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Mark 1:21-23

January 1, 2023

He Taught as With Authority

Part 1

The principle instrument for the establishment and advancement of the kingdom of God is the teaching of the Truth of God.

“He Taught as Having Authority, Part 1”; Mark 1:21-23 0276 The central focus of his time and of his energy was in purposeful teaching, not miracle performing. The performing of miracles are done to validate his teaching, not to substitute for it. And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue, a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us, I know who you are the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him saying, be silenced, and come out of him. And the unclean spirit convulsing him, and crying out with a loud voice came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this a new teaching with authority, he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him? And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. So, our passage here begins with these straightforward words from verse 21, and they went into Capernaum. So, let's pause right there, and let's spend a little bit of time thinking about the city of component Capernaum, for the reason that Jesus is going to more or less live here. We have good reason to believe that Jesus makes his home away from home, so to speak, in this city of Capernaum, for about three years here during his adult ministry, this seems to be his home, he's going to spend a lot of time around Capernaum, as well as the two surrounding cities of Bethsaida, and Chorazin. And like we talked about a few Sundays ago that--remember that Jesus triangle that we talked about--so he's going to spend a lot of time here in this region. And he's also going to spend a lot of time on the Sea of Galilee, and in the two adjoining cities. So, it will be helpful for us to just maybe get a little bit of a mental picture of what Capernaum is like. What is this place like in which Jesus is going to spend quite a bit of time over the next three years. So, the city of Capernaum is obviously in a place called Galilee. The region of Galilee at this time is ruled by a man named Herod Antipas. Now, Herod Antipas, if, well, if you thought that the Mary's in Scripture are confusing, then you don't know anything until you've looked at the King Herod's, because there are no less than six King Herod's in the Scriptures. And I'm not going to take all the time that it would require in order to explain all those six Herod's and how they relate to each other. But I do want to just talk about two in the first is the main one, the first one--King Herod the Great. That was the father of Herod Antipas. Herod the Great ruled as the Tetrarch of the Land of Israel, which was sort of like a sub-ruler or a sub-King underneath the Roman Empire. So, King Herod the Great is the one who ruled the entire land of Israel. He's the one who made the decree to kill the baby boys in Bethlehem. He's the one from whom Mary and Joseph had to escape to Egypt. And if you recall, in Matthew chapter two, we remember that we were told there in Matthew chapter two that Joseph heard that Antipas was ruling in Galilee, meaning that Herod Antipas' father--King Herod the Great had died. Upon his death, his kingdom was divided amongst his sons, and the region of Galilee, and Perea went to the son by the name of Herod Antipas. So, Herod enter, pass rules as Tetrarch over the land of Galilee and for and Perea and he does so for about 44 years. So, he's going to rule Galilee for virtually all of Jesus's life, except for just a short portion at the very beginning of Jesus's life. So, Herod Antipas is the Tetrarch. He's the ruler of whom it is said that he took his brother's wife and John the Baptizer proclaimed the pronouncement of sin against him. And he's the one who had John the Baptizer imprisoned and eventually executed. So, that's Antipas. So, Herod Antipas is the ruler here and he was not nearly as vicious and bloodthirsty of a ruler as was his father Herod the Great. Nevertheless, he made no bones about asserting to violent means. So, Herod Antipas is the ruler here of Galilee. This region of Galilee, in this contains, of course, the Sea of Galilee that we talked about, or the Sea of Tiberius, or the Lake of Tiberius. The very far northern, little bit western, northwestern tip of the Sea of Galilee is where the city of Capernaum is located. So, Capernaum is one of the cities that bordered a sea of Galilee that benefited tremendously profited tremendously from that very profitable fishing industry that we spoke about a couple of Sundays ago. Capernaum is probably the city that profited most from the fishing industry, because Capernaum was a rather wealthy city, it was a very upscale city. If you think about ancient cities, and you have this, this image in your mind of sort of this poverty-stricken city, in which the people, the residents of the city, are barely surviving, barely eking by living, certainly there are people like that in Capernaum, but that was not Capernaum by and large. Capernaum was an upscale city. It was a multicultural city, it was an up and coming city. It was a city that profited immensely from the fishing trade. It also profited immensely from being on a main Roman road called the Via Marice. That was one of the main trading routes of the Roman Empire. And so this trading route helped Capernaum to capitalize upon the fishing industry. So, the city of Capernaum itself was a profitable upscale, sort of sort of neapolitan--metropolitan (neapolitan, that's ice cream), metropolitan sort of a city. And there's the city boasted this eight-foot seawall for 2500 feet against the Sea of Galilee. So, if you've ever been to Charleston, South Carolina, you think of the battery there, that's much like the city of Capernaum, as it bordered the Sea of Galilee. And this 2500, half a mile long sea wall had a number of piers that extended 100 feet out into the sea of Galilee, to facilitate lots and lots of fishing vessels, being able to port and unload their cargo and get back out there to capture more fish. So, you can kind of get the idea there. So, this city of Capernaum, again, rather wealthy city, we're