haven’t proved that, and if anybody wants to argue otherwise, I’ll be happy to demonstrate it, after I’ve picked myself up off the floor.

So then. How do we make progress toward being what God has designed and equipped us to be?

For starters, Paul says, stop being children:

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Ep 4.14).

Now, children are delightful. We all love their energy, their curiosity, their quickness to grasp new things, their fresh perspective on things.

Assuming, of course, said children are letting us get enough sleep.

We even have a word for those delightful qualities: childlikeness.

May there always be children.

But we don’t say, “Long live children”—because we want children to grow up; we want them to mature. We don’t want them to stay children, despite all our protestations that they grow up too fast.

Paul identifies a couple of specific ways that children, because they are immature and inexperienced, have negative qualities, things they need to outgrow.

First, they’re inconsistent, “tossed to and fro,” “carried about with every wind of doctrine.”

Wind can be a good thing. It can lift a 747, or more recently, an A380, right off the ground to “top the wind-swept heights with easy grace”; at a much more mundane level, it can help dry your laundry and save on your electric bill.

But it can also do a lot of damage. It can wipe out an entire town in 15 seconds. (In June 1998 I visited Spencer, SD, which a tornado had obliterated just like that a month earlier. The town was just gone.) It can topple a tree onto a car, killing everybody in it instantly. (That happened to a weather crew from a TV station here in Greenville a few years ago.)

You don’t play with dangerous wind.

And, Paul says, you don’t play with dangerous doctrine.

No need to be afraid—God leads his dear children along—but don’t be careless.

Ideas have consequences; doctrine matters. Existentialism brings self-centeredness and despair; polytheism brings confusion and fear; Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of the LDS Church belittle the person of Christ and thereby make themselves slaves to good works.

To press Paul’s illustration, little children can be tossed about despite their best determination to do right. I was, and I suspect you were too. Children are like that.

But we’re supposed to grow up.

Over the years I’ve known Christians, even pastors, who seem to be suckers for every doctrinal aberration that comes down the pike. I wonder if they’re constituted like the Athenians, who “spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing” (Ac 17.21). The stuff they already know is boring to them; they want something new, something contrarian, something that will give them a buzz, something to get the adrenaline going, something to feed their love of conspiracy theories.

Something to catch their eye, to make them reach up from where they’re lying in their crib.

Nope. Paul says we need to mature out of that. We need to be stable in the things we already know, well founded, solid, standing firm against the winds of the day, able to provide support to one another in a storm.

As you might suspect, there’s more to come.

Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment | Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

Church Has a Purpose, Part 2: The Long Range

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Part 1: And It’s No Secret

When you were learning to drive, you tended to focus on the road immediately in front of you—a tactic that made you basically a reactionary, jerking the wheel in response to whatever suddenly popped into your field of vision. As you gained experience, you began to look farther down the road, your peripheral vision taking in pretty much everything from here to the horizon. It’s much less jarring to make tiny corrections with long-range significance than to react to every little thing as if it’s a crisis.

So we start with the long view, the big map, with the little tiny star that says “You are here.”

That’s what Paul does in this passage.

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Ep 4.13).

God’s goal for us as his people is that by the end of the story we will be grown up—mature. That’s what “perfect” here means.

Mature in what?

In unity.

We need to be united, inseparable, fiercely attached to one another, a band of brothers.

What’s the basis of our unity? Some people are united by their love for motorcycles, or quilts, or cocker spaniels, or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

We’re united by our faith, and by our knowledge of the Son of God.

That statement needs some clarification, some delimitation.

In the Bible the term “the faith,” with the article, refers not so much to the fact that we believe as to the content of what we believe. To put it more bluntly, it refers to doctrine.

Isn’t that interesting. In Paul’s mind, doctrine isn’t something that divides. It’s something that unites. Because we believe the same things, we are pulled together and become inseparable.

I should note that this doesn’t mean that we agree on everything. The Scripture elsewhere urges each one to “be fully persuaded in his own mind” while extending grace to those with other convictions (Ro 14.5). No, “the faith” is the most important stuff, the doctrines that define Christianity, beginning with the gospel, which is “of first importance” (I Co 15.3-5).

