Robert J. Morgan's Blog, page 2

At Home In Emmaus

Luke 24

Jesus has time for you.Strengthen your faith with Old Testament prophecies and portraits of Christ. When you are downcast, a deeper understanding of Scripture is a restorative tonic.

Do you have a favorite chapter in the Bible?

Somehow, I keep coming back to Luke 24 as my favorite chapter in all the Bible. It contains three stories telling us what Jesus did in the morning, afternoon, and evening of His resurrection day. In the morning, His wonderstruck followers discovered the empty tomb (Luke 24:1-12). In the afternoon, Jesus took a seven-mile stroll with two little-known disciples (verses 13-35). And in the evening, He appeared to His apostolic band in the Upper Room (verses 36-49).

If I could drop myself into any one single story of the Bible, I’d choose that hike to Emmaus. The account is so vivid that most scholars believe it comes from the lips of Cleopas himself. He was one of the two travelers (Luke 24:18). The other may have been his wife, since they seem to have lived in the same home. 

In the prologue of his Gospel, Luke indicated he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning,” talking to those who were “eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:1-4). I believe Luke interviewed Mary, who gave him the stories of Zechariah, Elizabeth, the appearance of the angels to the Bethlehem shepherds, and the intimate details about the birth of Jesus (Luke 1-2). He had opportunities to talk to some of the Lord’s original disciples, to some of the women who followed Jesus, and to a number of those who were in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost. He may have interviewed Joseph of Arimathea, the man who offered own tomb for the body of Jesus. The fact that Luke mentions Cleopas by name in Luke 24 gives us a hint that Cleopas was the source of the story of the Emmaus Road.

And what a remarkable story it is! Dr. J. I. Packer said, “On Friday afternoon they took [Jesus] down from the cross, as dead as a man can be. On Sunday afternoon, He walked most of the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with two of His disciples.”

Why did Jesus do this? Packer says, “Because He loved them, and wanted them to have the joy of seeing them alive; because He had to explain to them His saving achievement and their role as witnesses to Him; and, last but not least, because [they] were in emotional and spiritual distress, and needed the therapy that was uniquely His.”

The words of Scripture are therapy to us when we’re in emotional and spiritual distress!

What’s fascinating to me is that these two people had not been mentioned before in the Gospels, and they aren’t mentioned again in the entire Bible. They were obscure, humble, ordinary, little-known followers of Jesus. Yet He wanted to be with them. He wanted to spend the afternoon of His Resurrection Day walking with them and giving them a full explanation of what had just happened over the weekend.

Furthermore, there are two miracles that occurred during this walk, even beyond the miracle of the Lord’s resurrection. First, God tinkered with the eyesight of these two people so they didn’t recognize Jesus, even though He looked just the same after His resurrection as before. Luke 24:16 says, “…they were kept from recognizing him.” And then at the end of their walk when He sat down to have a meal with them, He suddenly vanished into thin air (verse 31).

I’ve come away from this story with three great lessons for every single follower of Jesus Christ on this planet. That’s what I want to show you. These are my favorite lessons from my favorite chapter in all the Bible.

Since I don’t know which of the three lessons will meet the greatest need in your life, let me simply state them—and you’ll find them intertwined into the story as we join the three travelers to Emmaus. 

First, Jesus has time for you. On the most exciting day of His entire life, He made time to walk to a town that we cannot now identify with certainty, and He did so with two obscure people, one of whose name isn’t even given to us. Having risen from the blackness of death, Jesus instinctively knew two of His little-known followers needed Him. And there He was! And here He still is—for you. He loves to walk with you, to talk with you, and to be your ever-present companion.

These were not major Bible characters. They were never mentioned before and they are never mentioned again. On the day that He rose from the dead, Jesus Christ chose to be with simple, common, ordinary, everyday, non-famous people like Cleopas and the other disciple.

Jesus is at home with people like us. He values you for who you are. He loves you just because He loves you. Don’t ever think you’re insignificant in His sight. These were two people for whom Jesus had died and rose again; and He planned in advance to be with them on the day He rose from the dead.

They set out with weary hearts, but Jesus saw every footstep, knew every turning and twisting of the way, and had a plan for intercepting and helping them. Wherever you are right now in life, the Lord knows the road you’re on. Nothing about you is unknown to Him.

Second, one of the best ways to strengthen your faith in the Gospel is to study the Old Testament prophecies and portraits of Christ. This was the theme of our Lord’s conversation with these two downcast disciples. This also explained why He kept them from recognizing Him. He wanted them to be totally convinced that He had risen from the dead, not by empirically seeing Him, but by understanding the plan of redemption that had been set forth in the Old Testament involving a Messiah who would die for the sins of the world and rise again. By the time they arrived home, they were convinced Jesus had indeed risen from the dead—not because they saw and recognized Him in the flesh, but because they now understood the way He had fulfilled Old Testament predictions. 

Third, and this is the central theme I want to better apply to my life and yours: When you are downcast, a deeper understanding of Scripture is a restorative tonic. As Dr. Packer says, it is the needed therapy when we are in emotional or spiritual distress. This has been of immeasurable help to me. The deeper I grow in my study of Scripture, the deeper I become as a person—the deeper my peace, the deeper my understanding, the deeper my ability to handle life. 

So let’s join the three hikers and learn something about going deeper into the Word of God.

It all began with the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. It was the greatest day that ever was. Just before dawn, a corpse was lying in a borrowed tomb just outside the walls of old Jerusalem. Flickered open His eyes. His heart resumed beating. His chest heaved as resurrected lungs inhaled the dank air of the cave. He stood to His feet, His glorified body rising through the binding shroud, and He stepped effortlessly through the rocky enclosure as though it were thin air. 

This one moment stands as the epicenter of the human story and as the focal point of time and eternity. It’s undeniable history, unfathomable mystery, and unequivocal victory. Nothing on that first Easter Sunday happened randomly. Jesus Christ had a moment-by-moment agenda. All four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—record His schedule for the day, but no one paints a better picture than Luke. As we read Luke 24, we feel we were there; and in the mysteries of God we were there—at the tomb in the morning, on the road to Emmaus in the afternoon, in the supper table at sundown, and in a sealed but sacred room that night. 

Verses 13-17 say, “Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus Himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing Him. He asked them, ‘What are you discussing together as you walk along?’”

Jesus obviously knew; but He wanted to draw them out. It was a painful topic, and the two people were so overcome they stopped walking. They stood there in the middle of the road. Verse 17 adds, “They stood still, their faces downcast.” 

The sadness and hurt was etched on their faces like tattoos. And then we have perhaps the most ironic question in the Bible. Look at verse 18: “One of them, named Cleopas, asked Him, ‘Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened her in these days?’”

“What things?” Jesus asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed Him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified Him, but we had hoped….”

The words “we had hoped…” are three of the saddest in the English language. It is a little phrase that conveys the failure of our dreams, aspirations, or desires. Notice how they were speaking of Christ in the past tense. 

“…but we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us,” they said. “They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn’t find His body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said He was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but Him they did not see” (verses 21-24).

Jesus asked questions for which He already knew the answers, and He listened carefully before He ever offered any advice, teaching, or setting them straight. He is a good listener, and He wants us to honestly tell Him how we feel and what is confusing us in life. He hears and He cares.

And finally, He talks with us as we open up His Word. In verses 25-26, Jesus said, “‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 

I love that He said, “How foolish you are.” I don’t think He said that in an angry or demeaning tone. I think He said this: “Don’t you know that when you live in lingering, chronic sadness it’s because you aren’t reading and studying and understanding and trusting the words of My Book? That’s foolish. Let me open the Scriptures for you.”

And the next verse is beyond wonderful: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He (Jesus) explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself” (verse 27). We’ll deal with this next week, but look at what happened next. Jesus finished His discourse about His own fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy just as the two arrived back home in Emmaus. 

The passage says, “As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’” (verses 28-32).

They immediately forgot about their supper and they returned the seven miles to Jerusalem to tell the disciples what had just happened. They ran into the Upper Room and the others said to them, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke bread (verses 33-35).

The next verse says, “While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you” (verse 36).

John MacArthur said, “Jesus confronted two of His followers who were ignorant, filled with doubt, and confused. It was not that they did not believe the Scripture, but that their understanding of it was deficient—and a deficient knowledge of Scripture is insufficient and dangerous.”

And that’s my great takeaway. I can’t turn back the clock and walk with Jesus on the Emmaus Road of antiquity. But whenever I’m downcast and discouraged, I know He draws alongside me and opens His Word to me as I study it. And He also opens my heart to better understand His Book. And that’s the therapy I need.

One of the benefits of going through a crisis or a period of difficulty or sorrow is discovering new insights into Scripture to sustain us through such a period.

I’ve had many such experiences in my own life, and so have many of you.

It’s not just finding a word of encouragement in an old book. It’s a matter of the Lord Jesus taking His Scriptures and opening them to us as we walk with Him, and opening His Word to our hearts until our very hearts burn with us.

Jesus took Scriptures these disciples had read for years, and He went more deeply into them than they could comprehend. And the result was increased faith, abundant joy, and an urgent passion to share what they had learned. When you’re downcast, a deeper understanding of Scripture is a restorative tonic. Theology is therapeutic. Doctrine is medicinal. Bible study is rehabilitative. 

Psalm 19 says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes” (verses 7-8). Everyone today is running to experts, counselors, therapists, mentors, and support groups. I’m not against those things, but consider the value of “Personal Bible Therapy.” Only one book refreshes the soul, gives wisdom to the mind and joy to the heart and light to the eyes.

Over a hundred years ago, Dr. James Gray wrote a little volume about this. He called it How to Master the English Bible. Dr. Gray said that he attended a Bible Conference and met a layman with whom he fellowshipped for several days. He said this man had “a peace, a rest, a joy, a kind of spiritual poise I knew little about”. Dr. Gray asked him how he had developed his spiritual happiness and radiance.  The man said, “By reading the epistle to the Ephesians.” Dr. Gray said, in effect, “Well, I’ve read the book of Ephesians. Why did it have a bigger impact on you than on me?”

The man described a Sunday when he had gone out into the country with a pocket copy of Ephesians. In the afternoon, he laid down under a tree and read right through it. You can read Ephesian in about 10 minutes silently or 15 minutes out loud. Well, this man found the book so interesting he read it through a second time, then a third. He read it some twelve or fifteen times. “And when I arose to go into the house,” he said, “I was in possession of Ephesians, or better yet, it was in possession of me, and I had been ‘lifted up’ to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

The idea that has guided my own personal Bible study and my lifetime of preaching is that the Bible is one unified book with one overarching plot and purpose, but it’s broken down into sixty-six separate installments. Each of these books offers a self-contained message from God relating to some aspect of our lives. The logic of God—the very unfolding of His thoughts—is embedded in each of the Bible’s books. And we should be serious about our personal Bible study.

The Lord has given us a book small enough to hold in our hands, big enough to study for a lifetime, and deep enough to sustain us throughout life and eternity. We all need a little desk or personal spot where we can take the book of Ephesians or the Gospel of Luke or the book of Ezra and read it until we begin to truly understand it. It’s helpful to have a study Bible with notes, a Bible atlas, a Bible dictionary, and perhaps a one-volume commentary. Most of those resources are offered online and often free.

But we need to ask the Lord to come alongside us and help us understand His Word. Recently I was with a delightful man with a lively smile—Dr. Harold T. Bryson, who has taught generations of pastors to preach through the Bible one book at a time. I asked him for his favorite book of the Bible, and he said the book of James. His favorite passage is James 1:2-4 (NJKV): “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

He quoted it to me, and then he added as if it just struck him as an important afterthought: “That’s a second aorist!” Once upon a time I took Greek, but I couldn’t remember the importance of the second aorist tense. So I looked it up. The second aorist gives the verb an added emphasis. It means to make up your mind to count it all joy.

Dr. Bryson took me a little deeper into a very simple verse, and I learned something I’ll never forget. That’s what Jesus did for the two travelers to Emmaus. I want to urge you to find a way to dig more deeply into the Bible. Listen to expositional preachers who deal with passages in context. Develop your own little library of Bible study aides. And let me close with the advice Ruth Bell Graham gave me in general conversation and which she later put into her book, It’s My Turn:

It could be merely a piece of plywood stretched across two sawhorses. But have a special place for Bible study that doesn’t have to be shared with sewing or letter writing or the paying of bills. For years mine was just an old wooden table between an upright chest of drawers and a taller desk. This year I fixed myself a permanent office upstairs, and my Bible study in the bedroom is now a big rolltop desk I have had for years. 

But on this desk I’ve collected a number of good translations of the Bible for reference, a Bible dictionary, a concordance, and several devotional books. I also keep notebooks, a mug full of pins, and one particular Rapidograph pen, with a point like a needle, that writes on India paper without smearing or going through. 

When we were in school, we always kept a notebook handy to take notes of the professor’s lecture. How much more important it is to take notes when God is teaching us. 

If a busy housewife has to clear off a spot for Bible study during a crowded day, she is likely to put it off. But if she has a place where her Bible is always open and handy, whenever there is a lull in the storm she can grab a cup of coffee and sit down for a few minutes or more of pure refreshment and companionship.

There at her desk, Ruth also chose the verses of passages she wanted to memorize. So she went on and added, “Now, while working around the house, driving the car, ironing, shopping, or whatever I may be doing, some verses I’ve memorized will slip into my mind and an unexpected moment, and may be exactly the word that I need.”

I’m not sure why Ruth’s advice had such a big impact on me. I think it’s because she told this to a group of us students in her home in the 1970s, and then I read the same thing in her book in the 1980s. And somehow I wanted to study my Bible the way she did.

You and I cannot travel back in time and walk with Jesus down the road to Emmaus. But we can have something of the same experience every time we set aside time for personal Bible study, ask Him to guide us and give us insight, and feel our hearts burning within us as He talks with us and opens up the Scripture. You too will find…

When you’re downcast, a deeper understanding of Scripture is a restorative tonic.

The post At Home In Emmaus appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

The African Memory of Mark

What do we know about the biblical character named John Mark who wrote the second Gospel? It turns out we know a great deal. Today I want to share with you one of the most interesting books that I have read in a long time, The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition, by Thomas C. Oden. 

Now, we’ve been working our way through a series of studies on the 15 different homes that Jesus visited in the gospels. Recently I suggested that the upper room was held in the home of a wealthy young man named John Mark and his mother Mary. As I tried to research more about this I came across a book called The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition, by Dr. Thomas C. Oden, who was director for the Center of  Early African Christianity at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Oden was a Methodist theologian who was at one time very liberal, but whose views evolved as he studied the early documents of Christianity including the church fathers and those who lived and wrote in the first three or so centuries of the church. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 85. This book, The African Memory of Mark, was published by Intervarsity Academic in 2011. 

Oden says that the African continent is exploding with the spread of the Gospel, and it can all be plausibly traced back to John Mark, the writer of the Second Gospel, who was from Africa and returned to Africa. He bases his book on very early oral traditions in the African church which were put into writing in the 200s and 300s and 400s, and which have been passed down for 2000 years. We have early information about Mark in the New Testament, and in an anonymous primitive text dated in the 200s, and in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, and Cyril. 

