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Mark 9
There are a lot of things in the Bible that I don’t understand. I am not alone in that human condition, though. Even Jesus’ own disciples failed to understand even the obvious at times. Twice in this chapter Mark says that the disciples did not understand what Jesus meant when He said He would “rise from the dead”. That seems like a pretty easy to understand statement, and they had seen Jesus raise others from the dead by this point. So it wasn’t the words they failed to understand. It was the message.
In scratching my head to figure out why they failed to ‘get’ such a basic statement, I noticed two things. At the first misunderstanding, the disciples asked about Elijah. Jesus told them Elijah had come. He then asked, “Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?” (Mark 9:12b). He ended the discussion by pointing out that the Elijah who had come had been treated according to prophecy. I think He was trying to draw their attention to the part of the prophecy concerning the promised Messiah that they kept overlooking, stressing that this prophecy must also be fulfilled. After the second misunderstanding, Jesus caught the disciples in an argument about who among them was the greatest. Talk about missing the point!
All of this tells me that the disciples didn’t understand “rise from the dead” because it didn’t fit what they wanted to believe about the Messiah. Just as we willingly believe what we wish, we struggle immensely with believing what we don’t wish. Jesus’ words did not fit in with their desired belief, so they did not understand. I believe this is a mistake we all make. We get in our head that something should be a certain way, and when it isn’t, we have a ‘crisis of faith’. Did God fail or let anybody down when Jesus died on that cross? It must have felt like a HUGE defeat to His misunderstanding followers, but no – it was not a defeat. The problem wasn’t Jesus’ death, it was the disciples misunderstanding.
I beat all of this to death because there is something very familiar at the heart of all of it. Wisdom, understanding, proper perspective, truth – it all comes from God. We are not the source of any of it. So when our desired beliefs seem to conflict with truth, we need to seek God for wisdom and understanding rather than seeking to reshape truth to fit into our mold. We need to remember that God alone is the standard and humbly set aside self if we ever hope to receive the understanding He gives.
2 Sam. 1-2
How was David’s killing of the messenger consistent with his values and behavior? I have mentioned before that I don’t understand if this messenger actually did help finish Saul off. Nor do I understand his motives in bringing the news to David or why David killed him for it. What I tend to believe is that the man made up his part in Saul’s death in the hope of receiving some kind of reward for it. Today, however, I noticed something that, for some odd reason, I have never paid attention to before. The messenger, though he had escaped from the Israelite camp, was not an Israelite. He was an Amalekite, of the very people David had just finished striking down. They were also the people over whom Saul fell out of favor with God due to his disobedience. A little ironic, I think.
Again, I don’t really know what this man’s motives in coming to David were. But it appears that he had no fear of God. Not only was he not afraid to take down the LORD’s anointed by his own hand, or at least say he did, but he also seemed to think he deserved some kind of favor for that action. Maybe David recognized the man’s dishonesty. Maybe not. But what it seems he did recognize was that this messenger was an enemy of God. As God’s anointed, if not yet acting King of Israel, it was part of David’s duty to strike down God’s enemies. And so he did.
Though I don’t believe for a second that we are likewise obligated to physically strike down the enemies of God, I do believe that we need to learn to recognize them. I am now even more inclined to believe that this messenger was dishonest and was seeking his own gain with no fear of God. “Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matt. 7:20). Let us be careful not to honor, support, or collaborate with the enemies of God!