The Home Bible Study

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Sorting out Some of the Sheep Stories

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In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, following the prologue which shows the author’s intention of demonstrating that Jesus is the Mind, Reason and the Word of God come into this world in the from of a human person. Jesus is the Light of the worls, a world that prefers darkness to light. John then begins his story.

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John carefully sets outs the details of the time, and step by step takes us through the first momentous week in the public life and ministry of Jesus.
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It begins on the day when the religious leaders send people from Jerusalem to find out first of all what John the Baptist was all about. They grill the Baptist with all kinds of questions but John the Baptist only and always points to Jesus. John is not even worthy to stoop down and untie the straps of Jesus’ sandals. John only pointed to the King. John’s function, and one he clearly knew, was only to prepare the way. ( See John 1:32-34)
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On the next day, John the Baptist was again standing with two of his disciples. John looked at Jesus as He walked by. "See," he said, "The Lamb of God!"
Perhaps John was thinking of the Passover Lamb that was sacrificed and whose blood protected the Israelites on the night they left Egypt and left a life of slavery behind. Once again we see John the Baptist pointing beyond himself and his two disciples turned and followed Jesus. Jesus asked these two disciples life’s most fundament question ‘What is it you are looking for?" ( See John 1:35-39)
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First thing the next morning Andrew went and found his brother, Simon Peter and told him that they had found the ‘Messiah’ and introduced him to Jesus. Andrew is the disciple who characteristically introducing others to Jesus and what a great opportunity and privilege it would be to be able introduce one’s brother to Jesus. ( See John 1:40-42)
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On the next day, Jesus was determined to get away to Galilee and there he found Philip who in turn went and found Nathanael who came from Cana asked ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth? But Jesus was able to see into Nathanael’s heart. ( See John 1:43-51)
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Then two days afterwards - John leaves out a day, perhaps it was the Sabbath and Jesus was resting - we find Jesus at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. He is there, along with his mother and the disciples as invited guests. Many seek a church wedding, but few couples actually stop and think about inviting Jesus to their wedding and to be the strength of their relationship. In the richness that is the fourth Gospel we are given the first miracle of Jesus where he turned the water into wine. With Jesus, there’s always an abundance ( See John 2:1-11)

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M. JOHN 1 .................THE LAMB OF GOD. A SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
T. JOHN 10 ................THE GOOD SHEPHERD LAYS DOWN HIS LIFE.
W. JOHN 21 ................JESUS TELLS PETER TO ‘FEED MY SHEEP."
T. 1ST PETER 2 .........THE SHEPHERD & OVERSEER OF YOUR SOUL
F. 1ST PETER 5:1-11 ...SHEPHERDS OF GOD’S FLOCK
S. PSALM 23 ..............IS THE LORD YOUR SHEPHERD?

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MARRIAGE, MURDER, MADNESS & MARTYRDOM

a dancer's reward

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It stood on a lonely ridge, and was said to be one of the grimmest and unassailable fortresses in the world. Even its name said it all - Machaerus Castle - meaning the Black Castle. It was in this bleak, desolate place that the last act of John the Baptist’s life was played out. This is not a children’s story!
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Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, was a nasty piece of work - a chip of the old block you might say. His father was a man who married frequently and murdered his children with even more frequency. When thinking about the Herods, the song ‘I am my own grandpa" comes to mind. First, Herod the Great, father of Herod Antipas, married Doris, by whom he had a son Antipater, whom he murdered. Then he married Mariamne, by whom he had two sons named Alexander and Aristobulus, whom he also murdered. Herodias, the villainess of our story, who asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter, was the daughter of Aristobulus. Herod the Great then married another by the name of Mariamne, and to whom had a son named Herod Philip who married the above named Herodias who was the daughter of his half-brother Aristobulus. Philip and Herodias had a daughter named Salome, who was the daughter of his half-brother and therefore his niece. Salome is the girl who danced for Herod Antipas who was her uncle, half-brother to her father. Hope you got that?
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Next, Herod the Great married Malthake, by whom he had two more sons, Archelaus and Herod Antipas who is the Herod of our story today. Now this is where it gets confusing, well, ok, gets more confusing. The Herod Philip who originally married Herodias, and is the father of the said sultry Salome. Well, his half-brother Herod Antipas visited him in Rome, and seduced his wife and persuaded her, Herodias, to leave her husband and come and marry him. Just a recap, we need to note who Herodias was - she was the daughter of Herod’s Antipas’ half-brother, Aristobulus, and therefore his niece, and she was the wife of another half-brother, Herod Philip, and therefore his sister-in-law.
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But wait, it gets better. Well, maybe more confusing! To complete the picture, Herod the Great, father of Herod Antipas, Herod Philip, Archelaus, Aristobulus, Alexander, Antipater, (these three all murdered by their father) married yet again. This time he and married Cleopatra of Jerusalem - (not THE Cleopatra), and had another son, Philip the Tetrarch who married the said sultry Salome who was one and the same time the daughter of Herod Philip, his half-brother, and the daughter of Herodias, who was herself the daughter of Aristoblus, another half-brother, so this same aforesaid and sultry Salome was therefore at one and the same time not only his niece, but also his grand niece. If we keep going eventually somebody is going to be their own grandpa! Hope you got that?

M. LUKE 1:1-80 -----BACKGROUND TO THE BAPTIST’S BEHEADING
M. MARK 1:9-13 ----JOHN BAPTIZED JESUS IN THE RIVER JORDAN
T. LUKE 3:1-20 ----JOHN’S PREACHING PUTS HIM IN PRISON
W. LUKE 7:18-35 --JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
T. MARK 6:14-29 --JOHN THE BAPTIST BEHEADED.