In the Preface, Oden wrote: “The African memory of Mark… is a story long known by parents of little ones, and by pastors and teachers. It has been learned by heart and celebrated by millions of Africans for over 2000 years….”

In chapter 1, Oden looks into the background of the city of Cyrene in Libya. Many Jews lived there during the difficult and dangerous days before the New Testament era. These Jewish families became wealthy from farming and from trade; and they were serious about their Judaism, serious enough to return to Jerusalem for the major festivals. They also were fluent in Greek, along with Aramaic and Latin. They may have known Hebrew. According to African tradition, the family of John Mark was among the north African families who returned to Jerusalem in the early years of the first century because the area around Cyrene became unstable. 

Oden wrote, “Transit from the Liberian Pentapolis to either Alexandria or Jerusalem would have been well within their capabilities. It would even be simpler for a prosperous family proficient in sea commerce, connections and impertinent international languages Greek, Latin and Aramaic. These languages were necessary capabilities among the mercantile Jews of Cyrene. Small vessels could hug the Sea coast of Africa, passing Gaza, continuing to Herod’s spectacular port in Caesarea. From there they could travel overland a short distance to Jerusalem.”

According to African tradition, Mark’s father was Aristobulus and his mother was Mary. They were from the tribe of Levi. He was called John Mark, with John being his Hebrew name and Mark his Latin name.

The New Testament reinforces the idea of Mark being of the priestly tribe of Levi, because Acts 4 tells us that his uncle Barnabas was a Levite and a wealthy man from Cyprus. 

At some point, Mark’s father evidently died. And he and his mother owned a large home in Jerusalem. And, according to these early sources from Alexandria and North Africa, their home had a large Upper Room that became the site of the Last Supper, a safehouse for the disciples after the death of Christ, and the place where the Holy Spirit descended on the Day of Pentecost. The traditions locate this home on or near Zion Hill. Oden wrote: “The remnants of a first century house, partly hidden, partly exposed, lies in the upper city on the southwestern heights of Zion Hill. The Monastery of St. Mark now stands on the ancient site of the house of St. Mark the Evangelist according to a sixth-century inscription which was discovered in 1940.”

This site is attested by early references in Christian documents and by pilgrims who visited in the early centuries, including Egeria and the Pilgrim of Bordeaux. 

Oden says that the early African sources about Mark identify him as the young man who fled naked from the Garden of Gethsemane on the night Jesus was arrested. He would also have been hosting the apostles after the crucifixion, and it was in his home the risen Christ appeared to the disciples behind closed doors. It was also here that the Holy Spirit descended and that Peter preached his great sermon on the Day of Pentecost. 

According to our ancient sources, this is likely when John Mark made his confession of faith in Christ and was baptized along with 3000 others on that never-to-be-forgotten day. When Peter later wrote his first epistle, he referred to Mark as “my son.”

So let’s review. The family of John Mark lived in North Africa near the Mediterranean coast in the well-populated Jewish quarter of Cyrene, Libya. They were affluent, probably engaged in farming and the trading of commodities, and they were of the tribe of Levi. Mark was born and spent a portion of his childhood there. He would have been fluent in several languages. In the early years of the first century, political conditions deteriorated in that part of Libya, and the family immigrated to Jerusalem and bought a large house on Zion hill.

Jesus chose this home for His Last Supper. We don’t know where that connection was made, but I speculated in last week’s podcast that Mark could have been the rich young ruler. Dr. Oden does not present that hypothesis, but for me it helps connect the dots.

When Jesus suddenly left the Upper Room with His disciples, Mark followed them wearing nothing but a sheet, indicating that he had already gone to bed. But for some reason, he rose quickly and followed the apostolic band through the dark streets of Jerusalem. When Jesus was arrested, a Roman soldier spotted Mark and tried to seize him. But he grabbed only the sheet, and Mark escaped naked into the night.

Mark’s residence became a safehouse for the disciples after the crucifixion, and it was here Jesus appeared to them, and it was here the Holy Spirit descended on the Day of Pentecost. The African records indicate that’s when John Mark was converted by Peter’s preaching and he was baptized.

That brings us to Acts 12. I want to read a portion of this chapter, because it is one of the best stories in the book of Acts. Look at Acts 12, starting with verse 1:

1 It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3 When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. 4 After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.

8 Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. 9 Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10 They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.

11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”

12 When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”

15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

16 But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. 17 Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.

There are several things to notice about this. First, the home of John Mark and his mother was large, spacious, with a gate leading to a courtyard, and with a servant. Second, it was a meeting place for the early church. 

Now, here is what is truly interesting to me. After Peter showed up as a literal answer to prayer, it says he left again for another place—and that is the last time we see Peter in the book of Acts except for a cameo appearance in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council. The book of Acts divides into two clear sections. Chapters 1 through 11 center around the ministry of Peter. And Acts 12 through 27 center around the ministry of Paul. The title of the book really should be the Acts of Peter and Paul.

When Luke wrote, “[Peter] left for another place, that is Luke’s way of having Peter exit from the story. But where did Peter go? Dr. Oden cites ancient records showing that Peter went to Old Cairo, Egypt, which at that time was called Babylon.

When I think of Babylon, I think of the country of Babylon or the Babylonian Empire, which was to the east of Israel in the land we now call Iraq. But there was a town in Egypt named Babylon. That sounds confusing, but think of this. I live in the city of Nashville. But which one? I happen to live in Nashville, Tennessee, but there are at least 19 other cities and towns that go by that name. There’s a Nashville, Arkansas; a Nashville, Indiana; a Nashville, Ohio; and so forth. 

Let me quote Dr. Oden on page 114 of his book: “The location of Peter’s flight to ‘another place’ is the subject of our investigation now. In particular, we explore the possibility that Mark may have accompanied Peter on his flight and what implications that might have for its location. The most logical location for that other place, according to Egyptian reasoning, would have been Babylon of Egypt (later old Cairo), which for many years before the Roman occupation had been a place for receiving refugees….”

“If Mark was indeed accompanying Peter directly from his own mother’s house to another place, another safe house, and probably one far away — out of Herod’s reach — and if Mark knew the lay of the land in Africa, his presumed place of birth, he could have guided Peter safely to old Cairo… If Mark was from a well-travelled and wealthy Diaspora family, as traditional African memory holds, he would have the means and know-how to get Peter safely away from Jerusalem and into a safe house, perhaps at Babylon of Egypt.”

Dr. Oden presents a lot of evidence for this that I don’t have time to cover. But that would explain 1 Peter 5:13, when Peter wrote to the Christians scattered around the empire. He closed the letter saying, “The church is Babylon…sends you greetings, as does Mark, my son” (1 Peter 5:13 HCSB).

Oden says, “Let us suppose that Peter’s motive in coming to the house of Mary was not only to reestablish contact with the disciples but also to pick up her son Mark to accompany him and assist him to another safe place. If this were the case, the likelihood that Babylon of Egypt is where they fled is not surprising. 

Oden even suggests that this was just the spot where the Holy Family took refuge when they fled to Egypt after the birth of Christ, in Babylon of Egypt, which is now Old Cairo.

In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas were sent from Antioch on their first missionary journey, and by this time Mark was in Antioch too. So he went as their helper, but for whatever reason, he returned home before the end of the tour. That upset Paul so much that he refused to let Mark go with them the next time. So Paul left with Silas, and Barnabas took his nephew Mark and sailed for Cyprus.

But later, Mark reunited with the Apostle Peter and became his assistant and interpreter. We have records from very early telling us that Mark heard Peter tell stories about Jesus over and over. And Mark wrote them down. And the Gospel of Mark is essentially the Gospel of Peter, as recorded by his interpreter Mark. We believe Mark was with Peter in Rome, perhaps during the time when Peter and his wife were both executed by Nero’s government. And then Mark traveled back to Africa, to the great city of Alexandria. 

Oden then tells how Mark first planted the Gospel in Africa. Let me re-tell the story from pages 143 and 144 of his book. 

“This is the story learned by almost every child in Coptic Christianity: So Mark journeyed to the city of Alexandria. And when he entered in at the gate at a place called Mendion, the strap of his shoe broke. He immediately turned and saw a cobbler there, went to him, and gave him the shoe that he might mend it. And when the cobbler received it, and took the awl to work upon it, and the awl pierced his hand. He shouted out ‘Heis ho Theos’, that is, “God is one!’ Mark was overjoyed because nearly everyone there polytheistic, and if this man, even in his oath, cried that God is one, it meant he had some knowledge of Judaism or was in fact himself a Jew. Mark prayed for him and his hand was healed. And Mark immediately began telling him about Jesus. The man was wonderfully saved and became Mark’s first convert in Africa and later became his successor as bishop of the area. The cobbler’s name was Anianus, and soon others in that community were converted and baptized. And this is the beginning of the remarkable 2000-year history of missions in Africa.”

For many years, Mark used Alexandria as his headquarters by traveling widely in his missionary work. And then during Easter season on April 26 of the year AD 68, Mark was seized and tied to a rope, which was attached to a horse. And he was dragged through the streets until his flesh was lacerated and body was battered and bloody. Oden wrote, “A dragging death was intended to be a slow and tortuous death. This form of torture was public and prolonged, similar to crucifixion.” After this, Mark was thrown into prison half-dead, and the next morning he was again dragged over the cobbled roads of Alexandria until he was dead.

The old traditions say that the authorities intended to burn his body, but a sudden rainstorm quenched the flames. So his friends gave him a burial at a rocky place near the sea, and for many centuries people came to worship there and to remember him. A monument was built even before the reign of Constantine. 

Then in the year 828, some men from Venice stole Mark’s body, took it to Venice, and built a great church building over it, which some of you have seen—St. Mark’s Basilica. 

Oden wrote, 

[Mark] became the apostle to everywhere. It was from Libya that he became the universal evangelist. Geographically he covered more of the earth than Paul, witnessing on all three known continents.[He] became the patriarch of the whole family of African Christianity. He was Africa’s first evangelist, apostle, and martyr…. Apart from Thomas [who went to India], Mark is likely the most widely traveled of all the [New Testament evangelists].

I simply found this material helped bring John Mark to life for me. I can’t wait to meet him in Heaven. I don’t know for sure he was the rich young ruler, but it’s possible. I certainly believe the bulk of Oden’s recounting of history is more than plausible; it’s possible. And it inspires me not to quit when I mess up; not to give up when I fail; and to keep on going to the end. I hope it’s done the same for you.

The post The African Memory of Mark appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home In the Upper Room

When you mess up but refuse to give up, Jesus will help you grow up. That’s the theme of our study today as we join Jesus in a home in Jerusalem where He hosted the Passover meal for His disciples.

A newspaper in 1909, The Birmingham (Alabama) Age-Herald, included a game for kids. Inside a box, a group of dots were arranged, without numbers, and children had to use their pencil to connect the dots and find a picture of a large boy. Six years later, The Newark Evening Star, published a cartoon with a child wondering what his birthday present would be. The cartoon title was “The Great Dot Mystery.” By connecting numbered dots, children could solve the puzzle.

By the time I was a child in the 1950s, connect the dot puzzles were in every newspaper, some comic books, and always included in children’s puzzle books and periodicals. Today children still play connect the dots digital games. 

In the process, the phrase “connect the dots” became part of our common language. Intelligence agencies failed on 9/11 because they didn’t connect the dots. Detectives connect the dots by arranging evidence and discovering a pattern to the crime. In academic circles, scholars connect the dots by discerning facts and synthesizing them into a coherent theory.

Sometimes we even connect the dots when we study the Bible. 

When it comes to one of the most sacred moments of the Gospel—the Lord’s final dinner with His disciples—I don’t want to presume to understand all the background. But I want to connect some dots and present a hypothesis for you to consider. It concerns a young man with whom you and I can easily identify—John Mark. He kept messing up. But he teaches us that when you persevere through one failure after another, you’ll arrive, by grace, at victory. Even if you keep messing up, if you don’t give up, the Lord Jesus will help you.

As a Rich Young Man

Let’s begin with the tenth chapter of Mark. Jesus was nearing Jerusalem on His way to be slain for the world, and a wealthy young man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, asking, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” 

All three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) record the story, but only Mark adds this poignant detail: “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21). Jesus told the young man to jettison his wealth, take up his cross, and follow Him. The man went away sorrowfully, and Jesus told the disciples how hard it is for rich people to follow Him. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

The disciples said in amazement, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus replied, “With man this it is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:25-27). In other words, there was hope, even for this wealthy young man from an aristocratic Jewish family. Notice that Jesus didn’t give the man much time to think it over. When I gave my life to the Lord in full surrender, I took time to think it over. To make so momentous a decision on the spur of the moment was more than the young man—or perhaps you or I—could do. 

But what if Jesus was simply planting the seed? What if this wasn’t the young man’s one and only opportunity? And what if this young man was John Mark, who would later write the second Gospel and recall how Jesus, looking at him, loved him?

In the early 1900s, a British pastor named Rev. J. Barton Turner wrote an article entitled “Who Was the ‘Rich Young Ruler? A Suggestion.’” He built a plausible case that the rich young man was Mark himself, who never forgot how Jesus conveyed his love for him by the emotional contact of their eyes during that moment of decision. Others have brought up the same possibility. When I was in graduate studies at Wheaton College, I had a professor who first alerted me to this line of thinking.

We can’t be certain, but sometimes it’s a matter of connecting the dots.

As a Levite from Africa

Now let’s delve into John Mark’s background. According to Acts 12, he was fairly well known; and he and his mother had a large home in Jerusalem. His uncle or cousin was named Barnabas, who was from the tribe of Levi and who grew up in Cyprus. 

According to very strong and old African traditions, John Mark grew up in Cyrene in Libya. I’ll tell you more about this next week. His father and uncle were wealthy farmers, Levites, who studied and memorized Scripture in Hebrew. Because of unrest in Cyrene, the family fled to Israel. This family obviously brought their wealth to Jerusalem with them, because John Mark and his mother had a large house with at least one servant and probably more. 

As a Host

Just a few days after meeting the rich young ruler, Jesus and His disciples had arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover, and Jesus needed someone to let Him use a spacious dining room for what we call the Last Supper. Look at Mark 14:12-16: On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’  15  He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”

Tell him the Teacher needs a room to host the Passover meal. There could be another clue there. What did the rich young ruler call Jesus? He said, “Good Teacher….” And now Jesus said, “Tell him the Teacher needs to borrow his dining room.”

And so we have the Last Supper in a room offered by a wealthy man in Jerusalem. This is the most famous supper in human history and we know what happened that night. The disciples come in irritated with each other and jockeying for position, so Jesus strips off His garment, dons a towel, and washes their feet.

He has supper with them and institutes the Lord’s Supper with the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. He also tells them that one among them will betray Him, and Judas gets up and storms out of the room. He’s going for the authorities. He’s going to give up the location of the Last Supper so the Romans can arrest Jesus under cloak of darkness away from the eyes of the crowd.

Then Jesus begins to teach the remaining eleven. He says, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3 NKJV).

 He says some more wonderful things in John 14, and then Jesus abruptly says, “Come now; let us leave” (John 14:31). This was unexpected, but Jesus did not want to be captured in that room or at that very moment. He was a step ahead of Judas. And so the twelve men suddenly got up, perhaps muttering and asking one another questions, and they filed down the staircase and began walking through the deserted and darkened streets of Jerusalem.

