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
S9 || Jesus Selects the Twelve || Mark 3:7-19 || Session 9 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Why did a diverse multitude, ranging from believers to skeptics, flock to witness the miracles and teachings of this extraordinary figure? We dive deep into the motivations of those who followed Jesus, from genuine faith seekers to those pursuing personal advantage, and why it's crucial to honor his true identity as the Messiah. Venture with us as we explore the remarkable choice of the twelve apostles, a group whose backgrounds might surprise you with their diversity and apparent lack of qualifications. Discover how Jesus' transformative calling turned an unlikely assembly of individuals—ranging from educated tax collectors to simple fishermen—into the foundation of the Christian church. We highlight the divine selection process where their true worth transcended their initial abilities, and what role familial ties and the infamous Judas Iscariot played in this narrative.
Thank you for listening!! Please give us a five-star rating to help your podcast provider's algorithm spread RTTB among their listeners.
You can find free study and leader resources at the following link - Resource Page - Reasoning Through the Bible
Please prayerfully consider supporting RTTB to help us to continue providing content and free resources. You can do that at this link - Support RTTB - Reasoning Through the Bible
May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn, I'm here with Steve. We do verse-by-verse Bible study through the Word of God. Today we're in a great section where Jesus is going to do more going and doing. He's going to be calling his disciples and he's also going to be showing his control not only over nature but over the spirit world. We're going to be in Mark, chapter 3. We'll go ahead and dive in, Steve. Could you read in Mark, chapter 3, starting in verse 7 and going down to verse 12?.
Speaker 2:Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples, and a great multitude from Galilee followed, and also from Judea and from Jerusalem and from Idumeom and beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon. A great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him, and he told his disciples that a boat should stand ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd him, for he had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirit saw him, they would fall down before him and shout you are the Son of God. He earnestly warned them not to tell who he was.
Speaker 1:In this passage it says several times, either directly or indirectly, that there was a very large crowd, a great multitude, and it even mentions where many of them were from. If we look at the names of the places, it tells us something here it says Jerusalem. Well, jerusalem was in the south part of the land. Idumea was in the far south, way down next to the Dead Sea, beyond the Jordan was one of the places they were from. Well, that's way over on the other side of the Jordan River, to the east, really outside of where most of the people from Israel were from. Tyre and Sidon were in the far northwest, along the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaker 1:What it's saying here is that there was this great crowd and they were coming from all over. There were so many. The disciples and Jesus were afraid of the crowd crushing Jesus it says down in verse 20, came together so much that Jesus and the disciples couldn't eat Steve. We know some of them were following him because he had healed people. So those people, I think pretty safe to say they're following him because they want something from him. Were there people following him because of who he was?
Speaker 2:There was, we know for sure, this inner circle of these disciples that are believing in him. We see their testimony later in this gospel message and other gospel accounts as well Mary and Martha, and the love that they had for him, with Lazarus and others. They knew that he was the Messiah and they were following him because of who he was. I agree with you there was a great many of the others that were there for healing and you really can't blame them. If you had an affliction and you knew that there was going to be somebody that could actually heal you, if you could just get to them and touch them, then you would be there too. But we do know from other accounts that once he stops doing the healing, that he lost a great many of his followers that were there just to receive something from him rather than to believe in him.
Speaker 1:I think today we still have the same thing. We have people that are afflicted in various ways, not just physical, that should go to Jesus. That's what I think he wants us to do is to go to him with our problems. At the same time, I think we need to all be honest. Am I following Jesus merely because of what I get out of it, or am I following him because he's worthy? Am I following him because he really is the Son of God and he is king and he is worthy? Am I following him because of him or am I following just to get something out of it? There's some churches, steve, that's. All they focus on is what we can get out of it, but he is worthy and we should indeed follow him. There is a great crowd, even in our day, that follows Jesus and hopefully we're doing it because of him being worthy, in order to honor him, and not so much what I can get out of it. The religious leaders are in here in this crowd and they saw these great signs that he did. They likely heard his teachings.
Speaker 1:The other gospels tell us there was a sermon on the mount happened during this time. There were thousands of people following him. The religious leaders are here. They're seeing these healings. They're hearing the teachings. Whenever in the Gospels it talks about the crowd, you have all these factions. You've got people that are trying to destroy him, people that just want to have their belly full, people that are just curious and some people are wanting to love him. The two main things that I think why this passage here is he would heal people and then he also cast out demons. Steve, what does that show that Jesus has authority over he?
Speaker 2:has authority over nature and health and sickness and over the demonic world.
Speaker 1:He does. That shows the deity of Jesus Christ. Notice specifically what this demon does. It says in verse 11, they would fall down before him and admit the truth You're the son of God. I find this interesting because what this shows is when you fall down before someone, it's a sign of subjection. It's a sign of the other person is the one in authority here. The instant the demons see Jesus, they immediately fall down and tell the truth. That's the power of Jesus. It's not really saying much about the demons other than they're subject to Christ. So he is indeed Lord over the entire spirit world. He has the power to command demons with no more nor less than his presence. When he warned them not to tell anybody, why would he?
