30th June 2010

Acts 12-26 – Matthias Chosen to Replace Jesus

• The women return to where the 120 believers were meeting in an upper room to pray together.
• Peter gets up and drashes two scriptures from the Tanakh to work out what to do next… they need to appoint a replacement for Judas.
• So they cast lots.
• Any form of divination was banned by their faith except casting lots. The belief was that God is divine and therefore wherever the lot falls He must have determined.
• This thinking was based on Proverbs 16:33 – “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord”
• Lots were used in this way to determine God’s will in a number of ways;
• the ownership and apportioning of land [num 26:55],
• choosing people for a role [1 Sam 10:20],
• discovering the guilty party [Josh 7:14],
• dividing or distributing people [Job 6:27]
• and the general will of God in a particular matter [Num 27:21].
• So in this passage we see two ways that the disciples work our God’s will.
• One of them is still used today and the other has been superseded by something much better… the Holy Spirit.
• Or has it?
• Although God gave us His Spirit and afterwards the disciples of Jesus never again used casting lots… so many Christians still do.
• God has chosen to meet us where we are at but then moves us gently into a higher, better and more intimate relationship with Him.
• He chose animal sacrifices because as primitive people we would use them and He used something we understood to help us gain a relationship with Him. Then He superseded it with something much better… His Son. Jesus died on the cross because that would make sense to us. We understand sacrifice and the shedding of blood.
• In this case; God used our superstitions, sanctified them and helped us connect with Him in a primitive way to Him. But now there is something far better… His Spirit. His Spirit leads us away from chance; and guessing games and urges us to understand not just His will but His heart and mind.
• But here’s the challenge…
• We still so often want to retain that primitive faith;
• We want to make sacrifices to earn our brownie points with God and trade them to get away with things we should not do or avoid things we should do.
• We want to use ‘fleeces’ and use the Bible as a daily Christian horoscope rather than open up our lives and allow Him to lead us by His Spirit.
• Is God moving me on? Or am I still stuck in my ways? Something to pray about today.

30th June 2010

30^th June 2010

Acts 12-26 – Matthias Chosen to Replace Jesus

• The women return to where the 120 believers were meeting in an upper room to pray together.
• Peter gets up and drashes two scriptures from the Tanakh to work out what to do next… they need to appoint a replacement for Judas.
• So they cast lots.
• Any form of divination was banned by their faith except casting lots. The belief was that God is divine and therefore wherever the lot falls He must have determined.
• This thinking was based on Proverbs 16:33 – “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord”
• Lots were used in this way to determine God’s will in a number of ways;
• the ownership and apportioning of land [num 26:55],
• choosing people for a role [1 Sam 10:20],
• discovering the guilty party [Josh 7:14],
• dividing or distributing people [Job 6:27]
• and the general will of God in a particular matter [Num 27:21].
• So in this passage we see two ways that the disciples work our God’s will.
• One of them is still used today and the other has been superseded by something much better… the Holy Spirit.
• Or has it?
• Although God gave us His Spirit and afterwards the disciples of Jesus never again used casting lots… so many Christians still do.
• God has chosen to meet us where we are at but then moves us gently into a higher, better and more intimate relationship with Him.
• He chose animal sacrifices because as primitive people we would use them and He used something we understood to help us gain a relationship with Him. Then He superseded it with something much better… His Son. Jesus died on the cross because that would make sense to us. We understand sacrifice and the shedding of blood.
• In this case; God used our superstitions, sanctified them and helped us connect with Him in a primitive way to Him. But now there is something far better… His Spirit. His Spirit leads us away from chance; and guessing games and urges us to understand not just His will but His heart and mind.
• But here’s the challenge…
• We still so often want to retain that primitive faith;
• We want to make sacrifices to earn our brownie points with God and trade them to get away with things we should not do or avoid things we should do.
• We want to use ‘fleeces’ and use the Bible as a daily Christian horoscope rather than open up our lives and allow Him to lead us by His Spirit.
• Is God moving me on? Or am I still stuck in my ways? Something to pray about today.

