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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2024: The Book of Mark

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 The Beginning of the Gospel

02 A Day in the Ministry of Jesus

03 Controversies

04 Parables

05 Miracles Around the Lake

06 Inside Out

07 Teaching Disciples Part 1

08 Teaching Disciples Part 2

09 Jerusalem Controversies

10 The Last Days

11 Taken and Tried

12 Tried and Crucified

13 The Risen Lord

I'm Cameron DeBasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Marching right on through our Book of Mark lesson series right now.

This week we're on lesson 7, Teaching Disciples Part 1, which strongly implies there's going to be at least a part 2 to follow, and I don't want to give too much away, but I've already been working on that 1, and it is a part 2 of this, and it is about teaching the disciples.

There's a kind of a section of scripture we're looking at.

Yeah, I don't know, you could tell me from working on the other 1 where it ends.

So we start right in the middle of Mark 8, okay and as the lesson points out this week it's bookended with these healings of blind men and the focal point is in between where Jesus is first confessed as the Messiah by Peter and his disciples recognize that and then he proceeds to force begin foretelling his suffering and his death and their ministry in that context.

So he starts to start making it plain, makes them some things clear to them and they had some things to work out in that process.

And of course we're right in the middle of the Gospel of Mark so you start to see that shift.

And interestingly he doesn't stop ministry to do this he kind of folds this teaching into his ministries as a kind of a layered thing.

Well let me have a word of prayer you put our talk points together so why don't you walk through this when I finish our prayer here.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to study your Word.

Thank you for this Book of Mark and for the depth that it reveals to us of Christ and his ministry, his mission, and his teaching for the disciples back then and even for us today.

So Lord, please guide our discussion now and guide every Sabbath school class and study group that's going to meet with this material.

Okay, our talking points this week are as follows.

Talking point number 1, we must die if we would live.

And that's from Sunday and Monday's lessons primarily.

Talking point number 2, ministry is manifested in humility.

That is drawn from Tuesday and Wednesday and talking point number 3, faithfulness requires a resolute action and that is drawn from Thursday's lesson.

All right well let's go back to number 1 then, we must die if we would live.

That's a little play on words or what does it mean?

Yes, and it is and it's gonna take me a minute to get around to that because I'm not gonna say like where are you getting that from but we'll get there at the end of point number 1.

The lesson starts out with this teaching, this teaching, this healing of a blind man.

I'm gonna actually have you read, Mark, 8 verses 22 to 26.

Then he came to Bethsaida, and they brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him.

So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town.

And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything.

And he looked up and said, I see men like trees walking.

Then he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up.

And he was restored and saw everyone clearly.

Okay so the lesson brings out the point that this is the only occurrence we have of a miracle where Jesus had to do something twice, almost do it over.

Yeah or at least get halfway and didn't do it fully.

You know, I was imagining what Lazarus would look like if Jesus did a partway miracle.

Like he does he wake and he's just kind of groggy or half dead or something like, and usually you think of Jesus like stand up and walk and they don't just kind of like stop, hobble around, they jump.

Yeah, but here this 1 like well, I can see some better It's vague, but it's not clear and so Jesus does more.

Right and it's it's it's very odd because It's unique in that way.

Was it because Jesus didn't exert enough power?

And of course the obvious answer to that is no.

So If it wasn't because of some short-sightedness or lack of power or anything on the part of Jesus, then it must have been, and we've talked about this repeatedly, that the ministry of Jesus is intentional.

There must have been an intention to this, and before I get to the intention of it, I think it's important that we bring out here that blindness is used, at least in the New Testament, repeatedly to represent a lack of not just physical sight, but spiritual eyesight, spiritual understanding.

And we're going to look at a few passages here on that.

Scripture says, Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind.

And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into the ditch.

Yeah, very clearly he's talking not about literal blindness, although he's making that comparison.

And then if we go to Matthew 23, I mean Matthew 23 is full of this as he's finally denouncing in his ministry the ministries of the scribes and the Pharisees.

And so for example, if you look at Matthew 23, verse 16.

Woe to you blind guides who say, whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it." Okay, and verse 17 says, fools and blind, for which is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?

Fools and blind, for which is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?

And then verse 24 says, blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

Yeah, and again in 26, blind Pharisee first cleansed the inside of the cup and dish, then the outside of them may be clean also.

He's invoking blindness as a denunciation of these Pharisees over and over.

And he's clearly not saying you can't see that's your problem he's like no you spiritually can't see.

Right so so blindness is used to represent this lack of spiritual understanding and I have also in our notes John 9 verse 41 where Jesus told the Pharisees if you were blind you would have no sin, but because you say we see your sin remains.

So again, very clearly there is this application of this idea of blindness.

You know, we understand physical blindness and so we've got this application and this correlation between spiritual blindness and physical blindness.

And so when we come to the healing of the blind man and the fact that we know that Jesus is obviously trying to make a point from this, because it's not a lack of his powers, not a lack of poor method, it's whatever else, and you say, well, what kind of point would he be trying to make in light of what the New Testament says in these passages we read about blindness?

It would seem that he's trying to convey this transition from being spiritually blind to spiritually That it may in your own experience not be instantaneous as other like there might be a process to the Spiritual well, well, yeah, there's a couple things So the lesson brings that out the idea of there's a transition because here's a man who he's partially healed and then he's got to be healed again.

And so you have the, you know, you could speak of, first of all, I think you need to make it clear that we all come to this world without spiritual discernment Right.

We're sold under sin the Bible says and so we have to be born again We have to be born of the Spirit to be spiritual To discern spiritual things spiritual things are spiritually understood first corinthians chapter 2 verse 14.

So the idea is that Even when we have that experience And we're born again You know christians a lot of christians like to talk about born again in the new birth and conversion is this 1 time thing they did way back when.

20 years ago I gave my heart to the Lord.

But from a scriptural standpoint, this is a regular occurrence.

That we need to be born again and born again and born again there needs to be a renewal of that spiritual life but that is what gives us spiritual eyesight and the reason I'm saying that is in light of the blind man he was he was healed and he began to see things but they were still fuzzy yeah men as trees walking and if you think back on your own personal Christian experience, your experience, you have, you give your heart to the Lord and you begin to see things you never saw before, But there's more things you're gonna see.

There's more things that come clearer later on.

And so the lesson brings that out that this might very well, in fact, I've got this in our handout here, but it's from the quarter of these Sundays lesson, paragraph 3, if you would.

Yeah, the lesson points out that this two-touch healing is, quote, more likely an acted parable, illustrating how spiritual insight sometimes takes time to unfold.

Well, and as we see, I mean, the lesson title is Teaching Disciples.

This is the, as it talked about, this is the first bookend opening up a specific time of teaching where Jesus is going to speak more plainly to his disciples, tell them what's coming, teach them important lessons, and I mean I think of Peter, you know, he's the quintessential disciple who you want to pick on a lot, but how many times did Jesus tell him something and he would accept it in the moment and then have to come back and have that reiterated again.

I mean whether it's his prejudice, whether it's his short-sightedness, whether it's lack of faith, whether it's, I mean, whatever his thing is.

That he is that man, you know, and how many of us are that man who's blind and the Lord helps, but our lack of faith doesn't get the full miracle.

We have to revisit again and revisit again in steps.

Series

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2024: The Book of Mark

07 Teaching Disciples Part 1

Transcript

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