SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/16/2012 02:12 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Unbelief of His Enemies
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark 6:7-29
Message of the verses: We will be looking at quite a few verses in this SD, but there are a lot of verses in the 6th chapter of Mark’s Gospel. The last SD on the book of Mark introduced the subject of unbelief and we said that unbelief is a very powerful thing, for it was unbelief by Adam and Eve that cursed the world and with that unbelief sin entered the universe and has been around ever since. John 3:36 is a very powerful verse and in this verse we see that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and those who don’t believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, there is no one in the middle. “"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.’” (John 3:36)
We will begin to look at the verses in Mark’s Gospel in a moment, but first I want to remind you of a practice that Mark uses in his writings and that is that he will put a story in a story, kind of like a sandwich method of reporting about the life of Jesus Christ. We must also remember that all of the Gospels messages are the same and that is to show people that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that by believing in Jesus Christ one can have eternal life.
“7 ¶ And He *summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits; 8 and He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff-no bread, no bag, no money in their belt- 9 but to wear sandals; and He added, "Do not put on two tunics." 10 And He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town. 11 "Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them." 12 They went out and preached that men should repent. 13 And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them. (Mark 6:7-13)
This paragraph is the first part of the sandwich, that of Jesus sending His disciples out to teach and to preach the good news, to heal people and even to raise the dead, which we learn about in the other Gospels that talk of this episode in the life of Jesus.
We see the word “send” in verse seven and that word is apostello in the Greek in which the English word Apostle comes from. The word means to send out representing someone, and so Jesus send his disciples out in His name to do His work and He gives them authority to do the work.
We also see that they are sent out in pairs, and this made it easier and safer for them to accomplish their work. Ecc. 4:9 says, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.” In the Law we see that it takes two witnesses to verify a matter “"On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.” (Deu. 17:6) The disciples would not only help each other but they could learn from each other.
In verses eight and nine we learn what Jesus wanted them to take for their journey, and it was not a lot for them to take, for taking a lot of things would have slowed them down, and not taking a lot of things would cause their faith to increase. Now this is not the way things are in the Church today, so don’t think that it is the same. In the Church today the workers are to be paid for their work. Paul picks up on this in his writings when he illustrates this with a story from the OT where an animal should be feed for trampling out the grain. “1Ti 5:18 For the Scripture says, "YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING," and "The laborer is worthy of his wages.’”
In verse ten we see that when the disciples go into a town they are to stay only in one house. If two disciples go into a town and they begin to perform miracles then chances are that people in the town will want them to stay, and Jesus is saying to them that they are not to look for the best deal, but stay in one person’s house while they are in the town and not to move around.
Verse eleven speaks of when a town does not want any part of them and they were to shake off the dust from their sandals when they leave. The Jewish people would do this whenever they would leave a Gentile town, not wanting to take any of the Gentile dirt with them.
Verses twelve and thirteen speak of the disciples doing what the Lord told them to do and that is to have men repent and to do miracles in the towns. We see something in verse thirteen that speaks of anointing people with oil, something that is only mentioned one more time in the NT and that is in the book of James. “Jas 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”
We will now move into the middle portion of the sandwich, that of recalling the death of John the Baptist.
“14 ¶ And King Herod heard of it, for His name had become well known; and people were saying, "John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in Him." 15 But others were saying, "He is Elijah." And others were saying, "He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old." 16 But when Herod heard of it, he kept saying, "John, whom I beheaded, has risen!" 17 For Herod himself had sent and had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, because he had married her. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife." 19 Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death and could not do so; 20 for Herod was afraid of John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. And when he heard him, he was very perplexed; but he used to enjoy listening to him. 21 A strategic day came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his lords and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee; 22 and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests; and the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you want and I will give it to you." 23 And he swore to her, "Whatever you ask of me, I will give it to you; up to half of my kingdom." 24 And she went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" And she said, "The head of John the Baptist." 25 Immediately she came in a hurry to the king and asked, saying, "I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter." 26 And although the king was very sorry, yet because of his oaths and because of his dinner guests, he was unwilling to refuse her. 27 Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded him to bring back his head. And he went and had him beheaded in the prison, 28 and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother. 29 When his disciples heard about this, they came and took away his body and laid it in a tomb.” (Mark 6:14-29)
In this SD we will not pick up the story of what happened whenever the disciples returned from the Missionary Trip, but will end with the story of the death of John the Baptist.
We see from verse fourteen that King Herod heard about the things that Jesus was doing and thought that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead, and this must have frightened him a whole lot. Herod was not actually a king as Mark calls him, but as Warren Wiersbe says” he was a godless tetrarch, the ruler of a fourth part of the nation.” Herod the great was alive during the birth of Jesus and when he died the Romans split up the nation into three parts to his three sons with Herod getting the portion of Perea and Galilee. John the Baptist was telling Herod that he should not have taken his brother’s wife, and this caused him to end up in prison. Herod’s wife Herodias wanted to have John killed but we see in this section that Herod liked to listen to him. I suppose that he thought it was “good works” to listen to John. At this time I want to quote from John MacArthur’s Study Bible that will tell us exactly who Herodias was. “Herodias.” Herod’s niece, the daughter of his half-brother Aristoblus. Philip. Herod Philip II, another half-brother to Herod Antipas (the Herod in this passage). Therefore, Philip was also an uncle to Herodias.”
We can see that Herodias wanted John killed and so she plotted to try and get her way. We see in verse 21 that a “strategic” day came when Herodias would get her way. Her daughter would dance before Herod and his important dinner guests in such a way that Herod would be so pleased with her that he would be willing to give up half of his kingdom to her. Now he wasn’t a king so he could not give her half of what he didn’t have, but that is a saying that we see in different parts of Scripture. It is seen in the book of Ester also. I don’t suppose that your imagination has to go too far to figure out what kind of a dance that she was doing in order to get what her mother wanted, but after going to her mother she was told to ask for the head of John the Baptist. When she returned and asked for John’s head the king could not do anything but have John killed or else he would have lost face with his important guests. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Herod had not been courageous to obey John’s word, but now he had to obey his own word! The result was the death of an innocent man.”
I have one more quote from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary as I conclude this SD. “The common people considered John a prophet sent from God, but the religious leaders did not obey John’s message (Mark 11:27-33). John’s death was the first of three notable violent deaths in the history of Israel. The other two are the crucifixion of Christ and the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7). For the significance of these events review the comments on Mark 3:22-30. Herod had feared that John’s messages would stir up a revolt among the people, something he wanted to avoid. Also, he wanted to please his wife, even though it meant the murdering of a godly man.”
As far as the section mention by Dr. Wiersbe in Mark 3:22-30 that was the portion that the Pharisees reported that Jesus’ miracles were done by Satan, and this was the turning point of His ministry on earth for after that He would appoint twelve men to carry on His ministry after He had died. We see in the Mark 3 Section that the Jews were turning down Jesus as their King and that is why He would chose twelve men to carry on after Him in His power and strength. The number twelve strategic because there are twelve tribes in Israel and in the millennial kingdom there will be an apostle leading each of the tribes of Israel.
5/16/2012 3:24:45 PM
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