29th June 2010

Acts 1:1-11 – Jesus Taken up to Heaven

• Even after Jesus dies and is resurrected most of His disciples still don’t get it.
• They still ask the same question they were asking before:
• “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
• It’s getting boring!
• Luke is writing Acts to us and Theophilus [his name means ‘friend of God’], to help us understand the real motive of Jesus.
• He hints at this in the first sentence with the word ‘began’. What many Christians see as the completion of Jesus’ ministry – the cross, was just an important part of a process. It was almost a stage in the journey.
• The story of Acts now shows me how Jesus continues to “do and teach” His stuff through His Spirit rather than one physical human body.
• I must keep reminding myself that the cross and my ‘day of salvation’ were a stage. A moment along the way.
• Important and in fact, vital but only in the same way as I cannot walk without putting one leg out and then following it with the other. If I don’t put that first leg out I cannot walk but walking is not achieved by putting just one leg out.
• I must not turn my Christianity into a Monty Python sketch. Funny but absurd.
• I’m praying the book of Acts will help me avoid ever doing that.

28th June 2010

Mark 16:1-19 – The Resurrection

• This gives me an awkward question to think about in verse 15.
• “Whoever believes and is baptized”.
• What about those people who have been a Christian a long time and love God but have refused to get baptized?
• Can it really mean that?
• Surely we are justified by faith alone?
• So if we are; does not being baptized tell us something about our faith? Is it the faith Jesus was talking about?
• I know it is not the physical act that makes the difference alone because the thief believes but died before he had a chance to be baptized. I’m sure he would have though.
• Sometimes I think we are all in danger of ignoring key things the Bible tells us because we look around and so many Christians are ignoring those things that we think it must not important.
• A bit like when Jesus came to Israel. They were in for a shock. Would the Christian Church be in for a shock if Jesus suddenly turned up;
• Would I?
• And how serious would the consequences be?

25th June 2010

Mark 15:42-47 – The Burial of Jesus

• A pretty simple passage.
• Joseph is a member of the Sanhedrin. The council that dictates and rules over the religious and social life of the Jews under the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire.
• Joseph had not voted for Jesus death because he was a believer in Jesus. One commentary says he was a secret believer.
• Yet, while all the disciples had run off and a relatively short time after Peter had denied Jesus, this backroom disciple goes to Pilate and cheekily asks for Jesus’ body!
• This is unusual for two reasons:
1. Crucifixion was only for the worst criminals and their bodies were not to be honored but instead either left to be eaten by wild animals and birds or at best put in an unmarked paupers grave.
2. Bodies of generally criminals were only usually handed over to close relatives.
• What Joseph asked was both odd, bold but also would surely have led to questions being asked about his true loyalties.
• I am challenged by the fact that the rather showy, demonstrative right hand man of Jesus hid when things got bad and yet this less obvious follower of Jesus stepped up.
• It reminds me of Jesus parable:
• "What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard. 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went."Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered
• Actions speak louder than words
• And our actions speak to us about what we really believe.

24th June 2010

 § The calling of Abram called Abraham

§ God attached an initial from the divine name YHWH to Abram to make AbraHam.

§ He is told to go forth. Many others are told the same by Him but in different ways.

§ After meeting with God we are always sent out. How we are sent out, however, depends on our response to God when He calls us to Him.

o   Adam was sent out in shame

o   Cain was sent out in a curse

o   Abraham sent out in a blessing

§ Ultimately ‘go ye’, can also be translated, “Go to yourself.”

o   The renowned medieval commentator Rashi comments: The Lord was saying, “You will gain from the journey.

o   Lekha, to yourself, will be the benefit.”

§ I guess we are always in some way in God’s presence. How we react to His calling determines how we are sent out. And how we go out will determine how much we gain from the journey.