Meanwhile Jesus continued teaching them: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing…. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 15:5. 11-12; 16:33 NKJV). 

At that point, Jesus paused. He was just below the towering Temple Mount, still on the western slopes of the Kidron Valley, and He began to pray. His prayer is recorded in John 17: Jesus looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the house has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you…. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do…” (John 17:1-4).

John 18 continues: When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. Here they entered the Garden of Gethsemane, which was an olive orchard. Our Lord had only one hour of freedom left, and He knelt and prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22:42 KJV).

Meanwhile Judas led the soldiers to the Upper Room, but imagine his shock and consternation when they found it empty. “Not to worry,” said Judas. “I think I know where they have gone. Follow me.” And he led them from the Upper Room to the Gethsemane.

As a Naked Runner

All four of the Gospels tell us about the arrest of Jesus, but Mark adds a very unexpected and curious detail. Look at Mark 14:51-52: A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. Many translations say he was wearing nothing but a linen sheet.

This is the mysterious naked runner in the Bible, and only Mark mentions him. Who could he be? Let’s connect the dots. Jesus held His Last Supper in Mark’s house—or the house he and his mother shared—and it got late. Jesus was still talking, and Mark undressed and went to bed. He was sleeping in a nearby room. Perhaps he could overhear voices from the nearby room. But when the party suspended their supper and left so abruptly, he grew curious. Looking out his window, he felt in his heart something wasn’t right. He jumped out of bed and wrapped the sheet around him and followed the men through the dark Jerusalem streets.

Mark is the only Gospel writer who adds this strange detail. It’s almost like his way of letting us know he was an eyewitness to this scene.

If I’m connecting the dots correctly, this is the second time the young man has failed. Jesus had told him, “Come, follow me” in Mark 10:21. But he didn’t do it. Now he had another chance, this time to join the Lord Jesus and stand by Him as He was arrested. Perhaps he and Jesus would have stood trial together. But the young man fled. And there’s one other corresponding fact. A Roman soldier managed to grab the linen sheet covering the man’s body, and the young fellow fled naked into the night. The next day, a Roman soldier also stripped Jesus of His clothing, and He was executed on the cross.

As a Converted Man

Are you ready to connect some more dots? On the first day of the week, the astonishing news flew from disciple to disciple that the tomb of Jesus was empty and that people had witnessed Him alive and breathing and talking and teaching. Ten of the disciples met together that evening. Judas had committed suicide and Thomas was too depressed to join them. Where did they meet? We don’t know, but the logical place would be in the Upper Room.

The apostle John wrote, On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord (John 20:19-20).

A week later, Jesus appeared to His disciples again, and this time Thomas was among them. Our Lord lingered for nearly six weeks, and then He ascended into Heaven. 

That brings us to the book of Acts, which continues the story: Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers (Acts 1:12-14).

This large upper room became the headquarters for the followers of Jesus. John Mark isn’t mentioned, but if our conjectures are correct, he was certainly absorbed by what was happening and undoubtedly talking to Simon Peter about everything. And ten days later, what happened? Acts 2:1-2 says, When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Could the birth of the church have actually happened in the house of the rich young ruler and his mother? We can’t say for certain. But I can imagine it, and it is plausible. According to our traditions, this is also when John Mark finally made his commitment to Christ under the preaching of Peter, and he was among those baptized on the Day of Pentecost. More about that next week.

And I have one other piece of evidence to give you.

In Acts 12, Peter is arrested and condemned to be executed. But during the night, an angel comes and opens the prison doors so Peter can escape. Verses 12-13 says Peter went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door.

Notice how this is worded: “Mary the mother of John Mark.” It was the young man who was known and his mother was defined by her relationship with him. He was the most prominent. It didn’t say “John Mark, whose mother is Mary whom we all know.” It said, “Mary, whose son, John Mark, we all know.

The home of John Mark and his mother was the meeting place for the Christians. It was large enough for many people. It had an outer entrance. The family was wealthy enough to have servants. And Mary was known as the mother of John Mark. I would suggest to you that John Mark was a wealthy young aristocrat who shared a home with his mother that was large and affluent enough to serve as the birthplace for the church in Jerusalem. I would also suggest that both John Mark and his mother had become followers of the risen Christ. I believe they were led to Christ by Peter.

As a Missionary Intern

But that doesn’t mean John Mark wasn’t going to mess up again. Let’s read Acts 13. 

1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

This is a very important moment in Christian history. This is the beginning of church-sponsored church-planting operations. Until then, Christians had been scattered and wherever they went they preached the Gospel. But now we have a local church making a strategic decision to send missionaries out in order to establish churches in a way that is financed and backed by that local church.

This first team was made up of Barnabas, Saul of Tarsus; and a young man named John Mark who went along as their assistant. They left Antioch and their first day’s travel took them down to the harbor on the Mediterranean coast, which was the port of Seleucia. The Roman fleet for the region was stationed there, and there were undoubtedly many cargo ships. So Saul and Barnabas and John Mark bought tickets for the island of Cyprus, which was only about 60 miles offshore. Cyprus was the place where Barnabas had grown up. 

Cyprus had two main cities—Salamis on the East and Paphos on the West. The ship docked in Salamis and that’s where we pick up the story in Acts 13:5: When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John [Mark] was with them as their helper.

Luke doesn’t tell us anything more about the ministry that occurred there. After preaching in various Jewish synagogues, the three missionaries made their way along the southern coastal route to the other major city, New Paphos. This was the Roman capital of the island. It was a journey of about 100 miles. There they met Sergius Paulus. In the last 150 years, archaeologists have found multiple ancient inscriptions about a man by this name who was a Roman official in the very period of time we’re reading about in Acts. Verse 7 says: The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God.  Sergius Paulus became Paul’s first recorded convert on his first missionary journey. This is the first known convert of church-sponsored international missions. He was an intelligent man. He heard and considered the Gospel. He saw the rebuke given to his aide. And he believed. He was amazed and astounded at the teachings about the Lord.

Now look again at verse 13: From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.

Something happened that upset John Mark and caused him to leave the team and to go back to Jerusalem. Later Paul accused Mark of deserting them and he refused to take him on any more tours with him. Barnabas might have been disappointed in his nephew but he was understanding. Paul, on the other hand, felt betrayed by the young man. This broke up the first missionary team in history. 

We don’t know why John Mark deserted them. Was he worried about his mother? Was he uncomfortable with Paul’s gravitation toward the evangelization of Gentiles? Perhaps he was upset because Paul was insisting on lengthening their mission, leaving Cyprus, and going on to Turkey. When the team had left Antioch, Barnabas had been in charge. But Paul was becoming the dominant figure. If you read Acts 13 and 14 carefully, when the journey began, it was Barnabas and Paul, but midway through it became Paul and Barnabas—and that is just at the point when John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem. It’s very possible that he grew angry and frustrated over Paul’s dominant personality and the psychological shift of leadership in the team.

At any rate, John Mark deserted them and returned to Jerusalem, and I imagine Barnabas was left with a sense of desolation over it. Paul was simply frustrated and angry. Look at Acts 15:36ff: Sometime later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commanded by the believers to the grace of the Lord. 

As an Interpreter for Peter

Mark kept messing up, but he didn’t give up. According to very strong early documentary evidence, John Mark became Peter’s companion and interpreter. He traveled with Peter everywhere and listened as Peter told the stories about Jesus over and over. He wrote down the accounts, and that became the Gospel of Mark, most likely the first of the four Gospels to be written. Meanwhile, Paul finally came around and realized he had underestimated the young man. During his first Roman imprisonment, Paul wrote to the Colossian church and said, “My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him” (Colossians 4:10).

During his second Roman imprisonment and shortly before his execution, Paul wrote to Timothy, saying, “Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).

As the Ambassador of Christ to Africa

After Peter and Paul were executed in Rome, Mark traveled to Alexandria, Egypt, and began the evangelization of the African continent. Dr. Thomas Oden wrote, “[John Mark] became known as the apostle to everywhere…. Geographically he covered more of the earth than Paul, witnessing on all three known continents.”

Conclusion

Dr. J. Barton Turner wrote, “The failing of one’s nature is not conquered in a moment. Even after one has left all and followed Jesus, there come times when the old weakness is felt intensely and its voice is obeyed. But the child becomes a man, and years bring strength, and so, in after days, Mark has grown out of his weakness and is ready for service and suffering.”

So many of us—and I certainly include myself—carry around a sense of failure or shame or guilt. We’re more aware of our defeats than our victories, and we wish we were better people than we are. But the one who has begun a good work in us will carry it on to completion (Philippians 1:6). Even when we mess up, if we don’t give up, the Lord Jesus will help us grow up, mature in the faith and useful for the Gospel. He will perfect that which concerns us (Psalm 128:8).

The post At Home In the Upper Room appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home With Simon the Leper

When we love Jesus immensely, He uses us immeasurably.

That’s the lesson we’ll discover today in the home of Simon the Leper from the Gospel of John, chapter 12. Today we’re going to go inside a home, that of Simon the leper, but let me begin by sharing a bit of missionary history with you.

You may know the name, Gladys Aylward. She was born in 1902 in North London, and as a teenager she wanted to be a stage actress. But she had very little education, and at age fourteen she became a parlor maid. Not long afterward she was wonderfully converted to Christ. Almost immediately she felt God was calling her to China. But she had no education, no training, no experience, no connections, and no money. 

In her late twenties, she approached a missionary society and applied for a position in China, but she didn’t meet their qualifications. Going back to her lodgings, she put her Bible on the bed, opened her purse and poured out all her money—which was two and a half cents. Here is what she prayed: “Oh God, here’s my Bible, here’s my money. Here’s me.” 

Gladys managed to save up enough money to buy a one-way train ticket to China, and she boarded the train heading toward Asia at the Liverpool Street Station on October 15, 1932. She was a strange sight, dressed in an old overcoat, hauling two suitcases (one filled with food), and lugging a bag filled with pots and pans. As she passed through Russia, she realized she had unwittingly put herself in the middle of a warzone, because Russia and China were fighting. She found herself stranded in Siberia and in great danger, but she would not stop.

I don’t have time to tell the whole story, but what Gladys managed to do in China became known around the world. At one point when she was trapped with a hundred orphans by the Japanese invasion of China, she led them over the mountains to safety. Her biography gripped readers everywhere; her story moved the hearts of thousands of people; she spoke in the greatest churches on earth; she had tea with Queen Elizabeth; and her life was made into a movie starring Ingrid Bergman. 

She was a simple parlor maid who said, “Oh God, here’s my Bible, here’s my money. Here’s me.”

The lesson is that when we love Jesus extravagantly, He uses us exponentially.

There is a woman very much like that in the Bible, and we’ve already met her in an earlier story. Now we’re going to meet her in the house of a man named Simon the Leper, who hosted our Lord Jesus for a meal in the town of Bethany only about a week before the Lord was murdered.

There are three accounts of this story. You’ll find them in Matthew, Mark, and John. All three accounts give different details but only John gives us the woman’s name. So let’s use his Gospel as our primary source and I’ll add some details from Matthew and Mark. The story is in John 12:1-11.

Scripture

12  Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.  2  Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. 

Bethany, as we’ve seen in an earlier chapter, is only about two miles along the crest of the Mount of Olives from the Jerusalem overlook. This is where Jesus and His disciples stayed during the Passover, that final week of Jesus’ life. Jesus was beloved in Bethany because He had only days before brought Lazarus back from the grave. That story is told in the preceding chapter, John 11. The people of Bethany wanted to do something wonderful to celebrate. 

Apparently a man named Simon the Leper had the largest house in town, so that’s where the dinner was held. John doesn’t tell us that, but both Matthew and Mark say the dinner was in the home of Simon the Leper. This presupposed another miracle that occurred in Bethany that isn’t recorded in the Gospels. If Simon had suffered from leprosy, he could not have occupied this house or hosted this dinner. So we can assume Jesus had healed him at some point in the past. Now he was using his large home to entertain Jesus and many of the people of the town.

Who else lived in Bethany? Mary and Martha, of course, along with their brother Lazarus. Verse 2 says: Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Whenever we see Martha, she is serving. She just cannot help herself. She was sedulous. Her DNA was packed with busyness and work and service and diligence. At the same time, every time we see Mary of Bethany in the Bible, she is at our Lord’s feet.

  Verse 3 says: Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Matthew and Mark tell us this expensive oil-based perfume was in an alabaster jar. Many years ago, I was in Egypt and I bought an alabaster vase. My friend told me to handle it carefully because alabaster, as beautiful as it is, is a very soft stone and breaks easily. Archaeologists have found thousands of alabaster jars similar to the one Mary would have used. The oil was inside and it was sealed up. To use it, you had to snap off the neck of the jar so the oil could pour out.

Pure Nard was an oil extracted from a plant in India, and very rare, fragrant, and precious. 

As the men were eating, Mary broke the stem of the bottle and began anointing the Lord with the ointment. Matthew and Mark say she poured it on the Lord’s head, which is how they anointed kings. John says some of it was used on His feet. She apparently drizzled this oil from Jesus’ head to his feet, and the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

This was the most extravagant thing anyone ever did for Jesus. If an ordinary Jewish carpenter or tentmaker or tradesman had gone into a perfume shop to buy this particular perfume for his wife, it would have cost the equivalent of a year’s salary.

This may imply that Mary and her family were very wealthy. I don’t have any cologne in my house that costs me as much as I’d earn in a year. I’ve heard it speculated that this was a gift Mary had been saving for her wedding. Nothing in the text indicates that. I might have one plausible explanation I’ll share momentarily, but we really don’t know why Mary had this valuable commodity.

One man was incensed when he saw her break the bottle and pour it over Jesus’ head. Look at verse 4: But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages,” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Judas is the most tragic figure in the Gospel story. He spent three years with Jesus, listened to the greatest sermons ever preached, soaked up the finest teachings ever spoken, saw miracles like nothing since the days of Elijah, and walked beside our Lord week after week in the dusty byways of Galilee and Judea. Yet he never got the cynicism or selfishness or greed out of his heart. 

Jesus made him the treasurer of the group, and he was businessman for the team. He paid for the meals and lodgings. He took the donations of those who contributed to the Lord’s ministry. The women who gave Jesus significant financial support, as we read about in Luke 8, would give the money to Judas. He paid the bills. But he also embezzled some of the money and hid it away for himself. He believed in Jesus, and he didn’t believe in Jesus. He was partly in and partly out; and whenever you are partly in and partly out you are in a war with yourself you cannot win.

There in front of everyone, Jesus said, “Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you,  but you will not always have me.”

The Bible makes it clear we’re to always be looking for a way to help someone in need. But this occasion was so significant, so unique in human history, that nothing else mattered. The story ends: 9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, 11 for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him.

