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February
13
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Reading
1 - Exodus 23
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here to Listen
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23
v.3 - Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. These
seem strange words. What do they mean? Three hebrew words are attributed
by Strong to this verse - 01921
hadar, (translated countenance) which means 'to
honour, to adorn, to glorify, to be high' - 01800 dal,
(translated poor) which means 'low, poor, weak, thin'
- and 07379 riyb (translated
cause), which means 'strife, controversy, dispute'. So
maybe the verse could read along these lines - Neither shalt thou glory
over a poor man in his strife - make sure that you give attention to
changing his plight. Ps.82:3,
Jas.3:17
Peter Cresswell |
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v.13
- The word here translated 'circumspect' carries with it not the meaning
that we would place on it today, but the deeper meaning of being watchful
and heeding the word. Deut.4:9,15,
Josh.22:5, 23:11
Peter Cresswell |
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v.1-3
develops the implications of personal ownership of one's actions. Whilst
it might be possible to find someone to provide a false alibi so that one
could not be accused of a particular action such an action is clearly wrong.
:These ideas are developed with a fuller application to the day to day events
of life when Moses speaks of :8
taking a bribe.
Peter
Forbes |
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23:10-11
Here, like the provision for the slave (Chapter
21) is another aspect of the year of release which is developed in Numbers
25.
Peter
Forbes |
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Reading
2 - Psalm 77
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here to Listen
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v.
12
- How seriously do we take this concept of meditating? In the hopeless rat-race
of our lives in which we are inextricably caught up, how do we find time
to meditate on God's work and
talk of his doings?
It behoves to do so, so here are a few passages by way of encouragement
in that direction - Ps.104:34,
143:5, 71:24, 105:2, Deut.6:7, Luke 24:14-21,
Peter Cresswell |
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v.10-15
- Yet again we have a section of praise for God upon which we are invited
to stop and think (selah). God's desire for our praise stems not from His
need, but from His knowledge of our need to humble ourselves so that He
might be able to cover our sin by His grace.
Peter Cresswell
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v.7-9
This doubting mind is typical of all men and women of God - save the Lord
Jesus. However the antidote is clear. :10
teaches that remembering what God has done in the past will correct the
unbalanced view.
Peter
Forbes |
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:18
The Psalmist is describing what happened when the law was given at Sinai.
Peter
Forbes |
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Reading
3 - Mark 9
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here to Listen
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Twice,
v.9
and v.31, Jesus
tells his disciples (though only 3 of them in v.9) that he would rise from
the dead, and on both occasions they were afraid to ask him what it meant.
Like english, the greek word was used for any sort of rising, getting up,
standing up, etc., so it was not as though Jesus had introduced a new word
that they were unable to comprehend. It is easy for us in retrospect to
look back and feel that they were being a bit dim, but the details of the
concept would have worried them. Here was a doctrine that smacked of the
wrong beliefs held around them about afterlife. Also they expected Jesus
to be King, not to die. They may well not have known where he meant he was
going to rise. On earth, for them to see, or somewhere else and invisible?
There were many unanswered questions that it would feel wrong for them to
ask at the time. There is another aspect to this, as well - God chose (Luke
9:45 - parallel
passage) to hide it from them. He required them to be fascinated by it.
The mystery of it kept them following. Luke
2:50, 18:34, Mark 7:18, 8:17,18, 16:14.
Peter Cresswell
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v.8
The phrase 'looked round' is only found in Mark's Gospel record. It is
not to be found in any of the other accounts of the life of Jesus - Mark
3:5,34 5:32 10:23 11:11
v.15 Amazement and astonishment were seen often at the words and actions
of Jesus. Matthew
7:28 12:23 13:54 19:25 22:33 Mark 1:22 27 2:12 5:42 6:2 51 7:37 10:24
26 32 11:18 Luke 2:47 4:32 36 5:9 26 8:56 9:43 Thus we have to conclude
that Jesus was, rather than being what people expected, very different
from other teachers they had seen or heard.
v.16 One supposes that the scribes would try to capitalise on the inability
of the disciples to cast out the devil. Rather than being concerned for
the poor sick individual they were concerned with scoring points against
Jesus. Of course we realise that there were only nine of the disciples
together on this occasion as Peter, James and John had been up the mountain.
Peter Forbes
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v.12
When Peter, James and John, said, speaking of Elijah, that he 'cometh first
and restoreth all things' we have a phrase which is picked up in the early
preaching of the apostles - [Acts
4:21] The 'restoration' spoken of here is the establishing again of
the kingdom of God - this was the issue in the minds of Jesus after his
resurrection [Acts
1:6]. That the kingdom is to be 'restored' of course, indicates that
it used to exist, which it did when the kingdom of Israel was on the earth.
Peter Forbes |
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:38
The disciples forbad one 'casting out devils' in Jesus' name - but they
had not been able to cast out a devil (:17-18).
They were also concerned as to which of them 'would be the greatest' in
the kingdom (:34)
so we see at this time, quite early in the ministry of Jesus, the disciples
had serious problems with personal pride. A clear warning for those of us
who would be Jesus' disciples now.
Peter Forbes |
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Mark
9:27 - "But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up;
and he arose" - This is the whole work of Christ with His people.
We all need His hand in our lives to lift us up and to cause us to rise
to immortality with Him. Do we have the same spirit as this man?
Do we want to be healed by the world's greatest doctor?
Mark
9:38-40 - "Forbid him not" - A similar incident happened
in the life of Moses in Numbers
11:27. It is sometimes so easy to discount the work of "other" people
who do not belong to "our" group (whatever that group might be).
With Jesus there are no outcasts. "Those who the Father has given
to Him, those who come unto me, I will in no wise cast out",
He says in John
6:37. Are we counting people "out" or do we "include" all those who
the Father has called? Who wants to be on the outside? We all like to
"belong" - and in Christ, we do all "belong" to His great family.
Cliff
York
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