Year 8, Day 151: Mark 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I think Mark 4 is the perfect chapter to show both the potential and pitfalls of humankind.  A large crowd gathers around Jesus to hear Him.  The likely gather to see Him perform some great miracle, too.  They follow Him because of what they’ve seen and what they’ve heard.

When Jesus teaches the crowd, He uses parables.  He tells us the reason why.  Jesus can’t possibly disciple the whole crowd.  He doesn’t have enough hours in the day to meet the needs of everyone who needs to be discipled!  He also is smart enough to realize that just because people are coming to Him to listen and watch doesn’t mean that they have what it takes to commit to following Him.  Therefore, Jesus needs a way to make sure that His efforts are well spent.  Jesus also needs to teach this technique to His own disciples.  Jesus needs a way to weed out the insincere while drawing the dedicated close so He can pour into them.  He uses parables to accomplish this goal so that He can see who is willing to ask questions and go deeper in understanding.

The interesting thing about the subject of the parables is that He is talking about how faith grows.  In the first parable, we hear that people respond differently to the faith.  Some don’t care about it.  Some receive it for a short time but then don’t give it attention.  Others get distracted.  Some receive it, foster it, and let it grow until it produces more fruit.  This last category of people are the ones that Jesus is looking for.  These are the people that He’s looking to find through the parables.  These are the ones who are going to ask questions, who are going to grow, who are eventually going to bear fruit for the kingdom.  These are the ones whose faith will grow far larger than anyone could have suspected, growing so large as to provide for a place for other people to gather and learn and be discipled.

On the flipside, we end this chapter with the storm and the calming of the sea.  Listen to the critique of Jesus as He calms the storm.  He asks His own disciples if they have so little faith!  In other words, Jesus has given them a very practical lesson about everything that He’s been teaching.  In a moment where they lose focus, they so easily revert back to people who respond out of their humanity instead of their faith!

Jesus’ point should be incredibly clear.  Faith takes work.  Jesus teaches they way that He does because He wants to see who is willing to do the work.  But the disciple must also be willing to work or there isn’t any point to it!  The calming of the sea is a practical lesson that discipleship is more than just being in the presence of Jesus.  Discipleship means that the disciple must be constantly vigilant about their faith, their growth, and their relationship with God.  When anyone loses focus – even one of Jesus’ hand-picked disciples – we revert back to a human being living instinctively instead of through faith that can move mountains and produce great fruit.

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