Scripture: Mark 8.11-12
The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.”

Reflection: A Sign of Immaturity
By John Tillman

The immature demand signs because they walk by sight—not faith.

However, the Pharisees and religious leaders, the most outwardly spiritually mature Jews of their day, were often the ones demanding a sign from Jesus.

In this chapter we see Jesus perform signs and miracles, but the Pharisees don’t see them. Not that seeing a miracle would guarantee faith. Elsewhere in scripture we know the Pharisees witnessed many of Christ’s miracles. We also see that the crowds that witnessed large public miracles (such as feeding the 4000 and the 5000) failed to develop mature faith.

Multiple times Jesus attributes his healing miracles to the faith of the person healed, so we can conclude that sometimes signs and miracles may grow from a deep faith. However, signs and miracles rarely grow a deep faith for those who witness them. Those who begin walking by sight have a hard time transitioning to walking by faith.

This frustration must have weighed on Jesus and may be the source of the deep sigh of frustration Mark records. Few were ready when the long-awaited Messiah appeared and many did not recognize the hour of visitation.

The religious leaders were not mustache-twisting villains. They were good and well-intentioned men. The Pharisees sought actively to do God’s will as completely as humanly possible.

As Christians, Pharisees would be the most frequent attenders of your church. They would not be similar to “cultural Christians” whose only identifying mark of Christianity is on a census taker’s form. In fact, they would probably look down on such uncommitted believers.

What was dreadfully wrong with the Pharisees was not on the outside, but the inside.

The Pharisees’ outward behavior had the practiced discipline of tradition and the polished veneer of virtue. But they neglected the more important parts of the law. Practices that should have inspired humility and mercy, instead lead to pride, superiority, oppression, and cruelty.

Christ had mature followers among all varieties of people—including among the religious leaders and Pharisees. At the hour of his death, it was two of these followers who risked death to tend his body and lay it in the borrowed tomb.

May we, through our spiritual disciplines, develop a mature faith that cultivates signs and miracles of mercy and grace for others, not an immature faith that demands signs of favor and blessing for ourselves.

Prayer: The Greeting
You, O Lord, shall give strength to your people; the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace. — Mark 9.35

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 22 (Listen – 5:07)
Mark 8 (Listen – 4:29)

Additional Reading
Read More about the Milk of the Word, A Precedent to Growth
Prioritizing the basics of faith—Bible reading, reflection, prayer, and corporate worship—is a spiritual intake process that matures with us, leading deeper into scripture as we repetitively read and absorb God’s Word.

Readers’ Choice
In August we will look back at our readers’ favorite posts of the year. Submit a Readers Choice post.
Tell us about a post and what it meant to you. What post helped refresh your faith?

Scripture: Mark 7.37
People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said.

Reflection: Doing All Things Well
By John Tillman

Mark’s seventh chapter begins with Pharisees, who never seemed to think Jesus did anything right. It ends with Gentiles in the Decapolis who proclaimed with amazement that Jesus did all things well.

The Pharisees were a culture within a culture. Paul uses his pharisaical background as a superlative, calling himself a “Hebrew of Hebrews.” The Decapolis was a region of Gentile cities that many observant Jews would avoid.

Jesus models for us a comfortable and powerful confidence that allows him to move with freedom and authority between these two different cultures. He is equally comfortable exposing the inward sinfulness of the religious elite as he is exposing the bright light of the Gentiles’ faith and both groups’ desperate need for the gospel.

That Jesus would even spend time in Gentile territory would be scandalous to the Pharisees. That he would claim that the only true God is the God of Israel would be scandalous to the Gentiles. Christ’s teaching of the gospel shocked everyone. His gospel was not watered-down, feel-good niceties. It offended easily. But it was, and is, the only source of life.

As we follow Christ, we are meant to take on this mantle of confidence and comfort. This is not a confidence in our ability or a comfort in our own power, but an indwelling, filling, and freeing expression of the Holy Spirit with us.

