Mark Bradford's Bible Blog

Cornelius Calls for Peter

¹At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. ²He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.

Luke devotes the entire chapter of Acts 10 to the conversion of Cornelius. He presents it in three “episodes.” This first episode deals with the angel’s appearance to Cornelius. The second is about Peter’s vision, and the third tells about Peter at Cornelius’ house, leading him to Jesus. Though for most of my life I’ve thought of this story in terms of the change God brought about in Peter’s attitude toward Gentiles, it’s really the story of the profound change God brought about in the hearts of both men. Cornelius is the first Gentile in the Bible to be saved without becoming a proselyte to Judaism first. It’s a momentous event in the history of Christianity, which is probably why Luke devoted a whole chapter to it.

Luke tells us that Cornelius was a centurion in the Italian Regiment of the Roman army. Luke, in his gospel, tells us of another righteous and devout centurion (Luke 7:1-10). See my post on that passage here. As in that case, here was a Roman centurion who loved God and did good for others. As the name centurion implies, Cornelius commanded 100 men out of a regiment of 1,000. He was considered a God-fearing Gentile by the Jews of his day, one who recognized the God of Israel as the one true God and lived a righteous life, but did not go so far as to convert to Judaism. The Amplified Bible translates the term God-fearing in verse 2 as “venerated God and treated Him with reverential obedience.” Is that our attitude toward God? Do we venerate him and treat him with reverential obedience?

³One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!”

⁴Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked.

The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. ⁵Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. ⁶He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”

Though it doesn’t say so here, later in this chapter, Cornelius tells Peter that he was praying at the time the angel appeared to him. 3:00 P.M. is the customary time of prayer for Jews, which shows that Cornelius did observe Jewish religious customs, and that he was a man of prayer. If we want God to tell us something, we need to be people of prayer.

The angel tells Cornelius that his prayers and his gifts to the poor had “come up as a memorial offering before God.” If we are people who pray and who give to others who can’t give back to us, God will show himself to us. Cornelius had both the vertical (prayer) and the horizontal (giving) going for him. We can’t just do one or the other. To be people of God, we have to do both.

Cornelius calls the angel “Lord,” which is not correct, but I think this must have been a term of respect to one in higher authority, which as a military man, would have been ingrained in Cornelius. It’s interesting to me that the angel doesn’t tell Cornelius the gospel of Jesus himself. Instead, he tells Cornelius to send for Peter. When even Jesus appeared to Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-9, blog), he didn’t present the gospel to Saul. Instead, he sent him to Ananias. The job of spreading the gospel belongs to us. The Holy Spirit does lead people to hear the gospel, and occasionally angels assist in leading people to a place where they can hear the good news, but the gospel is always presented by people. No one will be saved unless we tell them about Jesus.

⁷When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. ⁸He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.

Joppa was 30 miles away, which means that the men Cornelius sent must have left immediately in order to get there by noon the following day, which verse 9 says they did. Here is the third example of the kind of relationship with God Cornelius had. He prayed, he gave to others, and he obeyed God immediately. This shows faith on his part. Why would he require his men to go find Peter right away, traveling through the night, unless he believed that his men would find Peter right where the angel had told him he was? Faith and obedience are synonymous. Hebrews 11, the so-called “faith chapter,” is the prime example of this. Every example of faith in that chapter is a case of God telling someone to do something, and they did it. Do we really have faith? If we do, it will show in  our obedience.

God went to extraordinary lengths to save this Gentile, a Roman soldier in occupied Israel. Why him? Only God knows for sure, but I think Cornelius’ relationship with God had a lot to do with it. It also doubly stretched Peter. As we’ll see in the next passage and beyond, Peter had a hard time accepting the salvation of Gentiles without their becoming Jews first. And Cornelius was not only a Gentile, he was a Roman centurion! But God had been working on Peter, first in his acceptance of the Samaritan believers (8:14-16), and during his time staying with a tanner, who was ceremonially unclean because of his profession. As I said in my post on 9:36-43, are we letting God stretch us? Are we letting him get us beyond our prejudices?

