The Wonder of Mark’s Gospel: Astonishment at Jesus’ Teaching

Posted on August 14, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

They were astonished at his teaching because he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not like the scribes. (Mark 1:22 CSB)

It seems that Jesus preached without notes. He had no study filled with commentaries and systematic theologies. He is the Word incarnate. He spoke with divine authority. He did not read the comments made by previous authors. He was the author. Can an author plagiarize himself? The hearers realized his authority—his divine power—from the words he spoke. It was clear: he had the right to give orders; he had the right to make decisions; and he had the right to expect obedience. What a word!

Jesus’ words astonished them. They were deeply moved and impressed as they listened. On this occasion he was speaking in the local synagogue.

Almost as a footnote to impress upon us the power of those words, Mark continues, Just then a man with an unclean spirit was in their synagogue. He cried out, “What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” (23, 24). I wonder if this demon was a regular at synagogue. (What kind of preaching did he usually hear?) Two things immediately strike me at this point. 1. The unclean spirit clearly saw that there was a new sheriff in town and so he would no longer be welcome, as we will see. 2. And how interesting that it took a demon-possessed man to bear witness to the identity and divinity of Jesus! So Jesus acts quickly: Jesus rebuked him saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit threw him into convulsions, shouted with a loud voice, and came out of him (25, 26).  

Jesus’ word even had the power to cast out demons! The Scripture always demonstrates and illustrates the claims it makes. This brings a further response from those present. I love these. They were all amazed …, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (27). What about you? Are you astonished and amazed by the words of Jesus, the word of God? Do you obey him?

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Jerusalem Praise Psalms: God’s Holy Attire

Posted on August 10, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. (Psalm 96:9a CSB)

J. A. Motyer notes that there are smaller collections of psalms within the five divisions of the Psalter. He lists, for example, Psalms 93-100 as Jerusalem Praise. I am in the midst to reading this collection again in my daily devotional reading. They are powerful psalms of praise. They are hard-hitting psalms of God’s holiness! I am seeing this with fresh eyes and hearing it with new ears. The one, true God is something to behold.

To worship God is to acknowledge, meditate and ponder, and proclaim God’s worthiness. The Lord is the covenant God of redemption, Yahweh: I Am. As Jesus claimed among his remarkable statements in John’s gospel: before Abraham was, I Am. Splendor is wonder, magnificence, illustriousness, that is, beauty in all its fullness. We could even say it is “oughtness.” God is exactly as he ought to be. Holiness is God’s pure separateness from all he has created, but especially from sin. He is set apart. He is holy, holy, holy.

Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. Where do we even start? Think, speak, act, live, conduct oneself with a mind to the greatness of God’s name and person according to who he is and all his mighty acts of history, not the least of which is saving sinners like me (and perhaps like you too). Acknowledge the one true God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and Jesus the Son as prophet, priest and king. Be in awe at the truth, goodness, and beauty of God in his fullness as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. Realize the compassion and condescension of God to come and seek out sinners to save us. Was God the Father not the first missionary? Adam, “Where are you?” (See Genesis 3.)

Yes, that seems abstract, but it is satisfying to ponder and to type those words and sentences about God. So what else practically? Praise God. Pray. Read and meditate on Scripture. Love God above all else. Love your neighbor. Make it your ambition to obey God. Obey God’s law as revealed in the Bible. Confess and repent of your sins when you fail in obedience. Tell others about him and what he has done for you and for them.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, please help me to understand more and more how to and then to actually do it, to worship you in the splendor of your holiness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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More than a Job!

Posted on August 8, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us;

establish for us the work of our hands—

establish the work of our hands! (Psalm 90:17 CSB)

Do you call it the daily grind? Does it seem to be often in vain? Does anyone ever notice? Does it even matter? I am talking about your daily work. I prefer vocation, that is, calling. But most refer to it as their job or occupation. Whatever you call it—and I encourage you to consider it your calling (even if you hope to move on to a more “significant” calling later)—it will only be successful through the blessing of the Lord upon it.

Moses has one psalm attributed to him: Psalm 90. Perhaps he wrote it as he was preparing to cross the eternal Jordan and his people were preparing to cross the earthly river of the same name. Moses closes his psalm with the plea, “Lord, please establish the work of our hands.” Lord, he was saying, let these dear children of yours work hard in the jobs you give them. And, please, cause them to flourish. Moses wrote similar words in his final sermon before this younger generation of the children of Abraham was to cross into the land of promise.