Speaker 2:do that. I think one reason that he would tell them, glenn, is what type of a witness does a demon have? Are you going to have people that want to listen to whether or not a demon is telling you something? That is true, I think. That's one thing. The second thing is, though, is that it wasn't his time yet. It wasn't his time to reveal himself as going to be the suffering Messiah that was going to have to go to the cross and be killed.
Speaker 1:This just reinforces, to me, this whole passage about the demoniac is that all Jesus did was show up and the demons instantly fell down before him in subjection. This tells us and there's many places like this in Scripture that there is not the case that there's a power struggle between the forces of evil and the forces of God. It's not some sort of a yin-yang. There's true authority here, and it is the Lord, god Almighty, that showed up in Jesus. He is the one in charge and everything else is subject to him. When the demons recognize it, they instantly fall down in subjection. God is now, and has always been, in charge of Satan, always more powerful than Satan, always in control of what he does, always more powerful than Satan, always in control of what he does. God allows things for his divine purpose, but it's not the case that the devil's out there doing things that God's not aware of or God has to wonder what he's going to do next or how God's going to get out of this mess. So therefore, we, as Christians, we don't have to worry. We don't have to go through life afraid of demons, in the sense that is something going to happen to me that God's not aware of or God can't control. God may lead me into some situations that I think is pretty scary, but God's still in control and it's always for our own good and for his purposes. I just think this is just one more of those lessons. Okay, let's read, starting in verse 13. And going to 19,.
Speaker 1:We have Jesus selecting his disciples, and he went up on the mountain and summoned those who he himself wanted, and they came to him and he appointed twelve so that they would be with him, that he could send them out to preach and to have authority to cast out the demons out to preach and to have authority to cast out the demons. He appointed the twelve Simon, to whom he gave the name, peter, and James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James. To them he gave the name Boanerges, which means sons of thunder, and Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, and Simon the zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Yes, it's a list of the disciples, but we can pick out some great things about Jesus here.
Speaker 1:Notice, in verse 13 and 14, the actions that Jesus did he summoned the twelve, he appointed the twelve, he sent the twelve. This is the same actions that he does to all Christians. He summons us Christians to himself, he appoints us to a role in his kingdom and he sends us out to serve. So, steve, yes, this happened to the twelve disciples, and they were specially picked for a special role. But don't you think he sometimes picks us for a special role as well?
Speaker 2:I think we're all selected for a special role, because he gave us a great commission before his ascension to go out and preach the word and to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So I think that's a commandment, and I think that's something that we all should be under conviction to do, if not continuously, at least at different points and times of our lives, to spread the gospel.
Speaker 1:He sent them out to preach and he gave them authority over the demons. So he gave them a job, gave them a ministry and he gave them the authority to do it with. He gave them a special gift. All Christians in our day get a special gift. We all get the gift of the Holy Spirit, although we also have special gifts for ministry that empower us, enable us to go do what he has us to do. These people enable us to go do what he has us to do. These people he gave power over demons and gave them the assignment to go preach. He doesn't do that with all of us. Not all of us are preachers or teachers, but all of us have a role in the body. So what he did here with the 12 is also, in a sense, what he does with all Christians. We all have a spiritual gift and we have talents and God gives us an assignment and picks us up and gives us the ability to do it.
Speaker 1:I also find that here, steve, he picked 12, and there's somewhat of a significance or at least a pattern of things happening in 12s in the Bible. There's the 12 tribes of Israel. There's 12,000 of each of the 12 tribes in Revelation 7. The church in Revelation wears a crown of 12 stars in Revelation 12. The New Jerusalem has 12 gates, 12 foundations and 12 angels. So 12 has a sense of perfection and authority. I don't know how far I want to go with that, but it's just interesting that there's this sense of 12 being sort of a royal number.
Speaker 2:I think another little interesting point here is that in 13, it says he summoned those whom he himself wanted, and they came to him. I know that I have, throughout the years, have this vision of the actual 12 apostles he called at different times, just like he did with Matthew and with Peter and others. Those were the ones that he called to be his apostles. But I get the picture here that possibly he called many, many more than just 12 people to be followers of him. But yet out of those that he called in general, he then selected these 12 whom he wanted to be with them. One of them is going to be a betrayer of him. There's some purpose behind the reason why he has called these and that, yes, there were some that came to him to follow him, based off of what he was doing and believed in him. Possibly he called more than 12 in the beginning. Now he's narrowed that down to an inner circle of 12.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. You pointed that out, Steve, in verse 13,. He called those he wanted. I think that's still applicable today. He calls us because he wants us. There's a sense here where, yes, he's calling people to himself today because he wants us. My friend, he's calling you because he wants you. He called me because he wanted me. Now, Steve, I think we can go a little further with that. I've heard sermons on each of these 12 men that he picked here, and it won't go into all of them, It'll be a while. But if we add up what we know about these men, was there anything special about these people that gave them a lot of talent that they'd be able to go out? And oh, these are the top special out of all the people. Oh boy, these are really the cream of the crop, the top of the top. Is that the case? I don't think so.