Mark Bible Acts, Cornelius, faith, Gentiles, Peter

Ten Healed of Leprosy

¹¹Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy^[a]met him. They stood at a distance ¹³and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

Since lepers were unclean outcasts, they would often hang together in groups. Since they couldn’t go near anyone else, their only company was other lepers. As we see later in the story, at least one of the lepers was a Samaritan. The implication is that not all of them were. Jews and Samaritans of that time despised and avoided each other, but this mixed group of Jews and Samaritans stayed together because of their common illness. It’s amazing how our ideological differences become less important when we face a common adversity.

Lepers were supposed to cry out “Unclean!” when anyone walked by so that people would not come into contact with them and be made unclean themselves (Leviticus 13:45-46). And lepers were permanently ceremonially unclean, which meant that they could never participate in Israel’s worship. They could not be saved. Leprosy not only affected them physically, but spiritually as well. When these ten lepers saw Jesus coming, they kept their distance like they were supposed to, but they didn’t cry “Unclean!” Instead, they called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” This was another common plea of lepers and other beggars. Lepers relied on the pity of others for all the necessities of life. They recognized Jesus, and knowing him to be a man of compassion, asked him to take pity on them. They didn’t specifically ask to be healed. But Jesus showed them more than pity. He gave them their lives back.

¹⁴When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

When Jesus healed another leper in Luke 5:12-15 (see my post on that passage here), he touched the leper when healing him. But this time, he simply told the group to go show themselves to the priests. When a leper was cleansed, which was extremely rare, there was an elaborate procedure they had to go through over a period of 8 days to be restored to Israel’s worship community. The procedure is described in Leviticus 14:2-32. These lepers were not cured yet, but Jesus told them to take a major leap of faith, and go show themselves to the priests anyway. And as they went, they were cleansed. They didn’t say to Jesus, “We can’t go yet, you have to heal us first!” They did as Jesus told them, and were cleansed on the way. This reminds me of when Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land in Joshua 3 (blog), when God commanded the priests to step into the Jordan before he stopped the waters. Sometimes God asks us to step out in faith and believe him even when it looks bad. The word believe means to live in accordance with. We demonstrate our faith by what we do (James 2:14-26).

¹⁵One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

At some point along the way, the lepers found themselves healed. Nine of them continued on their way to the priests, but one went all the way back to Jesus to thank him. He praised God in a loud voice. His thanks and praise to God were as loud as his cry for mercy had been. Is our gratitude to God as loud as our many requests are? Jesus was obviously bothered by the fact that only one had returned to thank him, but the ones who did not may well have thought they were simply doing what Jesus told them to do, go and show themselves to the priests. We can’t get too busy to stop and thank God for what he’s done for us, even when we’re doing his work. The one who returned threw himself at Jesus’ feet. After all he has done for us, the only appropriate response is to throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus in gratitude and praise. Jesus told the man, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” The word that the NIV translates well can also be translated saved. We can be healed through faith, but more importantly, we are saved through faith.

Mark Bible faith, Jesus, leprosy, Luke, Samaritans, thanks

Sin, Faith, Duty

¹Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. ²It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. ³So watch yourselves.

This is a serious issue that is ignored by many Christians. There may be things that are fine for a mature Christian to do that would be a major stumbling block for a new Christian. We need to be very careful about putting a new Christian in a situation where they could be drawn back into their old life. There are also cases where new Christians are drawn by some in the church into their petty squabbles and divisions. If someone is newly saved in our church, what kind of image of Christianity do they get from us? What do they observe from our behavior and attitudes? How many times have people rejected Christianity after being disillusioned by the actions of Christians? Jesus took this very seriously, as this passage shows. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

The issue of forgiveness is another one that is not stressed enough in the church. See my other posts on the issue of forgiveness here. One difference in Jesus’ teaching here from other places I’ve blogged on so far is his stipulation that we must forgive our brother if he repents. Does that mean we withhold forgiveness until then? I don’t think so. What if the person you need to forgive is no longer alive? The key is to forgive them in our hearts. That means we no longer hold their sin against them. Some would say that God does not forgive us until we repent, but I don’t believe that’s true. It’s not that he doesn’t forgive us until we repent, it’s that we can’t receive his forgiveness until we repent. If your brother or sister who sinned against you never repents, you must still let it go and forgive him in your heart. You can’t continue to hold it against him or her until they come around, or bitterness will take hold and destroy you from the inside. On the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:24) Those who crucified him never repented, but he forgave them anyway. But they never received the benefit of his forgiveness, because they did not repent.

