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May 7, Sunday
An audio recording of the following reading is available below.
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Jesus Knew — There were different categories and groups of people connected to Jesus. There were the crowds of thousands who came to Him to hear and to be healed. None of their religious teachers ever taught with the wisdom and authority that He had, and none could perform miracles. That attracted the crowds, who might be thought of as weekend entertainment followers. There was also a large number of people who followed Jesus regularly, being somewhat committed to Him. They were often referred to as “His disciples” (vv. 60, 61, 66). Then, there were “the twelve” (vv. 67, 70, 71), those particularly chosen by Jesus to follow Him all the time. Jesus not only knew these groups, but He also knew what was in the heart of each individual—whether they believed in Him or not. This shows the divine omniscience of Jesus; He was all-knowing. He knew that some of the larger group of “His disciples” were grumbling (v. 61) about His eating-flesh and drinking-blood statement. He also “knew from the beginning … who did not believe” (v. 64). He didn’t have to learn that over time because He knew it from the beginning. His omniscience also identified one of the Twelve as “a devil” (v. 70), one that “was going to betray Him” (v. 71). None of the other 11 knew this until Judas brought the soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus had treated Judas the same as He treated the other 11 disciples. He still knows our hearts today—our level of belief and commitment. He knows our attitudes about keeping up in reading His Word every day, whether it is done with joy, duty, or even drudgery. He knows the level of our willingness to obey what we read. He knows all of this, yet He keeps on loving us.
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May 8, Monday
An audio recording of the following reading is available below.
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Faith for Healing — Gennesaret was only about 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Capernaum on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Word about Jesus the Healer had spread to that region, so that when people heard He was there, they brought their sick to Him. There is no comment in our text that Jesus was teaching, so it appears that they were coming to Him only because of free medical care. Their faith in His healing power was strong, believing that if they could just touch His clothes, they would be healed. Perhaps the story had spread to them about the bleeding woman who was healed by touching the hem of His clothes (Mark 5:25-28). Jesus was concerned about the physical needs of people as well as their spiritual needs. He still does care. Our first reaction to a physical problem should be to go to Jesus in prayer for help. We don’t even have to touch the hem of His clothes.
Healer of Our Every Ill – YouTube
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May 9, Tuesday
An audio recording of the following reading is available below.
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Prioritizing Laws — These Pharisees and scribes “had come from Jerusalem” (v. 1), apparently sent to investigate Jesus. Their standard of judgment was “the tradition of the elders” (v. 3). This tradition, mentioned five times in this passage, was composed of manmade laws constructed by their ancestors, which attempted to form protective fences around Mosaic laws. Their philosophy was something like this: “If you don’t want to break a particular law of Moses, you can make sure by not breaking these five surrounding laws of ours.” As Jesus pointed out in our passage for today, sometimes their constructed laws conflicted with God’s Law. Jesus was not gentle toward those Pharisee leaders, not only because they were wrong, but because 1) they were enslaving people by their manmade rules, 2) they were even placing a higher priority on their own rules than on God’s Law, and 3) their misplaced focus had pulled their hearts away from desiring and pleasing God. Jesus boldly called them, “you hypocrites” (v. 6). We see shades of that Pharisaic mentality today as well, when some Christians construct standards that go beyond God’s written requirements. We need to maintain our priority on the Word of God—what does it say? The Pharisees were guided by a system that was pulling them away from truth and relationship.
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May 10, Wednesday
An audio recording of the following reading is available below.
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Responding to Faith — This passage raises some questions. Why did Jesus take a two-day trip into the Gentile region of Tyre? Since our text says that “He was wanting no one to know of it” (v. 24), it could have been intended as a Mediterranean retreat, to get away with His disciples for rest from ministry. On the other hand, it might have just been to meet the needs of this Gentile woman, as He did for the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-14). Another question is this: Why did He appear to be rude to this woman who was in desperate need? He wasn’t rude to the half-breed woman at the well or to the Gentile centurion whose slave was dying (Luke 7:1-10). It seems to me that He was testing her faith. We read earlier that many people had come to Him at the Sea of Galilee from “the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon” (Mark 3:8). She had heard about Jesus and His ability to heal and to cast out demons, so she sought Him out and begged Him for help. He first emphasized to her that His ministry priority was for the Jews, “the children” in His illustration (Mark 7:27). She was humble in accepting her position as a Gentile, one of the crumb-eating “dogs” (v. 28), but she was also persistent, pleading for Jesus to be willing to help her. Her faith and persistence won! Jesus said, “Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter” (v. 29). Jesus responds to persistent faith.
