Churching Today

Last week we have the deaf and mute man given the ability to hear, speak and understand, and while Jesus had asked him not to say anything, that of course did not happen, so now Jesus is seeing the crowds in Decapolis that he was seeing in Judah. But these people are different, they are not Jews, they do not have the same theological system that Jesus has, Jesus does not need to teach the Jews certain concepts, they understand that there is but One God, not many gods. The Jews understands that God created all things, these Gentiles think that the earth and the universe are eternal, so there is a lot of stuff that Jesus needs to teach these people, and because they are Greeks mainly they are going to want details, lots and lots of details. This is why Luke’s Gospel is much longer than Mark’s. While Jesus was teaching the Jews how to properly interpret the Old Testament, Jesus here to these Gentile is giving an introduction to the Old Testament. And as we read this account we see the tim...

  Having healed the daughter of the Syrophoenician casting out the demon that was in her, Jesus and his disciples more east to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to another area that is larger and more Gentile area. Mark 7:31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. Decapolis which means ten cities, Deca 10, let us all remember our metric system teaching in middle school, and then of course the word polis is city, do the 10 cities is a Greek City State area, that is set up much like the Greece of old with Athens and Sparta, this region is set up much the same way, and it is very Gentile, very Greek most of the people who live in this region are not from the Middle East, they trace their roots back to Macedonia the great Greek area that would produce Alexander the Great, who like the Assyrians who at one time occupied this same area, Alexander would import mass numbers of Greeks into a region and ch...

  After Jesus words with the Pharisees and his teaching on the subject of defilement, Jesus wants to get away from the Jewish establishment, and the only way to do that is to do outside of the territory that they control. Jesus had spent most of his time among the Jewish people, His one encounter with a group of Gentiles was when He was dealing with the man who had the legion of demons inside of him and went into the herd of pigs. That encounter with the Gentiles was not a positive one, in fact they ran Jesus and the disciples out of town. But in an attempt to escape the crowds and the attention of the Jewish leadership, Jesus takes Himself and his disciples northwest. Mark 7:24 And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. Tyre and Sidon are to the northwest of Galilee well outside of the control of the Jews leadership and while they are quite the distance from the pla...

  As we have noted before, our Roman reader has learned a lot about Jesus, and the remarkable things that He has done. Anyone who is drawing large crowds will at some point get the attention of the local leaders. Our Roman reader knows that the Empire only cares about two things, taxes and peace and they are connected. See if there is no peace, then the Empire is spending money on soldiers to get peace, and if there is no peace, most like that area where there is no peace, well there are no taxes. So, to ensure the money keeps coming in the Romans want to make sure that everything stays as peaceful as possible. This is why the Romans did not get involved too much in local affairs, especially ones that have to do with religion. The Romans pretty much allowed people to practice their religion as they saw fit. However, the Jews were a different bunch, not only did they have this singular God, but they would also have these sects that would rise up and attempt to get the people to fo...

  So Jesus has feed the people, 5,000 men + their wives and families, Jesus had shown his disciples that it was the sheep that He cared about and taking care of them was of the upmost importance, and Jesus wanted His disciples to see people not as a burden to their ministry but that they were the ministry, they were the purpose and reason for why He came. Our Roman reader is slowly finding out the Jesus is focusing not on the normal things that leaders look to, which would to be to win over the powerful, the wealthy, those with influence, no Jesus came for a particular group of people. Sinners. Mark 6:45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. Jesus can sense not only the dissatisfaction of his disciples of not getting their down time with the Lord to debrief, but that they had taken a back seat to the crowd. Not that they did not want Jesus to feed these people, they were as awe struc...

  Exegetical Review of Alma 5 [ 1 ] Now it came to pass that Alma began to deliver the word of God unto the people, first in the land of Zarahemla, and from thence throughout all the land. [ 2 ] And these are the words which he spake to the people in the church which was established in the city of Zarahemla, according to his own record, saying: The term church is a New Testament teaching Alma is supposed to be written 50 years prior to the birth of Christ, the word Church in Matthew 18 would be 30+ years after that Jesus birth hence the term and concept of the church would have been foreign to these people. [ 3 ] I, Alma, having been consecrated by my father, Alma, to be a high priest over the church of God, he having power and authority from God to do these things, behold, I say unto you that he began to establish a church in the land which was in the borders of Nephi; yea, the land which was called the land of Mormon; yea, and he did baptize his brethren in the waters ...