Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S4 || Fishers of Men and the Power of Faith || Mark 1:16-28 || Session 4 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Ever wondered what it truly means to walk away from a life you've always known for a new path filled with uncertainty and faith? Journey with us into the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, where Simon, Andrew, James, and John make the life-altering decision to leave their fishing nets behind and follow Jesus. This episode promises to unravel the sheer courage and commitment that such a decision requires, especially when their family's support played a crucial role. We explore how Jesus' growing reputation might have swayed these first disciples to embrace the unknown. Join us as we continue our exploration of Mark's Gospel, delving deeper into the many facets of Jesus' divine authority and influence.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Hello, this is Reasoning Through the Bible, where we go verse-by-verse through the Word of God. Today we're in the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. So if you have your copy of the Word of God, turn there. If you remember last time, we're in this gospel, which is the gospel of going and doing. It's a gospel of action and we're going to see more action today. We're going to dive right in at Mark 1.16. Steve, if you could read from verse 16 down to verse 20.
Speaker 2:As he was going along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea, for they were fishermen, and Jesus said to them Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. Immediately, they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were also in the boat mending the nets. Immediately, he called them and they left their father, zebedee, in the boat with the hired servants and went away to follow him.
Speaker 1:With this we have the calling of at least four of the disciples Simon and Andrew, james and John, two sets of brothers. It's interesting here how he called them. He walked up at least in Mark's gospel walks up and says follow me. He asked all of them to leave what they were doing, walk away from their business, walk away from their family business, which meant walk away from the family and follow him. He used this common fishing illustration here and he walks up to these people and says follow me and I will make you become a fisherman of men. It's very interesting here that he's asking them to leave all of the old way of life. What do you think of that, steve? Would that be easy or difficult? Would it be hard? When you walk away from the family business, it's probably one that had been for generations. They'd probably been fishermen. Walk away from the family business meant walking away from the family.
Speaker 2:I've often thought about this whenever the depiction of Jesus is calling his inner 12 disciples and how, when he does this, just like this depicts here, he says come follow me, and they drop everything and follow him. It takes a lot of courage and commitment to do that. However, as we look at this, jesus has been out doing miracles. His name is becoming greater. So it's not just him at the very beginning of his ministry, which is what I thought for many, many years. Okay, jesus is going to go start his ministry and now he's calling his 12 disciples.
Speaker 2:No, he's been out doing some miracles, been doing some healing, and his name is getting out there. There's already buzz and his name is getting out there. There's already buzz about that. This is possibly the Messiah, this is possibly the king that is coming to bring about the restored kingdom. When you put it in that context with me, it kind of makes a little bit more sense that, oh, here's this figure, messiah, the possible king. He's calling me to follow him. So here, I'm going to do that. It does take commitment and I'm not belittling that at all, but I think, with a little bit of context there of that his name was out there, makes a little bit more sense on why they would be eager to do it.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, though. He asked them to make sort of a clean break. Right, there's the old way of life that they're walking away from and then this new one, and he uses what they were doing. They were fishermen, so he uses this illustration. Jesus often used illustrations that people would recognize agricultural things. He spoke to common people and he used common illustrations Fishing.
Speaker 1:He says I will make you a fisher of men. Jesus took something plain and ordinary fishing and made it into something very, very special. He could ask us really to do the same thing. He could pick any of the things we do on a normal daily basis and say I'm asking you to walk away from that and do it for the kingdom. He asked us to follow him. So the question that each of us should ask ourselves am I prepared to follow him? Am I prepared to leave the old way of life and follow him? Jesus can't use halfway people. He doesn't want somebody with one foot in the fishing boat and one foot following him. Jesus can't use halfway people. He doesn't want somebody with one foot in the fishing boat and one foot following him. It doesn't work like that. You have to leave the old way of life and follow him.
Speaker 2:It's a clean break and if we follow him we'll catch more than we would have if we would have ever stayed back with the old life you know we should also, glenn, as you're talking there brings to mind that we should also commend their families, because we don't see any depiction of their families trying to bring them back. You said one foot in the fishing boat and one foot outside. It was a clean break. So here their fathers are.
Speaker 2:These are sons that are carrying on the family business and participating in the family business. Now they've left them and they've left two sons to go off and follow this person by the name of Jesus, but we don't see them trying to pull them back in and saying hey, you're a foolish, you're doing a foolish thing. We need for you to come back. You're leaving the business. We don't see that and in fact later, whenever we see Jesus heal Peter's mother-in-law, she's not there and trying to get in the way. So I think possibly we should also give a commendation to the families of these disciples and that they're also showing their support in a way of not trying to lower them back to what they formerly were doing.
