Three Minute Thoughts

From not being accepted at home to losing a friend and relative to being mobbed by crowds this chapter is filled with Jesus doing what Jesus came to do!

The Gospel of Mark tells the story of Jesus coming to power. When he steps on the scene right away at the beginning of the book we see Jesus wasting no time demonstrating his power. Here he does it with pigs, a bleeding woman and a sick child.

We take a few minutes in our time today to look at the idea of blasphemy and the importance of the Holy Spirit. Why didn't the people of Jesus' day understand who he was and why he was such an important part of their lives? Then we'll look quickly at the seeds, trees and how they remind us of Jesus.

Mark three is all about Jesus doing healings and selecting his disciples, but we're going to focus on the transition between chapters 2 and 3. This transition is really critical to the understanding of what the sabbath is and why it exists and why the people of Jesus' day had such a problem with it.

Mark's gospel account adds a fun little twist that many may not notice. Buried here in a healing moment, actually hidden in plain sight, is a nugget of really important information. This is a turning point for us to see the gospel differently. Jesus will address the real problems we face by dealing with sin before dealing with the felt need of physical healing.

The gospel of Mark is all about Jesus fulfilling the promises of the Old Testament by being all that was predicted. This episode is a quick introduction to Mark as a gospel writer and unpacking a small piece of chapter 1.

Paul and the early followers of Jesus spent a lot of time performing rituals that amounted to not much of anything more than a mark on the body.