Discipleship Commentary

I wish there was a discipleship commentary, where it’s not about grammar or 2nd Temple Judaism background, whatever. Not that any of that is bad. It’s just that we need some help reading the Gospel as a discipleship manual.

Robert Coleman told me once, “well, why don’t you write it?” ah, well, time, attention, a whole bunch of things. But on Wednesday nights in bible study, we are kind of doing it. We have been going thru Mark. We have a particular emphasis. We are not looking for information—to just know what Jesus said and did. We are pretty much only interested in what Jesus is teaching about evangelism and discipleship. What is the method He wants us to learn? What is He teaching us to do? We want to know that, and go do it.

For example, in Mark 1, there are some quick lessons. What does Jesus do? He preaches. He heals. He casts out demons. What if instead of just reading it, we realized that what Jesus is doing is teaching us what we are supposed to do? We should preach the Gospel? Heal the sick? Cast out demons?

So, basically, every passage we have read, that is what we are after.

Mark 11 has been some pretty fertile ground for us. Tonight seems to me to have been huge. We were looking at Mark 11:12-14, where Jesus curses the fig tree. He does so because He was hungry, went to find figs, but there were none, because it was not the season for figs.

Now, this passage has a lot of background that can help explain why Jesus would look for figs when it is not the season. You can go look it up, but for us on wednesday nights is to look for the discipleship lesson, which is probably quite clear, independent of the background of how figs grow (but that is pretty cool).

I won’t lie… sometimes I think oh boy… what will we learn? Are we going to get stuck here? But the gang always comes through! The Holy Spirit breaks in!

Let me share some of the basic observations. Jesus expects fruit when He comes looking for it. In season and out of season.

The consequences of not meeting the expectation are… serious.

If someone comes to us, looking for a reason as to why we have peace with God, we need to be ready and able to tell them. They should be able to expect the help they need.

Good night.