The Bible for beginners for 6 January 2021

New American Standard Bible (en)

New American Standard Bible (en)

Mark, Chapter 3, verses 1-12

¹ Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

¹ He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. ² They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. ³ He *said to the man with the withered hand, “^aGet up and come forward!” ⁴ And He *said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. ⁵ After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶ The Pharisees went out and immediately began^bconspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.

1

Mar 3:1-6 Luk 6:6-11 Mar 1:21 Mar 1:39

2

Luk 6:7 Luk 14:1 Luk 20:20 Mat 12:10 Luk 6:7 Luk 11:54

5

6

Mat 22:16 Mar 12:13

⁷ Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and a great multitude from Galilee followed; and also from Judea, ⁸ and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him. ⁹ And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd Him; ¹⁰ for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. ¹¹ Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” ¹² And He earnestly warned them not to^ctell who He was.

Read more:Mark, Chapter 3

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3

3:1 He entered again into the synagogue - At Capernaum on the same day. Mat 12:9; Luk 6:6.

3:2 And they - The scribes and Pharisees, watched him, that they might accuse him - Pride, anger, and shame, after being so often put to silence, began now to ripen into malice.

3:4 Is it lawful to save life or to kill? - Which he knew they were seeking occasion to do. But they held their peace - Being confounded, though not convinced.

3:5 Looking round upon them with anger, being grieved - Angry at the sin, grieved at the sinner; the true standard of Christian anger. But who can separate anger at sin from anger at the sinner? None but a true believer in Christ.

3:6 The Pharisees going out - Probably leaving the scribes to watch him still: took counsel with the Herodians - as bitter as they usually were against each other.

3:8 From Idumea - The natives of which had now professed the Jewish religion above a hundred and fifty years. They about Tyre and Sidon - The Israelites who lived in those coasts.

3:10 Plagues or scourges (so the Greek word properly means) seem to be those very painful or afflictive disorders which were frequently sent, or at least permitted of God, as a scourge or punishment of sin.

3:12 He charged them not to make him known - It was not the time: nor were they fit preachers.

NOTES

Why not on the Sabbath? How are we to understand this? Rest for God. Rest for the sake of prayer—that is understandable. But there is the vulnerability and fragility of a glass rose that lies there, lies there, lies there... and what if a car suddenly drives by and...

In this reading we see three different attitudes toward Jesus, three different meetings with God. Confident in their own virtue, the people's religious teachers...

The question of Shabbat, of observing and violating it, arises constantly in the Gospels. This is understandable: the problem of observing Shabbat was one of the main problems in Judaism...

The question of Shabbat, of observing and violating it, arises constantly in the Gospels. This is understandable: the problem of observing Shabbat was one of the main problems in Judaism. Entire treatises were written by interpreters of the Torah to justify what exactly could be done on Shabbat and what could not, in what cases a given action would be a violation of Shabbat and in what cases it was permitted.

For example, with regard to treatment, the consensus came down to the understanding that on Shabbat one can and must save a person from death if death threatens him. This means that one can and must carry out the medical procedures that are necessary, to use modern language, for vital indications, emergency procedures without which the sick person will die. If there is no such urgency, however, there is no need to hurry with treatment, because that too is work, and work is forbidden on Shabbat.

For the sake of saving life, Shabbat may be violated; for the sake of immediate healing, no. The case of the man with the withered hand was precisely one in which there was no need to hurry: death did not threaten him, for he had already lived this way for more than one year, which means he could have been healed after Shabbat ended. Jesus, however, looks at Shabbat in a completely different way, returning it to its original meaning. The original meaning of Shabbat consisted not at all in ritual restrictions and prohibitions, but in spending the day in God's presence, devoting it entirely and without remainder to communion with God. All the prohibitions and restrictions were ultimately directed toward removing a person from that everyday rush which greatly hinders communion with God and at times makes it simply impossible. Meanwhile the healing performed by Jesus manifested to those gathered the very fullness of the Kingdom that opened the possibility of communion with God, previously unknown to the people of God. And now it turned out that ritual prohibitions, when understood in a purely formal way, began to hinder communion with God instead of helping it.

It is not by chance that Jesus asks the people around Him a question about saving the "soul," about saving life. In healing, He joins the person He heals to the fullness of the life of the Kingdom, and He is told that by doing this He violates Shabbat. So what, then, is Shabbat: the fullness of communion with God, or a system of prohibitions for the sake of prohibitions? Each person had to answer this question for himself.

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