I don’t know that I’ve ever read a more self-convicting passage in the Bible. I’m afraid there’s a part of me that’s closer to Judas than to Mary; and I found myself asking the question: “When and how have I ever truly loved Jesus in a lavish way the way Mary did? Do I really love Jesus extravagantly? With abandon? Without limits? I found myself thinking of some of the great hymns that are composed as prayers asking for grace to love Jesus more. Many of the older hymn writers made this a theme, and their hymns were prayers that we may love Jesus more and more. The blind Scottish pastor, George Matheson, wrote:

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in Thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

I learned a hymn in college that has remained among my favorites though I seldom hear it sung now. It’s by an Irish pastor and it says:

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;

Wean it from earth; through all its pulses move.

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,

And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

An American hymnist wrote:

More love to Thee, O Christ,

More love to Thee!

Hear Thou the prayer I make 

On bended knee;

This is my earnest plea;

More love, O Christ, to Thee,

More love to Thee, more love to Thee.

Once earthly joy I craved,

Sought peace and rest;

Now Thee along I seek,

Give what is best;

This all my prayer shall be:

More love, O Christ, to Thee,

More Love to Thee, more love to Thee.

Why aren’t we praying these prayers and singing these songs? We need to love Jesus with extravagance for three reasons, as we see from what happened at the dinner at the home of Simon the Leper.

First…

Loving Jesus is an Enduring Reality

When we love Jesus more than anything or anyone, we are dealing with an enduring reality. Judas was dealing with temporary reality—a few coins, which would later haunt him and make him the most tragic man in the New Testament. But Mary somehow knew what she was doing.

Think of this. It was fitting for Jesus to receive a special anointing at both the beginning and the ending of His earthly ministry. The very first thing that happened to launch Jesus into the work for which He had come to earth occurred at His baptism, when the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended and anointed Him with power from the Heaven Father to prosecute His ministry. 

Now three years later, Jesus was anointed at the beginning of the last week of His earthly service, and He was anointed with burial spices for His entombment. The oil dripped from His head to His feet, and In Matthew’s account, Jesus said, “When she [Mary] poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial” (Matthew 26:12).

In New Testament times, when someone died, their body was laid out and washed and coated with a perfumed oil, then taken to the tomb and buried that same day. The death of Jesus occurred near the end of the Sabbath day and there wasn’t time for that. But Mary was doing it in advance.

The question in my mind is this. Did Mary know Jesus was going to die, and did she do this deliberately? I think that’s possible. Jesus had been speaking repeatedly of His approaching death and crucifixion, but no one was taking it seriously. It seemed impossible to them. But Jesus had been telling things to Mary that others didn’t know about. Remember in an earlier episode where we find her sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to Him while Martha prepared the meal?

One commentator suggested that there were three people at the dinner at Simon the Lepers house who really thought Jesus was on the precipice of crucifixion—Jesus Himself, and Judas, and Mary.

So perhaps she knew very well what she was doing. Or perhaps she had a deep burden from God to do this thing, even though she didn’t know why. Perhaps the Holy Spirit had deeply prompted her heart. She wouldn’t have done this impulsively or frivolously. She had a deep prompting and Jesus interpreted it. He might have said, in effect, “The Holy Spirit deeply prompted you and told you to do this, even though you didn’t know why. But I’ll tell you why. I’m going to be murdered and buried so violently and suddenly that the only burial oil I’ll have is what you have just poured on Me. Just as the Holy Spirit anointed Me for my life, God has given you the privilege of anointing Me for my death.”

When we love Jesus, the Lord often prompts us in what we should do for Him. There have been times when I knew I had to give a certain sum of money—large, that is, to me and at the time—because I knew the Lord was prompting me to do it. There have been times I’ve engaged a stranger with a Gospel conversation because I felt an interior prompting of the Holy Spirit. There have been times I’ve gone out of my way to put my arm around a young man and pray for him because the Holy Spirit was telling me.

These are not temporary moments; they are enduring realities. So we need to keep praying: “More love to Thee, O Christ, more love to Thee; hear Thou the prayer I make on bended knee.”

Second, not only is loving Jesus an enduring reality. 

Loving Jesus has Eternal Repercussions

The second thing to notice is that loving Jesus has eternal repercussions. John doesn’t include this part of the table discussion in his account, so let’s read from Mark 14: 6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Two things to notice. First—the way Jesus defined the word “love” here—it is doing what we can. He said, “She did what she could.” We cannot do what we cannot do; but we can do what we can to serve Jesus and be of service to others. If you visit the gravesite of the blind hymnist, Fanny Crosby, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, you’ll find those words engraved on her tombstone: “She Hath Done What She Could.”

Jesus said, in effect, “This act of love was so extraordinary that people will still be talking about it centuries into the future, wherever the Gospel is preached.” And here we are today, 2000 years later, still visiting the scene, visualizing the dinner, and learning from the women who anointed our Lord’s body for His burial.

When the Holy Spirit prompts us to do what we can do, spurred on by our love for Jesus, that has a long-lasting, ripple effect. I just finished reading the biography of the famous Baptist preacher, W. A. Criswell, whom I once had the pleasure of meeting. He was an unusual man and an unusual preacher. I wouldn’t call him eccentric, but he did have a lot of peculiar ways of going about his work. He was very uninhibited and he had a booming voice. When he was enrolled at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, he got up one morning so full of the love and joy of God that he couldn’t contain himself. He went out onto the courtyard of his dormitory and lifted his hands up to heaven and began singing a song that says: “It pays to serve Jesus. It pays to serve Jesus. It pays every step of the way. Though the pathway to Glory may sometimes be drear, you’ll be happy each step of the way.”

Years and years later when he was a far-famed orator and pastor, Criswell was preaching at a large event in Richmond, Virginia. After the service, a man named Paul Crandrall approached him and asked if he remembered the morning decades before when he had broken out in song.

Crandrall had been a student in the same dormitory, and that morning he was so discouraged and defeated that he had begun packing his suitcase. He had decided to leave the seminary, give up his dream of being a pastor, and find some other line of work. He was putting on his coat and ready to pick up his suitcase and walk out the door when he heard a noise coming from the courtyard below.

Crandall went over and opened the window and listened to Criswell sing, “It pays to serve Jesus,” and God spoke to his heart. He went back to his bed, knelt on his knees, and gave his life back to Christ. He unpacked his suitcase, went to class that day, and spent the rest of his life ministering for Christ in various churches across the country. Dr. Criswell would never have known that story but for a speaking engagement in Richmond. But it illustrates the fact that when we love Jesus, God uses us in greater ways than we know. Think of all the people who came to Christ through the ministry of Paul Crandall! Think of those who continued with the ripple effect!

Loving Jesus is an enduring reality; it has eternal repercussions! And third…

Loving Jesus is an Everlasting Relationship

Loving Jesus is also an everlasting relationship. In the Gospels, Mary of Bethany appears in three scenes. As we saw in an earlier chapter, she and Martha entertained Jesus and His disciples in Luke 10. Martha was busy serving and got herself overwrought. But Mary was sitting at His feet listening to every word that He spoke. That’s really the best way I know to fall more deeply in love with Jesus.

A young adult recently said to me, “I’m trying to read my Bible, but I don’t really know when or how to do it.” I suggested he pick a time each morning—that worked with his daily schedule—and have a physical Bible (an actual book) and a pencil. Open to a book of his choice—maybe Romans or Proverbs or Luke. I said, “Ask God to speak to you and then read with your pencil. As your pencil goes from word to word, you’ll find some phrases you want to underline, some verses you want to circle, some prayers you want to offer for yourself, some truths you want to remember.

Tell the Lord, “Thank you,” and then spend time talking to Him, letting Him know your items of praise and prayer. The next morning, begin where you left off. When you read God’s Word with a pencil, the Lord has a way of writing it on your heart.

The next time we see Mary is when her brother, Lazarus, had died, and in John 11, she fell at our Lord’s feet. And here in today’s story, she is anointing Him with oil and sitting again at His feet. In all three stories about her, we see her at the feet of Jesus.

P. B. Power was an Irish pastor in the 1800s, and he wrote a book about the feet of Jesus. I think it came from a sermon series he preached. I would never have thought of preaching a sermon series or writing a book on the feet of Jesus, but the New Testament really focuses a lot of attention there.

In the Gospels, all kinds of people came and fell down at His feet or they brought their sick loved ones and placed them at His feet. The woman in Luke 7 bathed His feet with her tears and poured perfume on them. The demoniac who was healed was seen in his right mind, clothed, and sitting at Jesus’ feet. 

The feet of Jesus were nailed to the cross, and on the evening of the resurrection He told His disciples to look at His hands and feet. In the vision of the glorified Christ in Revelation 1, John saw the Lord’s feet like bronze glowing in a furnace. We will cast our crowns at His feet, and He will reign forever with everything under His omnipotent feet. Ephesians 1:22 says, “God has placed all things under His feet.”

Whenever we look at Jesus, we’re looking up. And when we learn to sit at His feet each day and read our Bibles with a pencil, as we learn to listen to His words and speak to Him in prayer, we will love Him more and more and more.

So here in the home of Simon the Leper around the supper table we can learn from Mary of Bethany that Loving God is an enduring reality. It has eternal repercussions, and it is an enduring relationship. So let’s make this the song of our heart:

More love to Thee, O Christ,

More love to Thee!

Hear Thou the prayer I make 

On bended knee;

This is my earnest plea;

More love, O Christ, to Thee,

More love to Thee, more love to Thee.

The post At Home With Simon the Leper appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home with the Third Pharisee

When you invite Jesus to have dinner with you He’s happy to return the favor. He wants you to have dinner with Him too—at the marriage supper of the Lamb. We’ll talk about it today as we study the visit Jesus made to the home of a pharisee in Luke chapter 14.

I’ve spoken at more banquets than I can count, and I’ve attended a lot more than that. Not to mention church dinners and special picnics and community suppers. But I’ve never seen a dinner that can compare to the 1925 celebration at the Olympia Exhibition Hall in London, when 8000 Freemasons gathered around five miles of tables and were served by 1,360 waitresses. It required 700 cooks and 86,000 glasses and plates, of which 3,500 were broken. On the menu: salmon, chicken, and 3,000 bottles of Champaigne. It’s still considered the largest banquet ever served under one roof.

That event was nothing more than a plate of crumbs compared to the future sensational banquet, which is called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. This meal is alluded to throughout the Bible, but it’s only mentioned specifically in Revelation 19:9 (NKJV), just after the description of the Second Coming of Christ: “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!”

I confess I don’t know how to visualize this. In the Bible, covenants and weddings were celebrated by feasts and banquets. Isaiah 25:6 says, “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine.” In Luke 22:28-30, at the Last Supper, Jesus told His disciples, “You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

Jesus enjoyed eating alongside His disciples, even after His resurrection. So I can only try to imagine the spectacle of the great banquet we’ll enjoy with Him sometime shortly after His return, either during the Millennium or on the New Earth in eternity. 

As we know from a number of Bible passages, covenants and weddings were celebrated in the Bible with events around food and beverage that lasted a week or so. Could it be that all the streets and boulevards in New Jerusalem will be filled with tables and chairs seating millions upon millions? Perhaps the central point will be in Hallelujah Square. Could it be that the angels will be the servers, and cherubim the cooks? Do you think we could have manna as the appetizer? I don’t want to be frivolous or disrespectful, but I do wonder if the marriage supper of the Lamb is going to be a literal event. Will all the believers be gathered into some vast area for an actual meal celebrating the consummation of the ages and our literal, visible presence with our bridegroom, Jesus Christ? I believe it will be.

This event seems to be on the mind of our Lord in Luke 14, when Jesus was invited to a banquet in the home of a Pharisee. This is the third such occasion in the book of Luke. Luke gives us three different times Jesus went into the homes of Pharisees to accept a dinner invitation from them.

Though He had been invited, He wasn’t well received, and He ended up advising us—you and me—to go everywhere we can, into the highways and byways, inviting every possible prospect to the coming banquet He is going to prepare for His people.

The Setting of the Banquet

Let’s begin by reading Luke 14, starting with verse 1: One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. 

Today we call this condition edema. It has to do with fluid retention, and this man was probably planted here by the Pharisees to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath Day. This is how legalistic the Pharisees were. Jesus performed amazing signs and wonders that astounded people, and it almost always was for the benefit of someone or some group with significant needs. Jesus wants to meet our needs. What an ineffable honor and privilege to see Jesus perform a miracle right before one’s eyes. But these Pharisees felt nothing but contempt because He did some of them on the Sabbath Day, when they thought it was inappropriate to do any work. So they invited Him to a Sabbath meal and planted a sick person in the room as a direct challenge to see what He would do.

What He did was turn the tables on them with some probing questions. Look at verses 3 through 6: Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say.

They had nothing to say because they didn’t have any good answers for the Lord’s questions and also, I suppose, because they were too angry to say anything. These scholars and experts of the law had just been outfoxed by an untrained street preacher from Galilee.

The Seating of the Banquet

All this took place before the meal even began, before anyone had taken their seats. But now, with the excitement of the healing behind them, they began to gather around the table. And Jesus, who didn’t miss anything and who seldom held back, noticed something. Look at verse 7 and following: When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The question is why should we take a lower seat and let someone else have the higher seat? The reason isn’t because of a false display of humility or some kind of polite etiquette. It’s because we truly care about them and want them to have the best seat they can. Humility is very akin to love. It’s a matter of putting the needs of others before our own. 

The year after Katrina and I moved to Nashville we were in K-Mart shopping for something with all the televisions in the TV department flashed to the scene in Washington, DC, where President Ronald Reagan had been shot. We raced home and watched the coverage.

Reagan survived, of course, and lived for many years. He’s the favorite president of my lifetime—and I started life when Truman was in the White House. At Reagan’s funeral in 2004, George H. W. Bush told an incident that occurred when Reagan was still in the hospital recovering from his wounds. He spilled some water, and when aides came in they found him down on his hands and knees wiping it up.

“What are you doing, Mr. President?” they said. “We have people for that.”

But he didn’t want to cause trouble for the nurse or orderly. Despite his injury, he felt he should wipe up that water himself. That wasn’t false humility or polite etiquette. It was just someone who didn’t want to cause extra work for someone else.

Humility is the kind of love that watches out for other people and delights when things go their way. We don’t need the chief seats. We know the best view of our Lord comes from the lowest seats.

The Sharing of the Banquet

Jesus went on to say something similar in verses 12-14: Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

In the first parable, the guests were at fault for seeking the best seats. In this parable, the host is at fault for only asking certain people to join the meal. When I was a child and I read this in the Bible or heard a sermon on it, it always bothered me. My parents entertained quite a bit, but it was always friends and family who showed up. We often had the preacher’s family or my uncles and aunts. Often we’d go with friends to a restaurant. And then I would read or hear this passage and I thought to myself, “Jesus specifically told us not to invite our family and friends for supper, but to invite outcasts and misfits.”

Now I realize that Jesus often spoke using the technique of hyperbole. That is, He overemphasized His words in order to make a point. But we don’t want to water these words down and miss the point He was making. We simply need to find ways of helping those who are in need. We need to be generous. 

In some way, Jesus said, He will repay us at the moment of resurrection for the good we do to those less fortunate than ourselves.

The Savior of the Banquet

At this point, one of the other guests chime in. Verse 15 says: When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

This man was disagreeing with Jesus. Notice the echo of the word “blessed.” Jesus said in verses 13-14 that if we invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind we will be blessed.” And this man said, “No, rather blessed is the one who keeps the rules of the Pharisees and is thereby invited to eat at the feast the Messiah will serve in the Kingdom age.”