That’s reinforced by the next phrase, “the knowledge of the Son of God.” The doctrines that are most central, our unifying principles, are those that have to do with the Son—who he is (person), what he is like (attributes), what he has done (work). It’s a truism that the easiest way to spot a false teacher is to ask him who he thinks Jesus is.

But I think Paul is saying more here than just that our Christology has to be right.

The word translated “knowledge” is epignosis, with a prepositional prefix that functions as an intensifier. Greek lexicons often render this word as “full knowledge,” “true knowledge,” “recognition.” I’d suggest that it means what we mean when we say, “Now I get it!”

A look at some other biblical passages that use the word reinforces this idea—

  • Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (Ro 3.20).
  • They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Ro 10.2).
  • … with knowledge and all discernment (Php 1.9)
  • That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (Co 1.9)
  • Ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth (2Ti 3.7).
  • … the full knowledge of everything that is in us for the sake of Christ (Phm 6)

So what is “unity of the knowledge of the Son of God”?

I’d suggest that when people know who Christ is, through his revelation of himself through the Word, and when through that knowledge they come to know him as Creator, Savior, Lord, Shepherd, Friend, they’re going to be drawn together into a unity that simply cannot be compromised.

And then they grow, united, as a single body, to a spiritual stature that is appropriate for the size of its head, who is Christ (Ep 1.22-23).

Now, how do we get there?

Paul has some very practical observations about that, which we’ll get to in the next post.

Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency | Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment | Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

Church Has a Purpose, Part 1: And It’s No Secret

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Experts tell us that we can’t be productive or successful without goals. We should write down our daily, weekly, monthly, and annual goals, and check them off when they’re completed. We should constantly re-evaluate our goals to be sure that they match our priorities.

Makes sense. I make lists and check things off every day, and it works pretty well for me.

The principle works for organizations as well as individuals. My employer, an educational institution, has goals that they communicate constantly to the faculty, the staff, and the students. Right now, at the beginning of the school year, we’re in the season where a few chapel sessions are devoted to informing the new folks, and reminding everybody, of our institutional purpose, past, and plans.

We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that God has goals for his people. He’s communicated them repeatedly throughout history, even though it sometimes appeared that hardly anybody was listening. In the current slice of history, when the people of God bear the moniker of “church,” he has plans for us too—especially corporately.

In Ephesians 4, among other places, God gives His goals for the church. Church isn’t just something we go to as spectators, a place where we meet people and perform rituals. It’s a living organization with a specific mission. In this passage God lays out the goals for the organization of which He is chief executive officer.

He begins by noting that we can’t succeed without help—particularly his gifting (Ep 4.7). And that gifting, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t supernatural abilities or tricks. It’s people.

Here Paul lists 4 or 5 kinds of people—there are other lists in other places, specifically Romans 12, 1Corinthians 12, and 1Peter 4, as I’ve noted earlier. This list includes apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers (Ep 4.11). They have a job to do: to mature the believers to do the work of service and consequently build up the body of Christ (Ep 4.12)—the church (Ep 1.22-23).

So the church is a body-building enterprise; it’s there to bring people together so that they can build one another up into maturity.

And what, specifically, does it mean to be mature?

For the church, it’s not the color of its hair (assuming it has some), or its height, or its musculature. Paul lays out the specifics in verses 13 through 16. These verses lay out God’s goals for the church.

Why do you go to church? (And what does “go to church” even mean if the church is a fellowship of believers and not a building?)

If you go to church with no purpose, no plan, no goal, but just because that’s what you always do on Sunday mornings, then how likely is it that you’ll play a part in helping the institution accomplish its purpose?

How do you feel about someone who’s working on a group project with you and who isn’t pulling his share of the load?

We hear any number of people complaining about this church or that one.

I wonder what they’re doing to help.

I wonder if they’re focused on a specific goal, and if so, if their goal is the right one.

In this passage Paul is going to describe both the long-term and the short-term goals for the church—my church, your church and all the others—as well as some specific ways we can pursue those goals.

It might be good for us to spend some mental effort thinking through what he has to say.

Next time.