I admit I have a hard time with the idea of rebuking someone who sins. I don’t think Jesus is saying if you hear someone swear, you should walk up and rebuke them. He’s talking about someone who sins against you, as he says in verse 4. Let God take care of sins against him. And I don’t think he’s talking about petty slights and getting your feelings hurt. He’s talking about serious sins, like if someone steals from you, or tells lies about you, or some other major offense. All rebuking must be done in love, however. Love must rule over all of this. Love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor 13:5). If someone sins against us, we can’t just pretend it never happened, and we can’t keep it bottled up inside. But we can’t blow up at the guilty party either. We must speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15).

⁵The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

⁶He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

In the parable of the mustard seed (Luke 13:18-21, blog, Mark 4:30-32, blog), Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a mustard seed. The kingdom of God is built on faith. It started small like a mustard seed, and like a weed (which the mustard plant was in that culture) it grew and spread. By the same token, if we start with faith as small as a mustard seed, the longer we walk with Jesus, the more it will grow like the mustard plant. That kind of faith can overcome any obstacle.

⁷“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? ⁸Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? ⁹Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? ¹⁰So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ “

We are the servants in this illustration. We shouldn’t think we’re getting brownie points in Heaven for all the ministries we’re involved in. When we realize all God has done for us, there is no way we can repay that debt. As the song says, the whole realm of nature would be a present far too small. Even when we dedicate our entire lives to Jesus, we are only doing our duty.

Mark Bible duty, faith, forgiveness, Jesus, Luke, mustard seed

The Withered Fig Tree

²⁰In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. ²¹Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”  ²²“Have^[f] faith in God,” Jesus answered. ²³“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. ²⁴Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

This passage illustrates what is, for me, one of the points of the Gospel of John. I’ve repeated it in my blog on Mark’s gospel as well, and this is another example of it. That is, Jesus peformed miracles primarily for two reasons; to glorify God, and to help people believe. Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? Partially for the reasons I talked about in my last blog entry, because it was an illustration of Israel’s lack of spiritual fruit. But he also did it to help the disciples believe. When Peter pointed out the withered tree, what was Jesus’ response? Have faith in God.

Verses 22-24 are some of the most misused and misunderstood verses in all the Bible. Many churches and famous preachers base their whole teaching on this passage, and they do it wrongly. Jesus was not saying here that if you pray hard enough, and really believe, that God is obligated to do whatever you ask. That kind of faith is not faith in God, it’s just “faith in faith.” The expression “moving mountains” was a common expression among Jews at that time, and its meaning was the same as it is today. It meant that if you have faith in God, you can overcome any obstacle. Jesus cursed the fig tree to show the disciples what can happen if they have faith in God, not just faith in their own prayers.

²⁵And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and ^[g]let it drop (leave it, let it go), in order that your Father Who is in heaven may also forgive you your [own] failings and shortcomings and let them drop.

^26[h]But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings. (Amplified)

So many times when passages of scripture are misused, those who do so don’t bother to use the whole passage in context, they just lift out a verse or two to make their point. These two verses are part of the same paragraph as the part about faith and moving mountains. It’s all the same thought, and we can’t separate them. Do those who preach “prosperity gospel” based on verses 22-24 also include 25-26 in their equation? Whenever the Bible makes a promise, there is always a requirement on our part to go with it.

The issue of forgiveness is a huge one that I feel is not stressed enough in the church. I believe there are many who believe they are saved who will miss Heaven over this issue. Take a poll of any church in America, and ask people to rank the following sins in order of severity; murder, adultery, and refusing to forgive others. I’d be willing to bet that most congregations would rank them in that order, murder being the worst, then adultery, then refusing to forgive. But Jesus never said that if we murdered someone, he would not forgive us. He never said if we commit adultery, he would not forgive us. But he did say here, and in Matthew 6:14-15, that if we don’t forgive others, he won’t forgive us. That’s very serious, folks. In the Lord’s Prayer, when Jesus said “Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors,” he didn’t mean “forgive us first, then we’ll forgive others.” He was saying, “forgive us to the same degree that we forgive others.” I believe that, in fact, Jesus is laying out an unpardonable sin. Not the one he talks about in Matthew 3:28-29, (see my blog on that passage), but one just as dangerous, and unfortunately, just as common.

