Mark 3:1-6 (AD 28) You probably need to read these verses a couple of times to even begin to comprehend the level of wickedness of those who hated Jesus. Some Pharisees were watching him to see if he would heal someone on the Sabbath, which they thought would justify accusing him of being anti-God for … More Day 29: When good is called evil
Mark 2:18-28 (AD 28) “although regular weekly fasting was not part of the law of Moses, by the first century such fasting had become an important part of the practice of Judaism…To the orthodox Jew this one minor point of fasting raised the whole question of the attitude of Jesus to the whole ceremonial law.” … More Day 28: Mandatory fasting?
John 5:1-47 (AD 28) Note the difference between how Jesus presented himself to different groups. On the one hand, gentle and kind with the physically and spiritually needy who admitted they were needy. On the other hand, sometimes highly confrontational with the religious hypocrites. This incident was very early in his ministry but he was … More Day 27: Ditch the dumb rules
Mark 2:1-17 (AD 27) Jesus didn’t waste any time, once he started his public ministry, in forcing people to have an opinion about him. Here we have a pair of stories in which Jesus first acted in a way that could only have been justified if he was God himself. And then flouted and contradicted … More Day 26: Jesus – man of the (bad) people
Matthew 4:13-22 (AD 27) In the last reading Jesus walked through a crowd of people who were trying to throw him off a cliff…with them failing miserably to throw him off the cliff. That scene has always blown my mind. What did it look like? What did it sound like? Did God paralyse the would-be … More Day 24: Jesus flexes his authority
Luke 4:16-30 (AD 27) 1. Jesus read a prophecy from the Old Testament and told the congregation in the synagogue that all the blessings God spoke about were being fulfilled in their day. RESULT: “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips” (v.22). 2. Jesus then … More Day 23: Primum nil nocere?
John 2:1-12 (AD 27) Not a healing, not a massive spectacle, not a resurrection. The first miracle of Jesus’ public ministry was making alcohol at a badly-catered wedding. Wedding celebrations could go on for many days and everyone would be steadily drinking wine, with the good stuff coming out first and then a few days … More Day 16: Do whatever he tells you
Luke 3:21-4:13 (AD 27) If only all of our temptation experiences went like this. Luke, focused on establishing Jesus’ identity, deliberately put the baptism and genealogy of Jesus together. Passage no.3– the back-to-back-to-back of who Jesus is – opens with Satan, in epic futility, attacking Jesus’ idea of his own identity. Here’s the sequence: 1a.) … More Day 14: Satan didn’t understand Jesus
Matthew 2:13-23 (4 BC) I can’t begin to imagine the fear and anxiety in parents, with their first child still a toddler, in fear for his life and theirs. Joseph and Mary knew that not only did King Herod want them dead, but everyone around them was a potential betrayer. Two to three years earlier … More Day 11: Jesus the refugee
Luke 1:46-80; 7-6BC Zechariah’s failings weren’t bad on an epoch-ending scale, and his sins aren’t good movie material. His song of a fully-experienced faith, enhanced by great blessing from God through Holy Spirit doesn’t have a special name for its moment in church history, like Mary’s preceding ‘Magnificat’. So really, he’s a lot more like … More Day 6: Zechariah’s Big Comeback. Sort of.
Paul T Reynolds 