Read: Mark 3:22-30 Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. (vv. 28-29) One of the great summaries of what Christians believe is found in the Apostles’ Creed. This often-repeated confession of …
The Family of God
Read: Mark 3:20-21, 31-35 Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother. (v. 35) Because they receive so little attention in the Gospels, we may sometimes forget that Jesus actually had a human family. He was born into a Jewish home and grew up in Galilee with a mother, father, and siblings. In the …
Called to Be With Him
Read: Mark 3:13-19 He appointed twelve . . . that they might be with him. (v. 14) “You are known by the company you keep.” I did a little research on that phrase and discovered that it comes from a moral in one of Aesop’s Fables called “The Donkey and His Purchaser.” It tells about a man who wished to …
Jesus Goes Outside
Read: Mark 3:7-12 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea. (v. 7) When Robert Schuller began preaching at a California drive-in movie theater in 1955, some people thought he was out of his mind. But large crowds of people came in their cars to hear about a God who loved …
The Heart of True Religion
Read: Mark 2:23–3:6 [Jesus] said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (v. 27) The other day my wife and I were having lunch at a local restaurant. As we conversed with our waitress, we discovered that she knew some people we also knew. In fact, her mother and father were members at a …