Followers and Faith
Section 55
JESUS STILLS THE STORM
(Sea of Galilee; same day as last section)
MATT. 8:18-27
MARK 4:35-41
LUKE 8:22-25
Types of Followers
If you read the events of Matthew 8:18-22 quickly and woodenly, it can seem that Jesus is issuing difficult directives bluntly. He is always direct, but also compassionate and thoughtful. The following commentaries help me to tease out the context of his replies, leaving me with a view of the text that lines up more consistently with Christ's overarching character and goals.
"In this section Matthew gave three illustrations to demonstrate the right of the King to ask servants to follow Him and to deny requests from those who were motivated improperly." -BKC
a 19 "And there came a scribe" [Literally, one scribe. The number is emphatic; for, so far as the record shows, Jesus had none of this class among his disciples], -Fourfold Gospel
"This scribe had heard the wonderful parables concerning the kingdom. He, like all others, expected an earthly kingdom and sought to have a place in it. Jesus so replied as to correct his false expectations." -Fourfold Gospel
"Though Jesus desired disciples who would follow Him and work in His harvest fields, He wanted only those who were properly motivated....The Lord obviously knew the heart of this person and saw that he desired fame in following a prominent Teacher. Such was not Jesus’ character." -BKC
"This disciple must have been one of the twelve, for these only were required to follow Jesus." Mark 3:14
"This man’s father was not dead or even at the point of death. This disciple was simply saying he wanted to return home and wait until his father died. Then he would return and follow Jesus. His request demonstrated he felt discipleship was something he could pick up or lay down at will. He put material concerns ahead of Jesus, for he apparently wanted to receive the estate when his father died." -BKC
The Storm on Galilee
Out of the three gospel portraits of the calming of the storm, I prefer Mark's account:
The larger context of Mark's ordering:
"Mark’s selection of parables is followed by a series of miracles, indicating that what Jesus did (His works) authenticated what He said (His words). Both relate to the presence of God’s sovereign rule (kingdom) in Jesus." -BKC
"With only three exceptions Mark put all the miracles he recorded before Mar_8:27. (Cf. the list “The Miracles of Jesus” at Joh_2:1-11.) This was to highlight the fact that Jesus would not tell His disciples about His coming death and resurrection until they openly acknowledged Him as God’s Messiah.
On Christ's Sovereign Authority
This section contains four miracles that clearly show Jesus’ sovereign authority over various hostile powers: a storm at sea (Mar_4:35-41); demon possession (Mar_5:1-20); incurable physical illness (Mar_5:25-34); and death (Mar_5:21-24, Mar_5:35-43)." -BKC
"In addressing the winds and waves Jesus personified them to give emphasis to his authority over them. The calm showed the perfection of the miracle, for the waves of such a lake continue to roll long after the winds have ceased." -Fourfold Gospel
"Jesus rebuked (lit., “ordered”; cf. Mar_1:25) the wind and said to the waves, “Be silent! Be muzzled and remain so!” (the force of the Gr. perf. Tense, pephimōso) This verb, “be muzzled,” was somewhat of a technical term for dispossessing a demon of his power (cf. Mar_1:25) and may suggest that Jesus recognized demonic powers behind the ferocious storm." -BKC
Psa 89:8 O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you?
"Fear which drives us to Jesus is not all wrong. The cry to Him, even though it is the cry of unnecessary terror, brings Him to His feet for our help." -Alexander MacLaren
"A symbol of what frequently occurs. Let every disciple remember that a sleeping Christ is not a dead Christ." BI
JESUS STILLS THE STORM
(Sea of Galilee; same day as last section)
MATT. 8:18-27
MARK 4:35-41
LUKE 8:22-25
Types of Followers
"Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” Matthew 8:18-22
If you read the events of Matthew 8:18-22 quickly and woodenly, it can seem that Jesus is issuing difficult directives bluntly. He is always direct, but also compassionate and thoughtful. The following commentaries help me to tease out the context of his replies, leaving me with a view of the text that lines up more consistently with Christ's overarching character and goals.
"In this section Matthew gave three illustrations to demonstrate the right of the King to ask servants to follow Him and to deny requests from those who were motivated improperly." -BKC
a 19 "And there came a scribe" [Literally, one scribe. The number is emphatic; for, so far as the record shows, Jesus had none of this class among his disciples], -Fourfold Gospel
"This scribe had heard the wonderful parables concerning the kingdom. He, like all others, expected an earthly kingdom and sought to have a place in it. Jesus so replied as to correct his false expectations." -Fourfold Gospel
"Though Jesus desired disciples who would follow Him and work in His harvest fields, He wanted only those who were properly motivated....The Lord obviously knew the heart of this person and saw that he desired fame in following a prominent Teacher. Such was not Jesus’ character." -BKC
"This disciple must have been one of the twelve, for these only were required to follow Jesus." Mark 3:14
"This man’s father was not dead or even at the point of death. This disciple was simply saying he wanted to return home and wait until his father died. Then he would return and follow Jesus. His request demonstrated he felt discipleship was something he could pick up or lay down at will. He put material concerns ahead of Jesus, for he apparently wanted to receive the estate when his father died." -BKC
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| Sea of Galilee |
Out of the three gospel portraits of the calming of the storm, I prefer Mark's account:
"On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” -Mark 4:35-41
The larger context of Mark's ordering:
"Mark’s selection of parables is followed by a series of miracles, indicating that what Jesus did (His works) authenticated what He said (His words). Both relate to the presence of God’s sovereign rule (kingdom) in Jesus." -BKC
"With only three exceptions Mark put all the miracles he recorded before Mar_8:27. (Cf. the list “The Miracles of Jesus” at Joh_2:1-11.) This was to highlight the fact that Jesus would not tell His disciples about His coming death and resurrection until they openly acknowledged Him as God’s Messiah.