Jesus didn’t argue with him. He simply told one more story, one more parable about those who would truly end up at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Look at verses 16-20: Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’”

The demands of the world and the urgency of earthly matters takes precedence over the urgency of preparing for the coming banquet. Verse 21 says,  “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’”

This man wanted people regardless of their status or condition to come and sit at his table and eat his delicious food and drink his aged wine and be entertained by his gracious hospitality. Verse 22 and following says: “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. 

Go out into the highways and byways and compel them to come. The word compel does not mean force them but persuade them. 

Then Jesus pressed home His whole point in verse 24: “I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

Notice those last two words: “My banquet.” Jesus told these Pharisees, “I accepted the invitation you extended to your banquet, but you have found every excuse in the world to avoid reserving your place at My banquet. You, the Jewish leaders to whom I came to save, have rejected My invitation to follow Me. And I am going to the world, to the lost, to the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, with My Gospel and the opportunity of breaking bread with Me at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.”

Ever since Jesus spoke these words, those of us who know Him have felt He was speaking directly to us when He said, “Go out into the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house may be full.”

Recently I read about a police officer named Mike DiSanza, who is now the president of a ministry called International Cops for Christ. One night on Christmas Eve he was finishing his shift about midnight and it was freezing. New York City was in the grip of a blizzard, and DiSanza was patrolling from 125th to 130th Streets, which is in Harlem. Suddenly he saw the silhouette of a man beside a lamppost. He was freezing cold and blood was dripping from one of his eyes. He was about eighteen. He looked at DiSanza and said, “Help me.”

DiSanza called for an ambulance, but none were available. He put his arms around the boy and led him to a nearby restaurant. The two men stumbled into the restaurant, and a server brought them both some hot soup. In the light of the restaurant, DiSanza could see how beat up the boy was. He wasn’t able to pick up the spoon, so DiSanza picked up the spoon and began getting some hot soup into him. The other diners were staring at them, but DiSanza said, “I really didn’t care what the other people in the restaurant thought. I was discovering what a wonderful feeling it was to give of myself and allow God to work through me.”

He managed to get the boy to St. Mary’s hospital, and then he headed home. He arrived home at 3 a.m. on Christmas morning, and his wife was waiting with a hot meal. He told her why he was so late and he said, “D’you know, Ann, God did a great thing tonight. All over the world people are searching for some meaning to life. They’re searching in bars, in drugs, in immorality, but here tonight on a desolate street in the middle of South Bronx, God made Himself known. He worked through me to help another human being.”

Later on that Christmas Day, DiSanza took the subway to St. Mary’s to see the boy, but he was asleep with tubes plugged into him everywhere. The next day he went again, with the same result. The third day he went again, and this time the boy was awake. DiSanza said, “How you doing?”

The boy said, “Who are you, man?”

“I’m the guy who brought you in here.”

“You didn’t bring me in here—they told me a cop brought me in here.”

“Yeah, I’m a cop.”

DiSanza said, “I sat down and I started talking with the young man. I hadn’t been a Christian that long, but I knew God wanted me here for a reason. I told him a little of my story, how I’d grown up in the Bronx and how I met Jesus. Then I said, ‘I don’t know what it’s all about, I’m still learning myself, but I do know that God loves you and that He sent me here to tell you that.’ I gave him a New Testament and a small pamphlet that explained things a little better than I could.”

“Brother,” said DiSanza, “if you let Jesus into your heart he can change your life.”

Two years later DiSanza was on patrol outside of a Baptist Church in Harlem. Someone came up from behind him, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him on the cheek. He turned and saw a young man grinning at him. It was the boy, who had read the Gospel booklet and the New Testament while in the hospital. He trusted Christ as his Savior, went off to Bible college in Alabama, and was back in Harlem working in a church.

Here was a man who saw a young black man, beaten, bleeding, nearly frozen to death, and took him to a banquet of hot soup and then to the hospital. He went back three times to check on the boy, and as best he could he shared Jesus. It was two years later when he learned how God had used those moments of going into the highways and byways and compelling the lost to be saved.

I wonder if any of the dinner guests at the Pharisee’s banquet made the same discovery? Maybe they did, because the book of Acts speaks of the Gospel spreading through the Pharisees after the day of Pentecost.

Let’s ask God to help us spread the invitations and go into the highways and hedges with the news of the Gospel, and perhaps at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb you’ll find yourself seated beside someone who made it there, at least in part, through your witness, testimony, and efforts.

The post At Home with the Third Pharisee appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Stories for the Fourth of July

Hello everybody, and welcome to a special 4th of July blog. I wanted to take the opportunity of telling you of one of my favorite characters in American history, which I’ve written about and my book 100 Bible verses that made America. As I work through the history of our nation from the days of the explorers to current times there were several men and women whom I would very much like to have known, and I expect to meet them in heaven. Here’s one. The material I’m about to give you has come partly from my own book, partly from the great organization called Wall Builders, and partly from an old biographer. 

The man is… Noah Webster. Few American heroes have been as eccentric, interesting, or brilliant as Webster. Often depressed, anxious, and obsessive-compulsive, he published more words than any of America’s founders and is called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education.” His American Dictionary of the English Language would “succeed in forever unifying the world’s most ethnically diverse nation with a common language.”

Webster was born in 1758 and graduated from Yale during the Revolutionary War. He tried teaching, but failed. He opened a school, but it closed. He became a lawyer, but struggled to make a living. He fell in love twice, but was rejected. He longed to become Washington’s official biographer, but that job went to someone else. 

To keep from starving, Webster assembled a spelling textbook, The Blue-Backed Speller, and he invented the concept of a “book tour” to promote it, stopping in every state capital to lobby for copyright laws to protect his resource. Webster’s Speller taught generations of children to read, spell, and pronounce, and it gave him a trickle of sustained income. Except for the Bible, Webster’s Speller became the most purchased book in America for a century.

On October 26, 1789, Noah married Rebecca Greenleaf, a woman absolutely perfect for him. The only threat to their happiness was his massive debt and his failure to find a life’s work. In 1793, they moved to New York City to start a newspaper, but for years it too failed. Just as the tide turned and the paper showed signs of success, Webster lost interest. His mind was seized by another dream—compiling a dictionary of American English. 

Relocating to New Haven, Connecticut, Webster announced his project in the local paper on June 4, 1800, referring to himself in third person: “Mr. Webster of this city, we understand, is engaged in completing…a Dictionary of the American Language.”

Webster worked at a round table in his second floor study from sunrise till four in the afternoon, usually standing while reading and writing, using a quill pen and pad, and surrounded by reference works. But the mental strain, financial worries, and constant criticism nearly broke him. That is, until he came to faith in Jesus Christ.

Rev. Moses Stuart, a local pastor, was a powerful preacher during the Second Great Awakening, and Webster’s teenage daughters were converted under his preaching. Webster was disturbed by that, and he requested a meeting with Stuart. For several weeks, Webster struggled with the Gospel message, but one morning in April 1808, “I instantly fell to my knees and confessed my sins to God, implored His pardon and made my vows to Him.” Calling his family, Webster announced his decision to follow Christ, and his inner turmoil ceased. “From that time,” he said, “I have had a perfect tranquility of mind.”

When his brother criticized him for “religious enthusiasm,” Webster replied in a letter, which was so long and thorough that it later became one of America’s premier apologetic pamphlets. He said, in part: 

These sentiments may perhaps expose me to the charge of enthusiasm. Of this I cannot complain, when I read in the Gospel that the apostles, when they first preached Christ crucified, were accused of being full of new wine; when Paul was charged by Felix with being a madman; and when Christ Himself was charged with performing miracles through the influence of evil spirits. If, therefore, I am accused of enthusiasm, I am not ashamed of the imputation. It is my earnest desire to cherish evangelical doctrines and no other…for nothing is uniform but truth; nothing unchangeable but God and His works…. To reject the Scriptures as forgeries is to undermine the foundation of all history; for no books of the historical kind stand on a firmer basis than the Sacred Books.

Noah Webster published his dictionary in 1828, defining more than 65,000 words, shaping American English for the lifetime of the nation, and making “Webster” a household name that has spanned the centuries.

Even though, Noah Webster is most widely known for standardizing spellings and meanings of words through his Webster’s Dictionary, printed in 1828, he soon began an even greater task, which was to update The Holy Bible to exchange outdated and misunderstood words for more common ones. His belief in the inerrancy of Scripture was so strong, according to Wallbuilders, that he wrote an introduction to explain the changes that he made and the Scriptural integrity that was preserved. He said: The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good, and the best corrector of all that is evil, in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the only book that can serve as an infallible guide to the future felicity. With this estimate of its value, I have attempted to render the English version more useful, by correcting a few obvious errors, and removing some obscurities, with objectionable words and phrases; and my earnest prayer is, that my labors may not be wholly unsuccessful. N.W.

Here is a description of his death, given by an early biographer:

During the spring of 1843, Dr. Webster revised the Appendix of his Dictionary, and added some hundreds of words. He completed the printing of it about the middle of May. It was the closing act of his life. His hand rested, in its last labors, on the volume which he had commenced thirty-six years before. 

Within a few days, in calling on a number of friends in different parts of the town, he walked, during one afternoon between two and three miles. The day was chilly, and immediately after his return, he was seized with faintness and a severe oppression on his lungs. An attack of peripneumony [pera-noo’-na-me] followed, which, though not alarming at first, took a sudden turn after four or five days, with fearful indications of a fatal result. 

It soon became necessary to inform him that he was in imminent danger. He received the communication with surprise, but with entire composure. His health had been so good, and every bodily function so perfect in its exercise, that he undoubtedly expected to live some years longer. But though suddenly called, he was completely ready. He gave some characteristic direction as to the disposal of his body after death. He spoke of his long life as one of uniform enjoyment, because filled up at every stage with active labors for some valuable end. He expressed his entire resignation to the will of God, and his unshaken trust in the atoning blood of the Redeemer. 

It was an interesting coincidence, that his former pastor, the Rev. Mr. Stuart, who received him to the church thirty-five years before, had just arrived at New Haven on a visit to his friends. He called immediately, and the interview brought into affecting comparison the beginning and the end of that long period of consecration to the service of Christ. The same hopes which had cheered the vigor of manhood, were now shedding a softened light over decay and sufferings of age. “I know in whom I have believed,’” – such was the solemn and affecting testimony which he gave to his friend, while the hand of death was upon him, – “I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day.” Thus, without one down, one fear, he resigned his soul into the hands of his Maker, and died on the 28th day of May, 1843, in the eighty-fifth year of his age….

This is an example of the kind of impact the Bible has made on the history of our nation, the history of the United States of America. For more stories like this please check out my book 100 Bible verses that made America. And you might also check out my friend doctor Tim Barton’s website wallbuilders.com. May God bless America on this 4th of July. 

The post Stories for the Fourth of July appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home With the Second Pharisee

Luke 11:33-54

When Jesus Tears into You, He Goes Right for the Heart

Opening

As a teenager, I grew up among people who loved the Lord, cherished the Bible, and tried to avoid anything sinful. But during my teen years I began to sense some of them talked as if the Christian life was outside in, and others described it more as inside out. My memory of these things is so clear I can still identify these groups by individuals or schools or churches or camps or labels. Most all of them were genuine believers, but they came at the Christian experience from two different directions.

The first group emphasized various lists of sins we were to avoid. No smoking, drinking, dancing, or gambling. No profanity. Women couldn’t wear slacks. Men and women weren’t allowed to swim at the same time. Movies were viewed with deep suspicion. Shorts were out, as were women’s skirts that showed the knee. College students who dated couldn’t hold hands. Hairstyles and beards became issues. 

Some of these concerns were truly valid—and still are. But this group unwittingly conveyed the idea to us teenagers that if we kept these rules we would be inwardly holy. We would please God. We would be respectable Christians. 

The second group often had some of the same basic convictions and standards. But their emphasis was different. The real issue was the inward rather than the outward. If we yielded ourselves to the Lordship of Christ, if we fed our souls with the Word of God, and if we tended to the interior life, we’d increasingly conform to the person of Christ. What was happening inwardly through the process of sanctification would affect us outwardly in terms of our attitudes and actions. 

That’s the group I gravitated toward. Rules have their place. But we didn’t become godly by keeping an outward set of rules but by letting Christ mold our lives from within. Holiness comes from the inside out; not the outside in.

What I’ve described so far is the difference I found among Christians as I was developing into adulthood. But my case wasn’t as extreme as what Jesus confronted during His life. At least I was dealing with sincere people who knew Christ. In the Lord’s case, His greatest enemies were those who had no spiritual life, just outward rules and rituals.

Jesus never spoke more bluntly than when He ran into these people, and many of them were members of the Jewish sect of the Pharisees. And in Luke 11, and things took an acrimonious turn from the very beginning when Jesus was invited to an early meal. 

1. The Eyes

Let’s begin with the paragraph that precedes the story because it gives context. Jesus said in Luke 11:33-36: “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”

Jesus began simply: “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” He made a similar statement in His Sermon on the Mount, but here He draws a different analogy. Jesus Himself is the light. A person’s eye is the mechanism (the lamp) by which light enters the body and registers on the mind. But if a person’s eyes are diseased, they won’t see the light. If their eyes are healthy, they will.

Jesus said, in effect: “Make certain that your spiritual eyes are open and you have My genuine light rushing into your minds and souls. If you are filled with my light, your whole personality will be illuminated.”

The apostle Paul restated this truth in 2 Corinthians 4:4: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God.” But he went on to say, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (verse 6).

When Jesus comes into your life, He opens the eyes of your heart and your whole personality is bathed in radiance and splendor. I love the way the Bible uses the word “radiant”:

When Moses came down from meeting with the Lord on Mount Sinai, his face was radiant (see Exodus 34:29).“Those who look to him are radiant…”—Psalm 34:5Isaiah 60:5 says, “Then you will look and be radiant….”“The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes”—Psalm 19:8.Ezekiel talks about being “radiant with his glory” (Ezekiel 43:2).And the apostle Paul said that Jesus Christ is in the process of creating a “radiant church” (Ephesians 5:26).

This is what the Methodist missionary E. Stanley Jones meant when he said, “When I met Christ, I felt that I had swallowed sunshine.” When we open ourselves to Him, it lights up our personalities. We are walking in sunlight. But if we refuse to look upon Him with faith and obedience, we are plunged into darkness.

2. The Hands

Having spoken those words to the crowds, Jesus promptly accepted an invitation to share a meal with a Pharisee. But He started eating without washing His hands. When that upset the Pharisee, Jesus tore into him and went straight for the heart. This man thought he was walking in light, but his eyes were closed and his whole life was enveloped with darkness.

Luke 11:37 says, “When Jesus had finished speaking [about spiritual sight and blindness], a Pharisee invited him to eat with him….” The Greek word here often means to have breakfast or to have a meal early in the day. The Jewish scholar, Alfred Edersheim calls this a “morning meal.”

But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal. This had nothing to do with whether Jesus’ hands were dirty. The Pharisee was concerned with legalistic ritual (see Mark 7:3-4). Jesus responded in verse 39: “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.”

