Wednesday 02-13-13 - Living Grace Fellowship

And He Healed them all: The Healing Ministry of Jesus II.mp3

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Key Text:

Mark 2:1-17

Mark 3:1-15 (we compared with the same account given in Matt. 12:9-13)

Mark 5:1-21

Overview:

This is our second session on the Healing Ministry of Jesus and we are now in the Gospel of Mark.

Tonight we covered Jesus healing:

A paralyzed man who received his healing after Jesus forgave his sins.

A man with a withered hand which Jesus healed on the Sabbath in the temple right in front of those He knew objected to it.

The man possessed with a legion of demons.

One of the outstanding virtues we see in Christ in this lesson is God’s tremendous compassion towards sinners who repent, those sick who would place their trust wholly in Him for their well-being and His anger against those who would set up road blocks against these ones.

Tonight I also briefly addressed the dissimilarities we see between the Gospel accounts. This has troubled many Christian and ministers and has offered much ammunition to those who oppose the Bible to mount attacks against the integrity of the scriptures. This is mostly due to the ignorance which is pervasive in our culture and Christians are by far the worst offenders in regard to the scriptures.

We have attempted to read into the scriptures a standard of inerrancy it never promised to deliver!

Now before you get upset with me, I believe the scriptures we have today (even 2,000+ year removed from the originals) to be 100% inspired, authentic and accurate! I believe anyone can and in fact MUST base their life and understanding of both God and the human race by its teachings – including a completely literal interpretation of the first 11 chapters of Genesis! However, there is a massive difference between inspiration and dictation.

While I believe there are segments of scripture which claim to be dictated and therefore must be considered as such, most is NOT! Most if the scriptures are a synopsis of what occurred and not a blow by blow historical account of every detail – many times things are not even completely chronological!

These are all standards which literal-analytical Greek thinking people attempt to superimpose on a collection of books which are overwhelmingly Jewish and holistic in nature. As such, we walk way with much that is misunderstood or viewed as being inconsistent or even out right wrong.

I submit to you that most note-worthy scholars and literary historians do not suffer from the same misgivings. In fact, many of these same “pitfalls” of the uneducated are the very same qualities which mark the scriptures as being the most complete collection of authentic ancient writings in existence from the perspective of the scholar and historian.

A very simple example which cropped up tonight while teaching is found in a comparison between Mark 3:1-15 and Matthew 12:9-13. The accounts are similar but not entirely the same. Nothing completely contradicts, but there are fundamental differences one would expect if two people were retelling the same event many years removed from their actual occurrence. These differences are only enhanced by the likelihood that Mark was not even there when they happened. Mark’s account of the ministry of Jesus most likely comes from a community of memories. In those days, people retold stories over an over again and what kept the story from degrading was that it did not work like the party game “telephone” but instead had the corrective nature of a group of eye witnesses recalling the same event, which actually preserves the authenticity of the actual account. Schools of literary history have used this method in comparison with a game of telephone in classrooms to illustrate the corrective nature of collective memory.

In any account Mark and Mathew still agree and in fact if read together with Luke’s account in Luke 6:6-10 offer a panorama of the event in question.

At the end of the teaching I mentioned how the Gadarene Demoniac who had the legion of demons in him had gone out a shared his testimony of deliverance through Christ throughout the Decapolis. This was interesting because later Jesus returned to this region and the same people who begged Him to leave, now brought their sick out to Him from every provence. Over a century later, a man named Tatian wrote a synopsis of all the Gospels called the Diatessaron. In it we get a similar panorama of the ministry of Christ to what we get when we view each account of His ministry from each gospel.

Pastor Mark

View posts by Pastor Mark

Hi my name is Mark and though I am opposed to titles, I am currently the only Pastor (shepherd/elder) serving our assembly right now.

I have been Pastoring in one capacity or another for nearly 30 years now, though never quite like I am today.

Early in 2009 the Lord revealed to me that the way we had structured our assembly (church) was not scriptural in that it was out of sync with what Paul modeled for us in the New Testament. In truth, I (like many pastors I am sure) never even gave this fundamental issue of church structure the first thought. I had always assumed that church structure was largely the same everywhere and had been so from the beginning. While I knew Paul had some very stringent things to say about the local assembly of believers, the point of our gatherings together and who may or may not lead, I never even considered studying these issues but assumed we were all pretty much doing it right...safety in numbers right?! Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong!

So needless to say, my discovery that we had been doing it wrong for nearly two decades was a bit of a shock to me! Now, this "revelation" did not come about all at once but over the course of a few weeks. We were a traditional single pastor led congregation. It was a top-bottom model of ministry which is in part biblical, but not in the form of a monarchy.

The needed change did not come into focus until following 9 very intense months of study and discussions with those who were leaders in our church at the time.

We now understand and believe that the Bible teaches co-leadership with equal authority in each local assembly. Having multiple shepherds with God's heart and equal authority protects both Shepherds and sheep. Equal accountability keeps authority and doctrine in check. Multiple shepherds also provide teaching with various styles and giftings with leadership skills which are both different and complementary.

For a while we had two co-pastors (elders) (myself and one other man) who led the church with equal authority, but different giftings. We both taught in our own ways and styles, and our leadership skills were quite different, but complimentary. We were in complete submission to each other and worked side-by-side in the labor of shepherding the flock.

Our other Pastor has since moved on to other ministry which has left us with just myself. While we currently only have one Pastor/Elder, it is our desire that God, in His faithfulness and timing, may bring us more as we grow in maturity and even in numbers.

As to my home, I have been married since 1995 to my wonderful wife Terissa Woodson who is my closest friend and most trusted ally.

As far as my education goes, I grew up in a Christian home, but questioned everything I was ever taught.

I graduated from Bible college in 1990 and continued to question everything I was ever taught (I do not mention my college in order to avoid being labeled).

Perhaps my greatest preparation for ministry has been life and ministry itself. To quote an author I have come to enjoy namely Fredrick Buechner in his writing entitled, Now and Then, "If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that He speaks to us largely through what happens to us...if we keep our hearts open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear Him, He is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, His word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling." ~ Fredrick Buechner

Well that is about all there is of interest to tell you about me.

I hope our ministry here is a blessing to you and your family. I also hope that it is only a supplement to a local church where you are committed to other believers in a community of grace.

~God Bless!