Key Thought: Mark Chapters 2 and 3 contain stories that illustrate Jesus teachings in a topical parallel. Some focus on the nature of Jesus, His role as Messiah, and the nature of discipleship.
July 20, 2024

1. Have a volunteer read Mark 2:1-12.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. What was the paralytic and his friends looking for, and what did he actually receive?
3. Personal Application: How can we avoid the same mindset being obsessed with the forms of religion so much that we forget what really matters in true religion? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “Why did Jesus tell the man his sins were forgiven at first when he and his friends seemed to be looking for a physical healing?” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Mark 2:23-28, Mark 3:1-6.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How does Jesus counter the charge brought by the Pharisees?
3. Personal Application: What principles of Sabbath-keeping can we take away from these accounts and the challenges we face in keeping the Sabbath? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “Wasn’t the Sabbath made for man? So doesn’t it make sense that we can choose what to do on it and when we celebrate it? If it is for us, we should be able to determine what it means and when to celebrate it.” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Mark 3:20-30.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What connection do you see between the two stories intertwined in this passage?
3. Personal Application: How could people be blinded enough by hatred, tradition, and religion so that even miracles can’t open their minds to Christ? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states: “What is the unpardonable sin, and what does it mean? How do we know if we have committed the unpardonable sin or not?” How would you respond to your neighbor?

4. Have a volunteer read Mark 3:20,21; 31-35.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What experience led Jesus’ family to consider Him out of His mind?
3. Personal Application: What does Jesus’ family want and how does He respond? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/3-controversies-teaching-plan/

Daily Lesson for Monday 15th of July 2024 

Tax collectors in Jesus’ day were civil servants under the local or Roman government. They were unpopular among the Jewish population in Judea because they often exacted more than required and became rich off their countrymen. A Jewish commentary on religious law, the Mishnah tractate Tohoroth says, “If taxgatherers entered a house [all that is within it] becomes unclean.”

Image © Kim Justinen from GoodSalt.com

Thus, it is not surprising that the scribes inquire disapprovingly, “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

How did Jesus respond to their question? He doesn’t reject it. Instead, He turns it on its head, indicating that people who are sick, not who are healthy, need a doctor. He thereby claims the moniker of spiritual doctor, the One who can heal the sin-sick soul. And should not a doctor go where the sick are?

Mark 2:18-22 picks up a new theme. It is the central story of these five stories dealing with controversy. Where the previous section included a feast provided by Levi, this next story revolves around the question of fasting. It consists of a query as to why Jesus’ disciples do not fast when John the Baptist’s and the Pharisees’ do. Jesus responds with an illustration or parable in which He compares His presence to a wedding feast. It would be an extremely odd wedding if the guests all fasted. But Jesus does predict a day when the bridegroom will be taken away, an allusion to the Cross. There will be plenty of time for fasting then.

Jesus continues with two illustrations that highlight the contrast between His teaching and that of the religious leaders—unshrunk cloth on an old garment and new wine in old wineskins. What an interesting way to contrast the teaching of Christ and the religious leaders. It shows just how corrupted the ways of the teachers had become. Even true religion can be turned into darkness if people are not careful.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24c-03-calling-levi-and-the-question-of-fasting/

Daily Lesson for Sunday 14th of July 2024

The man was paralyzed; his four friends, therefore, had to carry him to Jesus. After they tore through the roof and let the man down into Jesus’ presence, Mark 2:5 notes that Jesus saw their faith. How can faith be visible? Like love, it becomes visible in actions, as the persistence of the friends openly illustrates.

Image © Lifeway Collection at Goodsalt.com

The man’s obvious need was physical. However, when he comes into Jesus’ presence, the first words Jesus pronounces refer to forgiveness of sins. The man speaks not a word during the entire scene. Instead, it is the religious leaders who object (in their minds) to what Jesus has just said. They consider His words blasphemous, slandering God, and taking on prerogatives that belong only to God.

