The best comment I heard today about the sermon was from a visitor. He identified himself as an evangelist and said that the sermon made him want to do more study in the Gospel According to Mark. I say that was the best comment I heard because that was exactly the effect I wanted today's sermon to have. I want us all to have such a desire to know Jesus better that we dig deeply into Mark's Gospel and let him teach us what it means to follow Jesus.Several people told me that they would read the Gospel of of Mark but no one yet has accepted the challenge I gave this morning of reading the Gospel each week for the duration of the sermon series. I have done this in the past when preaching through Mark and look forward to doing it again. Won't you join me? Let me know if you want to do this and we can keep each other accountable.
Finally, I want to express my sorrow over losing David Layman as my co-minister. David has truly been God's gift to me for the past nine years and his leaving saddens my heart. However, I am confident that he made his decision prayerfully and am thankful that he will still be an active member of the congregation even if I don't get to work beside him every day. May God's blessing be on his family in this transition and may God give us eyes to see the direction and opportunities He has in store for our church in the future.
2 comments:
I will take on this challenge. I read Mark yesterday and will read it every week througout this sermon. I have a question (one of many I assure you). I was wondering what your thoughts are on Jesus telling all of the people that he healed not to tell anyone about it. I don't think he was just being modest. Was he trying reverse psychology on them or was it for crowd control? Or all three (including modesty)?
Lawren Hasten
Lawren, great question! Your possible solutions have all been suggested by people trying to understand what has been called, "the messianic secret." As you read the book you will notice that not everyone is told to keep quiet. For example the man healed of a legion of demons wanted to follow Jesus but is told instead to "Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, ..." (5:19). This gives us some clue as to why Jesus commands secrecy. Only the Jews are told to keep the message quiet because of the false expectations people had about the Jewish messiah and the kingdom that he was bringing with him. I'll go into great detail about this on Wednesday night. Come join us!
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