Luke 2

The thing that I found the most interesting about this passage was the two people Simeon and Anna. They were two people that I haven’t heard about and are forgotten in the story of Jesus’ youth.
What was fascinating was that they knew their purpose was to be in a place that God can use them and they were two of the first people to welcome the Messiah into the world. I find the thing that Simeon said to Mary to be quite telling "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

Luke 1

This is a long chapter with a lot going on.
A few thoughts I had:

• In today's world, I don't know how excited people would be if they found out they were having a child at such an old age.
• Zechariah must have been sared and excited at the same time. How cool it would be to be visited by an angel that was sent from God to deliver a message to you.
• How tough it would be to not be able to speak until after your child is born and is named. I guess it was God's collateral to make sure that they named him John.

Mark 16

How cool is it that Jesus wasn't in the tomb? After years of following Jesus and hearing of his teachings, they see a miracle happen to him. It is just the icing on the cake from his life. After seeing what he did, it is a nice springboard to all of those that he left on earth to go and share his good word.

Mark 15

Boy those chief priests sure do know how to stir up a crowd. I would have liked to see the sales pitch that they gave to the people in the crowd that would make them choose to release a murder over Jesus. I wonder what it would take to convince a crowd today of the same thing? People then were looking at the priests in high regard and probably trusted their words too much. Today in America, there are more people that can be skeptics to a situation and not as easily swayed. I'm sure if you were in the right place today it could happen, but I think people are less willing to follow the words of a few without having to give more reasons.

Mark 14

If some person wanted to annoint my body with that much perfume, I wouldn't want it to happen. Can you imagine how strong Jesus smelled after that? It seems like a couple of sprays are enough to make a person gag, imagine a whole bottle!
Peter's denial is also something good to see. Jesus knew that Peter would fall behind. It is nice to konw that Jesus knows that even the strongest will fail at times. It gives some encouragement to me knowing that I have no where near that faith that Peter did.

Mark 13

Watch and wait for the Lord to come. In verses 7 and 8, it talks about how our world is today. Is Jesus coming soon? That is a question that I don't have an answer to. That happens a lot to me. Especially teaching 4th graders. I hope Jesus comes soon. I also am selfish because I want to see my girls grow up. When I get to Heaven, will I know my girls? Will they be able to talk to me? I can't wait to find out.

Mark 12

I read the parable of the tenants twice. I don't really remember that one at all. I read it in a couple of versions and tried to see if there was any way that there were parts of it that I remembered. The rest of the chapter I remembered. That was the weird part. I remembered

• Give to Ceasar that which is Ceasar's
• The many marriages of the widow
• Love your neighbor as yourself
• The widow giving the two coins

I don't know where or how I missed that story, it is just weird.

Mark 11

That poor fig tree. Figs weren't in season. I think killing it as an example to the disciples was a great illustration of the power of Christ.
I also think about how Jesus went-off in the Temple. Our church is a sacred place. The things that we do in it should be held in a sacred manner. If it is praising God, or having a Men's fellowship group, it needs to be something that honors God.

Mark 10

Looking at verses 17 - 31, the part that talked about giving up all of your possessions to follow Christ, it looks hard. The only thing that I thought of that this would be possible would be in the field of missions. This would be where you would need to uproot yourselves and to relocate with the purpose of ministry. Is this the only way in which you could follow these scriptures to the letter of the law? I'm not going to sell my house, quit my job, and to constantly look for people to share Christ with, I don't think that is what God is asking me to do at this point. Not needing to get into the debate of how literal to take the bible, I was just curious how a guy living in the suburbs with his family could do this. I tithe, I go to church, I know I could do better ministering to those around me, but how can I put these verses to heart?

Mark 9

I think the part from verses 14 - 27. It has some suspense to it. Just imagining Jesus considering how to heal this boy and teaching his father about having faith to be able to be healed. There is the added element in verse 26. It says that Jesus saw a crowd running toward him. I imagine it being like in a television show today with someone in the show waiting for a file to load and running out of the room just in time. It is funny to see that happening in the Bible as well.

Mark 8

I don't quite understand when Jesus is talking about the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod. I know that Jesus ends it by saying, "Do you still not understand?"
Unfortunately, I don't quite get it.

Mark 7

The first part of this chapter that sticks out is when Jesus talks about clean and unclean foods. I know that there are plenty of religions now that don't eat certain foods and it is weird to me. I'm glad that Jesus said that all foods were good to eat. We would be missing out on a lot of good things.
The second thing that stood out to me was the part at the end after Jesus had healed the deaf and mute. He told them not to tell anyone. Why? Did I miss something earlier about this? It seems like good marketing to get the word out about what Jesus can do and for people to be able to build their faith believing that Jesus is the Christ that he has said that he is.

Mark 6

I like the part where Jesus says that only in the place where Jesus grew up and was that people really respected him for who and what he did. They were amazed, but giving him a hard time because it was expected that he wouldn't have as much knowledge of the spiritual sides that he had. After doing some reading I now understand why the people were so puzzled with Jesus' knowledge of the Bible and able to teach in the temple. It was the father's duty to teach his son a trade and it was expected that Jesus would have been a carpenter. Any child that did not follow in his father's footsteps was looked at as a failure of the father's responsibilites.
I think about what it is like to have someone famous grow up around you. Someone that you have known for awhile and have gotten used to them in a different sence. People in Jesus' home town had gotten used to Jesus and knew what he was like. Others were shocked at what they saw. I think that is neat.

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.