Speaker 1:We don't really know what the family did, but we do know. Here it's a clean break in the sense I'm reminded of the other place in the gospel where one person said let me stay home until my father dies. Let me bury my father and then I'll follow you. Stay home until my father dies, let me bury my father and then I'll follow you. Jesus said let the dead bury their own dead. These disciples made a clean break, and it was sudden, it was immediate, and they left the old life. Look at the end of verse 19. James and John were doing something at the end of verse 19 when Jesus called them. What were they doing?
Speaker 2:They were mending their nets whenever Jesus came by and called them. What were they doing? They were mending their nets whenever Jesus came by and called them.
Speaker 1:As fishermen. They fished with nets, and the nets were made out of some sort of twine or string and they would periodically break or get old and need mending. Probably, most probably, one of the regular daily activities were to mend the nets to make sure they were still strong enough to catch fish for the next day. I find this interesting. What are they doing? They're fixing the old way of life. They're trying to repair the old life. He calls them and says no, I've got a whole new way of life for you. In a sense, that's what all of us is in. We either stay and try to keep fixing the old way, keep trying to mend the old way to try to make it work. You know what? Tomorrow you're going to have to mend it again and it's going to break again, and every day of your life you're going to have to keep trying to mend or fix the old way of life.
Speaker 1:Jesus says walk away from that. I'm going to give you a whole new life, a whole new way of doing that, and I find these great illustrations to be just so wonderful. He asked us to walk away from the old, broken way of life and follow him into the new path where we can catch more than we'd ever dreamed of. And it says then in verse 18, immediately they left their nets and followed him. They left their father, which means they left the family business. Imagine what would have happened if they would have said you know, this business is too important. We've got to establish things here. Don't want to offend anybody in my family. What would mom think? It's real comfortable here? That's kind of a radical thing on the road. I'm not really used to that Boy. It's just a lot more comfortable. Can I stay here and serve God, steve? Is it possible to stay back in the old way of life and still be part of Jesus' family?
Speaker 2:No, you have to turn from that old way of life and go and follow him. Now, when I say that I'm depicting the old way of life of the world and the worldly things and follow him and become more Christ-like. That's what I'm saying there. In our day it might be something likened to somebody being called into the ministry, where they feel a calling at a young age or maybe while they're in their 20s, or something of conviction that you know God is calling me to go and to be a pastor or a preacher or an evangelist or a missionary or something like that. I can see that type of thought process in their mind of telling their family that God is calling me to leave behind this, whatever it might be if it's a family, business or something else and go and follow and go into the ministry.
Speaker 2:I think that might be the closest thing that we can come to as to depicting what these individuals were doing here. Whenever the normal situation of somebody becoming a believer in Jesus Christ they don't necessarily have to leave their family, they don't necessarily have to leave their business, they just become a follower. But there are cultures, though, glenn and we've spoken about this before that whenever they actually do become a believer in Jesus Christ, and especially whenever they're baptized, because that's whenever they identify themselves as being a follower of Jesus Christ. Their families actually disown them. So it's a big decision for many, many people in the world cultures today to become a follower of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:I've met some of those people that it's a radical break when you start naming the name of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the extended family has issues with that. We must follow Jesus. Does he ask us the same question? Can we look ourselves in the mirror and say, hey, there's a time where I need to follow him? Does that happen, steve? Has Jesus asked you to follow?
Speaker 2:him. That's exactly what happens whenever you become a believer in Jesus Christ. You repent, you change your mind. That's what we talked about in one of our earlier lessons here. You change your mind about who Jesus is, what he did, what he has done, what his promises are, and you become a follower of him. Yeah, anytime that you place your belief in Jesus Christ, you automatically should become a follower of him.
Speaker 1:He asked them follow me and become a fisher of men. What does that mean? What is a fisher of men?
Speaker 2:I think it's a play on words. I think it's something to make them think about what they're doing. I mean, after all, what do you do with fish? You catch the fish, you take them and you sell them. It's for food, it's for the sustenance of people, but what do you do if you're a fisherman of man? You're changing their lives and you're having them become followers of Jesus Christ as well. I think it's a play on words, though, to give them the impact that they were going to have on people's lives by becoming followers in this inner circle of disciples with Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:If we were to follow the illustration through, the sea would be the world and the fish are the people in the world.