The other day I picked up a plate from an upper shelf. From my vantage point it looked like a clean plate. The edges were clean and white and shiny. But when I started to use it, I realized it had never made it to the dishwasher. It was filthy with old food. Jesus said it’s that way with a lot of people. On the outside they look respectable, but inwardly they’re filled with the corruption of sin.

Jesus went on in verse 40: “ You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?  But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.”

And now Jesus introduces one of the most dangerous words in the human vocabulary—woe. Jesus is about to launch a barrage of woes. One after the other. Six in all. Two sets of three. The word “woe” was a warning of coming disaster. It was a word of condemnation that portended something dreadful about to befall someone. 

The first woe is in verse 42: “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.”

Jesus said, “You are meticulous when it comes to tithing. You even give a tenth of the herbs on the kitchen counter. But you don’t treat people with fairness nor with the love of God. You should practice your tithing without neglecting fairness and love.”

The second woe is in verse 43: “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.” They loved to be noticed and respected by people, but they had no sense of humility before God.

The third woe is in verse 44: “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.” In Jewish tradition, if you walked over a human grave, you were ceremonially defiled. So gravesites were clearly marked. Jesus said, “You yourselves defile the people you come into contact with. People rub shoulders with you and it makes them think they’ve been with a godly person, but your influence has only damaged them. To put it as bluntly as Jesus intended, He said, “You are walking dead people who defile everyone who comes into contact with you.”

That barrage of three “woes” silenced the Pharisee. But there was another person at the table. He was a biblical scholar, and he joined the conversation, saying, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also” (verse 45). So Jesus turned to him and unloaded the next three “woes.”

In verse 46, Jesus started a new set of woes, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”

The Pharisee and experts of the law had created so many rules that it was impossible to keep them all. They were trying to make people holy from the outside in, and the pressure from all the rules was backbreaking. 

Jesus continued with His fifth “woe” in verses 47-52: “Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your ancestors did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.”

Jesus is accusing the Pharisee and legal experts of opposing those who were truly inwardly godly, even to the point of violence. 

Finally, He said in verse 52: “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” These religious leaders had never taught God’s Word in its richness or fullness. They had only developed external commands that didn’t transform the heart. And with that, Jesus got up and left.

The story ends: “When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say” (verses 53-54).

3. The Heart

All of us have witnessed some aggressive arguments. I’ll be honest and tell you that when I see a heated conflict like this, it sends my nerves into a tailspin. I slide right into a panic attack. And yet I’m glad I witnessed this one. It reinforces what Samuel said to Jesse about his sons: “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

This was the point of the Sermon on the Mount. Adultery is not just a matter of outward immorality; it’s a matter of having a heart that fantasizes lust. It’s not just about murdering a person; it’s about hatred in your heart.

Jesus said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8). He said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them” (Matthew 18:19-20).

The Bible says, “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 26:9).

Recently my grandson and I went to the gym to work out, and we popped into the sauna. A couple of guys were in there, sweating away and talking about their tattoos. One guy pointed to his chest and said, “This is my first tattoo and my favorite one. It’s a verse from the Bible.”

I asked him what verse, and he said, “It’s Isaiah 40:31,” and he quoted it from memory: “Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will mount up on wings like eagles; they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not be faint.” 

I asked him why he had chosen that verse. He said when he was a teenager in high school playing basketball he wanted to get a tattoo, but he lived with his grandparents and he knew they would be upset. But he also knew his grandmother’s favorite Bible verse was Isaiah 40:31. She was always quoting it. 

So he snuck out somewhere and had that verse engraved on his chest. “What did your grandmother say?” I asked. He smiled from ear to ear and said, “She loved it!” He was so friendly, I took the opportunity of asking him a question: “Is your tattoo—is that verse—more than skin deep?”

He thought a moment and grinned and said, “Yeah, I think it is.

A holy and upright and God-fearing life is more than skin deep. It’s not a matter of what’s on the outside, but what’s on the inside. That that only happens when the Holy Spirit gets hold of us!

Years ago I heard a Victorious Christian Life speaker share the difference between an apple tree and a Christmas tree. The Christmas tree looks beautiful with its lights and tinsel and ornaments. But the tree is dead. It’s cut off from the roots and sitting in a pot of water; it may even be artificial. The fruit tree, by contrast, is rooted and grounded and the ornaments that it bears comes from within. The apples are produced by the internal God-ordained operations of His laws of nature.

Lots of people appear to be Christians. They may call themselves Christians. They may be Protestant, Orthodox, or Catholic. They may attend mass or worship. They may be members of a church. They may even have moral codes that align with biblical teaching. But they are like Christmas trees—dead on the inside even while they are decorated with the trinkets and trimmings of external Christianity.

When we truly understand that knowing Jesus requires a total transformation of our interior life, we’re able to see ourselves as we are, confess our sins, and ask Jesus to renovate our hearts. The Holy Spirit comes and begins a work inside of us.

One of the greatest ways we can cooperate is by praying for the Spirit’s work in our lives. Listen to what Jesus said: “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:9-13 NLT).

We are to ask God for the Holy Spirit to invade, to overrun, to penetrate, to permeate our hearts. The word “disciple” disappears from the pages of the Bible in the book of Acts. It just evaporates, and it is replaced by the concept of being Christ-centered and Spirit-filled.

  It’s true that Jesus told His disciples to “go into all the world and make disciples.” He was using Gospel era language. For a little while, that terminology continued. But something happened to the New Testament vocabulary as we thumb our way through the Bible. The word disciple is not found anywhere in the first five chapters of Acts. It shows up in chapters 6, 9, 11, 23, 24, 16, 18, 19, and 20. Then it occurs for the final time in the Bible in Acts 21:4. In that verse, Luke says, “We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days.” 

That is the last time in the Bible that the discipleship group of words occurs. Remarkably we never again read of disciples, discipleship, or discipling. The apostle Paul does not use any of those terms even once in his thirteen epistles, nor is it found in Hebrews, Peter, James, John, Jude, or Revelation.

The word disciple was a literal Gospel term that implied following Jesus and learning from Him. That’s what the original disciples did, and that idea lingered through the early days of the Acts of the Apostles. But as these early believers realized more and more the role of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, there was a progression of thought. 

As Paul presented the essence of the Christian experience, it wasn’t just following Christ and learning from Him. It was letting Christ Himself come into your life by means of His Holy Spirit so that Jesus could live His life through you. 

We are convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and born again by the action of the Holy Spirit on our personalities. And then the Holy Spirit sets to work conforming—rather transforming—us into the image of Christ from the inside out. And the purpose and plans He has for us are accomplished by the Holy Spirit working within us.

The Bible says, “And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him [Christ] as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NLT). 

The apostle Paul told us to be filled with the Spirit; to walk by the Spirit; to be led by the Spirit; to keep in step with the Spirit; to live by the Spirit; to pray in the Spirit; to let our minds be governed by the Holy Spirit; and to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 5:16; Galatians 5:18; Galatians 5:25; 1 Corinthians 3:1; Ephesians 6:18; Romans 8:6; Galatians 5:22-23).

How can we do all this? It begins when we really let Jesus have all there is of our hearts. And sometimes the Lord exercises spiritual discipline to get us to that point. He used harsh verbal discipline with the Pharisee, but sometimes He has His ways of tearing into us. And when Jesus tears into us, He goes straight for the heart.

My friend, J. T. Latham, went to church and had a personal relationship with Christ, but he had a half-hearted commitment to doing God’s will. He knew how the Lord was trying to lead him, and he simply said, “No.” It was a bit like Jonah. And, like Jonah, J.T. was thrown off a ship. But unlike Jonah, it happened during his honeymoon.

J.T. and his girlfriend, Mariana, got married in May 2018, and boarded a cruise for their honeymoon. Their first stop was Bermuda, and they left the ship for a couple of hours to enjoy the beautiful pink sand beach. But then they decided to return to the ship and lounge by the pool. But when the authorities ran his backpack through the scanners, they found a 38-caliber silver bullet. To this day, J.T. has no idea how it got there.

In front of a thousand passengers who were reboarding the ship, J.T. was led away to jail, with his frantic wife following them. When the ship sailed without them, Mariana found a hotel room but J.T. spent much of his honeymoon in a cell in Bermuda.  

“While I was sitting in the cell, all I could think of was Joseph, who was arrested for something he didn’t do. I thought of Paul for being in jail many, many times. And I thought, ‘God, why am I being persecuted like this? What did I do? What is going on here?’ So all I could do was pray – that was how I sought comfort. I knew He was with me, but I was angry and upset. I didn’t know why this was happening.

“But all of a sudden I heard His voice loud as could be. I just sat up on my little concrete slab that was a bed and began praying, and I just said, ‘I’m all yours! I’m done running now, I know that this was your way of getting my attention. I’m sorry that I was running, but if you want to use me, I’m all Yours. When you get me out of here, just open the doors and I will walk with You the entire way.’

“At that moment I heard one of the police officers walking down the aisle of cells and I whistling a familiar tune. It was “Amazing Grace.” I knew it was an incredible sign of knowing this was all from God. I realized He was willing to do whatever it took to get hold of all there was to my heart.”

J.T. and Mariana eventually made it home, but they were different people. The Lord Jesus doesn’t fool around. When He tears into you, he goes straight for the heart.

In my own experience, I spend a few minutes every day in my morning Quiet Time rededicating myself to Christ and asking God for a fresh indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I grew up singing about this. We used to sing invitational hymns—hymns especially designed for us to use in giving our lives afresh to the Lord. Adelaide A. Pollard wrote:

Have Thine Own Way, Lord,

Have Thine Own Way.

Thou art the Potter,

I am the clay. 

Mold me and make me

After Thy will, 

While I am waiting,

Yielded and still.

Have Thine Own Way, Lord,

Have Thine Own way.

Hold o’er my being

Absolute sway.

Fill with Thy Spirit

Till all shall see

Christ, only, always,

Living in me. 

A prayer similar to that, offered sincerely, presented to Christ daily, will allow the Lord to open our eyes, flood our personalities with light, and make sure that our Christianity is more than skin deep.

The post At Home With the Second Pharisee appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home with the First Pharisee

When we grasp the measure of grace we’ve received, we’ll greet each day with fresh gratitude.

In politics we have Republicans, Democrats, and a handful of others. Among churches we have Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, and a myriad of others. Wherever and however humans gather, we come from different backgrounds, develop various convictions, and hold assorted opinions. Discovering the roots of our movements usually involves a fascinating cast of historical characters, some good and some… well, not so good.

The same was true in the Israel of our Lord’s Day.

Among the Jews, one of the most important denominations/political parties was the Pharisees. Most scholars believe the word “Pharisee” is related to a Hebrew word meaning “To separate, to be separate.” In several ways, I identify with these Pharisees. They sought a holy lifestyle and wanted to preserve a conservative doctrine. They were strangely drawn to Christ, and after the resurrection many of them became His followers (Acts 15:5).

These various Jewish sects are absent from the Old Testament. They developed during the time between the Old and New Testaments, apparently during and after the period of the Maccabees. 

Here’s a simple history. When the Old Testament ended about 400 B.C., Israel was under the domination of the Persian Empire. About a hundred years later, Alexander the Great swept over the area and created his Greek / Macedonian Empire. When he died at age 33, his kingdom was divided among his four top generals, and for many years Israel was the rope in a brutal tug of war between Egypt and Syria. When the Syrians pushed Israel to the brink of desperation, the family of the Maccabees rose up in rebellion and amazingly led Israel to independence under the Hasmonean dynasty. 

This may be new history to you, but you’ve probably heard of Hanukkah. This celebration, which occurs during the Christian Christmas season, commemorates the rededication of the Jewish Temple after the Maccabean victory. The word “Hanukkah” comes from a Hebrew verb meaning “to dedicate.” This is also called the Festival of Lights because it involved the relighting of the Menorah. 

Israel governed itself from 142 B.C. until 62 B.C., but the nation splintered into many divisions and collapsed into civil war. The Roman general Pompey intervened and captured Jerusalem in 63 B.C., and that’s why Jesus was born into an Israel occupied by the Romans.

During the fleeting years of independence (142 – 62 B.C.), some of the divisions resulted in the formation of groups such as the Pharisees, who feared the Greek influence of Hellenization was corrupting the faith of the Jewish people. The earliest reference we have to groups such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes come from the pages of the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote just after the time of Christ.

The Pharisees were quite popular in Jesus’ day and were considered “The People’s Party,” as opposed to the aristocratic Sadducees and the politically extreme Zealots. They longed for the nation to be holy, but their idea of holiness was more external than internal.

I’ll share more about these groups later, but it’s interesting that the Gospel of Luke records, not one or two, but three dinners Jesus had with three different Pharisees who invited Him into their homes.

The first invitation is recorded in Luke 7. Jesus went, and things took an interesting term when an uninvited guest slipped in.

Has that ever happened to you?

One day I showered, shaved, and pulled on a pair of jeans. My adult grandson, Jordan, was living with me. We had only recently met, but that’s a long story. Anyway, I was wearing only a pair of jeans when I went through the house and saw a strange woman standing in the living room. We both froze, then I said, “Who are you?” She nervously explained she was Jordan’s mother, whom I’d never met. I greeted her, then ducked into the bedroom to don shoes and shirt.

We aren’t used to having strangers walk into our homes, but it wasn’t like that in biblical times. Commentator David Garland helped me understand the cultural setting for the story of Simon the Pharisee. He wrote, “Ancient life was lived in public, not behind walls. A large home would have a courtyard with rooms surrounding it and opening onto it, and perhaps a small dining room. Entertainment was a public affair and the doors of the house would be wide open; those not invited to the meal were free to wander in.”

With that in mind, let’s look at our Lord’s visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7, starting with verse 36: “When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.”

Luke doesn’t tell us the nature of the woman’s sins. We’re apt to assume she was a town prostitute, but there are many sins and many kinds of sinfulness. Luke doesn’t tell us because he wants us to put ourselves in her place. The more we see of Jesus, the more guilty we feel. When Jesus performed the miracle of the abundant catch of fish, Peter fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord; for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8).

One of the major failures of contemporary people is that we see ourselves as suffering from anxiety, depression, bipolar disorders, eating disorders, obsessive behavior, poor self-image, and all other sorts of psychological maladies, any of which may be true. But we seldom see ourselves as sinners, people whose everyday behavior falls short of the glory of God. 

Yet that is our chief problem!

When we grasp the measure of grace we’ve received, we’ll greet each day with gratitude. But at some point it’s necessary to realize just how lousy, defective, wrong, and evil we really are. As I was growing up, preachers called this “conviction of sin,” a term I seldom hear now. When were you last convicted of sin?

This woman was under intense conviction. Verse 38 says, “ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.” This was the only way she knew to repent. This was her act of repentance. Somehow she knew Jesus could help her feel clean, whole, and truly happy for the first time in her life.

She poured oil and perfume on the Lord’s feet, perhaps thinking of Isaiah 52:7, which she had probably heard in the Jewish context of her life: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

The custom of washing a guest’s feet had been practiced for at least 2000 years. The first biblical mention of the practice is Genesis 18:4, when Abraham washed the feet of the very same Son of God. In that passage, three men showed up at Abraham’s tent. He later understood two were angels, and the third was the Lord Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ prior to His conception and birth. He would sometimes appear in the biblical story of Israel in human form. Abraham washed His feet then, and now, 2000 years later, the sinful woman was doing the same.

