Mark - the first week

I learned quite a bit this week, and while it was of course based on the Bible readings, I have a couple books on understanding Bible verses that helped as well.  (And I believe I owe a thank you to my Pastor for pointing the books out to me.)

There are three things in the first five books of Mark that always confused me.  Two are pretty big, the other not so much.  I always wondered why Jesus didn't want people (or demons) to talk about what he was doing or who he was.   What I've read is that demons were known liars and a demon testifying would not do Him any good.  That made sense to me.  The problem with people testifying for Him is that His ministry would not have progressed the way He wanted it to.  People had a preconceived notion of what a Messiah was (which I do remember from one of the Sunday messages, but I didn't put two and two together) and He was not that Messiah.  So people needed to get to know Him and His teachings before they thought of Him as the Messiah. 

I read something about dealing with this issue in Hard Sayings of the Bible by ...several authors that I loved and want to share it.  "Those who take the risk of faith and commit themselves become disciples and learn more, but others receive teaching only in obscure parables."   People have wanted to commit me alot during my lifetime, but this time I'm going to agree with them.  I definitely want to commit.

And speaking of parables, I have to admit something.  I never understood the new/old wineskin and/or new/old clothing parable.  I do now though.  Again, thanks to my new books, I learned that the new wineskin/clothing represented Christianity and the old wineskin/clothing represented Judaism.  Jesus was not reforming Judaism, he was offering something completely new - Christianity.  And Thank God for that and all the comes with it.

The last thing I never understood is somewhat petty, but having found it in the Hard Sayings of the Bible, I felt better knowing that I wasn't the only one that had wondered about it.   When Jesus sends the demons into the herd of pigs in Mark 5:13, I wondered why?  If not because it didn't seem fair to the pigs, what about the livelihood of the pig herders?  Well, apparently the answer to this is pretty simple.  It's a matter of perspective.  Pigs were unclean to begin with, so from a Bible perspective, not a huge leap to put unclean demons into unclean pigs - well actually huge leap in reality, just something that is not incomprehensible.  But the more important point may be that "so precious is human life that, when necessary, a whole herd of animals may be sacrificed for one or two people".  (From Hard Sayings)

I am really enjoying this Bible reading plan so far!