Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce.....keep in mind that the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus. God designed marriage to be permanent..however, in that day, women had no rights. Men could simply cast them out. Moses allowed divorce to protect the women. In that culture, women were just property....in Jesus' eyes, women are children of God.
Jesus bless little children...Jesus used this moment to show how inappropriate the Pharisees attitude was...this was not the attitude to get you into heaven....the attitude of a little child was much more appropriate for the kingdom of heaven.
We get Matthew's version of the rich young man...He tried to keep all the laws and wanted to know how to get eternal life...Jesus knew the rich young man's weakness...he trusted in money for security. You can have only one thing that is first in your life....again, the first will be last, and many who are last will be first...the is the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth.
We see Mark's version of Jesus teaching about marriage and divorce, blessing the little children and Jesus speaking to the rich young man.
Jesus predicts his death the third time....remember that Jesus is headed to Jerusalem at this time, and the disciples were astonished and afraid that he would deliberately head there. Jesus teaches about serving others to address this astonishment...
Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
Jesus heals a blind beggar. The fact that Bartimaeus called Jesus the Son of David shows that he recognized Jesus as the Messiah. His faith in Jesus as the Messiah brought about his healing. Sometimes the blind see better with their spiritual eyes than those of us who look through our physical eyes.
Look what comes up from the depths of the sea.
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Here we have the discussion of divorce again.....we have had it in class.....some say you can divorce by the Bible....but here we see Jesus say No to divorce...... still confused....but not planning on getting one so I guess it doesn't matter for me....
ReplyDeleteThe rich ruler.....trying to figure out a way to get to heaven....but cannot give up his stuff......even though as I sit here and imagine having to give up EVERYTHING .....things...home...family....that would be hard.....even though I know what I should do....but I guess that is because we are sinners and not perfect.....
Ya know....Matthew 19:26 "...but with God all things are possible"....reminds me of Philippians 4:13...."I can do all things through God who strengthens me.". We can do all things and all things are possible through God.
Here He goes again talking about his upcoming death and resurrection.......