We Cannot Measure How You Heal – YouTube
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May 11, Thursday
An audio recording of the following reading is available below.
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Why Be Silent? — Jesus appears to have been ministering for a while on the outskirts of the primary Jewish population. The Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon were quite a distance northwest from Capernaum. If there were synagogues in those areas, perhaps He preached there. Then He came to “the region of the Decapolis” (v. 31), the area of ten scattered Gentile cities to the east and south of the Sea of Galilee. Here, He was with a crowd (v. 33), so He must have been preaching away from the cities. Why did Jesus take the deaf man aside to heal him? If the purpose of His miracles was to bring authenticity to the content of His preaching, why would He take the man away from the crowd’s sight? Earlier, we saw that Jesus told the healed leper not to spread the news about his healing because it would hamper His ability to “publicly enter a city” (Mark 1:45), but that was in Jewish Galilee. It was almost impossible, however, for the leper in Galilee and the deaf man in the Decapolis to keep quiet about their life-changing miracles. It all pointed to the wonder of the compassion and power of Jesus. The people in Decapolis exclaimed, “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:37). That is our Jesus, who has performed a miracle in our lives by bringing us from darkness to light and giving us eternal life. He has not told us to keep quiet about it, but to spread the news about Him. What freedom! What a privilege!
I could not find a video for this song, “Spread the News,” but
it can be sung to the verse-tune of “Jesus Loves Me.” Try it!
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May 12, Friday
An audio recording of the following reading is available below.
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Keep Giving — In today’s passage, there are several parallels to the feeding of 5,000 that we read about last week. Here again, Jesus was driven by His concern for people’s needs: “I feel compassion for the crowd” (v. 32a). Jesus cares. They had been with Him in a desolate place for three days, and any food they had brought with them had been consumed, except seven loaves and a few dried fish. So, compassionate Jesus said, “I don’t want to send them away hungry” (v. 32b). He was apparently speaking to His 12 disciples, because they responded by asking Him how that huge crowd could be fed. What short memories! Wouldn’t they remember the feeding of the 5,000, and think that He might do it again? We should remember this when we are in some difficult circumstance. Have I been there before? How did God deliver me then? Remembering what God has done in the past will strengthen our faith in Him for the present. So, Jesus performed a second miracle of multiplying the bread and fish. Have you ever wondered exactly when the miracle took place? Verse 36 gives us the answer. Although most translations say that Jesus “gave” the broken loaves and fish to His disciples, the Legacy Standard Bible faithfully translates the Greek imperfect tense here: “He … kept giving …” The miracle was continuously being performed as Jesus was dispersing the pieces to His disciples for distribution. That provides a good lesson for us, too: Jesus multiplies good things to us, so that we can share those things with others. As with the earlier mass feeding, the people were satisfied, and many baskets of leftovers were collected. He gives to us “abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand” (Eph. 3:20). He gives abundantly to us so that we may give to others: “God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that … having every sufficiency, you may have an abundance for every good deed” (2 Cor. 9:8).
Freely, Freely, You Have Received – YouTube
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May 13, Saturday
An audio recording of the following reading is available below.
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Sign Proof — The Pharisees and Sadducees were normally at odds with each other, but in these verses, they join forces for the purpose of “testing Him” (v. 1). They were not seeking a sign as much as they were seeking some way to expose Jesus as a false Messiah. There had been many signs from heaven through Moses and prophets, like Elijah, that authenticated their being sent from God. We see here that, as in other cases, Jesus never spent much time responding to insincere people. Knowing their deceitful hearts, He said they were part of an “evil and adulterous generation” (v. 4). Although they must have already seen and heard about many miracles Jesus had performed, they didn’t accept them as genuine signs. There was only one sign left to be given to them, which they would also not accept — “the sign of Jonah.” As Jonah spent three days and nights in the fish, Jesus would be buried for three days and nights after sacrificing Himself for the sins of mankind (Matt. 12:40). Even when the Roman guards “reported to the chief priests all that had happened” (Matt. 28:11) after the Resurrection, the Sadducees bribed them to tell a different story. They saw the sign but refused the truth. Many people today are also claiming they would believe if they saw some miraculous sign from heaven, but for most of them, it is an empty promise.
accbibleread.com 