going to talk in just a minute about the synagogue, but all these cities had a synagogue in them. If there was a Jewish population of at least 10 adult males, meaning 10 Jewish adults 13 years or older, then that was what's called a quorum. And so then they had a synagogue. So, Capernaum also had a synagogue. Now, all the ancient synagogues in Israel were very, very bland in their architecture. The Temple, you think of the Temple and the grandiose Temple in Jerusalem--Herod's Temple--that was not like the synagogues. The synagogues were very generic, very bland. They were just made from stone, a dark gray sort of stone, not very much thought was put into the architecture, except for the synagogue in Capernaum. So, I believe you've been to the Holy Land--I don't know if you toured Capernaum--but if you go there, and you tour Capernaum, and you tour the Capernaum synagogue, what you are touring are the remains the ruins of a beautiful marble, limestone, all imported marble synagogue there in the ruins of Capernaum. However, that synagogue was built in the fourth century. So, the synagogue that Jesus is going to teach in in our passage today was not that one. Instead, it was more of a very generic sort of a stone building, the ruins of which are underneath the nicer fourth-century synagogue that's located there today. So, this city obviously had enough money to build such a nice synagogue, had enough money for these piers and the seawall and everything, really up-and-coming. So, sort of like the city to be in. If you were serious about fishing, then Capernaum was the place to be. So, this city of Capernaum also was large enough to be the home of a Roman garrison of soldiers. Now, when we think of Roman soldiers, we are right to think about animosity, and conflict, and tension between the Romans, particularly the Roman soldiers, and the Jewish population. However, in Capernaum, it appears that the Roman garrison was on rather friendly terms with the Jews there. We know this from a couple of clues in our Scriptures, mainly, we remember the story of the Roman centurion, who comes to Jesus and asked Jesus to heal his servant. We're told that that was in Capernaum. It was the Capernaum Centurion that comes to Jesus to make that request--Matthew eight. Luke, in Luke chapter seven, gives us an extended recounting of that. And Luke tells us that not only does the Centurion believe upon Jesus and come and ask Jesus, to heal his servant and remember he, there's that whole interchange where Jesus says, Alright, I'll go, and Centurion says, No, you don't need to just say the word. And Jesus praises his faith. In addition to that, Luke tells us that the Jews told Jesus--look, you really need to do this for this Centurion. Why? Because he built our synagogue for us. So, there's appears to be this very friendly type of relationship between the Roman garrison--the soldiers there--and the native Jews. So, it seems to be a rather predictable sort of thing, that the closer you are to Jerusalem, the greater the animosity, and the greater the conflict and friction between the Romans and the Jews. And the further you are from Jerusalem, it appears that the more amiable their relationship was. And so Capernaum was about as far as Jerusalem, from Jerusalem as you could be while still being in Israel proper. So, the Romans seems to get along quite well with the Jews there in that area. So, Jesus would have spent these three years of his ministry in a context in which the Roman soldiers weren't necessarily all that much of a hated enemy. So, in addition to this, we also know something else about Capernaum. And Capernaum, was like a sea of miracles. Jesus performs more miracles in and around Capernaum, than anywhere else. So, Capernaum is going to see and experience--and when I say Capernaum, I mean, the population of Capernaum--is going to see and to experience the miracles of Jesus more frequently than any other place in Israel. In fact, Jesus is going to say a little bit later on in Mark's gospel, if the miracles that I did here I had done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented. Okay, so that's a little bit of background about Capernaum. And maybe it gets a little bit of a mental picture in our mind about the city because Jesus is going to be here for quite a bit of time. And we're going to hear about Capernaum on a sort of a repeated basis. So, here we go from verse 21. And they went into Capernaum. And immediately--there's Mark's favorite word there--and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and was teaching. So, here we're introduced to the synagogue. So, let's just give ourselves a little bit of background about the synagogue so that we can think properly about not only this experience, but the multiple experiences that are to come, that have to do in and around the synagogue. So, the synagogue can be rightly thought of as the center of Jewish life. Now, you've heard it said--I've said this before, and it's true--that the Temple is the center of Jewish life--and that's very true, but there's only one Temple. And of course, that Temple is in Jerusalem. And so, if you don't live in Jerusalem, then the Temple is something that you, at best, visit three times a year for the three feasts, maybe not at all. So, the Temple is something that definitely is the center of religious life, but it for most Jews, it's something that's sort of separate from them. So, for those Jews who live outside of Jerusalem, the synagogue constitutes the center, the ground zero, the gathering place for their religion. In fact, that's what the word means. Synagogue literally means gathering place, or gathering together. So, the synagogue is absolutely absent in the Old Testament. Search your Old Testaments and you won't find reference to the synagogue in the Old Testament, which, of course, leads us to believe that there were no synagogues in Old Testament times. It appears that the synagogue came about, probably during the Babylonian exile period, when the Jews were separated from their homeland, obviously, they were separated from the Temple. And so that was probably the time period in which the synagogue really came to be. And the Jews began to think of--well, what