{"id":3952,"date":"2008-08-26T11:04:25","date_gmt":"2008-08-26T17:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=3952"},"modified":"2008-08-26T11:10:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-26T17:10:26","slug":"the-good-news-according-to-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/the-good-news-according-to-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"the good news according to Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/awake.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/awake-300x160.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"awake\" width=\"300\" height=\"160\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3953\" srcset=\"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/awake-300x160.png 300w, http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/awake.png 1184w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I woke up <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/jdblundell\/statuses\/899102503\">quite early this morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Around 3 I pulled myself out of bed and opened up my copy of The Message to finish reading the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Mark;&#038;version=65;\">good news according to Mark<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As I read through it, several things crossed my mind.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Matthew seems to write from the mindset of proving to the Hebrews that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the prophecies within the Hebrew Scripture<\/li>\n<li>Mark seems to write from a mindset of encouraging his readers to give all they&#8217;ve got for the cause of Jesus<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Along the way a couple passages really jumped out at me and stirred my heart and soul.<\/p>\n<p>In the 4th chapter of his letter, Mark writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>With many stories like these, he presented his message to them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity. He was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, sorting out the tangles, untying the knots. (mark 4:33-34)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always heard and known that Jesus used stories to relate to people, but Eugene Peterson really makes the language\/idea pop when he suggests that <strong>Jesus presented his stories according to each group&#8217;s experience and maturity.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>The NIV translates it this way: <em>Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It seems like we could take a lesson from Jesus when we&#8217;re trying to explain Biblical principals to people. <strong>Tell it like we would a story.<\/strong> <strong>Don&#8217;t try to impress people with your big doctrinal words.<\/strong> Don&#8217;t try to overdue the theological ideas. Break it down and tell the story in a way that makes sense to your audience.<\/p>\n<p>The second passage that really grabbed me was a few pages over, in chapter 6.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Jesus wasn&#8217;t able to do much of anything there\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe laid hands on a few sick people and healed them, that&#8217;s all. He couldn&#8217;t get over their stubbornness. He left and made a circuit of the other villages, teaching.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That jumped out at me and really comforted me this morning. It helped me to realize that <strong>even Jesus, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Son of God couldn&#8217;t force people to change<\/strong>. <strong>Their stubbornness won out sometimes<\/strong> &#8211; even in his hometown.<\/p>\n<p>I can often get frustrated when I see a lack of change in people I may be ministering with\/to. But it&#8217;s really not up to me &#8212; <strong>it&#8217;s up to the Holy Spirit to convict hearts<\/strong>. I&#8217;m just called to continue living the life.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? What are you reading this week? Anything you really like in Mark&#8217;s telling of the good news?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>. I woke up quite early this morning. Around 3 I pulled myself out of bed and opened up my copy of The Message to finish reading the good news according to Mark. As I read through it, several things crossed my mind. Matthew seems to write from the mindset of proving to the Hebrews &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/the-good-news-according-to-mark\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">the good news according to Mark<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,19],"tags":[1065,124,1416,1152],"class_list":["post-3952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-reflections","tag-good-news","tag-gospel","tag-mark","tag-matthew"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-11K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}