Part 2: The Long Range | Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency | Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment | Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 8: Lord over Death

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Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil | Part 5: Lord over Disease | Part 6: Lord over the Law | Part 7: Lord over Creation

Mark climaxes his presentation of Jesus the servant with his resurrection from the dead. Jesus displayed his power over death even during his earthly ministry, of course; Mark records his raising of Jairus’s daughter during the Galilean ministry (Mk 5.21-43).

But the exclamation point on Jesus’ power over death is his own resurrection. Repeatedly in his teaching Jesus predicts his coming death and resurrection:

  • He says he’ll be killed by the religious leaders and that his resurrection will occur after 3 days (Mk 8.31); and he insists that he will accomplish this goal even though his disciples—particularly Peter—can’t make sense of it (Mk 8.32-33).
  • Soon after that, he repeats the prediction of his death and of the fact that the resurrection will occur after 3 days (Mk 9.30-32).
  • As he and the disciples are approaching Jerusalem for the last time, he gives more details about the circumstances of his death and repeats the timeline (Mk 10.32-34).

Jesus not only sees this event coming, but he takes charge of it, willing it despite the confusion and opposition of his disciples. In fact, shortly after this third prediction, he insists that the giving of his life was the very reason that he came in human form (Mk 10.45).

With the arrival in Jerusalem, things start to happen very quickly. At the Last Supper he predicts his betrayal and identifies the betrayer (Mk 14.17-20). He notes the fulfillment of prophecy (Mk 14.21): things are proceeding exactly according to plan. He then predicts his abandonment (Mk 14.27) and denial—and again, by whom (Mk 14.30). He is acting not like a victim, but like a champion, executing his plan perfectly.

Then, as he had predicted, a string of his prophecies is fulfilled. He is betrayed (Mk 14.45), and abandoned (Mk 14.50), and denied (Mk 14.66-72). Just as he said, despite the protestations.

He goes to trial—every step of it illegal before both Jewish and Roman law—and still he is not a victim. Confronted by the high priest, he initially refuses to answer a direct question (Mk 14.60-61)—he’ll answer in his own time and on his own terms—and then, in a moment, he throws a verbal bomb right into the middle of the whole proceeding.

“Are you the Christ?” the high priest asks (Mk 14.61).

Wait for it …

“I am!” he says. And then he quotes the prophet Daniel:

And ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven! (Mk 14.62, citing Da 7.13).

He’s appearing before the Sanhedrin, the religious authorities of Israel, effectively the Supreme Court. They could not possibly have failed to recognize the source of his quotation or to know the words that come next in Daniel’s prophecy:

And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed (Da 7.14).

This is an apocalyptic claim. He is grasping, and wielding, the offices of Messiah, the stem of Jesse, the Son of David, the King of all creation. And he wields it all with his hands tied behind his back and himself about to face torture (Mk 14.65; 15.15-19) and then the ultimate torture of crucifixion (Mk 15.25).

And when he dies, Mark tells us, two significant things happen:

  • The veil of the Temple is torn, opening the way for all to enter the very presence of God (Mk 15.38).
  • The centurion, the immediate representative of Roman and thus, effectively, world authority, proclaims, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mk 15.39).

This servant is king, of this world and the next.

What a servant.

What a Savior.

What a Lord.

This is a Servant worth serving. Give him all you have for his service.

You will not be disappointed.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 7: Lord over Creation

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Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil | Part 5: Lord over Disease | Part 6: Lord over the Law

In describing this humble servant of God, Mark is not yet finished surprising us. In the middle of his book—at the core of it, we might say—he recounts several interactions Jesus had with natural forces, or the created order. I could say that each of these surprises us, but if we’re still being surprised by now, we simply haven’t been paying attention.

I’m going to present them outside the order in which Mark places them, because 4 of the 5 make sensible thematic or logical pairs.

The first such interaction Mark presents is with a storm on the Sea of Galilee. We’re all familiar with this story, of course; it appears in 3 of the 4 Gospels, and we’ve heard about it since childhood—and some of us, of a certain age, even had the help of little flannelgraph cutouts.

