Mark 2:13-28 (Wednesday Night Bible Study)

Wednesday Evening Bible Study

Mark 2:13-28

• Mark 2:13-14
• 13 Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. 14 Then, passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him.
  • Jesus has transitioned from preaching in the synagogues to preaching outdoors
    • This is mainly because the religious establishment has started to not allow him in anymore
    • He is also teaching like all of the other rabbis (the most common teaching style was to teach while walking the roads, and your disciples would follow you and listen while walking)
  • This is still taking place in Galilee, which is actually a hub of travel
    • “Judea is on the way to nowhere; Galilee is on the way to everywhere”
    • Palestine was the land bridge between Europe and Africa
      • The great “Road of the Sea” led from Damascus, through Galilee, through Capernaum, down past Carmel, along the Plain of Sharon, through Gaza, and on to Egypt. It was one of the great roads of the ancient world
      • Another road through Galilee led from Acre on the coast across the Jordan out to Arabia and the frontiers of the Roman Empire
    • Palestine was ruled by different groups at this time
      • Judaea was Roman under a Roman governor
      • Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great)
      • To the east was ruled by Philip (another son of Herod the Great)
      • On the way from Philip’s to Herod’s, the first city you would arrive at was Capernaum
        • It was by very nature a frontier town
        • It was a customs center
        • In those days, there were import and export taxes, and it appears that Capernaum was the place those taxes were collected
        • This is where Matthew (Levi) worked as a chief tax collector
          • This means that he worked for Herod Antipas, and not for Rome, but he would have been despised and hated none the less
  • This story tells us some things about Jesus and Matthew
    • Matthew was a well hated man
      • Tax collectors made their living by extracting as much as they could over and above what the law required
      • Greek writer Lucian ranks tax collectors with adulterers, panderers, flatterers, and sycophants.
      • Jesus wanted the man no one else wanted
    • Matthew was longing to change
      • Matthew had more than likely been listening to Jesus’ teachings as he went along, and was just waiting for an opportunity to follow Him
      • He would not have been able to go to the good people of the day, because they would not have accepted him
      • There was a woman that had been living with a Chinese man and had a baby by him. She came to a women’s meeting in London, bringing the baby with her. She enjoyed the meeting, and continued to come. After a while, the leader came to her and told her that she could not attend anymore. When she questioned him, he told her that all of the other ladies were going to quit coming if she continued. Thankfully, the lady was found by the Salvation Army and came to Christ
      • That is the attitude that Matthew would have faced with the “good” people
    • As Jesus walked along the shore, that is when He called Matthew
      • Jesus was always looking for an opportunity to point someone toward God
      • What a harvest we could gather in if we looked for men and women for Christ as we walked!
    • Of all the disciples, Matthew gave up the most
      • The others could always return to the boats and return to fishing
      • Walking away from a tax collectors booth, he could never return to that job
      • At some time in every life there comes the moment to decide, and we have to be big enough to make the big decisions
      • Matthew was a man that staked everything on Jesus, and he was not wrong
    • Matthew got at least three things by choosing to follow Jesus
      • He got clean hands
        • Yes, life might be more difficult, but it would be better
      • He lost one job, but he gained a far bigger one
        • Being a disciple
        • Recording the ministry of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew
      • It brought him immortal and worldwide fame (not that that is the goal)
• Mark 2:15-17
• 15 While he was reclining at the table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who were following him. 16 When the scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
  • Jesus continues His defiance of the religious norm
  • Matthew invites Jesus to eat with him and his friends (other tax collectors and sinners)
  • Jesus gladly accepted the invitation 
  • The religious elite were not happy to see Jesus interacting with the “sinners”
    • It was forbidden for anyone following the law to interact with those that were law breakers
      • They were not to fellowship with them; not to speak to them; not to do business with them if at all possible; not to travel with them; not to marry them; and certainly, not to share a meal with them or accept hospitality from them
      • By going to Matthew’s house and sitting at his table, Jesus was defying the orthodox convictions of the day
    • Sinner (hamartolos) had a double meaning
      • Those that were breaking the moral law
      • Those that did not observe the scribal law
      • They considered murder and not washing your hands in the prescribed way as the same thing
  • Jesus answered their objections quite simply
    • It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
  • Verse 17, at first sounds as if Jesus does not have any use for good people
    • But the point is that Jesus can’t help those that think they are too good to need His help
    • To have no sense of need is to have erected a barrier between us and Jesus; to have a sense of need is to possess the passport to His presence
  • The attitude of the orthodox Jews to sinners was really compounded of two things
    • Contempt
      • Rabbis taught “The ignorant man can never be pious”
      • The scribes and Pharisees despised the common people; Jesus loved them
      • The scribes and Pharisees stood on their dignity of formal piety and looked down on sinners; Jesus came and sat beside them, and by sitting beside them, lifted them up