Speaker 1:The net would be the Word of God and our business is to go out throwing the Word of God into the world and trying to bring people into the kingdom.
Speaker 1:That's what it means to be a fisher of men. We are to be about the kingdom business, which is going out to people in the world, presenting to them the Word of God and getting them to come into and be members of the royal family in the kingdom as followers of Jesus Christ. We are to be about doing what Jesus did, which was to get people to leave their old way of life, their old religion, their old secular ways of life, and become Christians to follow him. That is what it means. To be a fisher of men is to not just some social thing, but to become 100% dedicated to Jesus Christ and worshiping him. How can we be better at that? He's called us to be a fisher of men, which means to introduce people to the Lord, jesus Christ, and get them to repent and follow him. How can we be better at one, ourselves walking away from the old secular way of life, and two be better at introducing other people to Jesus, so they could do the same.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things that they had a benefit of is they were sat directly under Jesus' teaching. They saw him directly as a model of who they should be. Number one. Number two is they saw his teaching and he was teaching with authority. It tells us His teaching was true and accurate and correct. That is a way that they then, after words, were able to go out, I think, and had the encouragement that they did after his resurrection to be able to go out and preach the way they did and preach the gospel message in the way that they did. How does that turn into what we should do? We have the Word of God and I think we need to understand what the Word of God is and study the Word of God, become confident in it, and then we have the ability then confidently to go out and tell others about Jesus Christ, because we have that background and foundation of the Word of God with us.
Speaker 1:He finds us in our boat, mending the old way of life, and he comes up to us and says follow me and I'm going to give you something glorious and wonderful. And we don't always know what that's going to be. But our choice is to stay in the old way of life and keep trying to repair it, keep trying to fix it, keep trying to go through the grind of the old life, or follow him and follow him. Oftentimes we don't know what he has in store for us, but we know that it's going to be so much more, above and beyond all we can ask or think. Following him would be much more glorious than it would be staying in the old way of life and living the old life. We'd be much more productive, much more satisfied and much more fulfilled being 100% a follower of Jesus Christ. Let's move on to the next section, the next section. We have Jesus showing his authority, and we're going to start at Mark.
Speaker 1:121 says this they went into Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and began to teach. They were amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes. Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit and he cried out saying what business do we have with each other? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Jesus rebuked him, saying Be quiet and come out of him, throwing him into convulsions. The unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him. They were all amazed, so that they debated amongst themselves saying what is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. Immediately the news about him spread everywhere, into all the surrounding district of Galilee.
Speaker 1:Jesus shows his power and authority. That's one of the themes here in Mark is what does Jesus have authority over here? This man, it says, unclean spirit. We take that to be some sort of a supernatural demon. He has control over even the demonic world. Jesus is going and doing this, records what he did, what he accomplished, but does not record the message he taught. It says he went into the synagogue and he would have said things there, but Mark doesn't record any of that. To Mark it was important that Jesus went the very next Sabbath and was a teacher, not necessarily the concepts and details of what he taught. Verse 22 says he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. Why were they amazed at that?
Speaker 2:Steve, because of that he was teaching with authority, meaning that he wasn't a scribe. The scribes were the ones who were the ones that had studied the law and were the ones that were the actual teachers of the law. You had the rabbis that were teachers as well. You also had the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who were kind of the political arms of Judaism, and the Sadducees who were kind of the political arms of Judaism. But here comes this person, this Jesus of Nazareth, and he walks in and he's in the synagogue and he's teaching with authority, which I think means that he knows the scripture and he knows what it means. He doesn't have any type of guesses about it or anything else like that. His words are direct, they're strong and he gives the plain meaning of what the scriptures are whenever he does the teaching.
Speaker 1:In the Jewish culture. You can still see it today if you just look up the Jewish commentaries and the way, especially in those days, the way the rabbis would teach and the way, especially in those days, the way the rabbis would teach. When a disciple asked a rabbi a question, he would say well, rabbi so-and-so says this, this other rabbi says such-and-such, but this third rabbi says this and that, and they would always just quote someone else. They would never come out and say the answer is this. They would quote other rabbis who were allegedly more authoritative and had a greater influence and power and knowledge. Allegedly, that's how the rabbis taught. They would talk by tradition. If the Jewish people or anything, they're traditional, so the rabbis for many generations, oh, it could be this, it could be that it could be this other thing.