Jesus and his disciples are crossing the lake on a fishing boat—most likely owned by Peter and Andrew or by James and John, since both of those sets of brothers had fishing businesses. A storm arises—as storms often do on this lake—but this storm is so extreme that the disciples think they’re all about to die (Mk 4.38). Now, considering that 4 of them are professional fishermen based on this lake, men who have seen scores of storms here, we can only imagine how violent this storm must have been to convince them that they were done for.

And Jesus is asleep (Mk 4.38).

Have you ever been on a boat in a violent storm? Me neither. But I’m given to believe that a fishing boat is going to be doing quite the do-si-do on the waves in that circumstance. This is not the kind of environment where you just doze off.

I take from this fact that Jesus was exhausted. He was completely wrung out, unable to stay awake under the most anti-soporific of conditions.

He was likely as low, as weak, as he had been since the fasting and temptation in the wilderness of Judea.

With some effort, apparently, they wake him up.

What are you like when you’ve been violently shaken out of a sound sleep and are surrounded by multisensory chaos?

He stands up—in a violently rocking boat—and says simply, “Calm down” (Mk 4.39).

And he says it not to the disciples, but to the lake. Who talks to natural forces with that kind of directness and expects to be obeyed? And is obeyed?

The disciples are apparently more frightened now than they were during the storm (Mk 4.41). Just who have they gotten themselves involved with?

At the nadir of his servanthood, he speaks to the wind and the sea—the storm gods, if you will—and is immediately and visibly and unquestionably obeyed.

Some servant.

Mark gives us other examples (as if he needs to):

  • When his disciples are in contrary winds later on the same lake, he walks out to them on the water and joins them in the boat (Mk 6.45-53). (Critics trying to “explain” this obvious miracle have suggested, among other things, that there were giant lily pads out there, which the experienced fishermen on the boat were unaware of. Do I even need to refute that idea?)
  • Just before that event, he feeds 5000 men, plus women and children, with 5 buns and a couple of tilapia (Mk 6.30-44).
  • Later he does it again, but this time with 4000 men, 7 buns, and “a few” fish (Mk 8.1-10).
  • And just before his arrest, he curses a fig tree for being fruitless, and 24 hours later (Mk 11.12-14) the tree is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead. (For those who aren’t paying attention, I got those adverbs from another source.)

Who has this kind of authority over powerful natural forces?

Why, their Creator, of course.

Some servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 6: Lord over the Law

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Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil | Part 5: Lord over Disease

In Mark 2 we find a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees which ends with Jesus declaring himself to be “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mk 2.28). This is quite a statement. We, who have heard it since our Sunday school days, simply cannot grasp the megatonnage with which these words would have hit the Pharisees.

But before we can discuss that, we ought to look further back in the chapter to note the context in which Mark places this confrontation.

In an (apparently) earlier conversation, some of the Pharisees’ fanboys ask Jesus why his disciples don’t fast the way the Pharisees and John’s disciples do. Now this context is important; while the Law does not mention fasting, the Bible does command “afflicting your souls” on one holy day, the Day of Atonement (Le 16.29-31; 23.27-32; Nu 29.7)—which might well be an oblique reference to fasting. If Jesus kept the Law perfectly (and he did [Jn 8.46; 1P 2.22]), he would certainly have fasted at times when the Law required it.

We know that the Jews later developed fasting practices apart from biblical mandates. After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the Jews began fasting on key anniversaries connected with that event (Zec 7.5; 8.19). In particular, the Pharisees developed the practice of fasting every Monday and Thursday (Didache 8:1; cf Lk 18.12).

Jesus’ response to the question indicates that he has no need to follow extrabiblical traditions, even those recommended by significant religious authorities. But in that conversation he hints at something far deeper; he says that he is putting “new wine” into “new wineskins” (Mk 2.22). What could that mean?

Mark shows us in the next paragraph. Jesus and his disciples are walking through a grainfield one Sabbath, and they take some heads of grain, rubbing them between their hands to separate the kernels to eat. Ah, but the Pharisees, the religious leaders, have decided that such an action is harvesting—work. And this is the Sabbath. Clear violation of the 4th Commandment (Ex 20.8-11). This rogue rabbi is a danger to the social order.

