Daily Bible Reading

FEBRUARY 5 — Genesis 38; Mark 8; Job 4; Romans 8

UNDER QUESTIONING, the disciples confess who Jesus is (Mark 8:27-30). Christ is the Greek form of Messiah, which has a Hebrew background. This confession trig- gers a flood of fresh revelation from the Lord Jesus (8:31-38). Now he teaches that the Son of Man “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again” (8:31). As Mark points out, Jesus “spoke plainly about this” (8:32). Apparently earlier comment on the subject was far more veiled.

Living as we do on this side of the cross, it is easy for us to be a bit conde- scending about Peter’s reaction and rebuke of the Master (8:32). From Peter’s perspective, Jesus simply had to be wrong on this subject. After all, messiahs don’t get killed: they win. And how could a God-anointed, miracle-working Messiah like Jesus lose? Peter was wrong, of course, profoundly wrong. For even the disciples had not yet grasped that Jesus the Messiah was simultaneously conquering King and Suffering Servant.

But there was more to come. Not only did Jesus insist that he himself was going to suffer and die and rise again, but he also insisted that each of his followers “must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (8:34). To a first-century ear, such language was shocking. “To take up your cross” did not mean putting up with a toothache, job loss, or personal disability. Crucifixion was universally viewed as the most barbaric of Roman forms of execution, scarcely to be mentioned in polite company. The condemned criminal “picked up his cross,” i.e., picked up the cross-member and carried it to the place of execution. If it was your lot to pick up your cross, there was no hope for you. There was only an ignominious and excruciating death.

Yet that is the language Jesus uses. For what all of his disciples must learn is that to be a follower of Jesus entails a painful renunciation of self-interest and a wholehearted turn to Jesus’ interests. Yet Jesus’ blunt language is not an invitation to spiritual masochism, but to life and bounty. For it is an infallible rule of the kingdom that self-focus issues in death, while “whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (8:35). Only for a few will this commitment entail loss of physical life; for all of us it means death to self, discipleship to Jesus. And that includes a glad confession of Jesus, and principled refusal to be ashamed of Jesus and his words in this adulterous and sinful generation (8:38).

FEBRUARY 4 — Genesis 37; Mark 7; Job 3; Romans 7

MANY PROTESTANTS ARE suspicious of “traditions.” In popular polemic, Protestants have often portrayed Roman Catholics as embracing the Bible plus traditions, while we ourselves simply hold to the Bible. There are several matters that need clarification before we can hear aright what Mark 7 says about traditions.

The first is a historical observation. There is very good evidence that until the Reformation the Roman Catholic Church had not yet formulated the clear-cut distinction that prevailed after the Reformation. Even when the Catholic Church was propounding fairly innovative doctrine, it tried hard to tie that doctrine to Scripture in some way, perhaps through a series of inferences. But confronted by the Reformation’s sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”), the Catholic Church argued for a view of revelation that insisted that truth was given as a deposit to the church itself, and part of this was the deposit found in holy Scripture and part lay in other traditions that the church guarded and passed on. In this kind of formulation, then, tradition is set over against Scripture as something additional to it.

That brings us to the second observation, one that touches on the text of the New Testament. Here, one can find the word tradition or traditions used in either a positive or a negative way. The word tradition simply refers to what is handed on. If what is handed on is apostolic teaching, then traditions are a very good thing (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:2); if what is handed on conflicts with what God says, then traditions are unhelpful and dangerous (as here in Mark 7).

This distinction between different kinds of tradition is not the same as one that we commonly draw today. We distinguish traditions that are intrinsically neutral but nevertheless helpful in building families or communities—family traditions, or interesting cultural or ecclesiastical traditions—and those that are repressive, restrictive, or stifling. In short, we make distinctions on the basis of the social effect of traditions, not on the basis of whether or not they are true. But in the New Testament, traditions are praised or criticized not on the basis of their social function but in the light of their conformity to or departure from the Word of God. Here in Mark 7:1-13, the traditions that Jesus condemns are those that allow people to sidestep what the Scripture clearly says.

In the third place, we must recognize that confessing evangelicals who nominally eschew tradition sometimes embrace traditions that effectively domesticate the Word of God. These may be traditional interpretations of Scripture, or tradi- tional ecclesiastical practices, or traditional forms of conduct that are “allowed” in our circles but that are a long way from holy Scripture. In every case, fidelity to Christ mandates reformation by the Word of God.