The crowds in the Decapolis would have known Jesus as a source of transformation and life before he arrived because Jesus had already sent a missionary there to prepare the way. Though not recorded in scripture, it is not hard to imagine that Christ, upon arriving in the cities of the Decapolis, may have been greeted with crowds led by the former demoniac of Gerasene.

May we be so transformed. May we be so sent. May we undertake whatever task is asked of us for the cities to which God sends us. May they say of us as they say of Christ, that we “doeth all things well.”

Hymn:
All the way my Savior leads me;
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy,
Who through life has been my Guide?
Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,
Here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well,
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well. — Fanny Crosby (recording by Rich Mullins)

Prayer: A Reading
So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.” — Mark 9.35

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 21 (Listen – 2:35)
Mark 7 (Listen – 4:28)

Additional Reading
Read More about Thankful Workers for Peace
Just as Jesus left the Gerasene man to spread the gospel to the Decapolis, he would soon leave the disciples to spread the gospel to the world, and he has left us here to follow in their footsteps.

Readers’ Choice
In August we will look back at our readers’ favorite posts of the year. Submit a Readers Choice post.
Tell us about a post and what it meant to you. What post helped you connect your faith to your work?

Scripture: Mark 6.4; Jeremiah 20.1-2; Mark 6.27-28
A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.

When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the official in charge of the temple of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks.

So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter.

Reflection: The Trap of Being Offended
By John Tillman

Our readings today bring us a theme of three prophets whose offensive messages caused them to be rejected: Jesus, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist.

Nazareth’s residents “took offense” at Jesus. The Greek word translated as “offense” is skandalizó and it implies the idea of a trap that one falls into or is ensnared by.

There’s no gunshot like conviction,
There’s no conscience bulletproof,
There’s no strength like our own weakness,
There’s no insult like the truth. — Charlie Peacock

Stumbling into the trap of offense leads to a pattern that we can learn from. All three of these prophets experienced this pattern in some way. If we find ourselves in one of these steps, we need to prayerfully evaluate our hearts to see if we are trapped by being offended.

Step one: Minimize the prophet’s message based on his or her family background, age, race, gender, or history.

Focus on the prophet and magnify any flaw. Jeremiah was a young, unpatriotic upstart. Jesus was an out-of-wedlock, scandalous, small-town kid from a flyover state from which nothing good could come. John was an extremist and was politically insensitive.

Step two: Publicly censure the prophet, inviting shame, scorn, and sometimes violence.

Jeremiah was held in stocks in the Temple. The purpose of such a punishment is to shame and humble an enemy; to make him or her powerless, allowing verbal and physical attacks. This practice is common today. We still love shaming and stoning people. We just mostly do it digitally through social media.

Step three: Conspire with the powerful to have the prophet silenced.

John’s attack on Herod’s incestuous marriage brought him into political crosshairs and set in motion an illegal conspiracy to have him killed. Jesus also was the victim of conspiracy, leading to his shaming, humiliating death on the cross. Jeremiah was tortured many times. The Bible doesn’t record his death, but according to traditional sources he was eventually stoned.

With the exception of Herodias, all of the people who tortured and killed the three prophets we read of today thought they were doing God’s work—disposing of troublemakers.

This should shock us into inner evaluation of ourselves and our motives. Why are we offended? Can we turn our offense and the offender over to God? We must always be cautious and prayerful when we take offense at a prophet.

Prayer: The Greeting
My mouth shall recount your mighty acts and saving deeds all day long; though I cannot know the number of them. — Psalm 71.15

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 20 (Listen – 3:07)
Mark 6 (Listen – 7:23)

Additional Reading
Read More about Kingdom Manifestation :: A Guided Prayer
Pray God will use you in healing the infectious, in redeeming the lost causes, and in hospitality to the thieves crucified beside you.

Readers’ Choice
In August we will look back at our readers’ favorite posts of the year. Submit a Readers Choice post.
Tell us about a post and what it meant to you. What post comforted you?