Jesus meets the objectors on their own ground by using a typical rabbinic style of argumentation called “lesser to greater.” It is one thing to say that a person’s sins are forgiven; it is another thing to actually make a paralyzed man walk. If Jesus can make the man walk by the power of God, then His claim to forgive sins finds affirmation.

These religious leaders lost sight of what really mattered: justice, mercy, and walking humbly before God. So obsessed with defending their understanding of God, they were blinded to God’s working right before their eyes. Nothing indicated that the men changed their minds about Jesus even though He gave them more than enough evidence to know that He was from God, not only by letting them know that He could read their minds (no simple feat in and of itself) but also by healing the paralytic in their presence in a way that they could not deny.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24c-03-healing-a-paralytic/

Daily Lesson for Sabbath 13th of July 2024

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study

Mark 2:1-28; Mark 3:1-6, Micah 6:6-8, 1 Samuel 21:1-6, Mark 3:20-35, Luke 12:53, Luke 14:26.

Memory Text:

“And He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath’ ” (Mark 2:27-28, NKJV).

Mark 2:1-28; Mark 3:1-6 contains five stories that illustrate Jesus’ teaching in contrast to the teaching of the religious leaders. The stories are in a specific pattern in which each successive story links to the one before via a topical parallel. The final story circles around and reconnects with the first one.

Each one of these stories illustrates aspects of who Jesus is, as exemplified by the statements in Mark 2:10,17,20,28. Our studies on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday will delve deeper into the meaning of these accounts and Christ’s statements in them.

Mark 3:20-35 is the subject for study on Wednesday and Thursday.

What we will see, too, is an example of a technique the Gospel writer uses that is called “sandwich stories.” This narrative pattern appears at least six times in Mark. In each case some important aspect of the nature of Jesus and His role as Messiah, or the nature of discipleship, is the focus.

This week, we will read some accounts about Jesus and see what we can learn from them.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, July 20.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24c-03-controversies/

Inside Story for Friday 12th of July 2024

By Andrew McChesney

Father rested for several days at the house of his daughter, Divya, in Nepal. He was exhausted from his jobs as construction worker and shaman.

Father watched with interest when the Seventh-day Adventist pastor of Divya’s church came to visit and brought several church members with him. He listened as they sang several songs about his daughter’s new God, Jesus.

Then the pastor opened a Bible and read Jesus’ invitation, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, NKJV). Father felt a yearning in his heart to know this God. He wanted rest. Then the pastor read John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Father’s heart was touched. He had never heard of a God who had given His only Son to save humanity. He realized that there was no need for animal sacrifices because God sent His Son as the ultimate sacrifice for all time.

After the pastor left, Father asked Divya for a Bible. He wanted to read those two verses for himself. But when he looked, he couldn’t find them. Divya also couldn’t find them, so she called the pastor. He showed how to find the verses. Father was delighted, and he began to read the Bible daily. On Sabbath, he went to church with Divya and his wife, who had been cured of her mysterious illness after Divya prayed. Father didn’t understand anything at church or in the Bible. But he took the Bible when he left Mother with Divya and returned home to a neighboring town a short time later.

At home, he resumed work as a shaman and construction worker during the day. At night, he read the Bible. As the months passed, his desire to worship spirits vanished. He decided to leave the shaman profession.

“My life is different,” he told the townspeople. “I don’t want to do these rituals.”

The townspeople were furious when they learned that Father had become a Christian. They accused him of betraying his ancestors. Father didn’t mind. He was sure that he had found the one and only God.

Today, Father and Mother are active Seventh-day Adventists. Father, whose full name is Krishna Lama, is 66 years old and a deacon.

“I used to think that my home was where my ancestors lived,” he said. “But now I feel like the church is my home. With Jesus, my future is bright.”

This mission story illustrates Mission Objective No. 2 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s “I Will Go” strategic plan, “To strengthen and diversify Adventist outreach . . . among unreached and under-reached people groups.” For more information, go to the website: IWillGo2020.org.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24c-02-inside-story-bewildered-shaman-part-2/