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May 12

 

Mark 8:27-9:50

We are in the Christ Stream today and reading from the Easy-to-Read Version this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Jesus, the wild and varied road of discipleship with you is as exciting as ever. Thank you for including us as your disciples. Heaven is worth it, and so is each moment with you.
 

Mark 8:27ff – They are walking north from Galilee to Caesarea Phillippi (21 miles straight, rather longer than that on foot). The discussion that ensues needs to happen: “who is Jesus?” The disciples start quoting this guy and that guy and this guy… This was a trademark of Jewish scholarship. Jesus wanted to know what they thought.  Jesus asks us the same question today. And we need to answer it.  Our eternity rests upon our answer of this question. Peter and Jesus’ interaction here and in the next story are wedded truths that must both be accepted: Jesus is the Savior and he must be crucified as a sacrifice for us. Learning this –> IS discipleship. It’s not an easy truth to ingest. Peter’s attempt to correct Jesus gets a swift and stinging rebuttal.  We are to follow Jesus whole-heartedly, single-mindedly, boldly. Getting “on page” with Him is the issue. We are not to try to mold Jesus to fit our agenda and worldview. He shapes ours.

 
9 – The disciples would witness the coming of the Power of God – Pentecost is what they being assured of in the opening statement of ch. 9.

-The Transfiguration is a vital lesson in the revelation of paradise, eschatology (end times study), and Resurrection theology. The Israelites had a notion of heaven and the next world but it is an under-developed segment of theology for them. Most of what we believe about heaven/paradise/the next world we learn from Jesus’ teaching.  So here are three of the disciples that realize that Jesus has instant access to other worlds. That the prophets are not dead. They see Elijah – who had “died” 700 years ago, and Moses – who died 1300 years ago. What?! You’re alive? You’re here?!  Those who work for God and follow His Son do not die.  It’s quite a grand testimony, certainly worth telling to the world (when the time is right)!

Upon returning, there is another showdown centered around another demon-possession victim. Matthew and Luke tell of this same story in a much abbreviated 6-verse version. Mark tells it in full. The lynch-pin is that the 9 disciples who didn’t witness the Transfiguration gave it a go to free the youngster from Demons while Jesus was away. They did not succeed. Jesus’ reply to this development was tongue-in-cheek curt response to motivate them to move up to His level. Jesus wants them to be able to expel demons from people. We all hope the reaction was that they insist Jesus teach THEM how to cleanse the demon-possessed and not wither into insecurity because it sounds like Jesus might have insulted them.  Following Jesus in not for the faint of heart, btw.
Next, Jesus tells of his crucifixion again.  He did so five times between this session in Galilee and the arrival in Jerusalem. [Mark tells us of four of them]. Talk of his Passion during what we call Easter week wasn’t mentioned much prior to this. But Jesus wanted them to be certain of what was coming. However they are still not ‘getting it’ yet.’
-The next verse tale is proof that the gravity of what was coming at Calvary wasn’t sinking in at this point –> They are arguing about who’s the greatest, [as if Cassius Clay was among them as one of the disciples). Jesus teaching about serving and having a child-like heart is perfect timing again.  It’s still shaking up the leadership world today. Awesome.
-The word of Jesus and His powerful Name is spreading as someone other than them is ministering in Jesus’ name. The disciples aren’t sure what to make of this. “Jesus” wasn’t going to be a small club of 12 much longer so they best get accustomed to this.
-The final teaching is so needed today. We are to be inspiring and raising up and mentoring eachother.  An alarming amount of people today make a living from selling, promoting, and doing things that harm people and leads them into dark and unhealthy things. Jesus asserts that there is a horrid price tag for leading people astray.  The part about maiming one’self [if that’s what it takes to stop sinning] is too much to take: the issue is clearly this: SIN is NOT one of your OPTIONS.  Dietrick Bonhoffer explains this better than anyone if you care to look up his commentary on these verses. It is vital and beyond that no one is led astray from our example. We are to affect people in the opposite manner.
Posted on

May 11

 

Hosea 9:10-10:15

We are in the Exile Stream reading from the Easy-to-Read Version this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord, let this sorry tale of the northern Kingdom only remind us that you do not play games with the disobedient. Let it remind and urge us to follow you, follow you today, and to follow you fully. Amen.
 

9 – Israel’s love for God has rotted. It started out as affection that was pure but it has become like garbage gone bad “late in the day”.  Israel has loved rotten things … now they have gone totally rotten themselves.  God needs to discard them.           Their future needs to be cut off because a rotten present (that Israel is committed to) signifies a rotten future.

         Nothing signals that there’s a future like a baby arriving. Well God is going to end this and Israel is going to have no more babies.  What does survive, God will “take” those babies.  It’s too disturbing to describe what the Assyrian soldiers did to Israel’s helpless babies during the seige. And you don’t want to know.  Email my husband, if you really need to know as this era was his major in college. Believe me, it’s bad.  Well, Israel had killed its own faith and done so deliberately and it won’t be long now until Assyria kills every Israelite baby they can find. Too rough? Is God being too mean? Willful sin takes things in a far worse direction than the deliberate sinner ever dreamed he would be taken in his worst nightmare.  They would become a homeless nation.  And historically, these tribes of the north were scattered into the “compost heap” of history.

