March 23 Jesus and His disciples came into Bethphage, a small village on the Mount of Olives, very close to Bethany between Jericho and Jerusalem. Jesus saw a fig tree covered with leaves, but it bore no fruit. Because there was no fruit on the tree, Jesus cursed it, though not because He was still…
March 22 Misreading Mark 10:23–41 can lead to dangerous applications of God’s Word. In this section, Jesus addressed possessions and the Kingdom of God. He told a rich man that in order to enter heaven, he needed to sell all of his possessions and give to the poor. The reason he should do this, the…
March 21 Mark 9:2–13 records the Transfiguration, where Jesus gave Peter, James, and John a glimpse of the consummation of the Kingdom of God. This story is recorded in all three of the Synoptic Gospels.[1] But, just prior to the Transfiguration in all of the Synoptics, Jesus tells the three disciples “Truly I tell you,…
March 20 Today let’s touch on three things from Mark 8. Mark tells us in verse 1 that “once again there was a large crowd.” They had followed Jesus for three days with nothing to eat. This raises a few questions: 1.) Why didn’t the people bring food with them? By now, a large crowd…
March 19 Jesus never did a miracle the same way twice. On this occasion, he took the deaf and speech-impaired man away from the crowd for privacy. This is the first time I’ve noticed this detail. How ‘bout you? (Tomorrow, we’ll see the only other place where Jesus performs a private miracle in Mark 8:22–26.)…
March 16 Herod was a family name. It’s easy to be confused regarding the Herods because sometimes they were referred to simply as Herod. Herod the Great, Antipas’ father, was the one who had every two-year-old boy killed when the Magi asked about Jesus’ birth as the King of the Jews. (Matthew 2:16) I guess…