23rd June 2010

Mark 15:33-42 – The Death of Jesus

• So many interesting things in this passage but I am hit today by one particular facet.
• The Curtain had separated the ‘Holy Place’ from the ‘Holy of Holies’ and only the high priest could pass through the curtain into the ‘Holy of Holies’ and only once a year.
• The parokhet [curtain – name describing this curtain in the dessert tabernacle] was torn from top to bottom and ripped in two when Jesus died on the cross.
• This of course symbolized the fact that God through Jesus was giving everyone access to Him. Jesus had become the atonement for the sins of Israel no longer would it be the blood of sacrificial animals.
• And here is an interesting bit of background…
• The Talmud is the collection of Jewish teachings including the Mishnah [oral laws] and the Gemara. It is not a Bible text but gives some historic information from that time from a Jewish source;
• Once a year [on Yom-Kippur] the High Priest would tie a piece of scarlet cloth between the horns of the sacrificial goat. If it later turned white they took it that Israel’s sins had been forgiven [they took this from Isaiah 1:18]. If it did not turn white – then they saw it as God had not forgiven them.
• Look at what the historical records of the Jews say…
• "Our Rabbis taught that throughout the forty years that Shim'on the Tzaddik served,... the scarlet cloth would become white. From then on it would sometimes become white and sometimes not.... Throughout the last forty years before the Temple was destroyed... the scarlet cloth never turned white." (Yoma 39a-39b)
• What does that mean?
• That immediately after Jesus dying on the cross for the sins of the world and the curtain being torn in two – the sacrificial goat never worked anymore!
• In the days of Shim’on HaTzaddik the atonement was effective.
• Later it was a bit hit and miss due to Israel’s spiritual decline
• After the death of Jesus it never worked because Jesus was the final sacrifice!
• Here is what I need to pray about today;
• The Jews have all this on record and yet many choose not to believe in Jesus.
• He does not fit what many of them see when they think of the Messiah; and so they ignore the facts before them and their experiences at the time.
• I will miss Jesus in my life if I ignore the facts and my experiences of God and choose not to believe.
• Belief is a choice.
• What has God shown me that I am choosing not to believe?

21th June 2010

Mark 15:21-34 – The Crucifixion

• There were various types of crosses.
• The ‘T’ shaped cross
• The ‘X’ shaped cross.
• The ‘Christian’ cross as we know it. This was the one Jesus would have been executed upon. We know this because of the sign that was pinned on it. Only this type of cross would have that type of sign put on it.
• The death was a slow one mainly resulting from a drop in blood pressure and a speeding up in heart rate. This mixed with sheer pain caused the method of death to be feared.
• The body was disposed of in various ways sometimes involving speeding up death. Wild animals were allowed to eat the body - although not in the case of the Jews. To placate them, the Romans allowed them to be buried straight away.  Because of this they tended to speed up the death of the Jews on the cross either by either:
• kindling a fire under them,
• letting beasts attack them whilst still dying
• or by breaking their bones with an iron mallet.
• According to Fox book of Martyrs; history records that the fear of what was about to happen to someone about to be crucified would affect their body well before the actual crucifixion.
• Some lost the power of their legs.
• Some appeared like ghosts due to how incredibly pale they became in their face.
• Others lost the power of speech.
• Some literally lost their minds and this could be seem on their approach carrying the cross bar to the place of execution.
• Jesus would have seen many crucifixions but especially as a child as a revolt had been put down and hundreds of its participants had been crucified on the side of the roads in that region of the world.
• It still amazes me that Jesus went through with it. It seems to me that He probably succumb to the fear of the crucifixion as I wonder if that’s why Simon was used to carry His cross.
• Jesus, I believe was fearful not of death but of the cross and yet He did it anyway. He was determined to die for us. I need to understand that fear is not an excuse to deny what I should do or who I should be.