We have fragments of a first-century Greek document entitled Callirhoe [Cal-er-hoe]. It’s what we would call today a historical romance novel. One of the scenes shows the heroine Callirhoe entering the shrine of Aphrodite and placing her hands and face on the goddess’ feet. She lets down her hair and kisses the image’s feet. 

So what the woman was doing in Luke 7 wasn’t outside the cultural patterns for her time. In sorrow for her sins and in adoration of Him who brought good news and proclaimed peace, she washed his feet with her tears and perfume, and wiped them with her hair. Six times this passage mentions this woman’s handling of the Lord’s feet. She was humbled, convicted, and worshipping the only one who could help her.

Simon, however, was horrified. Verse 39 says, “When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.’”

He didn’t speak those words aloud. He said them to himself. But the Lord Jesus knows how to read faces, and He knows how to discern our thoughts. He looked at His host and said, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

Pause a moment and place yourself in the scene. If Jesus could read your face and discern your thoughts, He might say, “(Robert – Heather – Blake…), I have something to say to you.” 

What do you think He would say? What area of your life would He want to address? Application-centered Bible study is simply a matter of putting ourselves into the text and letting it speak directly to us. How often we need to find a verse and put our names in it!

Simon invited the Lord to proceed, and it gave rise to one of Christ’s powerful parables.

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Jesus asked Simon two questions, the first about which of the debtors most loved the one who had forgiven them. But His second question is more subtle: “Do you see this woman?” Obviously Simon saw her—she was the unwanted center of attention—but did he really see her? And do we? Do we really see the people around us as hurting and needing a Savior? Do we see them with compassion?

Simon had failed as a host. He had not given the traditional kiss of hospitality to Jesus, nor had he offered oil for His face or water for His feet. This breach in etiquette indicates that Simon invited Jesus, not to honor Him, but to scrutinize Him. The Lord turned the tables on him. Jesus scrutinized His guest and found him to lack any awareness of his own sins, and not only that. Simon didn’t have sufficient compassion to desire the healing of those who did recognize their shortcomings.

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

I’m an advocate for what is called “early high Christology”—the view that Jesus thought of Himself as God and His followers came to the same conclusion early in the Christian story. Our Lord’s proclamation of forgiveness of sins assumes His deity. Against whom had this woman sinned? She had sinned against the moral laws of almighty God, and only God could forgive her. Jesus assumed that right. He forgave her and saved her on the basis—not of her tears or perfume or hair—but on the basis of her faith.

And she loved Him dearly for it.

This story leaves me a bit frustrated, for even though I battle with my own episodes of guilt and shame, I’m not sure I realize the level of my own inner corruption. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Isaiah 64:6 says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”

We needn’t grovel in past sins once-for-all forgiven, but we do need to ask the Lord, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).

One of the paradoxes of the Christian life is simultaneously recognizing the extent of our guilt and the extent of God’s grace. Ruth Bell Graham once said to me, “The closer you get to Heaven, the more you feel of Hell.” Not understanding, I asked her to explain. She said, “The closer you become to the Lord, the more you see the level of your own corruption and the more horrified you feel about even so-called small sins.”

I thought of that conversation when I recently read of a meeting her husband, Billy, had with a handful of Christian leaders. In 1979, Dr. Graham organized a prayer meeting at a hotel to pray for America and the upcoming elections. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ was there. So were pastors Charles Stanley and Adrian Rogers, along with evangelist James Robison. 

The group met around a large rectangular table, and they discussed the weakened condition of America and its leadership. Growing international threats created an ominous sense of urgency, and the men prayed for God’s will, for His presence and intervention in our nation.

About midway through the two-day session, Dr. Graham looked at everyone and said, “Can I ask y’all something? Do any of you men feel holy? I mean, do you feel holy? Because I’ve got to tell you, men, I don’t. I don’t feel holy. I don’t know if I’m a holy man.”

When no one responded, Billy continued, “I know holy people. I think my wife, Ruth, is holy. And her parents, who are missionaries, I think they’re holy. And I know some other people who I think are holy. But I don’t know that I’m holy.”

At that, Adrian Rogers let his hand fall on the tabletop and his head slumped forward, and he said, “Billy, if you’re not holy, what about all of us!”

The men began praying with a renewed sense of vigor, saying, “God, we want to be holy. Whatever that looks like, we want Your will….”

I’ve often thought of Dr. and Mrs. Graham. She said the closer to heaven she got, the more she was sensitive to sin in her life; and her husband said he didn’t feel he was a holy man.

I can identify, can’t you? 

On the one hand, when we come to Jesus Christ we’re declared holy in His sight because of the cleansing power of His blood. On the other hand, we’re not yet as holy in our condition in this world as we are in our position in our Lord. We are growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). We are pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us (Philippians 3:12). The Lord is in the process of sanctifying us through and through (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

How do we handle the paradox of being positionally holy and conditionally unholy at the same time?

May I offer two suggestions.

First, cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He who has begun a good work in you carries it on to completion (Philippians 1:6). Become more sensitive to sin, more conscious of God’s Word and His will, and more impressionable by the godly Scriptures you read, books you study, and Scriptures you absorb. 

Second, try to grasp the measure of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Throughout the course of my life, I’m grateful the Lord has kept me from scandalous sins that could have wrecked my ministry and brought reproach to the Lord. But I’ve made mistakes. I’ve overreacted in tense moments. I’ve hurt people. I’ve done and said things I regret. Some of my decisions were shortsighted and damaging. 

The older I become, the more these failures come back to haunt me.

What helps me are the visual images given to us in the Bible illustrating the vast, boundless nature of grace. In the parable at Simon’s house, Jesus likened God’s forgiveness to canceling a debt (Luke 7:42). If it’s cancelled, you no longer have to think about it, worry about it, or fret over it. 

The Bible also says God blots out our sins (Acts 3:19); He washes and cleanses us (1 John 1:9); He frees us from the prison of guilt (Isaiah 61:1); He hurls our sins into the sea (Micah 7:18-19); He throws them behind His back (Isaiah 38:17); He sends them from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12); He abundantly pardons us and makes us white as snow (Isaiah 1:18 and 55:7).

The greatest image in my mind is that of the Red Sea, crashing down on the pursuing armies of Egypt. Moses had liberated the Israelites from bondage, from shame, from their bitter slavery in Egypt. They had seen the slaying of the Passover lambs, foreshadowing the death of Christ. When trapped at the Red Sea, the sea parted and formed great walls of congealed water and the Israelites crossed to the other side on dry ground.

But Satan didn’t want to let them go, and Pharoah sent his army into the supernatural corridor to recapture them. But the walls of water collapsed and the enemy disappeared under the overwhelming flood. 

When I’m tempted to feel guilty or ashamed about anything in my past, I just look backward to see nothing but the swelling depths of the Red Sea of the blood of my Savior. That’s all I see. And I’m grateful.

Aren’t you?

When we grasp the measure of grace we’ve received, we’ll greet each day with fresh gratitude.

The post At Home with the First Pharisee appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home with Martha – Part 2

Hello everyone. When life speeds up, we need to slow down. We need to learn to have a quiet space in our lives when we simply listen to Jesus. Today we’re returning to the home of Martha and the city of Bethany just outside of Jerusalem.

Let’s look at the story in Luke 10:38-42:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I read something about trees the other day that I’d never heard before—trees never stop growing. As they as they live, they keep getting taller, and they keep adding branches and leaves, and they keep adding rings of bark around their trunks. The wonderful thing about love is that it never reaches any limitations. Our love for people—for our spouse and children and friends—should be stronger and deeper and richer with every passing year.

Our love for the Lord Jesus is like that. To the best of my ability to know my own heart, I think I love the Lord Jesus now more than I ever have. I think many believers can say that. What a wonderful life—to be submissive to His will and to be devoted to Him.

But the primary purpose in Luke 10 of Mary’s sitting at Jesus’ feet was communion—to listen to Him. Look again at the way Mark puts it: “She (Martha) had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what He said.”

She was having her quiet time. She was having her Bible study. She was in the prayer closet. She was feeding on her morning manna.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wrote a book about this and said her first exposure to the Quiet Time was from her dad. She wrote, “Early in my Christian life, I learned about one of the most essential ingredients in nurturing a relationship with God, as I became aware that my father began each day with a practice that he called his ‘devotions.’

“A businessman with many demands on his time, and active in ministry of many kinds, my father was not one to spend time frivolously. Yet somehow, in the midst of an extremely active and busy household, and with incessant demands of travel and meetings, there was one constant in his life – he never got started into the business of the day without first having spent an hour or more alone with the Lord. 

“I don’t recall ever actually being with him during those times – though I frequently did see him reading his Bible – but somehow we all knew that his time in the Word and prayer was more important to him than any other activity of his day. As I got older, I learned something of how this had come to be such an indispensable part of her of his life.”

Nancy said that during his teenage and young adult years, her father had become addicted to gambling, and he moved from one gambling spot to another. This destroyed his values and brought heartache to his parents. Then one night in his mid-twenties, having made a mess of his life, he heard and responded to the Gospel.

“Early in his Christian life, he was challenged to give the first part of every day to the Lord and the word and in prayer period from that day until the day he went to heaven twenty-eight years later, he never missed one single day of this devotional practice.”

He learned how to sit at Jesus’ feet.

It must be true for all of us. The best way to be fresh and refreshing to others is to learn to sit at the Lord’s feet with an open Bible in front of us, and to meet with Him personally every day so that He can give us a word for our own hearts.

Many of us are like Martha—distracting, doubting, feeling sorry for ourselves, worried, and upset. Jesus says to us, “One thing is needful—to sit at My feet in submission, devotion, and communion.”

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

Come unto Me and rest.

Lay down, thou weary one, lay down,

Thy head upon my breast.

I came to Jesus as I was

Weary, worn, and said.

I found in Him a resting place,

And He hath made me glad.

In the Bible college I attended, the administration and faculty placed enormous emphasis on teaching us to have our “Quiet Time.” I’d never heard that term before. Perhaps you haven’t either. It’s a practice that, on one level, goes all the way back to the earliest eras of Biblical history—in fact, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. There God spoke with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, fellowshipping with them.

On another level, the practice of the Quiet Time is sometimes traced back to the 1870s, “when American evangelicals merged two previously separate Puritan devotional practices: private prayer and private Bible Study.”

In 1877, G. H. Wilkinson’s wrote a little book called, Instructions in the Devotional Life. He said, “Set apart a certain time for this work every day. For beginners, a quarter of an hour is enough. Choose the most quiet time. The morning is best; it is more difficult to fix our attention later in the day. Thank God if you can secure a quiet time—a quiet place….”

Howard went on to divide this quiet time into six parts: (1) Read a passage of Scripture; (2) Kneel down reverently and realize you are in God’s presence; (3) Submit your will and put yourself in God’s hands; (4) Picture the scene you read about in the Bible. Meditate on that passage before the Lord. Think about what you have read; (5) Seek one lesson for your life from the passage. (6) Speak to God for the rest of the time in prayer.

The term “Quiet Time” became widespread in the 1940s when InterVarsity published a little booklet entitled Quiet Time. 

Well, I’ve been having my Quiet Time since I was nineteen years old, and my wife Katrina was also committed to having her daily devotions. Every morning she would go to her desk and I’d go to mine. I wrote about this in my book, Mastering Life Before It’s Too Late:

My morning devotions are vital to my state of mind as I prepare for the day. Everyone’s schedule is different; our obligations in life vary from person to person. Your “morning devotions” might happen during the lunch hour, at bedtime, or at some other regular spot on your daily agenda….

The Bible says, “Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway” (Proverbs 8:34). Isaiah said, “In the morning my spirit longs for you… Be our strength every morning… The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught” (Isaiah 26:9; 33:2; 50:4).

Between the covers of our Bibles we have access to a document more accurate and life altering than any prepared for a Head of State. It’s more relevant to our needs than any summary of the news, and more encouraging than any top-secret file. It provides more wisdom than any intelligence report…. As we sit at the kitchen table and pour over God’s Word, the Lord Himself comes to meet with us. This is a prime opportunity to “practice the presence of God.”

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

My morning Appointment has been the anchor to my every day. We all need our diversions, but we need our devotions more. If I miss my Divine Appointment with the Lord, I go through the day feeling something is missing; so I try to never miss a morning, and certainly to never miss two in a row. Whether at home or traveling, whether working or on vacation, I don’t want to neglect my regular meeting with the Lord. I agree with the old Puritan, Stephen Charnock, who said that even if the foundations of the world were ripped up and the heavens clatter and collapse, we can maintain stability in our lives because our durability doesn’t depend on the changeableness of the times but on the unchangeable rock of the truth of God.

In its essence, our daily devotions represent a personal Appointment with our Father and Friend, in which we converse with Him—talking to Him in prayer and listening to Him by reading and meditating on His Word. The core of daily devotions is a living friendship with Almighty God, which Christ provided through His death and resurrection.

In terms of technique, everyone develops their daily devotional habits a little differently just as all our friendships have their own unique patterns. For the sake of practicality, I’ll tell you how I go about it, but you’ll enjoy developing your own patterns. We’re all different, but here’s what I do. Each morning, after I rise and shower and have a light breakfast, I sit down at the walnut desk my Uncle Tom Morgan, a woodcrafter, made for me when I was a child. On the adjacent windowsill are a couple of study Bibles, a hymnbook, and a small selection of devotional books….

I usually begin the Appointment with some simple journaling, jotting the date, a few notes about the day before or the one just beginning, and listing the passage I’m coming to in my daily Bible reading. Offering a quick prayer asking the Lord to speak to me in His Word, I open my Bible to where I left off the day before. I’m in no hurry to rush through a passage, so I may spend several days in the same paragraph. On other days I might read several chapters. My goal is finding some spiritual nourishment for the day, some verse that speaks to me. I’ll often make a few notes in my journal, or copy the verse into my notebook, or turn the passage into a prayer I jot down.

Sometimes I spend the time memorizing the passage…. When we memorize passages, the Word of God sinks into our unconscious and subconscious thoughts and allows the Holy Spirit to work around the clock in the deepest regions of our hearts and minds.

Occasionally I’ve worked through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, but usually I just choose a book at a time…

.

Having spent time – typically between ten to thirty minutes—meditating on God’s Word, I turn my focus to prayer. It helps to visualize the Lord Jesus close at hand, and to talk to Him as if He were really there—which, of course, He is…. 

I do find prayer lists helpful. I have a number of them in my journal—for personal needs, for family members, for missionaries, for prodigals, for any number of other things. I don’t cover every item every day, but I talk with the Lord about what’s most on my heart, using my lists to keep me from forgetting to pray often for those things that represent my “daily bread.” In time, these prayer lists become praise lists and serve as an ongoing record of answered prayer.

Having spent time in the Word and in conversing with the Lord, I often conclude my Appointment by reading from an inspirational book or by singing or reading the words to a hymn…. 

At the end of the day, my work behind me, I frequently repeat the process in briefer fashion, and often recite the Lord’s Prayer before falling asleep. Prayer truly is, as it’s been said, the key to the morning and the bolt of the evening….