Is there someone who has wronged you, and you cannot bring yourself to forgive them? Until you do, the Bible teaches that God will not forgive your sins, either. It’s as simple as that. Any sin that Jesus himself says he will not forgive has to be considered an unpardonable sin. But like the more commonly known unpardonable sin (continually rejecting the overtures of the Holy Spirit), this one is not irrevocable. All you have to do is forgive. If God can forgive us after all we’ve done, then we can forgive others for what they’ve done. Do we want to be Christlike? Then we must forgive as he forgives. I hear sermons preached on lots of things that are less vital than this. I’ve heard lots of sermons on verses 22-24, but few, if any, on verses 25-26. That’s just wrong, and I believe God will hold those in spiritual authority over us responsible for it. As Jesus makes clear in this passage, faith and forgiveness are tied together. You can’t have one without the other. But if we forgive others, and have faith in God, we can overcome any obstacle in our lives.

Mark Bible Bible, faith, fig tree, forgiveness, Jesus, Mark

Jesus Heals a Demon-Possessed Boy

¹⁴ When they returned to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd surrounding them, and some teachers of religious law were arguing with them. ¹⁵ When the crowd saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with awe, and they ran to greet him.

Jesus, Peter, James and John came down from their mountaintop experience and immediately faced a problem with the devil. Isn’t that the way it often is? There was a case of demonic possession that the remaining disciples had been unable to deal with, and the scribes were arguing with them about it, probably accusing them for not being able to cast the demon out. So why didn’t the scribes exorcise the demon? Apparently they couldn’t do it either. If you want to draw attention away from your own weakness, just accuse someone else.

According to the Amplified Bible, the implication of the original Greek in verse 15 is that Jesus’ face was still glistening from the Transfiguration when they came down from the mountain, and that was what amazed the crowd. But even if that’s not the case, the father of the demon possessed boy and the crowd had come to see Jesus and had had to settle for his “second tier” disciples. When they saw Jesus coming, of course they would run to him. When you want to see Jesus, no substitute will do.

¹⁶ “What is all this arguing about?” Jesus asked.

¹⁷ One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. ¹⁸ And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.^[d] So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.”

¹⁹ Jesus said to them,^[e] “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

If you click on the footnote in verse 19, it says that Jesus may have said this to his disciples. This seems more likely to me than that he would say it to the crowd or to the father who brought his boy to Jesus. Jesus does challenge the father’s faith, but not here. He could have been talking to the scribes, but based on what he says to his disciples later, I think he is chastising them for their lack of faith in not being able to cast out the demon. Apparently Jewish exorcists had been unable to cast the demon out because it made the boy mute. They believed you could only cast a demon out by learning its true name, and if the demon made its victim mute, they couldn’t learn the demon’s name. This was a widely held superstition at the time. That’s why demons would often shout out who Jesus really was. It was an effort to gain power over him.

²⁰ So they brought the boy. But when the evil spirit saw Jesus, it threw the child into a violent convulsion, and he fell to the ground, writhing and foaming at the mouth.

²¹ “How long has this been happening?” Jesus asked the boy’s father.

He replied, “Since he was a little boy. ²² The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him. Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.”

²³ “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”

²⁴ The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”

It seems this man was at the end of his rope. He probably had taken his son to many doctors and exorcists, all to no avail. He had brought his son to Jesus hoping more than believing that his son could be delivered. When he arrived, Jesus wasn’t there, only some of his disciples were. When they couldn’t help, the father must have been even more discouraged. The scribes taunting the disciples and him for being foolish enough to think this Jesus could do anything for him did not help his faith either. But when he saw Jesus, he dared to hope one more time. I can understand the “if” in his statement to Jesus at that point, but Jesus corrects his perspective. It wasn’t about Jesus’ ability to help, it was about the man’s faith. Anything is possible if a person believes. We can all relate to the man’s response, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”. Faith is not static. It starts small and grows the longer we walk with Jesus, like the parable of the mustard seed. In the beginning, our faith is often a mixture of belief and unbelief, and Jesus will help us with our unbelief if we ask him to.