17th June 2010

Mark 15: 16-20 – The Soldiers Mock Jesus

• There are certain things that Jesus could have organized Himself to fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah but there are others He could not.
1. Prophecy fulfillment He could organize
2. Prophecy fulfillment He could not organize
3. Prophecy fulfillment that could only be seen after it happened.
• For examples of number 2; see Psalm 22:15-18 written several hundred years earlier
• My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

·         For an explanation of number 3; note one writers insight:

·         God spoke to the Israelites in shadows so that no man could try to “game” the prophecy and make himself Messiah

·         There are many things that the Messiah did, provoked or happened to Him that only made sense after the fact.

·         I need to remember that some things God does in my life will only make sense after the event and importantly; I need to remember some of the cases in my life when that is true as I enter a new thing that is not making sense.

·         The past ‘shadows’ will make sense of the new ones.

14th June 2010

Mark 15:1-5 – Jesus before Pilate.

§ This is the story of what happened when a panicky Pilate met a peaceful Jesus.

§ Jesus knew His identity but Pilate did not.

1.    For Jesus: Identity, like a triangle, has three corners: John 13:3 - “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God”

2.    For Pilate: Pilate’s power, in his mind, came from His position, the people & Emperor. [His name probably connected with the Roman family of the Pontii, and called “Pilate” from the Latin pileatus, i.e., “wearing the pileus”, which was the “cap or badge of a manumitted [freed] slave,” as indicating that he was a “freedman,” or the descendant of one.

§ This crisis in Pilates identity and Jesus assurance of His became obvious in three distinct areas:

1.    Pilate had to prove himself. Jesus did not.

2.    Pilate pulled others down. Jesus pulled others up

3.    Pilate feared decisions. Jesus pursued them.

§ What about me? How does my understand of my identity show itself?

1.    Do I fully believe God is my source of power?

2.    Do I fully believe He created me?

3.    Do I fully believe I will go to be with Him one day?

§ Do I panic or do i have peace?

11^th June 2010

Mark 14:66-72 – Peter disowns Jesus

§ Peter cuts off the ear of the servant guard and yet a short time later is afraid of the accusation of a servant girl.

§ He disowns Jesus and yet it was not necessary true that if He admitted that He was with Jesus, he would get in trouble. We presume he would of but we don’t know that for sure. The guards did not really pursue the disciples only Jesus Himself. Were they even interested in His disciples? They had not shown any evidence of that before.

§ Fear of what might happen caused the problem to persist, three times he was asked because he lied. The problem never went away.

§ That’s the problem with lying. Nothing gets resolved, just put off.

§ The separation mentioned in a previous devotional, led to pride which led to a fall.

§ I must learn from Jesus and address the issues I face immediately and with honesty. I cannot escape truth and putting it off only will lead to greater pressure.

§ I need to pray about that for myself and others.

11th June 2010

Mark 14:66-72 – Peter disowns Jesus

§ Peter cuts off the ear of the servant guard and yet a short time later is afraid of the accusation of a servant girl.

§ He disowns Jesus and yet it was not necessary true that if He admitted that He was with Jesus, he would get in trouble. We presume he would of but we don’t know that for sure. The guards did not really pursue the disciples only Jesus Himself. Were they even interested in His disciples? They had not shown any evidence of that before.

§ Fear of what might happen caused the problem to persist, three times he was asked because he lied. The problem never went away.

§ That’s the problem with lying. Nothing gets resolved, just put off.

§ The separation mentioned in a previous devotional, led to pride which led to a fall.

§ I must learn from Jesus and address the issues I face immediately and with honesty. I cannot escape truth and putting it off only will lead to greater pressure.

§ I need to pray about that for myself and others.

10th June 2010

Mark 14:53-65 – Jesus Before the Sanhedrin

§ The Sanhedrin had 71 members made up of the Chief Priest, the elders and the teachers of the law.

§ Witnesses in Jewish law functioned as the prosecution and although the Sanhedrin was granted a lot of power by the Romans, they could not impose capital punishment.

§ They taunted him by telling him to smell who struck him – there was a Jewish tradition that the Messiah would be able to judge by smell alone based on Isaiah 11:2-4.