can we do in order to ground our religious life when we're not in Jerusalem. And so the synagogue became this place of gathering in which Jews gathered each Sabbath. So, as they gathered here for the Sabbath, this was, this would have been an every week sort of thing as they gather, but not just on the Sabbath. But the synagogue was also a place, sort of a central place for other activities in their life. So, the synagogue was sort of like maybe the church building, along with the community center all rolled into one. And so, the synagogue, obviously was very active on the Sabbath day. So, as Jesus enters into the synagogue on the Sabbath, he's going to teach there, let's just try to imagine a little bit about what that synagogue gathering would have been like. So, once again, we can maybe put into our minds just some sort of picture or some sort of image of what this would have looked like, as Jesus is entering into the synagogue and what's taking place. So, we are fortunate enough that in our New Testaments, we are given a rather detailed account of one of the Sabbath gatherings in the synagogue and it comes to us in Luke chapter four. In Luke chapter four, we're familiar with this passage--this is not the Capernaum synagogue, instead, this is the Nazareth synagogue. Jesus enters into the Nazareth synagogue where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, and he stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, and then we have the quotation that he reads from there. So, a number of things that we see here, the synagogue the gathering together of the synagogue would have consisted of, first of all, of prayers, a corporate prayer. Also, would have consisted of corporate singing, they would sing the Psalms together. And then it would move into this time of worship, this period of, well, all of that was worship, but this period of worship that's centered around the Word. And so, we're told that what this began with was Jesus standing. And as he stood, then an attendant brought him a scroll. And so each and every Sabbath in the synagogue was read from the Books of Moses, or the Torah, and also from the Prophets. So, there was a reading from the Torah, and there was a reading from the Prophets. And so, Jesus is handed the scroll of Isaiah, we're not told here, but he's probably handed also one of the scrolls of the Books of Moses, and read from that. But he's handed the scroll of Isaiah. And in the scroll of Isaiah, he finds a certain place that he wants, and finding this place, he then reads it. And then after reading it, he rolls it back up and gives it to the attendant. And then we're told that Jesus sits down. So, sitting was the posture of authority. In the Jewish culture, we think of--as I'm doing now--standing. But in the Jewish culture, the one who was teaching with authority, the teacher, the rabbi, would sit as he taught. And so Jesus rolls up the scroll, hands it to the attendant, the attendant takes it away. And then Jesus sits down, and he does what every rabbi, whether they be a visiting rabbi, or whether they be a rabbi that was for there in Capernaum, they would then after reading from the sections of Scripture, they would then comment on what they had read from. And that was sort of the typical Sabbath experience in the synagogue. It involved, once again, corporate singing, as they sing the Psalms together, corporate prayers, it would also involve reading of the Scriptures, both from the books of Moses and from the Prophets. And then it would involve a commentating, a time of commentary on the Scriptures, or you could say, teaching, a time of teaching or commentaries on the Scriptures that were read. And so that was sort of the the typical Sabbath sort of synagogue experience in which Jesus does this, the reading and the commenting on the scrolls here. So, one of the things that this tells us is, first of all, that Jesus, even by this point, has already been recognized as a rabbi, as someone with the ability to teach, because he's asked to teach. It was, it was a very customary thing in the synagogue that the one who was asked to teach would be not the regular, the synagogue rabbi, but instead a visiting rabbi or a visiting teacher. So, someone was visiting, they will be asked to, to comment on that section of the reading. And this is what Jesus is that he's asked to comment on this or to teach from this. So, he's already, in a sense, being recognized this early in His ministry, as one with the ability to teach, and one who is asked to teach. So, that gives us just a little bit of a viewpoint of what Jesus does here in the Sabbath. We're going to read over and over again, about Jesus's teaching, particularly teaching in the Sabbath. And so now we have a little bit of a mental picture of what that looked like. So, again, from verse 21, they went to Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue, and was teaching. So, as he enters the synagogue, and he's teaching, we're reminded here of two specific habits that we see that Jesus has already undertaken. And they are, first of all the habit of attending the synagogue. Attending the synagogue on the Sabbath, were told that this was his custom. John, (I'm sorry), Luke four, verse 16, from our passage right there, tells us that as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. So, we're told that it's Jesus' custom to attend the service in the synagogue, which tells us that Jesus did not attend the synagogue meetings, just by way of whim, or just when he felt like it, or just when he didn't have anything else in-particular to do on that Sabbath and, and hadn't seen his friends down at the synagogue in a couple of weeks. So, he's going to go...no. Jesus had an established custom, a habit of Sabbath attendance in the synagogue. And so, one of the things that tells us is that if Jesus, the Son of God, not by emotion, not by happenstance, not because this is a convenient day to go to Sabbath, but instead, by custom. If Jesus, the Son of God made it his willful, purposeful habit to attend corporate worship on the Sabbath, then how much more do his people need to make it our willful, purposeful, intentional habit to attend corporate worship on the Christian Sabbath or the