Can You Believe It?
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply
Title: Can You Believe It? ------------------- Date: 3/14/2003
Keywords:
“believe” “faith” “heal” “healing” “miracle”
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Passage: Mark 6:53-56*
53. When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat.
54. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him,
55. and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.
56. and wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
Questions
1. Do you believe Jesus did all the things they said he did in the Bible?
2. If Jesus did not heal all the people in villages or cities he walked through as today's passage says, why do you think Mark wrote it this way?
3. Why wouldn't people who lived during this time come forward to declare this to be a fraud? I would think the Roman authorities and the Jewish authorities would have welcomed the debunking of this new religious sect.
Practical help
From feeding 5,000 people with a few pieces of bread and fish, to walking on the water and calming a storm, to now healing entire villages of all infirmities, you and I are pushed to the limits of our ability to believe the incredible. What is an intelligent person to do with this?
Knowing Jesus is different than knowing about Jesus.
When you or I decide it would be an interesting exercise to study the life and teachings of this simple carpenter from Nazareth, we will usually do so in a comparative way considering his teaching against other famous philosophers. The problem we then encounter is the accounts found in the four major biographies (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are filled with supernatural events just like the passage we are in today.
At this point we have to decide if the gospel writers are sane, insane or liars.
And beyond this we have to consider the reasons why there aren't a number of contradictory accounts — especially when it would have been in the best interest of the ruling authorities both secular and religious to debunk Jesus and his motley crew from the beginning.
Obviously, if the account is true, God is not afraid to be misunderstood. Whether or not we 21st century sophisticates believe he can heal people instantly, he will continue to behave like a God who will not be constrained by the rationality of finite mortals. I guess he is telling us he doesn't need our permission before he steps out of the normal and into the miraculous.
You have deep needs. Otherwise you wouldn't be both tempted and shamed by pornography. If Jesus were to land his boat in your village, would you go to him with the request for a clean life? Do you want deliverance or just a better understanding of an interesting historical figure?
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*"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of
Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States
of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
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