§ Why did Jesus keep silent? Why did He not fight back?

§ Some thoughts from the line and the dot on this:

o   The Kingdom comes when extra miles are disclosed and when evil intentions are exposed. Jesus’ ministry was all about revealing hidden things.

o   Jesus purposely provoked; He said and did things to stir up evil. Where He went, demons were exposed and so were the religion, laws, and systems behind which they hid.

o   Why would He do this? So that observers would be presented with the opportunity to make a choice.

o   The attitudes, motives, and instinct for self-preservation that limit right living are often camouflaged. Evil lurks like a sniper whose goal is to blend into his surroundings by painting his skin and wearing a disguise to conceal himself.

o   Jesus the pioneer had a plan of action…He provoked. This forced that which was hidden to be exposed. The camouflage of religion, the disguise of law, the cover-up of systems began to fall away as people came out of the shadows to attack Jesus.

o   The second part of Jesus’ plan was to react in a godly way. As He was persecuted, lied about, and beaten, He kept quiet, and eventually those around Him were able to see what they could not see before. Jesus provoked evil into the light. By being good and exposing evil as evil, a contrast became evident for all to see.

o   If Jesus had provoked evil into the light and then reacted in the same way as His opposition, although He would have been right, most of the onlookers would have simply been confused.

o   As followers of Jesus, I must fix my eyes on Jesus, not simply on what He achieved, but on who He is. Not simply His vision but how He conducted Himself when given a vision.

9th June 2010

Mark 14:43-52 – Jesus Arrested

§ Peter cuts off the ear of the servant.

§ This was the chief priests assistant – the segan hacohanim

§ That his ear was cut off is significant, Peter knew exactly what he was doing. Cutting of an ear was often practiced because it meant that the servant was disqualified from service in the Temple. This happened many times in history and especially during the rule of Herod the Great.

§ Actually, it was often specifically the ear lobe.

§ If the ear had remained unhealed then Peter had succeeded in taking away the servants ability to serve God in His calling. However Jesus of course we find out heals him.

§ Jesus here shows that He is more than willing to restore His enemies to a place where they can serve their father.

§ A lesson I need to learn – just because people may be God’s enemies or I may see them as mine – I must not only be willing to forgive but to go the extra mile and restore.

8th June 2010

Mark 14:32-42 – Gethsemane

§ Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

§ Gethsemane means oil press and of course is full of olive trees.

§ Both in the Old and New Testament the place is associated with crisis and judgment. Is that why Jesus chose to go there to go through this agony? Was there something about this place that helped Him connect with what He was going through?

1.    Zechariah 14 – the Mount of Olives is prophesied about – it will spilt and in the valley that God creates the people use as an escape route from being attacked, their houses ransacked, women raped, capture, siege and possibly death.

2.    2 Sam 15 – it is here that Samuel constructs shrines to Pagan Gods.

3.    Luke 19 – it is here Jesus wept over the city’s coming destruction.

4.    Matt 21 – it is here Jesus curses the fig tree – a symbol of judgment on Israel.

5.    Matt 24 – it is here that Jesus delivers His Olivet discourse a prophecy of judgment.

6.    Matt 26 – it is here Jesus asks to be delivered, sweats tears of blood and is betrayed by Judas.

§ Was Jesus associating this place of a future divinely provided escape route?

§ Note He had just quoted from Zechariah! So He was very aware of the prophecy.

§ Was it here that Jesus was going hoping to escape if God willed it?

§ He knew this was one day to a divinely created escape route.

§ Was He reminding the Father by being there?

§ This is a good thought regarding God’s will when it is very hard. I need to understand just how cognizant Jesus was of what was about to happen to Him. The fact that Jesus I believe really was asking a genuine question shows me how much He really did not want to go through what He was about to go through.

§ The fact that He willing did this therefore shows His love for me.

§ Was this the first time Jesus expressed His will was different from His Father’s will?

Week away

Away in California so not doing my usual devotions blogs - resuming next week.