Lord's day Sunday? So, that's the first habit that we see the other habit or custom that we're told is that he has this custom of not only attending Sabbath, but also teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. John 18, verse 20, Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world, I have always taught in synagogues and in the Temple." Or later on in Mark chapter 10, "He left there and went to the reign of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to Him again and again, as was his custom he taught to them." So, Jesus is establishing this habit of not only attending the synagogue, but teaching in the synagogue. Now, here's the question we should ask ourselves. Why are we told that that's his custom and his habit? If you were like Jesus, endowed from above, with miraculous supernatural powers, to perform miracles at will? Then what do you think you would spend the bulk of your time doing? What would be the focus of most of your time and energy. If you were given the power above from above, to heal the sick, to restore sight to the blind, to cast out demons, to cleanse the lepers, to calm storms, to walk on water, to multiply bread--what do you think would be the central focus of your time? Would it probably not be that? The bulk of Jesus's time we should be careful to understand the bulk of Jesus's time was never taken up in miracles. It might seem that way as the miracles are related to us, in fact, Mark is going to relate to us no less than 17 miracles. So, it might seem to us that Jesus is performing a lot of miracles, but we must read carefully, and we must read closely to see this was not the bulk of his time. The central focus of his time and of his energy was in purposeful teaching, not miracle performing. Why? Because Jesus knows that the kingdom of God is not being brought, is not being established in the performing of miracles. The performing of miracles are done, that's done to validate his teaching, not to substitute for it, or even to take the lead in front of it. Instead, Jesus understands that his father's kingdom--the central rule of his father's kingdom, or are one, I should say, one of the central rules of his father's kingdom--is that his father has determined that his kingdom will advance by the teaching of the truth, by the illuminating of the minds of those who will hear, by the receiving of the truth, by the changing of the transforming of our mind. That is how the Kingdom of God is established. And that is how the Kingdom of God moves forward. Jesus understands that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That's what the Father has determined. And so, Jesus makes it his priority to engage himself in teaching. The reason Jesus came, is of course, to die at the end of this three-year period. But during this three-year period of ministry, he's going to make it his central focus, not to heal as many people as he can, but to teach as many people as he can, because he understands that the truth of God is what establishes and moves forward the kingdom of God here on Earth.

Part 2

Jesus' teaching is authoritative because He teaches out of His divine nature.

“He Taught as Having Authority, Part 2”; Mark 1:21-23 0277 This would be like the infinitely greater counterpart to the Old Testament prophets, who would preface what they say with, "Thus says the Lord." This would be the Lord himself saying, "Thus I say." And they were astonished at his teaching. So, this word that's translated astonished--Mark is going out of his way here, to supply to us an extremely forceful word, an extremely graphic word to describe to us the reaction of the people to Jesus's teaching. The word here is a word that the root of the word literally comes from the word to strike. And so, the word literally means to be so struck with astounding awe that you lose control of your mental faculties. That's literally what the word means. So, it's not, astonish doesn't quite get us there. In fact, the same word a little bit later in chapter five of Mark is going to be translated 'overcome with amazement,' that gets a little bit closer. But the word that mark is, it almost, it really borders upon terror. It almost is communicating this idea of being not only astonished, but terrorized by what you've come to an understanding of. That what you have now been given this enlightenment, this understanding of, is so astounding, so astonishing, that it literally moves you to lose control of your faculties. And so, Mark is trying to communicate to us this idea of the crowd, I can picture them in my mind right now I can picture every jaw just dropping open, and the people just looking at one another, in awe, and saying, "We've never heard anything like this." They weren't just surprised. They weren't just pleased. They didn't just admire Jesus's teaching, they were awe-struck by Jesus's teaching. That's the idea that Mark is trying to communicate here. So, the question for us to ask, is what does that mean, that they were so awestruck? What does it mean, that they, that Mark wants us to think of people with jaws dropping open, and literally almost just losing control of your mental faculties, because you're so overcome with what you, what you're hearing? Does Mark intend for us to see Jesus's teaching, as so astonishing in the manner that he teaches, or in the substance of what he's teaching? Because, you know, that word 'teaching' could mean either. If you say that you are astonished at someone's teaching, then you could mean that you are astonished in the manner of teaching. Their methodology of teaching is so different, or so unusual, or so effective, that the way that they communicate, the word pictures that they draw, the illustrations that they use, the inflections of their voice, all those things come together in such an astonishingly effective way that you could say, I'm astonished at his teaching. But that English word also could mean that you're astonished not at the method of teaching, but the substance, the content of the teaching, that the things that Jesus is communicating, are so intense, so real, so radical, so different, that you're astonished at the substance of what he has taught. So, which would it be? The English word could mean both. And you know what the Greek word is just like the English here, it could also mean both. It could also mean the manner of Jesus' teaching. And it could mean the substance of Jesus' teaching. So, I think the safest thing is to assume that Mark used that word--he could have used others--the safest thing to assume is that Mark used that word to intentionally communicate to us well, it's both. That not only is it the things that Jesus is saying, that are so life changing, that are so groundbreaking, that are so radical that are so attention grabbing, but also the way in which Jesus is teaching these truths is so captivating, that the people are just awestruck by what Jesus is teaching. So, this reaction that Mark wants us to see here is a very, very clear and very moving reaction. We're going to talk about that in just a minute. But first, let's just look at the contrast. Because this is a passage of contrast. We're going to see just--or next week--we're going to see this contrast between the one who the demons are going to recognize and he's going to say you're the Holy One of Israel, and meanwhile, we're told that he's the unclean spirit. So, there's contrast between the Holy One and the unclean or the evil spirit. But here's another contrast. And the contrast here is between the authority of Jesus and the authority of the scribes. So, take a look again at verse 22. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. So, our English Standard inserts the word 'one' there. It's probably not the only translation but does that, but it really doesn't belong, because there's nothing in the Greek that's that that's translating, it's supplied. And I think that almost gives a sense here, when he says he, he teaches as one who had authority, it almost to me gives a sense of Jesus having authority among others--as one who had authorities, Jesus has authority and others have, it almost sort of hints at that. So, it doesn't belong, there doesn't need to be there. Literally, Mark just says he teaches as authority. And so, the contrast here is between the authority of Jesus as he teaches, and the authority of the scribes, which they are accustomed to sitting under the authority of the scribal teaching. So, what we should be careful to see here is that the scribes did not teach without authority. The scribes were not people who had no authority to teach, nor were they people who had no had no authority over the ones that they taught. So, what was a scribe? The word hints to us of someone who just maybe copies the Scripture--scribe, you know, maybe just someone who can write and read and copies--but that was not at all what a scribe was. A scribe would have been comparable in our day to something like a university PhD professor, who was tenured, because the scribes were untouchable in society--you could not bring charges against them. They were the religious leaders, outside of Jerusalem, there was no one above them. Now, certainly in Jerusalem, of course, there's the high priests and all that. But outside of Jerusalem, the scribes were top dog on the religious ladder. They were highly educated. They were again, something tantamount to a tenured University professor sort of thing. They were very well schooled, very well educated in the Scriptures. And they would, in fact, they assumed the name Rabbi. They weren't technically rabbis. But they were called rabbis. So, the scribes would be the ones who would teach in the synagogue on the Sabbath. And they taught with a certain kind of authority. But the authority with which they taught was an authority that was a vested authority or an external authority. So, here's what the teaching of the scribes kind of went like. The scribes based their teaching on the authority of two things. And those two things were a tradition, and the writings and teachings of other scribes. That was the entire system, of the authority of the scribal teaching, was the authority of tradition, and the authority of other rabbis or other scribes. And so, their teaching would kind of go something like this; as they would read from the scrolls, they roll up the scroll, and then it sit down, and they begin commenting on what they read, and their comments would go something to the effect of--Rabbi so-and-so he says that this is what this text about, but rabbi, so-and-so over here, he added to that and thought, well, it wasn't only that, but it was this, but then this other rabbi, here's what he, he sort of disagreed. But here's what our tradition says. That's kind of the gist of their teaching. How do we know that? We know that because that's exactly what the Scriptures tell us. Take a look at your notes and Mark chapter seven. In Mark chapter seven, we're going to get a real mouthful, so to speak of the scribes teaching, by way of Jesus's rebuke of their teaching. Here's what Jesus says, "You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father and mother. But you say if a man tells his father, a mother, whatever you would have gained from me as Corbin, thus making void the Word of God by your tradition that you have handed down." So, here's the gist of what Jesus just said. Jesus just said, that you are so wrapped up in your traditions, and the teachings of other rabbis and other scribes that you actually take those and use those to overthrow the clear, main, central teaching of the Scripture itself. Jesus's example is; you know what the Scriptures were pretty plain when they said, honor your father and your mother. But you've taken the traditions of men, and you've taken the teachings of other rabbis. And you've twisted those to say, well, here's what we can say we're really supposed to do, which is actually the opposite of what Moses said. So, the scribes would get so intense, so focused upon the minutia of what the Scripture said, that they would completely lose sight of the point, of the meaning of the of the text. Remember, as Jesus says, to them, "You know what, you can strain a gnat, and swallow a candle." Or he says to them, you know, "You, you tithe your spices, you tithe your your mint and your cummin. But you have neglected the weightier matters of the law," which is to say, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind strength. So, you see, that's the gist of Jesus's attack against them--is to say, you know, the Scriptures, and you teach the Scriptures to the tiniest minutiae of what they say. In so doing, you twist and pervert their clear meaning. And so, this is what the people would come and hear every Sabbath. They would come, they would sing, they would pray. And then they hear the Scriptures read, and then they hear this scribe just go on and on about tithing your spices, about how you're supposed to measure out your pepper, and what sort of tithe you're doing with your cummin, and all these different things. And Jesus is saying, "You've missed the whole thing." And furthermore, you've based that upon the authority, that is, number one, the authority of your tradition, and number two, the authority of what you've heard and read, other scribes say and write. And so, that is just kind of a snapshot of their type of authority. But we're given this contrast here, verse 21, (I'm sorry), verse 22, they were astonished for he taught them as one who had authority, or literally as authority, and not as the scribes. So, you see the contrast there. The scribes were not devoid of authority, but their authority was of a, an utterly different nature than Jesus' authority. Jesus teaches with an authority that's separate, that's different that's distinct from theirs. So, if the gospel of Mark is about anything, it's about the authority of Jesus Christ over every created thing. If Mark's gospel is not about that it's not about anything, because that is the clearest assertion that Mark's going to make through the entirety of his gospel, is the absolute authority of Jesus Christ over every created thing. So, just take a look at some of the ways that Mark tells us that Jesus holds authority over all things. He's going to tell us that he owes. Jesus holds authority over the Sabbath. When Jesus says that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, or he owes authority over the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus declares, here's how you can know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on Earth. Or he has authority obviously, in this very passage authority over the demonic over unclean spirits. He has authority over nature as he speaks to storms. He has authority over the law. In that passage in which Jesus's disciples are criticized and rebuked for eating without ritually washing their hands without the ceremonial washing of hands. And Jesus says, "You know, it's not what goes in your stomach that defiles you what defiles you what's, it's what comes out comes out of your mouth." And then Mark goes on to comment, this parenthetical comment to say, "By so doing, he declared all foods clean." In other words, he declared that he's Lord of the law. He's Lord of the dietary laws, of the sacrificial laws, of the ceremonial laws. He's also Lord of the Temple as it cleanses the Temple. And these are just some examples. Mark wants to show us the authority of Jesus. And so, the entire ministry of Jesus begins on this note. This is a dual-sounded note, both of them to proclaim the authority of Jesus the authority in his teaching, as you're going to see next week, the authority that he holds over the demonic. So, as he says that he is authority, or one who has authority. This word, that’s translated 'authority' it's the word 'exousia.' And it's a very interesting word, worth our time to think about for just a moment, this word 'exousia,' like oftentimes, you'll see in the Greek it's just it's a word put together with a prefix, and we put it together and come up with a new word. And so, the prefix is the prefix 'ek.' It just means 'out' or 'out of.' And then the root word is the word 'ousia.' That is the word for the verb 'to be.' So, it's found here in the present participle form, which means literally, the verb 'to be' in a present participle is--being. So, literally authority is 'out of being.' Out of his being, or out of his substance. Out of His essence, that's literally what the Greek word for authority means, is out of his being. Jesus teaches out of his being, out of his substance, out of his essence, is how Jesus teaches. Jesus' teaching is, is not lightweight. Jesus' teaching is not flittering, and insubstantial. Jesus's teaching is substantial, it's out of his substance, out of his essence. So, this would be like the infinitely greater counterpart to the Old Testament prophets, who would preface what they say with these words, "Thus says the Lord." This would be the infinitely greater Lord himself saying, "Thus I say." This is why we, we see so often in Jesus's teaching--think of, for example, the Sermon on the Mount--what do we see in the Sermon on the Mount over and over? "You have heard it said, but I say." "You've heard it said, but I say." You say he's teaching out of his very essence. Out of his very substance is where his authority lies. So, what does this mean that Jesus is teaching out of his substance, or out of his authority? I think it means at least three things. It means, first of all, that he's teaching out of his essence or his being, as the God-man. His essence is the essence of the God and the man together, the God-man, and as the God-man, He knows the hearts of men. He knows the thoughts of men. So, can you imagine a teacher in the synagogue, reading from the scrolls, and now saying, "Let me expand upon what the scrolls said." And the one who's doing that expanding or that commenting upon what the scrolls have said, that very one knows your heart? Can you imagine what that sort of teaching would be like? You know, I can comment and expand upon the Scriptures. And sometimes I can, perhaps, say some things that might resonate with you. And the only reason I can do that is not because I know your heart, but it's because I know mine. And in many ways, my heart and your heart are alike. But they're not identical. And so, I can sort of make some correlations between my heart than yours. That's a long way from knowing your heart. Can you imagine someone with the Scriptures in their hand, knowing everything about you, knowing every event of your life, knowing every thought that you've ever thought, knowing everything that will happen to you this afternoon and next year, and taking the Scriptures and saying, “Let me tell you what the Scriptures mean for you.” But not only does Jesus know the hearts of those to whom he teaches, he also knows the mind of God. Because he is, his essence is God. Now, there's a sense in which we can know the mind of God, because the mind of God is given to us in the Scriptures, and the Spirit indwells us and the Spirit teaches us of the mind of God. But once again, that is the fall infinitely short. Knowing something about the mind of God is a far cry from knowing the mind of God. And to take the Scriptures in hand, and looking out at those who are sitting there assembled to hear the teaching, and knowing everything about their heart, and knowing everything about the mind of God and saying to them, "This is what the Scriptures are saying to you." Can you see how the jaws would drop open? So, that's one of the ways in which Jesus, I believe, is teaching from the authority of His essence of his being. Another is that he's teaching as the victorious Champion of salvation. The victorious Champion of salvation, who would himself successfully endure, not just temptation, but all that the forces of evil have to throw against him. The only one ever in the history of humanity to ever successfully resist the kingdom of evil. And he resisted it to the fullest. He experienced everything the kingdom of evil had to throw against him, 40 days without food, experiencing all of Satan's power, along with all of his demonic forces, and he prevailed. And now he stands before, he sits before them to say, "Here's what the Scriptures are saying to you." You know, there's, there's a real sense that in which to teach the Scriptures effectively, you have to have taken the Scriptures and put them into effect in your life, you have to have put them in place, and experienced their working. You can't teach the Scriptures that you've never applied to your life. And so, there's a real sense in which that taking the Scriptures and applying them to a life equips a person to teach from the Scriptures. Now, here's the Champion, the Captain of our salvation, the only Man ever to successfully resist the kingdom of evil, and all it had, and he sits before them to say, "These are how the Scriptures work in your life. This is what it means to put the Scriptures into place." Jesus, of course, we well know the story of his temptation of how he defeated those temptations with the Word of God. And now that same Captain of our salvation sits before them to say, this is the word that defeated the kingdom of evil with. This is what this word means to you. And then, thirdly, I think, to teach from the essence of his substance, to teach from his being means that he's teaching as the anointed Messiah, as the christened Messiah, on whose shoulders will rest the salvation of all of God's people. So, he will become their sin. And He will pay the penalty of their sin on the cross. But now he sits before them to say, "This is the sin that you need to put away. This is the sin that you need to do battle against. This is the sin that will destroy you, if you don't master it." And that's coming from the One who doesn't know their sin in theory, who doesn't know their sin by correlation. He knows their sin because He will be it. You see why Mark wants to say to them, they weren't just impressed with Jesus. They were speechless. No one's ever spoken like this. No one's ever taken the Scriptures and peeled back our hearts, and just poured them right directly onto our souls like this.

Part 3

Any handling of the Scriptures which does not offend the kingdom of darkness is a tragic mishandling of the Scriptures.

“He Taught Them as With Authority, Part 3”; Mark 1:21-23 0278 If our handling of the Scriptures is such that one who belongs to the kingdom of darkness can week after week sit and absorb this, without being deeply offended by it, then our message is broken. They are astonished, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. As we think about Jesus's teaching here, wouldn't have been incredible to be there, to have been there in that synagogue, wouldn't have been amazing to have been there and heard that? But you know, the Scriptures teach us that in a real sense, all of the authentic teaching and preaching of the Scriptures is the same way. All of the anointed preaching of God's word is done by Christ himself. This is why Paul says to the--remember back in Ephesians chapter two, remember what Paul says to the Ephesians? He says in Christ preached peace to you. Jesus had never been to Ephesus. But Paul had. And Paul had preached Christ to them. And Paul can say, when I preached Christ to you, it was Christ preaching to you. It was the Spirit of Christ using the words of Christ, and in the power of Christ, preaching that word directly to you. Remember what Peter says, in second Peter one, he's talking about that Mount of Transfiguration, this Mount of Transfiguration, probably the most incredible experience of his life, as he's on the mountaintop with James and John, and there's Jesus. And then the cloud comes end envelops them, and they hear the voice from heaven, "This is my beloved So,n in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him." Remember as Peter in Second Peter, chapter one, he says, "What an incredible experience that was, but we have something better. We have something far more sure, we have the written word of God." So, in a real way, this isn't shortchanging in any way, in a real way, when the Spirit anointed preaching of God's word happens, it is Christ preaching that to our hearts. It is the Holy Spirit, who knows our hearts and knows the mind of God, applying and teaching that word to us. But now let's take a look at their reaction, we see the reaction of their astonishment. Now look, let's look at verse 23, at one other reaction. And immediately there was in this synagogue, a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us, I know who you are the Holy One of God." And we'll stop right there, because we're not going to today get into the casting out of the unclean spirit. That's for next week. But it is important that we tie at least a portion of this together. And the portion that we're going to tie together is the reaction of this man with the unclean spirit. He just sort-of loses it, goes crazy. You can picture in your mind a roomful of people who are stunned into speechlessness. And then in the back of the room, there's this rowdy guy that stands up, "I know who you are. Get out of here. You I know you're the Holy One of God, you're here to destroy us, aren't you?" This begs to ask the question, "Where did this guy come from? Where do you think this guy came from?" I think there's two and only two options of where this guy came from. Number one, the first option, is this just happened to be the Sabbath, that he came to synagogue. He had been not coming to synagogue for a couple of years and just had been thinking he needs to get back into synagogue. And well, this was just the day that he decided to go back. Or maybe his friend had been inviting him to come to synagogue for six months now. And he just always had an excuse, every single Sabbath was this, or every was that, and this was the Sabbath that he said, "Alright, I'm going to go." And here he is, for the first time in the assembly of God's people. And he hears these words of Jesus and the demon that lives within him, then takes over and starts speaking. That's option one, which I think to be highly unlikely. You know what I think is much more likely? I think this man was there every Sabbath. And week after week, he stood in the synagogue, in heard teaching that was so off-topic, that was so powerless, that was so focused on irrelevant minutiae, so far missing the point of the Scriptures, that the demon within him found no reason to even object. I think that's much more likely. And here this one Sabbath, where Jesus now is in Capernaum. And for the first time in years, maybe more, what is preached in the synagogue is Truth. What is preached in the synagogue is relevant. What is preached in the synagogue is taking the Scriptures and explaining them, and expounding upon them. And the one in whom this demon has been happy to reside now for so many years, all of a sudden, he now here's something that's so abrasive that he can't keep his mouth shut. Isn't that sad? That the people of God could come together week after week--assuming the scenario is true--that the people of God could come together week after week. And what is fed to them through their ears is no more offensive than a demon from hell need not even speak up. What's even sadder is that week after week, on the Christian Sabbath--right now, there are thousands of assemblies of those people who would call themselves the people of God, who are listening to a bunch of stories mixed in with a few jokes, and maybe a Scripture verse scattered in there. And the teaching of God's word is so weak and so pathetic, that even those who don't believe it find no reason to get up and walk out. The preaching of God's word should be offensive, not because we enjoy offending people, but because the message cannot be anything other than offensive to the kingdom of darkness. The message that you have deeply offended your Maker. And you have offended your Maker, not by just a few things you've done. You've offended your Maker by who you are. By the sinner that you are. And not only can you not even come close to doing what you can never do. But there is only One who can do what needs to be done, which is please your Maker. You can't even begin to start pleasing your Maker, because you are so hopelessly trapped into that which is so deeply offensive to your Maker. And there's nothing you can do about it except cast yourself upon Another. If our handling of the Scriptures is such that one who belongs to the kingdom of darkness, can week after week after week, sit and absorb this, without being deeply offended by it, then our message is broken, and our handling of that message is faulty, and wrong. Because this demon possessed man shows us in clear fashion, what the kingdom of darkness should think. When they hear the Scriptures explained and applied. They should think, "Shut your mouth. I don't want to hear that nonsense. Get out of here. Either you get out or I get out." So, his reaction is one of great helpfulness for us. It's not our goal to ever intentionally be offensive to the world. But if the world can hear our message and just think, "Oh, that's a that's a nice message." Then that's not the message of the Kingdom of Light. One last thing for us to see in the passage and then we will land the plane. The last thing that we want to say is Jesus, of course, verse 22, "They were astonished his teaching he taught him was one who had authority." Here's this picture of this synagogue full of people, and they just can't even speak, they're so moved by what Jesus said. Let's connect that together to a passage of Scripture that's coming a few chapters later--in your notes are referenced Matthew chapter 11--where Jesus proclaims woe, upon not only Chorzan and Bethsaida, but also upon Capernaum He says, "Woe to you Capernaum. For if the things that I've done here, I had done them over in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes long ago. So, the last application that that shows us is this: It's simply not enough to admire true Biblical preaching. It's simply not enough. It's simply not enough to appreciate true, right Biblical preaching. It's simply not enough to even believe it. For you must be converted. You must hear it. And you must be converted. You must hear it, and you must be driven to repentance. And you must hear it and you must be flooded with a trust and a faith in Another. It's not enough just to hear it. and think, "Wow, that's wonderful teaching. I've never heard that like that before." There have been many--maybe I shouldn't say many--there have been those who had at various times said to me, "Wow, you're handling of the Scriptures. I've never heard anything like that. That's, that's wonderful." Only to fall away later. It's not enough to hear the Scriptures and appreciate it. It's not enough to hear the Scriptures and admired. It's not enough to even hear the Scriptures and be astounded at the truth that's brought to you you must be converted
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