Scripture: Mark 5.18-20
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

Just as Jesus left the Gerasene man to spread the gospel to the Decapolis, he would soon leave the disciples to spread the gospel to the world, and he has left us here to follow in their footsteps. May we be as miraculously transformed as the Gerasene man, and as thankful as he, running to the cities with the life-changing message of the gospel. — John

Reflection: Thankful Workers for Peace :: Worldwide Prayer
A prayer of thanksgiving from Thailand

Dear heavenly Father,

We praise you for your love and mercy to all humankind.
We praise you for your Son, our Savior.
We praise you for this wonderful universe,
for the son, the moon and the stars.

You have placed everything in perfect order so that
we may live in peace and harmony with all that
you have created. You have provided sustenance
for your children.

People everywhere face many difficulties,
they suffer,
they cry,
they are starving,
homeless, and helpless.

Help us to attempt to solve the difficulties they face,
to be active in serving the needy.
And may we be workers for peace.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

*Prayer from Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick…And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners. — Matthew 9.12-13

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 19 (Listen – 2:58)
Mark 5 (Listen – 5:21)

Additional Reading
Read More about Freedom for Prisoners
We fear Christ partly because the freedom Christ brings is undeserved and is not merely for the noble.

Readers’ Choice
In August we will look back at our readers’ favorite posts of the year. Submit a Readers Choice post.
Tell us about a post and what it meant to you. What post confronted you?

Scripture: Mark 2.7, 16, 18, 24
“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
“How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

Reflection: Keeping The Greatest Commandments
By John Tillman

Jesus wasn’t sinless because he never broke laws. He constantly broke them.

In this one short chapter of Mark he breaks (or supports those who are breaking) five separate laws (some of which were punishable by stoning): he blasphemes, he eats with ceremonially unclean people, he eschews required religious fasting, he defends working on the sabbath, he defends David’s eating of the holy bread.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) described the interdependence of laws and truth when advising new disciples learning about theology and the scriptures for the first time:

Truths have a dependence on each other; the lesser branches spring out of the greater, and those out of the stock and root. Some laws are but means to other laws, or subservient to them…Therefore it is one of the commonest difficulties among cases of conscience, to know which law is the greater.

According to Baxter, Christ recognized the priority of the greatest laws. We see this in Christ’s teaching. Jesus referred to “lesser” laws with language that exposed their second-tier authority. He often said, “your traditions,” or “Moses permitted,” or “you have heard it said…”

Upon this ground, Christ healed on the Sabbath day, and pleaded for his disciples harvesting the heads of grain, and for David’s eating the shewbread, and told them, that “the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath,” and that “God will have mercy, and not sacrifice.“

Baxter refers to the various laws as if they are parts of an intricate watch—meaningless unless all the parts are in proper order.

Theology is a curious, well-composed frame. Just as it is not enough that you have all the parts of your watch or clock, but you must see that every part is in its proper place, or else it will not go, or answer its end; so it is not enough that you know the various parts of theology or law, unless you know them in their true order and priority.

When Jesus is asked what the two greatest commandments are, his answer tells us how to set our watch by the two guideposts on which hang the entire law—Love God and love others.

*Richard Baxter selections condensed and language updated from A Christian Directory.

Prayer: A Reading
Jesus taught us, saying: “Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” — Matthew 7.13-14

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 16 (Listen – 3:52)
Mark 2 (Listen – 3:55)

This Weekend’s Readings
Jeremiah 17 (Listen – 4:50) Mark 3 (Listen – 3:41)
Jeremiah 18 (Listen – 3:40) Mark 4 (Listen – 5:01)

Additional Reading
Read More about Regaining Love’s Highest Meaning
Even Christians are easily misled into thinking love is primarily a feeling. Yet, it is so much more.

Readers’ Choice
In August we will look back at our readers’ favorite posts of the year. Submit a Readers Choice post.
Tell us about a post and what it meant to you. What post refreshed your faith?