Hi friends,
So the other day someone pointed out I had not posted in a while and I’m like hm…good point. Guess I’ll make a post.
So here it is!
So here is a list of stuff I’ll be taking a look at that I just grabbed from my devotions or interactions with others (so some of it may be familiar!):
- Sacrifices Pleasing to God (Hebrews 13:16)
- The Unbelieving Spouse is made Holy (1 Cor 7:13-14)
- The one teaching (and two commands) in Matthew 28
- Parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-20)
I’m not sure when this one came up but probably when I was doing devos awhile ago and apparently, we should all still be doing sacrifices.
They just look a bit different.
So the next time that someone tries telling you that we stop sacrificing because Jesus made the final sacrifice once and for all and that “it is finished,” just show them verse from Hebrews:
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Hebrews 13:16
Because in the eyes of the writer of Hebrews:
doing good = sacrifices
Interesting.
This next idea may be a bit more controversial but today we take a look at 1 Cor 7:13-14.
The ideas came about a while ago but I was reminded by it this morning when we took a look at it in one of my classes.
If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
1 Corinthians 7:13-14
It’s really interesting because when we look at the idea that a believing spouse can sanctify an unbelieving one alongside other verses on marriage such as Genesis 2:23-24…
Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh
Genesis 2:23-24
It makes me wonder how far exactly does that sanctification go?
I dare ask if it ever makes sense to purposely become one flesh with an unbeliever for the purpose of their sanctification.
And how far does the “one flesh” idea go? If I’m in union with an unbeliever, does God separate this one flesh into two on the day of judgement? Or does the idea never even get that far in the first place?
EDIT: Forgot to make a note of this as well but 1 Cor 7:16 – does Paul mean this as you will save them through conversion or save them through the idea of this ‘one flesh?’
Some people will just disregard these as insignificant questions and quote 2 Cor 6 but for everyone else here:
Sooo many questions
I shared this one a while ago with some of you so you may already heard about it but when I finishing Matthew for my devotions, I noticed something really interesting about Matthew 28 (aka the last chapter of Matthew).
There’s only ONE (formal) command that Jesus makes his disciples after his resurrection:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:19-20
(And yes, I did add ‘formal’ because some people will point out that he does make another command in v. 10. BUT, that is significant as well…it is also a command to “go and tell.”)
But wow, of all the teachings that the writer of Matthew decided to put in his gospel for the 40 days after Jesus’ resurrection, this is it.
It’s SO important to him, that this is the sole thing he put and acts as the conclusion to his gospel.
I wonder what that means for us?
Oh and if you’re interested in the first command in the Bible and the first command to his disciples and Matthew, feel free to take a look as well: Genesis 1:28, Matthew 4:19.
Seems like there’s a pattern, huh?
The last thing I wanted to talk about was the Parable of the sower in Mark 4 (which show up in Luke 8 and Matthew 13 as well).
So there are four types of soil in the parable:
- The path (v. 4)
- The rocky ground (v. 5-6)
- The soil among the thorns (v. 7)
- The good soil (v. 8)
And it’s interesting to hear about how Jesus describes each of the soils in v. 13-20:
- The path – word is immediately taken from them (v. 15)
- The rocky ground – receive it with joy and after a while, fall away (v. 16-17)
- The soil among the thorns – cares of the world cause it to be unfruitful (v 18-19)
- The good soil – bear fruit, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and hundredfold
Okay, what’s so interesting about that?
A couple observations:
- The parable seems to suggest the good soil WILL bear fruit
- The parable seems to suggest that some have the word but it is choked aka the soil among the thorns which does not bear fruit
- The parable explicitly says that the rocky ground falls away BUT does not say the soil among the thorns will “fall away”
Almost everyone can agree that the path would be unbelievers, the rocky ground would be those who believe but end up leaving the faith, and that the good soil are believers who remain faithful and bear fruit.
But who exactly are the soil among the thorns? They don’t seem to have any indication of falling away as the rocky ground does.
They seem to be this weird in-between. The way the parable is presented seems to suggest that there is a group of people who believe yet do not bear fruit.
But what does John 15:2 say?
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
John 15:2
How exactly do we fit this in our timeline of: believe > get Holy Spirit > bear fruit? Does one never get the Holy Spirit in the first place if there’s never fruit? Or can one have the Holy Spirit but never bear fruit?
What about those people that seemed to receive the word and fall away? How does the timeline work for them?
If you want to get even more technical, The Luke 8 variation explicitly uses ‘believe’ for the people who are the rocky ground.
Maybe this timeline for believers isn’t as simple as we try to make it out to be.
That’s all for today.
Thanks for reading,
Jason
Jason Reads the Bible 