Speaker 1:Jesus didn't do any of that. When people ask him a question, he said here's the answer. He would say this is the truth. He never you notice anywhere in scripture he never quotes anybody else and says oh, this other person says this is the right answer. No, no, he declares what's the right answer. That was what they meant when he spoke with authority, simply because none of the other rabbis ever just came out and said well, here's the answer because I said so. Well, jesus says no, here's the answer because I said so. Well, jesus says no, here's the answer because I said so. He spoke with authority. It says that twice in this passage in verse 22 and in verse 27. They were amazed that he spoke with authority. So here's the next question, Steve why, why was Jesus able to speak with authority here on these doctrinal, theological questions?
Speaker 2:He's the author of it. He is God who is going to know better the meaning of what the scriptures are than the person that actually created the scriptures and gave the scriptures to mankind.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it. He spoke with authority and gave authoritative answers about the scriptures because he wrote the scriptures. If anyone could give an authoritative answers about the Scriptures because he wrote the Scriptures, if anyone could give an authoritative answer in what the Bible means, it's the author of the Bible. That's why he alludes to that in here and in other places. He can speak with authority because only he gives the true, correct interpretation of the Scriptures. Then we have this man that it describes as an unclean spirit. We take that to be a demon because he had to be cast out. So an unclean spirit in this context would be a supernatural demon. In verse 23, it says he was in the synagogue. I find this interesting, steve. Does it surprise you that there were demons in a place where they worship God?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does really. I mean, whenever I've read this before, I've certainly found it curious that here is a place where people go to worship Yahweh and learn about him, yet here's this demon. Well, of course, the unclean spirit is housed in the man that is coming into the synagogue. I'm not so sure that it doesn't say that the unclean spirit is forcing the man to go into the synagogue. The man is there who has this unclean spirit. That gives a little bit more of a context of what's going on. But yes, I do find it curious that you would find such a situation in a synagogue.
Speaker 1:I find it very interesting that in a synagogue where they're allegedly worshiping God I'm sure they were worshiping God yet there's a demon in their midst I'm reminded of. One of the great Bible teachers is J Vernon McGee. He was a pastor in downtown Los Angeles for many years. He said as a pastor he had had leaders of his church, elders and deacons, that had ideas that were so contrary to the Word of God that the only way he could explain it is that they were demonic.
Speaker 1:At first I was surprised when I heard that, but over the years I've met people that the ideas they express were demonic. You know, when we think of somebody demon-possessed, the first thought that often comes to mind is well, there's somebody that's crazy, that's foaming at the mouth, that's screaming, that's writhing, that's doing some kind of physical gyrations or, you know, head spin around backwards, or I mean something wild and crazy, demon-possessed. I've gotten to where I don't really think of that at all, simply because I've met people that look normal but the ideas coming out of their mouth were entirely demonic, that were just completely, entirely contrary to the Scriptures. Some of them have been inside churches. So that's where I think McGee can be right is that we have people that take one glance at them, look normal, but if you look at where their ideas are and what their motivations are and what their actions are and the things they teach, it's just the only way I could explain. It is to be entirely demonic. So I think there is some demonic influences in our churches today.
Speaker 2:You know, glenn, there might be people out in our audience that are saying how in the world could an elder or deacon or somebody on staff come up with ideas that Vernon McGee would consider demonic? Well, in our day that we are teaching this just recently. In the past year or so, there are congregations that play secular music where the lyrics are not godly lyrics, and they do it supposedly in order to draw lost people into the worship center I'm using air quotes when I say worship center so that they can hear the word of God. We've also seen other churches on special occasions of sports days where they have skits, and one of the skits is where they kick the Bible like they would a football, and I've often wondered how is it that at some point is that you're at a staff meeting in a church and somebody comes up with the idea and says hey, I've got an idea of what we can do. We can have a skit where we portray the gospel to the congregants. In that skit we're going to kick the Bible and make a point about that.
Speaker 2:I'm just wondering. The pastor signed off on it. Everybody's shaking their head. Yeah, that's a good idea. How in the world would somebody think that something like that is a good idea, or playing secular music with ungodly lyrics in a worship center is a thing to do in order to have people worship God. Those are things I think are kind of an explanation that those are things. Where do they come from? Well, they're not coming from, I think, somebody that's thinking godly things. They're being influenced by demonic things that are out there to come up with some of these ideas. What do you think?