 
10 – Israel has erred greatly in that they used their wealth and fertile land and blessing to, do what?!, to make idols!  Their aimlessness is turned lunacy.  We’ve heard the phrase, “wherever, you go, there you are.” With Israel, wherever they go in their minds and hearts and sinfulness, “they aren’t there either. When someone isn’t thinking clearly, we declare, “they’re not all there.”  This is Israel completely.   They have a king, but they don’t – not really, they make promises that they don’t keep (so what were they promising?), their judges merely poison everything, they worship a calf – it gets stolen, they make pacts with other countries – with those that hate them and then invade, their altars of worship will turn into piles of weeds … so what are they worshiping? The nation is crazy.
Israel has been sinning and sinning so horribly, so constantly, and for so long.  All these centuries they could have been planting good things that grew into great things.  But Israel planted evil and lies and false hope (in their sinful commitments).   Btw, the man “Shalman” mentioned in Hosea 10:14 was an Assyrian King, His full name was Shall-man-EASE-err.  Whoever completes the conquest of Israel, Israel is going to be fully destroyed.  It’s basically over for them.
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May 10



Jeremiah 5-7

We are in the Prophetic Stream reading the judgments as written by the prophet Jeremiah. We are reading from the Easy-to-Read Version this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

God, we ask that you would be a comfort to us; an ever present help in times of trouble. Guide us as we aim to live as Jeremiah did and speak up amid a culture that seems bent on disobedience. We trust you to guide us in our pilgrimage and ministry as we find ourselves living in similar times to what Jeremiah lived in.  Amen
 

5 – Jeremiah is appalled that there is not even one righteous/loving/God-fearing soul in Jerusalem.  The people talk of God but it is hollow. He then goes into a prayer for 15 verses straight.  Jeremiah vents to God about their wickedness, the punishment coming to them like a lion pouncing on its prey.  They’re about to be treated like animals -since they wander away from God. The children, the leaders, everyone is going to feel the punishment. They ignore His prophecy so the LORD must bring in a foreign nation.  They’ve brought foreign gods to worship from another land, so they are going to be taken to a foreign land (what do they THINK is going to happen?!)  They and everything they own is going to be devoured. These Babylonians may as well be six foot tall locusts – they will leave nothing. These people of Judah are not accidentally straying; their rebellion is deliberate. They are deaf and blind but think they are fine. They lie and are treacherous. It will require the Babylonian army to get their attention.

 
6 – The enemy of the people of God is coming, and they come to destroy. The people have stopped their ears long enough and God is going to use this foreign army to “cleanse” Judea. The chapter reads like God is even directing the Babylonians, telling them how to overtake the city. As believers we read this and may think, “God, what are you doing?!” Hey, what is God supposed to do? The Judeans have been up and down spiritually for almost 350 years. The north had fallen to Assyria (150 years before Judea did) and in the intermittent century and a half, Judea more or less has an ungodliness contest with itself to see how far they can press the matter in their disobedience. They had deluded themselves. Remember, later in Jer. 25:9 and 43:10 God refers to the Babylonian king as “His servant.” This king Nebuchadnezzar will be sent (by God!) to clean up Judea. If God is not allowed to, then a dark force will be put to work on them. Obedience to God would have been a much better plan. This is just like in Eden; When God’s people do not obey God or His plan, what is God to do?  When they (we) won’t obey, God just needs to clean house. We do the same with spiders and roaches in our houses, do we not? Judea refuses to repent. And they keep bringing offerings to God as if that would cover for their wickedness. The warnings for repentance are insistent, even pathetic. The awful punishment coming to them could be avoided through repentance. But Judah won’t.
 

7 –  Jeremiah is assigned to stand in the gateway to the city and prophesy to the people about the matter of obedience and repentance. Jeremiah is laying it all out here! The people have been treating the Temple like a kid playing “tag” or something like that. A kid will run all around a yard and then stop with a hand on a structure and declare, “Base!” meaning they can’t be caught or tagged because they are on a base.  Judah was breaking all the commandments all over the country in their ungodly behavior and then coming to the Temple and declaring to themselves that they would not be punished because they were in the Temple. It’s like they are yelling “base!” to God.  I mean God isn’t going to let His own Temple be smashed is He? Not with us in here with our offerings, right? Think again!  The reference in v. 18 “Queen of Heaven” was Ashtoreth. They were worshiping this female sex deity just like all the surrounding pagan nations were doing. All God wanted was their obedience. They are countering with, “we won’t obey, …but we will bring sacrifices! [durrr] The Judeans revered their ancestors (uh, they weren’t obedient either!).  And the more time passes, the worse people become. They have been as pagan as the pagan nations and worse. They’ve done infant sacrifice right in the city, the Temple is polluted by their deeds as they play both sides. They do this Satanic level wretchedness and then bring their offerings to the Temple (same people!) Well God is going to end all this and there will be so many dead that vultures will swarm in to clean up the bodies. Some Hebrews will be preserved in another land, but Jerusalem is going to fall silent.  A preview of this is in Lamentations 1 “…the city is deserted…”  This all- so- did- not- need to happen. But with Judah’s behavior – it did happen.

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