Mark 7:14-23 - Jesus Corrects the Scribes (Part 2)

This is how I introduced the sermon from this passage:

"We are looking this morning at the second part of a confrontation that Jesus had with the Pharisees and scribes. It began last week when some of these scribes confronted Jesus about the non-compliance of his disciples with their laws about ritual cleanness. The disciples were not following the tradition of the elders. This is not the first time Jesus and his disciples have run afoul of the ‘tradition.’ The first time was when they were in the fields on the Sabbath plucking and eating the heads of grain. After that it was for healing on the Sabbath. Now it is this matter of the washing of the hands.

"We saw last week how Jesus responded to their accusative questions. He said they were hypocrites. He said they had no heart or love for God at all, but rather for appearing religious outwardly and for keeping and maintaining a system of traditions that Jesus called ‘the commandments of men’--as opposed to the law of God. He said that Isaiah had spoken about them in Isaiah 29 when he said that they drew nigh to God with their lips, but their heart was far from him. Then he pointed out how their tradition, which was supposed to be a fence around the law of God, was actually opposed to God’s law in one specific way (that of Corban) and in many other ways as well.

"That's where we left the argument last week and this morning we pick it up again in verse 14 with Jesus now turning to the crowds and addressing them openly about the scribes and Pharisees and correcting their teaching."

This is how I outlined these verses:

   I. Nothing outside of us defiles us (v. 14-15)

  II. The disciples are confused (v. 16-17)

 III. Jesus explains further (v. 18-19)

 IV. The significance of what he just said (v. 19)

  V. Jesus explains what does defile us (v. 20-23)

 VI. Where is the gospel in this passage?

Below you will find the audio to this sermon which was preached on Sunday, June 25 at the Winnsboro Reformed Church. I hope it will be a blessing to you and that through it God will minister grace to the hearers. To listen, just click the link below.

Click here: Mark 7:14-23 - Jesus Corrects the Scribes (Part 2)



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Galatians 5:23 - Gentleness, Self-control

In this lesson we looked at two more virtues listed under the heading ‘fruit of the Spirit'--the last two. But before delving into them we took the time to remind ourselves of these key points about the fruit of the Spirit:

(1) These are kingdom virtues and eschatological in nature. Remember, we do not belong to this world. We are being prepared for the next. All of these virtues are grounded in the hope of the future glory and will never be perfected until then. In that world, these will be the character of everyone.

(2) These are a striking description of the character of Christ who excelled in and exemplified all of these virtues.

(3) These are all supernatural virtues produced by the Spirit in us when we ‘walk by the Spirit.’ While there may be something like these achieved by the natural man apart from Christ, these all go above and beyond what our sinful nature can produce by itself. When unbelievers display something like these virtues we may be assured that what we see on display is corrupt and inferior. What Paul outlines here are graces produced in believers only, and only by the Spirit of God.

In this Bible study we looked at gentleness and self-control. We discussed what they meant from a biblical context and how they would manifest themselves in our lives. I hope you will take the time to listen and grow in your faith and in your knowledge of Scripture. And I hope that you will learn to walk by the Spirit so that these virtues will manifest themselves in your life. Just click the link below to listen. God bless.

Click here: Galatians 5:23 - Gentleness, Self-control



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Mark 7:1-13 - Jesus Corrects the Scribes (Part 1)

In chapter 7 of Mark's Gospel we come across, again, confrontation with the scribes. This confrontation began when Jesus healed the paralytic who had been carried by his friends to Jesus. These men, when they could not approach Jesus where he was, took their friend up on the roof, dug a whole, and then lowered him down to Jesus. Jesus sees their faith and says to the man, “Your sins are forgiven you.” What? Who can forgive sins but God only? Precisely.

Then Jesus provokes them further by calling a wicked tax collector to be his disciple. He goes even further by reclining at table in the man's house with even more tax collectors and sordid characters. Sinners.

After that they were in a grain field on a Sabbath morning and Jesus’ disciples are plucking grain with their hands and eating it. How dare they do that on the Sabbath? Jesus is challenged by the Scribes of the Pharisees. Formal charges may be brought! But Jesus defends the practice with Scripture and declares himself Messiah and Lord of the Sabbath.

From there he is followed to the synagogue where they are watching him, looking for any reason to bring charges against him. He purposely provokes them by healing a man who didn't have to be healed right then and doesn't even appear to have approached Jesus initially for healing. The story ends with the Pharisees conspiring with the Herodians how they might kill him.

It doesn't take long before scribes, official scribes, come down from Jerusalem to render judgment on Jesus. What is their assessment? That Jesus is possessed by Satan and does his miracles in the power of Satan.

And that's where we are as far as the relationship between Jesus and official religious Judaism. The Church has rejected him and is seeking to kill him. That's why they're watching him and his disciples now. They're looking for something, anything they can nail him on and have him arrested.

So in chapter 7 Jesus is again confronted by these scribes about why his disciples ignore the 'tradition of the elders.' Does Jesus acquiesce? Does he challenge them? How does he respond? In this sermon we look at his response, or at least the first part of it, and consider its ramifications for you and me today and where it all fits into the gospel. In the next sermon we will bring Jesus' complete argument to a conclusion. I hope you will take the time to listen. The sermon is linked below.


Click here: Mark 7:1-13 - Jesus Corrects the Scribes (Part 1)


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Galatians 5:22 - Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness

Three weeks ago we started into Paul’s enumeration of the fruit of the Spirit. So far we've covered love, joy, peace, and patience. We've discovered that these are supernatural virtues produced by the Holy Spirit in us when we are walking by the Spirit. This is God’s gracious work of making us into the image of Christ and preparing us for the kingdom in its fullness. They are eschatological in nature and epitomized by Jesus in his earthly life. In this lesson we covered three more.