At this point Jesus does not argue that he has a right to ignore the Law, because he’s God. Indeed, as we’ve noted, part of the purpose of his incarnation is to keep the Law perfectly, as a man, in the place of sinful men and women. Rather, he claims for himself the right to pronounce the true meaning of the Law, implying that he has perfect knowledge of the mind of the Law’s Author. There’s no denial of his humanity, or of his submission to the will of his Father, or of his submission to the Law as intended. He simply asserts that they, the experts in the Law (the Pharisees were a subset of the scribes), didn’t know what they were talking about.

He gives an illustration from the life of David, who ate the showbread from the Tabernacle—with the high priest’s assent—when he and his men were weak with hunger. You see, the Law was not intended to starve people, or to cause them harm; its purpose is their salvation, their rescue, their shalom. “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2.27).

Jesus implies that David did not in fact break the Law, though in principle the showbread was limited to the priests. How did Jesus know that? He knows the mind of the Author—or more bluntly, he is the Author.

And so he concludes by stating how he knows these things:

The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath (Mk 2.28).

Mark gives us other indications. He records the Transfiguration, where Jesus takes precedence over Moses (Mk 9.2-8). He records Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (Mk 11.15-18), where he not only drives out the merchants but changes Temple policy on the spot  (Mk 11.16).

He is in charge of the holiest precinct in all of Judaism.

He’s no ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 5: Lord over Disease

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Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil

After Jesus returns from his temptation in the wilderness, he continues to demonstrate authority. He begins to preach, calling the people to repentance (Mk 1.14-15). He calls his disciples, and they leave what they’re doing to follow him (Mk 1.16-20). He teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum, “and they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes” (Mk 1.21-22).

And then, as if to put an exclamation point on his defeat of Satan in the wilderness, he confronts one of Satan’s servants, “an unclean spirit” (Mk 1.23) who, it turns out, speaks of himself in the plural (Mk 1.24)—maybe there’s a whole legion of them in there—and who confesses freely, “We know who you are: the holy one from God.” Jesus wastes no time or words (this is my rendering): “Shut up and get out” (Mk 1.25).

Which the spirit does.

There are other such occasions that Mark recounts: Jesus exorcises a madman in Gadara (Mk 5.1-20) of what is confessedly an entire legion of demons, and he casts a spirit out of a young boy who had seemed beyond hope (Mk 9.14-27).

Incidentally, the first of these exorcisms is at the beginning of his ministry; the second is in the middle; and the third is at the end. His authority never wavers or wanes.

Are these examples of lordship over evil, which should have gone in the previous post, or of lordship over disease, which is the subject of this post?

Yes, they are.

But Jesus’ lordship is not limited to spiritual disease; he takes authority over physical ones as well:

  • He heals Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever in Capernaum, just after casting out the demon (Mk 1.29-31). And not only does the fever leave immediately (which is odd, given that a fever is typically an indication that the body is battling an infection), but she is immediately restored to full strength (Mk 1.31).
  • That evening he holds a healing service—a real one—and heals all comers, whether of physical or demonic conditions (Mk 1.32-34). Note that everything we’ve mentioned in this series so far, with the exception of the two later exorcisms, occurs in Mark’s first chapter. Jesus is spectacularly busy, “about [his] father’s business,” as he had put it all those years ago (Lk 2.49). Again, he’s a dutifully obedient servant even as he takes authority over all he meets.
  • Soon after, he heals a leper (Mk 1.40-45). There’s a lot of discussion about just what biblical leprosy was; I’m not inclined to think that it was Hansen’s disease, but rather some sort of skin condition similar to eczema or psoriasis. But whatever it was, it wasn’t curable; if you had it, you had to isolate yourself and just wait it out, and for some (e.g. 2Ch 26.21) it never went away. Jesus healed it on the spot.
  • A few days later he heals a paralytic (Mk 2.1-12)—and forgives his sins for good measure. Even today much paralysis is incurable, despite considerable research. So it’s no surprise to us that the onlookers say, as we would today, “We’ve never seen anything like this!” (Mk 2.12).
  • A few days later he does it again—this time paralysis of just one arm (Mk 3.1-6). He does it with a word; he doesn’t even need to touch him. And—this is important—he does it on the Sabbath. The Lord over disease is also Lord of the Sabbath, a point he takes time to make here. And it goes a step further; he is angered—angered!—by the onlookers’ professed piety, by the fact that they’re more concerned with process than with people, more concerned with letter than with spirit. There seems to be no arena of life into which he does not step with authority.
  • He heals a nobleman’s daughter and a woman with a hemorrhage (Mk 5.21-43).
  • He heals a Gentile woman’s daughter (Mk 7.24-30).
  • He heals a deaf-mute (Mk 7.31-37).
  • He heals a blind man (Mk 8.22-26).
  • And he heals another blind man, Bartimaeus (Mk 10.46-52). This man, this time, calls him “Son of David!” (Mk 10.47). We should recall what that title means. King. Lord. Absolute and eternal authority (2S 7.16).

No ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 4: Lord Over Evil

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Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself

As far as the supremacy of this servant, Mark could end his account right here in the middle of chapter 1 and have made his point. But there’s much more to say.

Mark spends just 2 verses noting that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness (Mk 1.12-13). He chooses not to say much—unlike his fellow evangelists Matthew (Mt 4.1-11) and Luke (Lk 4.1-13)—but what he says comports perfectly with the theme he’s already established.

He uses the servant word—immediately—to begin the account. This man, who we’ve just learned is the Father’s Son, in whom he is well pleased (Mk 1.11), is under orders again, and he obeys. The wording is so strong that we wonder if he even had any choice:

Immediately the Spirit impelled him to go out into the wilderness (Mk 1.12).

That’s the NASB. The ESV and KJV use the verb drove.

I learned in my childhood in the American West that you don’t drive people (especially Westerners!). You drive cattle; and nowadays you drive cars. But you don’t drive people. People are free, with a right to self-determination.

Not this person. Not on this mission. Not in this circumstance.

The Spirit drives him. He impels him. And Jesus, the servant, obeys.

This obedience is not easy. He driven out into “the wilderness”—specifically, the wilderness of Judea.

If you’ve ever been there, you know that it’s a hostile place. It’s a desert, thus dry, and it’s hot during the day and cold at night. Either one can kill you. In Jesus’ day, it was where he set the story of the Good Samaritan, in which robbers set upon a Jewish man walking the steep road downhill from Jerusalem to Jericho (Lk 10.30). So if the climate isn’t enough of a threat, there are always brigands to be concerned about. And, perhaps worse, the desert creatures—mammals, reptiles, insects—who can’t be reasoned with. Mark tells us, “He was with the wild beasts” (Mk 1.13). If you’re alone, and you obviously have to sleep at some point, what’s to protect you from them?

In the desert, time is your enemy. There’s no water, and no food, and the temperature extremes wear down your body. You can take a 10-minute walk in the desert and ordinarily be no worse for the wear. But if you’re planning to stay for a while, you’re going to need supplies.

Jesus stays for 40 days. And nights. No food, no water, and, as far as we know, no shelter. Any outdoor guide would tell you that that’s not wise.

But Jesus is a servant. He does what he’s told. He goes, and he stays.

Mark says very little about the actual temptation: “tempted of Satan” (Mk 1.13). We know, obviously, that he survived the testing, because the story continues for 15 more chapters. That leads us to think that he was successful in defeating the tempter—and of course Matthew and Luke, in their longer accounts, give us the details. We don’t find Satan being finally crushed there; that will have to wait for the cross (He 2.14) and the final judgment (Re 20.10). But he meets the tempter on his ground, at his best and strongest point, and he is not defeated.

The Bible says that Jesus was tempted “in all things as we are” (He 4.15). Some wonder how that can be, given that he is God, and God is unable to sin. There’s an area of theology that discusses that specific question, and conservatives are divided. In that discussion it’s been suggested that Jesus’ temptation was actually harder to endure than ours, despite his moral perfection—or perhaps because of it.

When we’re tempted, the temptation lasts only until we give in. But Jesus never gave in; he endured all the temptation there was, to the bitter end.

And he won.

This servant is Lord of evil, and of its greatest proponent, Satan. Even as he is a servant “driven” into the wilderness, he overcomes the one who continually and continuously defeats us.

He is no ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash