Mark 5

I love this chapter because it focuses on having faith. The woman who was sick was healed by faith. The little girl who had died was resurrected by Jesus because of the faith of those that loved her. I think about the lady who just wanted to touch Jesus because with her faith, she knew that she would be healed. That is awesome. I want to be that way. I want to have that kind of faith. I have times where I feel my faith is pretty strong, but more often than not, I have times where I know that I am weak. I just want the chance to grow more and see more and do more to be able to grow my faith to know all that God does for me. I need to work on that and to just believe in how much He can really do.

Mark 4

I like the times in the Bible when the disciples don't understand stuff and Jesus "rebukes" them. As a teacher, I think it would neat to watch Jesus call out his "students." Sometimes in my class I know that there is probably a better way to do it. I think it would be neat to just watch him do it and to see the reactions of the faces of the disciples. If I were the disciples, I think I would be both scared about not following his teachings, and awestruck. That would be quite the awesome feeling.

Mark 3

When I think about the apostles, I think about how much of an honor they must have felt having Jesus choose them to be his disciples. I watched a video series by (Tyler help me out, it was from the twenty-somethings group. His name is just not there for me) and he talked about how hard people worked to be a disciple for a rabbi. They had to memorize so much scripture, they had to serve the rabbi, they had to do so much as far as just trynig to impress the rabbi. After many steps, the best of the best were chosen to be the disciples of the rabbi. It took years of terribly hard work to be able to even get to a point of consideration to be a disciple. All this said, how cool it must have been for Jesus' disciples. Jesus saw good in them and knew that they would be able to do his work and spread the gospel. Normal people just plucked out of the crowd.
That's us, just normal people.

Mark 2

The sick need doctors not the ones that are healthy. We talked about it from Matthew, but I still think this is a very important phrase to think about during our daily lives. We do all hang out on weekends and during the week, but we still need to use our time in our workplaces and at other times to try and share our faith with those that we are with each and every day.

Mark 1

I have always found it intriguing on how the gospels of Matthew and Mark differ. Mark is right to the point in the first chapter laying out ground work of Christ coming, John the Baptist, and then right when he started his adult ministry. I think the most interesting thing about this chapter is when Jesus healed many. After healing Simon Peter's mother-in-law, Jesus has many come to his door and ask to be healed and to have demons removed from them. Just the outcry of the sick and needy and Jesus answers the call. It makes me think how quickly news spread of the power of Jesus in a time when communication was not fast spread, and the amount of need in the area.

Matthew 28

How awesome it must have felt to be the disciples up on the mountain to see Jesus after witnessing all that had happened to him days earlier. I can not imagine the grief that they must have felt in the days between his death and resurrection. I can not imagine also how awesome it must have felt for them to have experienced to be with Jesus again for the brief time.

Chapter 27

I have always thought it would be pretty neat to be Simon of Cyrene because he was able to take the cross off of Jesus' back and carry it for him. Although Jesus eventually did die, it would be quite an honor to give him a break from having to carry it for some time.

Ch 26 continued

Oh by the way, can you imagine what this looked like?

"67Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him."

I read that and my stomach dropped a little.

Matthew 26 - It's been awhile

It's been awhile since a post has been put up. I know that we made a commitment to do this fully this year and I am going to try and get us back on track. There will be some catching up to do, but we can do it.
In this chapter, the short section about Judas betraying Jesus stood out to me. I read this section and think of how crazy it was for him to betray Jesus that easily. He only needed 30 silver coins (actual dollar amount based on inflation I don't know) but that is a pretty cheap price to betray someone. Then I thought about how easily I betray Jesus with no monitary reward returned back to me at all. Made me think...

Matthew 25

The parable of the talents makes me think about our group talk that we had the other night. The idea that we need to use what we have to do good and provide for many areas in the church that are in need. We all have talents and abilities, we just need to use them to their best to glorify God. I think that Monday night was a bit overwhelming with so many ideas getting out there, but I think it could be the start of some good service to the church. Hopefully everybody in our group will be able to do plenty of follow-up in the areas we wanted to start serving in.

Matthew 24

This chapter was a tough one to write on. I struggled coming up with anything to write. I did feel motivated though while reading. Thinking about the end times and what it will be like, and being glad that I will not be there, those are tough things to think about. I really think that thinking about the end times is a really big motivator to increase evangelism. How sad it will be for people that we know and see every day to be left behind.

Matthew 23

I would like to have been in the room of the Pharasees after Jesus had said all of what He did in chapter 23. He really laid into them, but I want to know what response they really had. I wonder if any of them had regrets or bad feelings about what they had done, or if they all just got more angry at Jesus. Obviously, we know what happens, but I wonder what it was like in that time when Jesus was calling them out. I know at times when I have been called out, I either get embarassed, defensive, or even. I am sure that after this time, they just decided that they needed to save face and keep their political power and that they needed to take out the "Enemy."

Matthew 22

This chapter has so much in it. First it has one of my favorite parables in it about the Wedding Banquet. I love v. 14 "For many are invited, but few are chosen." Every one is invited to God's banquet, but it is by our choice and obedience that we are chosen to attend. Second we get a small piece of what the resurrection will be like in v. 29-32. I think the most interesting this is what the groups felt after he spoke these words in this chapter. People were astonished and amazed at what he said in response to the Pharisees and Sadducees and after dealing with the questions from the Pharisees and Sadducees, they were scared to ask any more questions because of the answers Jesus gave to what they asked. Awesome.

Matthew 21

So often we think of things upcoming that fill us with excitement, birthdays, anniversaries, kids being born, just to name a few. There is also a flip side to those exciting events. I can't stop thinking about what Jesus was feeling while riding on a donkey down the streets of Jerusalem. He knew what he had to do and seeing all of the faces of the same people who would call for his death a few days latter, make this week even more difficult. I can only imagine the emotions He was feeling.