[There is one other thing I do each morning during my Quiet Time]. The Bible says, “Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence” (Ecclesiastes 8:3)… Before I leave the conscious presence of God at the end of my morning Quiet Time, I take a few moments to prayerfully look at my lists of obligations and my calendar. Taking a little four-by-six card, I scratch out a plan. You can do this on an electronic device, of course. I use a card because I stick it in my pocket and carry it with me all day.

After briefly considering my priorities and agenda, I jot at the top of that card the [things] I most need to accomplish that day. That becomes my plan for the day.

In just two or three minutes, or five or ten at most, at the end of our Morning Devotions as we segue from the mountaintop to the workplace or classroom, so to speak, we can devise a plan for our day that will serve as a blueprint for the hours before us. This is harkening back to a verse I mentioned earlier—Psalm 143:8: “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go.”

I’m Martha by nature, but my daily Quiet Time is when I put on my Mary profile. We need Martha’s diligence combined with Mary’s devotion. We need time at the Master’s feet, especially now because of the acceleration of the busyness of life. So remember, When the demands of life increase, what you most need is quiet time with the Lord. Thank you for pouring into the riches of the Bible with me!

The post At Home with Martha – Part 2 appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home with Martha

Hello everyone. When the demands of life increase, what you most need is quiet time with the Lord. That’s our topic as we visit the ancient town of Bethany very close to Jerusalem and enter the house of a woman named Martha, who is in a stew. You’ll find that story in Luke chapter 10. 

Greater Jerusalem currently occupies about one hundred square miles, at the heart of which sits the Old City. Whenever I’m in the Old City, I feel transported back in time. There are four quarters. The largest is the Muslim Quarter, colorful and chaotic. The Jewish Quarter has an ancient elegance to it. The Christian and Armenian Quarters are smaller and filled with quaint shops. Bustling about are pilgrims, tourists, residents, children, animals, and vendors selling falafels and shawarmas, antiquities and jewelry, and all sorts of paraphernalia. The evocative Muslim call to prayer wails from minarets at the appointed hour.

The Temple Mount covers thirty-seven acres on the eastern side of the Old City. It’s the ancient site of the Jewish Temple, the modern site of two Muslim holy places; and when I walk across it I feel I’m walking across the powder keg of history. The lower retaining wall of the Temple Mount dates to the days of Herod the Great and is called the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall where Jews and others from around the world come to pray.

Just to the east of the Temple Mount and the Old City is the deep ravine known as the Kidron Valley, and its eastern slopes rise upward to form the dramatic ridge known as the Mount of Olives. The town of Bethany is about two miles away, to the southeast. Today it’s a Palestinian town called Al-Azaria (“The Place of Lazarus”). It should be a short walk, but that’s no longer possible.

I visited there two or three times in the 1970s when Bethany became part of the West Bank territory under Israeli control. But in 1993, the Oslo Accords took effect and Bethany fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. In 2002, a separation wall was built on the route, making it very difficult to visit, especially for groups. As of today, visitors have to take a detoured route and pass through security checkpoints.

What I remember most about visiting Bethany in the 1970s is a woman who would beckon us through the gate of her small one-room dwelling. In the courtyard was a small wood stove, and inside the house were mattresses stacked up in the corner. Children of all ages were everywhere, and the woman told us that at night they spread out the mattresses and sleep together in that room. In the morning, they stack the mattresses in the corner and use the room for living space.

It reminded me of the man in our Lord’s parable in Luke 11, whose neighbor came knocking on the door at midnight. The man inside whispered back, “Don’t trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise…” (Luke 11:7 NKJV).

In the days of Jesus, Bethany was a busy little town, sitting on the main road from Jericho to Jerusalem, and Jesus often stayed there with His friends, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, who were siblings. Simon the Leper also lived there, whom we’ll visit in a later episode. Nearby was the cemetery where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and the tomb of Lazarus is still there. Is it actually Lazarus’ tomb? It’s quite possible. It was identified as such in the early 300s, according to Eusebius of Caesarea, and archeologists have confirmed the site as being in a first-century graveyard with caves and tombs. 

The problem is that today’s street level is higher than it was in the first century, and when I visited I had to walk down a long flight of steep, narrow tunnels of steps into a dark hole. This isn’t the original entrance to the tomb. Centuries before, a church was built over the tomb, and the church later became a mosque. Since Christian pilgrims can’t go through the mosque, a new entrance was cut down through the rock into the tomb. So there’s no longer any kind of graveyard look to the place. Only a lot of shabby buildings, one of which had a door that opens to the deep tunnel of stairs leading to the tomb.

Nearby are ruins of ancient houses, which are said to be the houses of Mary, Martha, and Simon the Leper, although we can’t authenticate that. All we can say is that these piles of rubble made up ancient Bethany. But somewhere among the ruins of these timeworn sites was a house belonging to a woman named Martha. And that’s the house we’re going to visit today.

The New Testament heroine, Martha, reminds me very much of my mother, Edith Palmer Morgan. Both were hardworking women who cared deeply for others and wanted everything just right. Both loved the Lord Jesus and wanted to serve Him. Both often wore themselves out with work and worry.

In the case of Martha, she almost overdid it, and the Lord issued a mild and loving word of correction to help her recalibrate and rehabilitate her life, so that it became even healthier and more balanced. “One thing is needful,” He told her.

Let’s look at the story in Luke 10:38-42:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

If I were to ask you to tell me Martha’s problem, what would you say? I don’t think she had one single problem. I think it was a series of five overlapping problems that we can uncover by a careful reading of this text. Luke gives us clues here as to Martha’s nerves and state of mind.

The first was distraction. Look at the passage again: As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.

Of course she was distracted. If Jesus were coming to your house, you’d be distracted, too. When he was president, Jimmy Carter, in his travels to various cities, would sometimes stay in someone’s private home. He said that spending the night with a typical American family helped him stay in touch with what was really happening in the nation. He would sit in their living room and talk with them after supper, then sleep in the guest room. It was always a circus, with hundreds of reporters and secret service agents and the like, but it wasn’t a bad public relations idea.

If someone famous were coming to spend the night with me tonight, I’d be a nervous wreck trying to get everything ready. I have preschoolers living with me—great-grandchildren—and my house stays tidy only in rare one-minute increments. Well, what if the most important, the most famous, the most admired man in the history of the human race were coming to your house? Jesus Christ?

Now wonder Martha was distracted. The word used here in the New International Version—”distracted”—is translated “cumbered about” in the King James Version. The Greek word that Luke used is peristao (per-is-ta’-o), a compound of two smaller Greek words, the verb to draw or to pull, and the word around or away. It is the idea of being pulled in every direction. Verse 40 literally says that Martha was pulled in every direction. Some translations use words like “over-busy” or “over-occupied.”

Most of us can identify with that. We allow ourselves to become too busy, busier than God intends, busier than is necessary, busier than is wise. We feel pulled in all directions. That’s why so many people are tired today. It’s a problem I’ve never solved in my own routine. I don’t want to be bored; I want to be busy. But I’m usually too busy, and that brings on fatigue. The hardest thing in the world is for me to say “No.”

Kevin DeYoung wrote about a woman who came from another country to the United States and began to introduce herself as “Busy.” It was the first thing she heard from everyone she met. “Hello, I’m busy.” She thought that was part of our traditional greeting, so she told everyone she met that that’s who she was. He told that story in his book, Crazy Busy, which is one of many recent books addressing this subject. Other titles are…

Busy: How To Thrive in a World of Too MuchToo Busy for Your Own Good: Get More Done is Less TimeBreaking Busy: How to Find Peace and Purpose in a World of CrazyEffortless Anger Management for Busy ParentsThe Busy Leader’s HandbookBusy is a Four-Letter Word

I’m not recommending any of these books because I’ve been too busy to read them, but it does speak to the pace of life today. Yet it’s not new. Diligent people have always been busy, and that’s why Marthy was distracted.

Martha’s second difficulty was doubt. Look carefully at what she said to Jesus in verse 40: Martha was distracted (pulled in all directions) by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care…”

That was a little bit reproachful. She was casting a bit of blame on Jesus. Don’t you care? How often, while being pulled in all directions, do we momentarily doubt God’s power and presence and concern. If God really loved me, why would he let this happen? Does He care? Does anyone care? 

Let me tell you about a song written by evangelist Charles F. Weigle, who was born in Indiana in 1871. For years he was an itinerant preacher who enjoyed traveling and preaching despite the rigors of the road. His wife, however, grew disillusioned with her frequently absent husband, and one day Charles returned home to find this note: “Charlie, I’ve been a fool. I’ve done without a lot of things long enough. From here on out, I’m getting all I can of what the world owes me. I know you’ll continue to be a fool for Jesus, but for me it’s good-bye!”

Charles was stunned, for he deeply loved his wife. He found her with relatives, but despite his desperate appeals she would have nothing to do with him. Depression swept over him like a tidal wave, and one day, sitting on the porch of a cottage in Florida, he contemplated suicide. “Your work is finished,” said an inner voice. “No one cares….”

But another voice suddenly pierced his mental gloom: “Charlie, I haven’t forgotten you… I care for you—let not your heart be troubled.” Instantly Charles was on his knees, rededicating himself to Christ. He soon resumed his ministry. Five years later, his wife died under tragic circumstances. As Charles wrestled anew through his mixed feelings, the Lord so comforted him that he began writing the words of that wonderful song, which is one of my favorites. It’s also a favorite of my friend, Babbie Mason, who sings it beautifully.

I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus,

Since I found in Him a friend so strong and true.

I would tell you how He changed my life completely;

He did something no other friend could do.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus;

There’s no other friend so kind as He.

No one else could take the sin

And darkness from me;

O how much He cares for me.

A couple of years ago, I was feeling down in the dumps, and I looked up this word “care” in the Bible and wrote several verses down in my notebook. Let me share them with you. They come from various passages, here and there in the Bible:

No one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. ≈ The LORD your God cares… The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him. ≈ After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church. ≈ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you. ≈ Cast your cares on the LORD and He will sustain you. [Psalm 142:4; Deuteronomy 11:12; Nahum 1:7; Ephesians 5:29; 1 Peter 5:6-7; Psalm 55:22 (NIV)].

Martha’s third difficulty was self-pity. “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me?” Martha was clearly irritated. She gave her Lord and her sister “what-for,” and it was motivated by this feeling of: “I have all this work to do. The floor needs sweeping, the feet of the guests need washing, the bread needs slicing, the stew needs stirring, the table needs setting, the lamp needs oil, and I just cannot do it all by myself. No one is helping me.” Martha stewed and brooded about it until she snapped.

We’ve all felt that way, and I suppose all of us snapped at those around us. I confess I’ve done it many times. And, of course, Martha did need help. No one denies that. Many hands make light work. The running of a household and the entertaining of guests requires that every member of the family do his or her part.

But Martha’s agenda didn’t quite line up with the agenda of Jesus Christ. He wasn’t so concerned about the seasoning in the beans, the dust on the floor, or the way the napkins were folded. He was concerned that His life-changing Word got out, that those in the house hear what He had to say.

And that left poor Martha feeling abandoned in the kitchen where she fell into a very grudging mood of irritable self-pity: Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all this work by myself? Tell her to help me.

It reminds me of an incident in the life of a dear friend of mine who is now in Heaven, Mabel Willey, who served alongside her husband for many years in Cuba and Panama. While she was a student at Toccoa Falls Bible Institute, Mabel was elected president of the graduating class, a position that required a lot of time. As a parting gift to the school, the senior class voted to donate a gate for one of the entrances to the Institute, and Mabel found herself responsible for many details. In spite of her hard work no one else seemed interested, and all the other students were busy with their own concerns.

One morning she grew quite irritable, feeling sorry for herself. “Poor me!” she said, “I always have to do everything.” Knowing she needed a few minutes alone, she grabbed her Bible and hiked out to the falls. Arriving there, she complained to the Lord: “No one will help me, Lord. Please give me a verse just for me right now.”

She opened her Bible expecting to find a gracious verse of love and reassurance, but instead her eyes fell on Luke 17:10—So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”

Mabel said, “I walked back to the door with a changed attitude. As a result things began to fall into place and the project moved forward to completion.” It was a lesson she later recalled many times as a missionary to Cuba.

But there was a fourth problem in Martha’s attitude: Worry. Look at verse 41: “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried…”

Through the years, I myself have struggled with worry and anxiety, and I’ve found that it has helped me to collect definitions of what worry is. Let me read some of them for you.

Worry is a small trickle of fear that meanders through the mind until it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. —AnonymousWorry is putting question marks where God has put periods. —John R. RiceWorry is the interest we pay on tomorrow’s troubles. —E. Stanley JonesWorry is a form of atheism, for it betrays a lack of faith and trust in God. —Attributed to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Finally, Jesus noted that Martha was upset about many things. “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things.” I have the feeling that the “many things” included more than just the preparations for a meal. I think Martha was encumbered by many burdens. I believe there were pressures and problems in her life that had been building for some time, and that vexed and fretted her. The pressure of entertaining the Lord Jesus just provided the proverbial “last straw.” Under that pressure, she gave vent to fears and frustrations that had been building for some time. She was upset about many things.

Are you? No wonder we identify with Martha: She was pulled in all directions, she was questioning God’s power and goodness, she was sinking into self-pity, she was worried, and she was upset about many things. 

When We’re Like Mary

What did Jesus say to her? What was His prescription? What advice did He give for her nerves? He said: Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needful. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

There is only one cure for the Martha-syndrome—learning to sit quietly at the feet of Jesus, listening to his words. When the demands of life increase, what you most need is time alone with the Lord. The great lesson of this story is that being occupied with Christ is more important than being occupied for Christ, and it is certainly better than being preoccupied with self. 

We should never become so busy and upset that we neglect the cultivation of the soul, the time necessary in fellowship with the Lord.

How do we sit at Jesus’ feet? The phrase “at his feet” occurs sixteen times in the Bible, and it often implies an attitude of submission and trust. The first occurrence is in the book of Ruth when the maiden Ruth lies at the feet of her near-kinsman Boaz, indicating a position of submission and trust. When Queen Esther went to King Ahasuerus to plead for the survival of her people, the Jews, she fell at his feet. When the synagogue ruler Jairus came to Jesus to plead for healing for his little, dying daughter, he fell at Jesus’ feet. In the book of Revelation, when the apostle John was given a vision of the glorified Jesus, he fell on his face at the Lord’s feet in utter submission.

This is one of the reasons that we sometimes kneel when we pray. It is a sign of reverence and submission. Mary could have sat on the sofa next to Jesus and asked Him questions, but she had a quiet, trusting, submissive heart, and she expressed that by wanting to be at His feet. I love Henry Lyte’s classic hymn that says:

Praise my soul the King of Heaven

To His feet thy tribute bring

Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,

Evermore His praises sing.

How do we learn to sit at our Lord’s feet and have daily fellowship with Him? In next week’s episode, I’m going to offer some very practical advice about that, so stay tuned! Some of it will come from my book Mastering Life Before It’s Too Late. If you don’t have that book within easy reach on your bookshelf, why not add it to your collection.

The post At Home with Martha appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.