Speaker 2:No, we see them from all walks of life. As we talked about earlier in our other session of, matthew was a tax collector, one that was looked down upon by the society because they felt the tax collectors were with the Roman government, and Peter and his brother and some of the others were fishermen, so they were from all walks of life. Of these, they were all from this Galilean area, judas Iscariot. There's some scholarly work. What does Iscariot actually mean?
Speaker 2:I think the general consensus is it means that he is from a town that was in the southern part of Judea, down around Jerusalem and such so that he was the one man that wasn't a Galilean by a native of being there, but all different types of walks and, as I pointed out before, one of them is going to be a betrayer. This Judas Iscariot is also a dishonest person. They find out later that he's taken money from the treasury that he's been put in charge of. It's just an interesting fact that he's chosen these people charge of. It's just an interesting fact that he's chosen these people. They're just normal people and one of them is one who is a thief and a betrayer.
Speaker 1:It's sort of a ragtag group of very different people that normally wouldn't associate with each other or get along. Matthew, was this? Probably wealthy? Tax collector probably educated? Simon the Zealot? Zealots were people that were revolutionaries trying to fight against the Roman government. They were borderline criminals as just fishermen. Some educated, some not. It's just very, very different people.
Speaker 1:So what we see here is a group of people that normally wouldn't work together, normally wouldn't have any talents that could be used in a spiritual sense, not the people that you'd select to be on a church board or even deacons or even a pastor of a church. They are thoroughly not qualified to be leaders of a religious movement. Jesus wanted them, he wanted them and he picked them up and gave them special gifts. These men are the ones that turned the world right side up. I was going to say turned it upside down, but they turned it right side up. They changed the world.
Speaker 1:These 12 men, really, the Apostle Paul added in there instead of Judas. He picked these people that were thoroughly not qualified, incapable of doing what needed to be done to start the Christian church, but yet they did it and they changed the world. Why Not because of what was in them? He wanted them. Because he wanted them and because of what he gave them. That's the key. It's the same thing with you, it's the same thing with me. He wants us, but if we think we bring something to the conversation, we're sorely mistaken. The only value we have is when he picks us up, dusts us off, gives us a gift and gives us a job to do.
Speaker 2:One other thing I forgot to mention is that he also picked family. James and John are cousins of his, so we do have this cross-section of all different types of walks of life.
Speaker 1:One last little part here. In verse 17, mark translates the word boanerges as sons of thunder. There's no issue here with people translating things. We're told in secular history that Mark was Peter's interpreter, which probably means he knew languages. There's about eight times in the Gospel of Mark where he translates phrases for us and gives us the meaning of what it is. All throughout the book it's just these real common things here where he says, oh, that's what this word means.
Speaker 1:The reason I bring that up is because, for some reason, people the translation seems to be a mystery of how it works Really. It's more of an excuse, because the translation from one language to the other is done by anyone that knows both languages. Somehow, people today use that as a way oh, the Bible's been translated so many times, or the original language might have been Aramaic and they're writing in Greek. Well, no, these people were quite good at speaking multiple languages. Thank you very much. We have here a very clear explanation of what happens in the other languages. Steve, once again here we have this ragtag group that was picked by divine selection, but in and of themselves they never could do what was needed. But Jesus picks them up, dusts them off, sets them on a path and accomplishes his great purpose.
Speaker 2:One last time. I don't want to overemphasize it. He said in 13, he picked these well, because he wanted them and one of them was going to betray him. That's me adding a commentary on that. He's picking Judas Iscariot for a purpose, of course. The purpose is that he's going to betray him. Even at this point, jesus knows that he is going to die at some point. He's going to be the satisfactory sacrifice. Let's don't leave that out of the equation, that this all didn't just happen by chance. There's a purpose and reason for Jesus to come. One is he is offering the kingdom, but secondary to that, he knows that he is going to have to go to the cross to be crucified. He's chosen one of these 12 who are going to betray him. He knows that even when he has chosen them now, he wanted Judas Iscariot to be one of those 12.
Speaker 1:We'll stop right here for today because the next section we get into is going to be a question we want to spend some time on, which is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. For some reason, this becomes quite a question we want to spend some time on which is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. For some reason, this becomes quite a question at different times in Christian circles. We'll get into that and reason through it next time. On Reasoning Through the Bible.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