The first of these is kindness. As applied to God it expresses his gracious attitude and actions toward sinners. Love, as we have already seen, is the greatest of the gifts and the king of the virtues. Kindness is an expression of that love. Those who are kind treat others in the same way as God has treated them. And that is the key. Those who have been the recipients of great grace should be dispensers of great grace. If you think about it, kindness is just an expression of the Golden Rule.

The second virtue we look at in this lesson is goodness. In the New Testament this word is used as something more than merely the quality of being just or righteous. It connotes generosity. It is the quality of doing good things, benevolent thing, to others. It is the virtue of treating others well.

Faithfulness (pistis in the Greek) is a word which is sometimes translated faith but not in this context. In this context fidelity or faithfulness is most likely what is intended. It connotes loyalty and dependability. It is epitomized by Jesus Christ who, as a faithful high priest, made propitiation for the sins of the people. 

You will find the audio to this lesson at the link below. Just click and listen or download for later. I pray it will be a blessing to you.

Click here: Galatians 5:22 - Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness


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Mark 6:45-56 - Jesus Walks On Water

Just like last week we find ourselves at one of those iconic events in the life of Jesus. And while this story may not be recorded in all four gospels like the last one (Luke does not record it), it is probably as famous, if not more so. "Walking on water" is a phrase that almost every English speaking person would recognize as an allusion to something only Jesus could do.

For some reason, too, this story has been the subject of much controversy. Post-enlightenment Christianity (the Enlightenment was the philosophical movement which dominated the world of ideas in the 1700s) has tried very hard, for some reason, to explain this story in a non-miraculous way, a story which Mark very clearly intends to be understood as a miraculous story.

The modernism of the 1800s tried really hard to give a decent theory of how the disciples could have believed this to be a miracle and yet allow us enlightened moderns to understand it in rational terms. We shall deal with those efforts in a bit.

Our job this morning, however, is not to just critique some previous misunderstandings of this passage, but to understand it ourselves in the way that Mark (and the Holy Spirit through Mark) intended for it to be understood. That is no small task.

And as famous as the story is, there is more to it than meets the eye. What Jesus is about to do is for his disciples. Remember, he is working on them, specifically on their faith. Last week when he multiplied the loaves and the fishes that was a miracle for their eyes only. It was a miracle so full of symbolism that they should have caught it. They should have seen and understood the deep significance of it. That they didn't becomes evident to us soon enough. 

Now he is going to show them something even more spectacular. And while Jesus is revealing something very special to his disciples, Mark, in recording it for us, is passing on that special revelation to you and me this morning. Rather than shaking our heads at those dimwitted disciples, or tsk tsking contemptuously at modernism's propensity to dismiss the miraculous, let us turn inward and search our own hearts and humble our own hearts before God and ask him to teach us through the word what he intended for his people to learn that stormy night on the Sea of Galilee.

What you just read was the introduction to my sermon on this passage of scripture in Mark. Below you will find the entire sermon recorded in MP3 format. Just click and a new window will open in your browser taking you to SoundCloud where you can stream the sermon on your device or download it for later listening. I hope you will listen. God bless.


Click here: Mark 6:45-56 - Jesus Walks On Water


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Galatians 5:22 - Peace and Patience

When Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit, as opposed to the works of the flesh (our sinful nature), he lists nine virtues, nine things the Spirit of God will produce in believers who are walking 'by the Spirit.' These nine virtues are all attributes of God as well and are modeled by Jesus Christ himself. Because the Holy Spirit is making us into the image of Christ he begins to produce these virtues in us. These are kingdom virtues.

The first one listed is love and we discussed this love in our first bible study from this verse. The second is joy and it was covered in the second of our bible studies on this topic. This third study covers the next two virtues--peace and patience.

Once we begin to understand that Jesus came to usher in a new age culminating in a new heavens and a new earth, then we begin to see what God is doing in us now. He is preparing us for that new creation. That is why believers are called a new creation in Christ. And because we are being prepared for a new world, we must be renewed through the Spirit of God day by day being made into the image of Jesus who is the firstborn of that new creation. This work of being made into the image of Christ is called sanctification. When we walk by the Spirit, God produces this fruit in us.

There is much more to peace and patience than you probably realize. These terms are loaded with meaning in their biblical usage. I invite you to listen to the audio of this bible study where we discuss these two virtues, these fruits of the Spirit. You will find a link to the audio below. Just click and stream, or download it for later listening. Either way, it is our hope that in doing so you will grow in grace and these fruits of the Spirit will be manifest in your life. God bless.


Click here: Galatians 5:22 - Peace and Patience


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Mark 6:30-44 - Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

Here we have a miracle story that practically everyone who knows anything about the life of Jesus is familiar with--the feeding of the five thousand. This is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. It must have had deep significance for the apostles and especially for Mark who, surprisingly, gives the most details. In this section we encounter a story rich in symbolism, with allusions to the Old Testament and also pictures pointing forward to the Messianic age. We also see the disciples receive a lesson in faith. Whether or not they actually get it is another story.

There is much more to this story than meets the eye and Jesus reveals much about himself and his mission for those who have the discernment to see it. What I tried to do in this sermon was to point those things out. The sermon is linked below and it is well worth your time. I hope you will listen to it.

Among other things I point out how Jesus is the new Moses, how Jesus is an answer to Moses' prayer, how Joshua was a type of Jesus, how the miracle points to the Messianic kingdom, and how Jesus meets all his people's needs.


Click here: Mark 6:30-44 - Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand


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