FEBRUARY 3 — Genesis 35—36; Mark 6; Job 2; Romans 6

IN MARK’S ACCOUNT of the feeding of the five thousand and of Jesus’ subsequent walk on the water (Mark 6), one finds a small aside that stirs up profitable reflection. As soon as Jesus climbed into the boat in the midst of the raging storm, the wind died down. The disciples, Mark comments, “were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened” (6:51-52).

The first observation is the most obvious: the astonishment of the disciples betrays the dismal fact that they have reflected very little on the spectacular miracle Jesus performed just a few hours earlier. On the face of it, the person who can so control nature as to be able to take a few scraps of food and feed thousands of people can doubtless handle nature well enough to subdue a storm. Yet lest we become too smug in our condemnation of the disciples, we ought to reflect on how easily we forget the Lord’s gracious dealings in our own lives, and are frankly (and shamefacedly) surprised when he intervenes once again.

The second observation lies a little deeper. If Jesus truly is the promised Messiah, if he enjoys the powers he has already displayed, can any responsible disciple think that he is losing control? Can any responsible member of the Twelve imagine that this sort of Messiah could call disciples to himself, and then lose them all in a boating accident? This is not to suggest that accidents cannot happen to followers of Jesus today. Of course they can—this is a fallen world, and Jesus’ followers are not exempt from all of the tragic and vicious entanglements of its fallenness. But even we must learn in difficult and frightening circumstances to trust God’s wise providence. Here the disciples must surely learn something more—their own peculiar service as the inner core of disciples is so bound up with the ministry of Jesus that it is unthinkable that they could be “accidentally” killed.

And third, one cannot help but reflect on Mark’s conclusion, “their hearts were hardened.” This does not mean they were stupid. Nor does it mean that while their minds were all right, their affections were twisted, as if heart refers to the center of affections alone. In the symbolism of biblical anthropology, heart refers to the seat of human personality, not too far removed from what we mean by mind (although that is perhaps too restrictively cerebral). Their entire orientation was still too restricted, too focused on the immediacy of their fears, too limited by their inability to penetrate to the full mystery of who Jesus is and why he came.

This side of the cross and resurrection, we have still less excuse than they.

FEBRUARY 1 — Genesis 33; Mark 4; Esther 9—10; Romans 4

THE SO-CALLED PARABLE OF THE SOWER (Mark 4:1-20) might better be called the parable of the soils, for the variable that gives the parable life and depth is the variation in the land onto which the seed is thrown.

Because Jesus provides the interpretation of his own story, its primary emphases should not be in doubt. The seed is the “word,” i.e., the word of God, which here is equivalent to the Gospel, the good news of the kingdom. Like a farmer scattering seed by hand in the ancient world, this word is scattered widely. Inevitably, some of the seed falls on ground that for one reason or another is inhospitable: perhaps it is the hard-packed dirt of the path, or perhaps birds come and eat the seed before it settles into the plowed ground and germinates, or perhaps it grows in the shadow of thornbushes that squeeze the life out of it, or perhaps it germinates in shallow soil with limestone bedrock just beneath the surface, such that the roots cannot go down very far to absorb the necessary moisture. The parallels with the way people hear the word are obvious. Some are hard and repel any entry of the word; others are soon distracted by the playthings Satan quickly casts up; others find that worries and wealth—the terrible Ws— squeeze out all concern for spiritual matters; still others hear the word with joy and seem to be the most promising of the crop, but never sink the deep roots necessary to sustain life. But thank God for the soil that produces fruit, some- times even abundant fruit.

So much is clear enough. But two other features of this parable deserve reflection.

The first is that this parable, like many others, adjusts the commonly held perspective that when the Messiah came there would be a climactic and decisive break: the guilty and the dirty would all be condemned, and the righteous and the clean would enjoy a transforming rule. That is what the final kingdom would be like. But Jesus pictures the dawning of the kingdom a little differently. In the parable of the mustard seed (4:30-32), for example, the kingdom is like a tree that starts from small beginnings and grows into something substantial; here is growth, not apocalyptic climax. So also the parable of the sower: for the time being, the word is going to be scattered widely, and people will respond to it in different ways, with widely divergent yields.

The second is that not all of those who show initial signs of kingdom life actually take root and bear fruit. That truth deserves meditation and calls for self- examination.