²⁵ When Jesus saw that the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil^[f] spirit. “Listen, you spirit that makes this boy unable to hear and speak,” he said. “I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again!”

²⁶ Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into another violent convulsion and left him. The boy appeared to be dead. A murmur ran through the crowd as people said, “He’s dead.” ²⁷ But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet, and he stood up.

²⁸ Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?”

²⁹ Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer.^[g]”

After Jesus delivered the boy, the disciples wanted to know why they couldn’t cast out the demon. Jesus had just demonstrated to the boy’s father that all things are possible for those who believe, and now he tells his disciples that the reason they couldn’t cast out the demon was because they had not spent enough time in prayer. Prayer and faith are closely related. Prayer brings us closer to God, more in line with his will. That can only increase our faith. All those times Jesus went off by himself to pray, what were the disciples doing? That’s why they couldn’t cast out the demon. Too little prayer equals too little faith.

Mark Bible Bible, faith, Jesus, Mark

Jesus Heals a Paralytic

¹A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ²So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. ⁴Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. ⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

In chapter 1, Jesus had spent a day in Capernaum, then had gone to preach in the surrounding towns. Now he’s back in Capernaum, which was a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee where Peter and his family lived. The fact that verse 1 in the NIV says that he was “at home” intrigues me. The KJV translates it “in the house”, but the New American Standard and the NIV both use the phrase “at home”. The Amplified Bible puts it this way:

¹AND JESUS having returned to Capernaum, after some days it was rumored about that He was in the house [probably Peter's].

This makes me think the house was Peter’s house, the same house where Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law a few days earlier. Perhaps the difference in translations indicates that Jesus stayed at Peter’s house in Capernaum early in his ministry. In any case, word got around that he was there, and crowds came to see him. Because the leper that Jesus healed there had spread the word of his healing against Jesus’ wishes, now Jesus couldn’t walk the streets openly without getting mobbed by people who wanted to be healed of all kinds of ailments. Although Jesus healed many, his main mission was to preach the Word, and by staying in the house, they could limit the size of the crowd, and he could teach those who came. But some enterprising individuals found a way around that limitation.

Most roofs were thatched, and most houses had ladders up to the roof. You could easily move the thatch aside and lower something into the house, but it couldn’t have been easy for these friends of the paralytic to carry him up the ladder, then lower him through. But they obviously loved their friend, and had faith that Jesus not only could heal him, but he would. They weren’t planning on pulling him back up through the roof if it didn’t work. They were counting on him walking out! We should all have friends like that, and be a friend like that to someone. When we bring someone to the Lord in prayer, we are, in effect, carrying them to Jesus. May we have the same kind of faith that these friends had!

After the man had been lowered through the roof, Jesus saw their faith. So did all who were there. We don’t know if the paralytic himself had faith, but we know his friends did, and Jesus honored their faith. As we just saw in Hebrews 11, faith is action. It’s not just internal belief. Almost every example of faith in that chapter is a case where God told someone to do something, and they did it. If we really have faith, it will show in our actions.

First, Jesus dealt with the man’s most important need. He forgave his sins. The man needed physical healing, but he needed his sins forgiven more, as we all do. When we come to God, that always has to be taken care of first.

⁶Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ⁷“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

⁸Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? ⁹Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . .” He said to the paralytic, ¹¹“I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” ¹²He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Jesus knew what they were thinking. It might have been divine insight, but it wouldn’t take divine insight to know what the teachers of the law would think about Jesus forgiving the man’s sins. In fact, I think Jesus said that on purpose to get that response from them. He had already sent a healed leper to them to show them who he was. Now he forgives sins to show them who he is. It was believed at that time that if you were sick, it was because you had sinned, and if you were born with an infirmity, it was because your parents were sinners. Jesus did not disagree with the teachers that only God can forgive sins. But since the teachers of the law believed that nobody could be healed of disease unless their sins were forgiven, Jesus did both in front of them to show them he was God.