    • Fear
      • They were afraid that by spending time with and around “sinners” that they would “catch” sin as well
      • They were like doctors who would refuse to treat someone with an infectious disease because they were afraid they would catch it
      • Jesus was the one who forgot Himself in a great desire to save others
      • C.T. Studd “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I wast to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell” “I pray that when I die, all hell will have a party to celebrate the fact that I am no longer in the fight.”
• Mark 2:18-20
• 18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. People came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19 Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.
  • Fasting was a regular practice of the stricter Jews
  • Day of Atonement was the only day of the year that fasting was required
  • The strictest Jews fasted two days a week (Mondays and Thursdays
  • Not as tough as it sounds (Fast would be from 6 AM to 6 PM and then any food could be consumed)
  • Jesus is not against fasting if done for good reasons 
    • Self-discipline
    • Focus on God
  • Fasting of the Pharisees was for self-display
    • They did things outwardly to make sure others new they were fasting
    • Whitened their faces and wore disheveled garments
    • They were fasting so that everyone would see and admire their devotion
    • It was to call the attention of God to their piety
  • Jesus uses a vivid picture to explain why His disciples were not fasting
    • Jewish weddings, the couple would not leave on a honeymoon afterward. The party would continue for a week with close family and friends
    • The party of the bridegroom would be exempt from any religious duties that would lesson their joy (thus, fasting was not required for the party)
  • The characteristic Christian attitude to life is joy. The discovery of Christ and the company of Christ are the key to happiness
    • Tokichi Ishii 
  • The mark of his rebirth was a smiling radiance. The life that is lived in Christ cannot be lived other than in joy
  • The story ends with dark clouds on the horizon
    • Jesus knows the cross is coming, even this early in His ministry, and He has already chosen to follow this path
• Mark 2:21-22
• 21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old cloth, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.”
  • Jesus knew His message was different than anyone of His day was expecting
  • He also knew how hard it is for us as humans to accept any new teaching 
  • He uses two illustrations to show how necessary it is to have an adventurous mind
    • He speaks of the danger of sewing a new patch on an old garment
      • A new, unshrunk patch, would tear away and damage the old garment
    • He speaks of the danger of putting new wine in old wineskins
      • New wineskins had elasticity while old were rigid and would break easy
      • New wine was still in the fermentation process and would continue to give off gasses. In a new skin, it would stretch and accommodate the new wine. Old skins could not do this and would crack and break, ruining both the wine and the skin.
      • Jesus is pleading for a certain elasticity in our minds
      • As they grow older almost everyone develops a dislike of that which is new and unfamiliar
      • Christ is urging us to be open to change (not the message, but the way it is presented has to be elastic)
• Mark 2:23-28
• 23 On the Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 He said to them, “Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry — 26 how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence —which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests —and also gave some to his companions?” 27 Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 28 So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
  • Jesus is again taking on the norms of the scribes and Pharisees
  • His disciples were picking and eating the heads of grain as they passed through the fields
    • This was legal according to the law, as long as they were not using equipment, they could pick and eat what they wanted
    • Except that this was the Sabbath 
    • Thousands of petty rules and regulations had been put in place by the scribes and Pharisees about the Sabbath
    • All work was forbidden
    • Work had been classified under 39 different heads
    • Four of these were reaping, winnowing, threshing, and preparing a meal (Just to prove how petty, you couldn’t even walk with a sandal on held together by a nail, because the weight of the nail was considered work)
    • By their action, the disciples had technically broken all four of these rules and were to be considered law-breakers by the Pharisees
    • They expected Jesus to make the disciples stop when they confronted Him, but that’s not the reaction they god
    • Instead, Jesus reminded them of the story found in I Samuel 21:1-6, when David and his men ate the bread that was reserved only for priests, because they were hungry and it was the only food to eat.
    • Jesus is making the argument that the Sabbath was made to benefit man, not man made for the sake of the Sabbath.
    • This passage confronts us with certain essential truths which we forget at our own peril
      • Religion does not consist in rules and regulations
        • Sunday observance is important, but there is a great deal more to religion than Sunday observance
        • Christianity has at all times consisted far more in doing things than in refraining from doing things
      • The first claim on anyone is the claim of human need
        • If ever the performance of our religion stops us helping someone who is in need, our religion in not religion at all
        • People matter far more than systems
        • People are far more important than rituals
        • The best way to worship God is to help people
        • James 1:27
        • 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
      • The best way to use sacred things is to use them to help one another