Read Mark 8:27-38
On-Again-Off-Again

An old tradition says that Mark got much of the material for his gospel from Peter. Maybe it was Peter and not Mark who was the one in a hurry, who said everything happened “immediately.” Mark just wrote it all down.

Years later an older, wiser Peter must have recalled with embarrassment his treatment of the Lord. In v. 29 Peter affirms without reservation, “You are the Christ.”

Then he turns around and scolds Jesus when the Lord speaks of His coming death. “Don’t talk like that,” says Peter (vv. 31-32). He had just gotten through asserting that Jesus was the Messiah. Now he is correcting God.

Even as Jesus rebuked Peter (v. 33), Jesus must have felt compassion for this earnest-hearted, well-intentioned man. He went on to speak of taking up your cross and of what a poor bargain it is to gain your physical life and lose your soul. He knew that Peter’s wavering was not over yet. Still to come was Peter’s denial on Thursday night before Jesus died on that fateful Friday.

Another old tradition says that Peter was crucified upside down, praising the Lord for the privilege of honoring his Savior by dying a death similar to that of Jesus. In the end, he lost his life, but not his soul. Jim Elliot identified with that mind-set. Anyone else?

Read Mark 8:14-21
Lunch Break

One time Jesus fed 5,000 persons with five loaves of bread and two fish (Mark 6:32-44).

Another time He fed 4,000 with seven loaves and “a few small fish” (Mark 8:1-9).

Some time later, He and the disciples were in the boat crossing the lake, and they discovered no one had remembered to pack a lunch; they had one loaf of bread among them. Jesus reminds His disciples that He fed 5,000 with five loaves, with basketfuls left over. But He does not offer to multiply their lone loaf for lunch. Instead, He turns the incident into a warning about false teaching.

What did they do? Split the loaf 13 ways? We aren’t told, but somehow you come away with the idea that Jesus didn’t do anything about lunch. Why?

The disciples were hungry in this instance because of their own carelessness. Perhaps letting them go hungry—and He with them—reinforced that it is better to be spiritually hungry than to have that hunger satisfied by false teaching. The next thing Mark records is Jesus’ question to the disciples about His true identity. “Who do people say I am?” He asked (Mark 8:29). Stay hungry until you can come to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the One who can fully satisfy.

Read Mark 7:24-30
Feed the Pups

God gave this woman brains and energy, and she used them.

The attitude of the Jews who surrounded Jesus was, “Who wants to associate with Gentiles? They are no better than dogs.” This woman, a Gentile of Greek ancestry, was really desperate to risk being taunted and perhaps even physically attacked to seek out Jesus. For all she knew, this new teacher in town hated Gentiles, too.

At first it seemed as if that were the case. He was, in fact, speaking with fine irony. “I’ve been trying to reach these wise people and they won’t listen to me,” He is saying. “Should I squander spiritual gifts intended for such special people on somebody they regard as a pet dog?”

The woman bounces right back with a witty remark, making common cause with Jesus.

“They regard me as a dog, and won’t pay attention to you,” she replies. “So what harm is there in throwing crumbs to the puppies?”

Dear compassionate Jesus. He not only did not hold it against her that she was a Gentile, He poked gentle fun at those who did. Neither did He care how big and ugly the demon was that possessed her daughter. He handled it.

There’s hope! God doesn’t care what we have done or what race we are. Nobody is beyond His love and care (Rom. 8:35-39).

Read Mark 7:1-23
The Real Thing

Do you know real worship when you see it?

If you have trouble describing worship, how about starting at the other end? What is worship not? Is it a particular building? Is it a music style? Is it fellowship with other persons? Or is real worship something that happens between you and God?

Notice that in Mark’s account of this event, Jesus never defined worship, but the Pharisees did. The Pharisees were a strict, honorable, backbone-of-society kind of people. They shared many of our Christian beliefs: immortality of the soul, resurrection of the body, a judgment day coming. But in order to worship, they said, you had to do everything in a certain way, just exactly as they said it ought to be.

Jesus did not go around picking fights. But He never backed away from one either. Jesus lays into them. “You are so preoccupied with ceremonies you have lost sight of God,” He said. “You are so busy with conforming to man-made requirements that your purity of soul has gone.” Instead of saying with the psalmist, “Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness” (Psalm 29:2b), their worship had deteriorated into a stern command, “Be certain to scrub the dishes.”

Perhaps the psalmist expresses the essence of true worship in the rest of that verse: “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name” (Psalm 39:2a).

Read Mark 6:30-44
Do-It-Yourself Project

It’s easy to feed people with someone else’s loaves and fish. But don’t take mine.

Jesus had been teaching a long time. It was getting late. The disciples said, “Look, Master, we’d better wind this thing up and head out of here. Send the folks away so they can buy some supper and we can get home to ours.”

“You give them something to eat,” Jesus said (v. 37). “Take an inventory. How much bread do you have?”

That didn’t take long. Among the twelve they drummed up five loaves and, they reported as an afterthought, two fish.

“There goes our supper,” Peter muttered to Andrew as Jesus took their loaves, and their two pitiful little fish.

Look what Jesus did with them. The disciples plus 5,000 other people got more supper than they would have if the disciples had kept that carefully packed lunch all to themselves.

God created each of us one-of-a-kind persons. He wants us to offer back to Him the unique gifts and talents He bestows on every one of us. Give back to God your little loaf of gifts, your one small fish of talent, and watch in amazement as God blesses it and feeds the spiritually hungry—maybe physically hungry—people around you.