Mark Bible Bible, faith, Jesus, Mark

²³By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.

My first reaction to this verse it that this seems more like an example of a parents’ love for their child than of faith. But Moses was such a central figure in God’s redemptive plan, it seems likely that God would have spoken to Moses’ parents about his importance, and the need to hide him. The Bible does not tell us that God spoke to them in this way, but if he did, or just convicted their hearts about it, then hiding Moses from Pharoah was an act of faith and great bravery.

²⁴By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. ²⁵He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. ²⁶He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. ²⁷By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. ²⁸By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

Moses was raised in Pharoah’s house, by Pharoah’s daughter. Like Joseph, he became accustomed to a life of privilege, but always remembered who he was, and to what people he belonged. When he saw Egyptian slave masters mistreating Jews, he defended them, and in so doing endangered his own life. The way I read Exodus 2, Moses fled Egypt to escape from Phaoroah’s wrath. It was when God told him to return to Egypt that he showed great faith. He did what God told him to do, in spite of the danger. When he instructed the people to sprinkle the blood over the doorframes of their houses for the first Passover, that was an act of faith, because he obeyed God. During all the other plagues leading up to the plague of the firstborn, the Israelites had been affected the same as the Egyptians. When Moses told them that if they sprinkled the blood, they would not be affected this time, don’t you think it took faith for the people to believe that?

²⁹By faith the people passed through the Red Sea^[d] as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

Now this would take faith. There are walls of water on either side of you that you can put your hand through, and you have to walk through that for miles with Pharoah’s army gaining on you.

³⁰By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.

Here’s another case of “when God asks you to do something stupid”. March around the city once every seven days, then on the seventh day, march around seven times, then everybody yell. We’re talking stupid, folks. By the fifth or sixth day of this, don’t you think some of the Israelites felt like idiots? But faith is doing what God tells you to do, no matter how it looks. And as with Joshua and the walls of Jericho, faith and obedience equal victory.

³¹By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.^[e]

Aha! The footnote for this verse says that the word for disobedient can also be translated “unbelieving”. There you have it. Faith and obedience are the same. Disobedience and unbelief are the same. That’s why it’s impossible to please God without faith, because we cannot obey him without faith.

³²And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, ³³who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. ³⁵Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. ³⁶Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. ³⁷They were stoned^[f]; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— ³⁸the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

³⁹These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. ⁴⁰God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Here again it says that none of them received what was promised. Does that mean that God did not keep his promises to them? I don’t think so. I think it means that they did not live to see the promise of the Messiah. The people that this was written to were undergoing persecution, and I think the writer was saying to them, “Don’t be discouraged. Those who came before us went through the same things and worse, but they persevered even though none of them lived to see what you have seen. If those who did not live to see the coming of the Messiah, the Resurrection, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit can live by faith, then so should we who did live to see those things.”

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²⁰By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

But Isaac was deceived into giving his blessing to Jacob. He thought he was giving it to his firstborn, Esau. How different would the future have been had Esau gotten his father’s intended blessing? But once the blessing was given, it could not be revoked. Isaac’s faith was so great, his blessing, once bestowed, was binding for many generations. It’s still binding today.

²¹By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

I did not remember this story, so I searched on “Jacob blessed”, and came across several passages in Genesis. What I found was that Jacob received many blessings when he was younger, and blessed others when he was older. Our ability to bless others flows from the blessings we have received from God. The older we get, the longer we walk with God, the more blessings we receive and are then able to give.

²²By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.

Joseph had risen to the highest ranks of authority in Egypt. he was a political insider, and could have decided that he and his family would become Egyptian. But he remembered his heritage, and knew about the promise God had made to his grandfather Abraham. He wanted his bones to make the journey to the promised land with his people.

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⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

The next three examples of faith are from Abraham. According to what I have learned about Biblical history, there have been three ages of dispensation, the age of conscience, the age of law, and the age of grace. We live under grace since the atonement of Christ. The age of law existed from the time Moses was given the ten commandments until Christ. Before Moses was given the law, there was only people’s consciences to guide them. It was during this time that Abraham lived. That makes his acts of faith all the more impressive. He had a relationship with God and his faith was credited to him as righteousness centuries before the law was given. He had no church, no temple, no Bible. Yet his faith was so great that when God told him to move to a place he did not know, he went without question.

