Thursday 14th April - Mark 8

Today’s chapter is Mark 8, you can read it here

Tom writes:

Peter’s confession of Jesus as Christ is often referred to as the turning point of the gospel.  But is this correct?  What was Peter confessing? Peter was expressing faith that Jesus was the divinely-appointed king of Israel who was going to bring about the end of Israel’s exile and the re-establishment of David’s Kingdom. Peter is seeing something, but it looks like a tree walking around. Peter was still misunderstanding Jesus in two crucial ways. Those misunderstandings persist in many churches today. Jesus was bringing two fundamental twists to the prevailing understanding of “Messiah”.  Firstly, Jesus’ rule wasn’t going to be quite like David’s rule. David crushed the head of Goliath and Jesus would indeed crush the head of Satan but the glorious enthronement of David would not be for Jesus… yet. Instead, Jesus’ Christ-ship at this age in history was to be defined by suffering and rejection and death.  Jesus would bring in his Kingdom not through human victory but through human failure. Which is a bit weird.  Secondly, Jesus was not just divinely-appointed but was actually God himself. Which is even weirder. Jesus wasn’t just bringing in Israel’s Kingdom but he was re-defining it around himself.  Jesus would fill the kingdom with whoever he chose, no matter what their bloodline or geographical location and he would push away many who thought they were most entitled to positions of power. This must have blown the disciples’ minds. 

So where does that leave us?  I guess it leaves us concluding that confession of Jesus as Saviour is great, but not enough.  Jesus demands more than just reverence and allegiance - Apple Computers can have that.  Even Christiano Ronaldo can have that.  Jesus demands that we let him reshape even our view of salvation - that he would re-work even what our view of hope and heaven and fruitfulness and faithfulness are like. That is not something that we achieve on our own - it is entirely dependent on His Spirit taking His Word and making it renew our minds. Our confession of Jesus as Lord is only the beginning - we have a life-time of discovering and rediscovering who he really is and what he really wants to do.

Question for Reflection

How has your vision of “a good life” changed since you first came to faith?