On Christ's Sovereign Authority
This section contains four miracles that clearly show Jesus’ sovereign authority over various hostile powers: a storm at sea (Mar_4:35-41); demon possession (Mar_5:1-20); incurable physical illness (Mar_5:25-34); and death (Mar_5:21-24, Mar_5:35-43)." -BKC
"In addressing the winds and waves Jesus personified them to give emphasis to his authority over them. The calm showed the perfection of the miracle, for the waves of such a lake continue to roll long after the winds have ceased." -Fourfold Gospel
"Jesus rebuked (lit., “ordered”; cf. Mar_1:25) the wind and said to the waves, “Be silent! Be muzzled and remain so!” (the force of the Gr. perf. Tense, pephimōso) This verb, “be muzzled,” was somewhat of a technical term for dispossessing a demon of his power (cf. Mar_1:25) and may suggest that Jesus recognized demonic powers behind the ferocious storm." -BKC
O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you? You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.-Psalm 89:8-9In stilling the storm Jesus assumed the authority exercised only by God in the Old Testament (cf. Psa_89:8-9; Psa_104:5-9; Psa_106:8-9; Psa_107:23-32). That is why the disciples were terrified (lit., “feared a great fear”) when they saw that even the forces of nature did obey Him. The verb “terrified” (from phobeomai, “have awe;” cf. deilos, “cowardly fear,” in Mar_4:40) refers to a reverence that overtakes people in the presence of supernatural power (cf. Mar_16:8). However, their question to one another, Who is this? indicated that they did not fully comprehend the significance of it all.-BKC
Psa 89:8 O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you?
"Fear which drives us to Jesus is not all wrong. The cry to Him, even though it is the cry of unnecessary terror, brings Him to His feet for our help." -Alexander MacLaren
II. That good people sometimes get very much frightened. And so it is now that you often find good people wildly agitated. “Oh!” says some Christian man, “the infidel magazines, the bad newspapers, the spiritualistic societies, the importation of so many foreign errors, the Church of God is going to be lost, the ship is going to founder! The ship is going down!” What are you frightened about? An old lion goes into his cavern to take a sleep, and he lies down until his shaggy mane covers his paws. Meanwhile, the spiders outside begin to spin webs over the mouth of his cavern, and say, “That lion cannot break out through this web,” and they keep on spinning the gossamer threads until they get the mouth of the cavern covered over. “Now,” they say, “the lion’s done, the lion’s done.” After awhile the lion awakes and shakes himself, and he walks out from the cavern, never knowing there were any spiders’ webs, and with his voice he shakes the mountain. Let the infidels and the sceptics of this day go on spinning their webs, spinning their infidel gossamer theories, spinning them all over the place where Christ seems to be sleeping. They say: “Christ can never again come out; the work is done; He can never get through this logical web we have been spinning.” The day will come when the Lion of Judah’s tribe will rouse Himself and come forth and shake mightily the nations. What then all your gossamer threads? What is a spider’s web to an aroused lion? Do not fret, then, about the world’s going backward. It is going forward. BI
On Toil
Alexander MacLaren does an excellent job of teasing out the context of this episode in relation to the entire hurried pace of the book of Mark.
"Among the many loftier characteristics belonging to Christ’s life and work, there is a very homely one which is often lost sight of; and that is, the amount of hard physical exertion, prolonged even to fatigue and exhaustion, which He endured.
Christ is our pattern in a great many other things more impressive and more striking; and He is our pattern in this, that ‘in the sweat of His brow’ He did His work, and knew not only what it was to suffer, but what it was to toil for man’s salvation. And, perhaps, if we thought a little more than we do of such a prosaic characteristic of His life as that, it might invest it with some more reality for us, besides teaching us other large and important lessons." -MacLaren
This, then, is the one lesson which I wish to consider now, and there are three points which I deal with in pursuance of my task. I wish to point out a little more in detail the signs that we have in the Gospels of this characteristic of Christ’s work-the toilsomeness of His service; then to consider, secondly, the motives which He Himself tells us impelled to such service; and then, finally, the worth which that toil bears for us.