¹¹By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹²And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

Abraham’s faith was tested on this issue, and he did not pass with flying colors. He and Sarah began to doubt over the years after God promised that Abraham would be the father of nations when she remained barren. Because of this, they conspired to have him sleep with her servant Hagar to try to make God’s promise happen themselves. It’s never good to try to force God’s hand. He will accomplish his will in his timing. If you think you need to do something to hurry God along, you will only end up complicating things. By doing this, Abraham and Sarah ended up with Ishmael, who is regarded as the father of the Arab people. After Isaac was born, there was nothing but conflict between he and Ishmael. The Arab – Israeli conflict to this day can be traced back to Abraham and Sarah not waiting on God’s timing. Faith is not just believing that God will keep his promises, but also being willing to wait for him to do so. But God made good on his promise, and Abraham did, in fact, become the father of not just Israel, but many nations.

¹³All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

This passage contains one of the most haunting and troubling phrases in the Bible for me; they did not receive the things promised. I think what the writer is saying is that Abraham, Issac, and Jacob knew that they themselves would not live to see the day when their descendants would inherit the Promised Land, but they lived by faith anyway. By the same token, there are promises in the Bible that we believe, but may not live to see fulfilled, like Christ returning. But if we also live by faith, and understand that we too are aliens and strangers on earth, then God will count our faith as righteousness as he did for them.

¹⁷By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring^[b] will be reckoned.”^{[c] 19}Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

Has God ever asked you to give up your dreams? Abraham had put all his hopes in God’s promises, and those promises were embodied in Isaac. Though not on anywhere near this scale, I too felt that I was promised something by God, and over a decade later, had to give up on that dream. But in the end, God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son, and God fulfilled his promise. And God has fulfilled his promise to me in other ways than what I envisioned. And the original dream could still happen! If it wasn’t to late for Abraham and Sarah, it’s not too late for me.

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By Faith

¹Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ²This is what the ancients were commended for.

Now we come to the great “faith chapter”. After having chastised his readers for going back to the old ways, he shows them the new way, living by faith. And he does so in a brilliant way. Recognizing their need to connect their new faith with the Judaism they were taught, he points out that even under the old covenant, the heroes of the Old Testament also lived by faith. Because of this chapter, I have become convinced that faith equals obedience. Nearly every example of faith given in this chapter is a case where God told someone to do something, and they did it. Faith isn’t just believing something mentally. It’s acting on that belief.

³By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

The word “create” means “to make from nothing”. Before God made the universe, nothing existed other than God. God created the matter and energy that make up the universe, and established the laws by which they operate. When we make something, we have to make it out of something else, but God made everything there is out of nothing.

⁴By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

I’ve often wondered why God favored Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s. Both men offered God what they had, the fruit of their labors. Did Abel somehow understand that blood was required, even centuries before the old covenant? If so, the Bible never mentions it. Or did Cain somehow displease God before the offering, so that God knew his offering was not sincere? The Bible never tells us. This verse says that Abel offered a better sacrifice by faith. Was that the difference? Abel gave his offering as a matter of faith, and Cain gave his out of obligation?

⁵By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The writer does some deductive reasoning here. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Enoch was commended as one who pleased God, therefore he must have had faith. We don’t know a lot about Enoch, but we know that he was the father of Methuselah, and along with Elijah, he never experienced death. The Book of Enoch was considered scripture by the apostles, but it is not included in our Bible. But the point of these two verses, in fact of these first two examples, is that we come to God through faith, not by making sacrifices or following rules. We can do those things all we want, but if we don’t believe deep down that God exists, and that he will reward those who seek him, all our sacrifices and rule following will be for nothing.

⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

A Sunday School teacher I had a long time ago once taught a lesson titled, “When God asks you to do something stupid”. Building an ark must’ve seemed pretty stupid. Noah was ridiculed for doing it. It took a long time, too. How much faith does it take to take on a huge project that will take years to complete, and that you know will be ridiculed the whole time you’re working on it? That kind of faith is hard for me to imagine.

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