Speaker 1:I've seen video of some churches that had secular singers at Christmas singing songs that equated Jesus Christ with Santa Claus or Father Christmas. So I think what ends up happening in a lot of these churches is that they don't really study the Word of God. They study religion and they don't study what the Word of God teaches. Then they substitute what the Word of God says for what they feel like God should do. When we combine our feelings, which oftentimes come from a secular place, on how God should be rather than what the Word of God says God should be, then we end up with churches that are really disconnected from the Word of God and that invites a spirit of humanity, a spirit of even demons, to come in and fill that void. When we are close to the Word of God, then we will recognize the false teaching. Look at what happened in this account. This synagogue, I'm sure, had a head rabbi, had a leader of the synagogue. It had regular people there. They also had a man there that had an unclean spirit, a demon, in their midst. Either those leaders didn't recognize that somebody was there with a demon, or they put up with them being in their midst, or they didn't really give out the Word of God enough to where the demon reacted to it. If a demon is in a place where nobody's talking about anything Christian, then the demon's going to be very relaxed and not going to be upset. But when suddenly something righteous comes in in this case the Messiah, the Lord, jesus Christ, suddenly the demon gets all upset. That's one of the ways you can tell if there's a demon in your midst is just start talking about Jesus and start talking about righteousness and holiness, and the people that are really contrary to that will make themselves known. This synagogue again either put up with him and knew he was a demon and didn't get rid of them, or weren't doing godly things enough to make the demon uncomfortable, or something along those lines. But Jesus comes in and notice what happens quite quickly is the demon's gone? The religious leaders of that synagogue had less discernment than the demons because God allowed them autonomy.
Speaker 1:Notice what the demon says in verse 24. What business do we have with each other? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are the Holy One of God. Notice there the demon recognized who Jesus was, but the leaders and the regulars in the synagogue did not. I find this interesting. When Jesus shows up, the demons know who he is, but the religious leaders don't. We're going to see this as we go through the rest of Mark. The demons always snap to it and pay attention to Jesus and ultimately end up basically under Jesus's authority. Because in verses 25 and 26 here, who is in charge when Jesus walks in? And there's this demon talking with them? Who?
Speaker 2:is in charge. Jesus is in charge. It just got through saying that the people were amazed because he was teaching with authority. Here, this unclean spirit recognizes him.
Speaker 2:Another thing we see whenever Jesus deals with these demons, glenn, is that he takes care of them quickly because, after all, the testimony of an unclean spirit or demon is not necessarily a reliable testimony because they could give false testimony on other things. Jesus dispatches them quickly. That's the other thing that he does With a word. He takes care of them, he casts them out and he takes care of these demons with his word, which is why the people were amazed with it, because theis and the pharisees they had a process. There were certain things that they had to do in order to exercise demons. There was a whole process involved. Jesus didn't go through any of it. He just, on a command of his voice to answer your question, because he was in charge took, took care of it and cast these demons out. This is why these people are amazed. Somebody that's teaching with authority and with just his word is casting out and taking care of these unclean spirits and demons.
Speaker 1:There's no question at all who's in charge here? Jesus walks into the room and he is completely in charge of the demon. Jesus gives him two commands be quiet. The second one come out of him. The demon has to obey because the demon is subject to the Lord. God Almighty, who is Jesus? We have here the demon telling the truth. Oh, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Well, why would he tell the truth? He'd tell the truth because the one who he is obligated to, the one who he is subject to, is in the room. Now the demon has to tell the truth. The demon there, when he's off and God's allowing him to act the way he would, would lie and do what demons do. Soon as Jesus shows up, he snaps to it and right away is subject to Jesus.
Speaker 1:There is not the case that there's some sort of a power struggle here between good and evil. It's not a wrestling match in between God and Satan or between a Christian and a demon. The one who has the authority is Jesus Christ. In the little book of Jude, even the archangel Michael doesn't address the demon on his own. He says the Lord, rebuke you.
Speaker 1:As long as we are behind Jesus, as long as we are in Jesus' family, then we don't really have to worry about some kind of a power struggle with demons, because Jesus is the one in charge. The demons were completely subject to him and later we're going to find with the Gadarene demoniac. The demons have to ask Jesus' permission to go into the pigs. We have here a great spiritual teaching that who's in charge? Jesus is in charge. He's in charge completely, entirely and thoroughly and the demons can do nothing unless he gives them permission and must obey his commands. We will pull it to the curb here because of time, but be sure, and be back next time, because we're going to find out more things that Jesus is in authority over as we continue to reason through the book of Mark.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