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NOTHING NOTEWORTHY ABOUT NAZARETH

For some 18 years the door is firmly closed to us regarding Jesus early life. We are not even given so much as a glimpse into those years. The door closes after he and his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. Mary and Joseph went every year to Jerusalem for this special feast that commemorated the Passover ( see Exodus 12). On this particular occasion Luke tells us Jesus was 12 years old, and as was the Jewish custom, he was being prepared to take his place in the religious community the following year.
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It was also on this occasion that Jesus disappeared for three days, when they found him he was sitting among the rabbis, the teachers and experts in the Jewish religious laws. Jesus responded to his anxious mother who asked him why he was treating her and his father this way by simply stating that they should have known "that I would be in my Father’s house?" Jesus cancels out Mary’s use of 'father' by stating that he had to be in "My Father’s" house. He then travelled with Mary and Joseph back to Nazareth where we hear nothing for the next 18 years. The door has been closed tightly shut.
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The door opens again as Luke describes with great drama another occasion when Jesus is once again in Nazareth, that place where it is said "no good thing can come from." On this occasion, we learn that the people of Nazareth, his neighbours, for this is the village where he lived and was brought up, did not approve of how Jesus thought, spoke and taught. After his sermon in the synagogue aroused their anger, the people took him "and brought him to the precipice of the mountain that their city was built upon".
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Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel while she was in Nazareth and told of the birth of this child she was to call Jesus. (See Luke 1:26-38). She was not yet married and was only pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. There would have been a lot of ‘talk’ around this birth as Joseph was not the biological father and Mary had shamed her family by becoming pregnant before being properly married according to Jewish custom. In a small village like Nazareth tongues would quickly spread the gossip of this scandal, that you can be sure.
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No wonder when his neighbours in Nazareth heard Jesus preach in the synagogue that day they would ask "Is this not the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters her with us?" And as Mark so succinctly puts it "And they took offense at him."
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We learn a great deal from this verse. First, Jesus was a carpenter, and that he had brothers and sisters. Secondly, because he is called "Mary’s son" Joseph has is all probability died. Thirdly, the people have never forgotten the ‘scandal" surrounding Jesus’ birth and that Joseph was not his ‘real’ father’. Read the whole story for yourself. John+
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M. LUKE 1:26-38 .... ANNOUNCEMENT MADE IN NAZARETH
T. MATTHEW 2 ...... FROM BETHLEHEM BACK TO NAZARETH
T. LUKE 4:14-30 ..... NAZARETH NEIGHBOURS ARE FURIOUS
W. MARK 6:1-6 ....... MEET JESUS’ FOUR BROTHERS & SISTERS
T. MARK 3:20-22 ... MARY THINKS HER SON IS OUT OF HIS MIND.
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MARK - A MASTER STORY TELLER OF GOOD NEWS

Here we have another ‘boating’ story from Mark’s Gospel. Mark is the preacher’s teacher. Mark’s Gospel, the first and shortest of the Gospels moves along at breakneck speed. Mark is short, crisp, to the point - using only an economy of words as he recounts the journey of Jesus from the shores of Galilee all the way to Jerusalem and all points in between.

Today’s Gospel is one of Scriptures great stories - told in such a way as to not only tell the story, but also draws the listener into the story so that we stand there and are aptly and almost subversively become a bystander, transported back in time and space. The Bible is truly a time machine taking us back to a place in history where the Son of God walked among ordinary everyday people.

There isn’t space here to reprint the complete story, so I invite you to read it again, before mooing into this week’s study. In the early chapters of Mark, we discover that Jesus spent a lot of time in and around the Sea of Galilee. It is often described at the ‘boat ministry’ of Jesus, where he criss-crosses the Sea of Galilee, encountering all kinds of people, calling fishermen, to sets of brothers, and a tax collector to be his disciples. It is also on the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus calmed the great storm that caused the disciples to fear for their lives and it was here that Jesus also walked on the sea.

In today’s Gospel however we are given what can only be described as ‘contrasting characters’ and this is no accident that Mark pairs these two characters. As Jesus is walking along the shore, a large crowd is following him. Out of the crowd comes Jairus, whose little 12 year old daughter is seriously ill. Jairus is one of the religious leaders from the synagogue. It would be his job to make sure that the synagogue religious regulations were strictly observed. Remember now that Jesus has already been chased out of his hometown synagogue and run out of town. One of Jairus’ colleagues would have been responsible for that decision. Jairus tells Jesus about his daughter and pleads with him to come and heal her. Jesus must have been Jairus’ last hope.

As Jesus heads off to Jairus’ home, out of the crowd comes a sick woman. She has been sick for twelve years. She has spent all her money on doctors but no-one could cure her. To add insult to injury, because of her illness, she was considered ‘unclean’ and therefore not allowed to worship in the synagogue. Perhaps Jairus was the one who made sure she did not enter the synagogue to worship and thus break the regulations regarding worship. These two contrasting characters - one has a sick 12 year-old daughter, the other has been sick for twelve years are total opposites - yet, Jesus treats them both the same.

M. MARK 1 MINISTRY BEGINS ON THE SHORES OF THE LAKE.
T. MARK 2 JESUS MEETS MATTHEW ON THE LAKESHORE.
W. MARK 3 JESUS WITHDRAWS TO THE LAKE
T. MARK 4 TEACHING AT THE LAKE - CALMING THE STORM
T. MARK 5 JESUS CRIS-CROSSES THE LAKE -
F. MARK 6 JESUS WALKS ON THE WATER
S. MARK 7 THE HEAVIES FROM THE BIG CITY.