There is one thing that makes life mighty in its veriest trifles, worthy in its smallest deeds, that delivers it from monotony, that delivers it from insignificance. All will be great, and nothing will be overpowering, when, living in communion with Jesus Christ, we say as He says, ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.’
And so, if I might so say, He was a miser of the moments, and carefully husbanding and garnering up every capacity and every opportunity. He toiled with the toil of a man who has a task before him, that must be done before the clock strikes six, and who sees the hands move over the dial, and by every glance that he casts at it is stimulated to intenser service and to harder toil.
Christ felt that impulse to service which we all ought to feel-’The night cometh; let me fill the day with work.’
The true corporeal manhood of Jesus Christ, and the fact that that manhood is the tabernacle of God-without these two facts the morality and the teaching of Christianity swing loose in vacuo, and have no holdfast in history, nor any leverage by which they can move men’s hearts!
Labour is a curse until communion with God in it, which is possible through Jesus Christ, makes it a blessing and a joy. Christ, in the sweat of His brow, won our salvation; and our work only becomes great when it is work done in, and for, and by Him.
There is a fatal monotony in all our lives-a terrible amount of hard drudgery in them all. We have to set ourselves morning after morning to tasks that look to be utterly insignificant and disproportionate to the power that we bring to bear upon them, so that men are like elephants picking up pins with their trunks; and yet we may make all our commonplace drudgery great, and wondrous, and fair, and full of help and profit to our souls, if, over it all-our shops, our desks, our ledgers, our studies, our kitchens, and our nurseries-we write, ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me.’ We may bring the greatest principles to bear upon the smallest duties.
What more do we learn from Christ’s toil? The possible harmony of communion and service. His labour did not break His fellowship with God. He was ever in the ‘secret place of the Most High,’ even while He was in the midst of crowds. He has taught us that it is possible to be in the ‘house of the Lord’ all the days of our lives, and by His ensample, as by His granted Spirit, encourages us to aim at so serving that we shall never cease to behold, and so beholding that we shall never cease to serve our Father. The life of contemplation and the life of practice, so hard to harmonise in our experience, perfectly meet in Christ.
On Toil
Alexander MacLaren does an excellent job of teasing out the context of this episode in relation to the entire hurried pace of the book of Mark.
"Among the many loftier characteristics belonging to Christ’s life and work, there is a very homely one which is often lost sight of; and that is, the amount of hard physical exertion, prolonged even to fatigue and exhaustion, which He endured.
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| Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1632 |
This, then, is the one lesson which I wish to consider now, and there are three points which I deal with in pursuance of my task. I wish to point out a little more in detail the signs that we have in the Gospels of this characteristic of Christ’s work-the toilsomeness of His service; then to consider, secondly, the motives which He Himself tells us impelled to such service; and then, finally, the worth which that toil bears for us.
There is one thing that makes life mighty in its veriest trifles, worthy in its smallest deeds, that delivers it from monotony, that delivers it from insignificance. All will be great, and nothing will be overpowering, when, living in communion with Jesus Christ, we say as He says, ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.’
And so, if I might so say, He was a miser of the moments, and carefully husbanding and garnering up every capacity and every opportunity. He toiled with the toil of a man who has a task before him, that must be done before the clock strikes six, and who sees the hands move over the dial, and by every glance that he casts at it is stimulated to intenser service and to harder toil.
Christ felt that impulse to service which we all ought to feel-’The night cometh; let me fill the day with work.’
The true corporeal manhood of Jesus Christ, and the fact that that manhood is the tabernacle of God-without these two facts the morality and the teaching of Christianity swing loose in vacuo, and have no holdfast in history, nor any leverage by which they can move men’s hearts!
Labour is a curse until communion with God in it, which is possible through Jesus Christ, makes it a blessing and a joy. Christ, in the sweat of His brow, won our salvation; and our work only becomes great when it is work done in, and for, and by Him.
There is a fatal monotony in all our lives-a terrible amount of hard drudgery in them all. We have to set ourselves morning after morning to tasks that look to be utterly insignificant and disproportionate to the power that we bring to bear upon them, so that men are like elephants picking up pins with their trunks; and yet we may make all our commonplace drudgery great, and wondrous, and fair, and full of help and profit to our souls, if, over it all-our shops, our desks, our ledgers, our studies, our kitchens, and our nurseries-we write, ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me.’ We may bring the greatest principles to bear upon the smallest duties.
What more do we learn from Christ’s toil? The possible harmony of communion and service. His labour did not break His fellowship with God. He was ever in the ‘secret place of the Most High,’ even while He was in the midst of crowds. He has taught us that it is possible to be in the ‘house of the Lord’ all the days of our lives, and by His ensample, as by His granted Spirit, encourages us to aim at so serving that we shall never cease to behold, and so beholding that we shall never cease to serve our Father. The life of contemplation and the life of practice, so hard to harmonise in our experience, perfectly meet in Christ.
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