He stressed obedience to the law of the tithe unto the Lord for the sake of the Levites with the result: And the Lord your God will bless you in all the work of your hands that you do. (See Deut. 14:22-29.) He offered the expectation of joyous worship and thanksgiving to the Lord because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you will have abundant joy. (See 16:9-15). He instructed in the virtue of generosity for the sake of the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, again with an expected outcome: so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (See 24:19-22).

So what’s my point? Do not take your work lightly. Do not live in constant discouragement. Are you doing your work as unto the Lord? And yet, are you sometimes (lots of the time!) discouraged like me? Do not fret. He sees. He knows. He cares. It is not in vain. Your work and my work have meaning. And if the Lord is on your side and my side, then we have not only his favor, but his own commitment to our flourishing to his glory and our good.

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Living for God’s Kingdom: Inside and Outside

Posted on August 4, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

Teach me your way, O Lord,

that I may walk in your truth;

unite my heart to fear your name. (Psalm 86:11 ESV)

Life is typically a rather tedious journey down a path, one foot in front of the other. Step after step after step. As we travel along we live for a reason and we make sense of the world through an internal grid of one sort or another. We are never just standing still spiritually or morally or intellectually. Remember the prophet Jonah? The proverbs in the Scripture key on these themes. They also find their way into the psalms.

These parallel petitions above are embedded in the middle of a psalm filled with the interplay of adoration, thanksgiving, supplications and a touch of confession. It is a psalm one can easily make his or her own. I sense an earnestness and a focus in the request. It displays both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of the life of faith. How am I living and acting? How am I thinking toward and perceiving of God?

Two other translations bring out where these seemingly simple petitions are taking us. The CSB: Teach me your way, Lord, and I will live by your truth. Give me an undivided mind to fear your name. And the NLT: Teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor you.

PRAYER: As I read your word and hear it read, taught, and preached, Lord, teach me what you want me to know. I want to live for you. I want to conduct myself as is appropriate for a believer in you. I want to live and act with character, conviction, and integrity. I want my feet to walk paths of righteousness for your name’s sake. Further, Lord, from the very internal control center of my being I want to have a razor-sharp focus on you. I do not want to be like those at the Yahweh-Baal showdown conducted by Elijah—divided in their allegiance. I want to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am yours and serve only you. Please cleanse my heart of all unrighteousness, crassness, dirty jokes, filth, sin and shame. Give me a deep and abiding reverence for you and your name, which I carry as your baptized child. May the glory of your name be what directs me out of bed each morning and may a conscience clean and meditating on your honor place my head back on the pillow in the evening. To God be the glory, through the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

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The Only Remedy

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved. (Psalm 80:3; repeated in vv. 7 & 19 ESV)

Thank you, Lord, for Asaph’s psalms.

After an opening request: Please listen, O Shepherd of Israel … Show us your mighty power. Come to rescue us! (See vv. 1-2 NLT), Asaph bookends his prayerful song with the refrain from above.

Restore us, God. Please bring us back to yourself, back in to your presence. Turn back toward us. Let your face shine. Look at us with a smile on your face. The smile of God is what we long for. That we may be saved. Your divine favor is life itself. Your frown is like death. We want life.

Are you out of fellowship with God? Pray along with Asaph. God gave us the Aaronic blessing for a reason. His presence, his smile, and his favor are the most important ingredients to a contented and vibrant life on this earth. Lord, please make your face to shine upon us. Are you living in unrepentant sin? Repent today and turn back to the Lord. Seek his face. Seek his favor. Are you just down or confused or weary? Pray: restore us, O God. Are you alive and reading this devotion? Then pray with Asaph!

In verse 14a, the psalmist asks for what is most needful: Turn again, O God of hosts! We cannot be restored to fellowship with God until he reconciles himself to us. In Christ, he delights to do this. And so Asaph builds his refrain like this: Restore us, O God (3a). Restore us, O God of hosts (7a). Restore us, O LORD God of hosts! (19a). His sense of urgency grows as he addresses the only One who can and will help. Let your face shine, that we may be saved! (3b, 7b, 19b).

BENEDICTION: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14)

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Remember, Partake, and Tell

Posted on July 31, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

They spoke against God; They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” (Psalm 78:19 NASB)

Can he? Our answer to that question reveals our faith. Psalm 78 offers historical information for the purpose of spiritual transformation. God’s great acts in the past must be transferred to the coming generations. God is holy. He is just. He is merciful. He expects the response of faith. He expects the response of obedience. This goes for you and for me and for every person on this earth.

Asaph, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said, “Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! … We will…tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders he has done” (Psalm 78:1, 4 ESV).

Are you doing this? We must not forget how God has provided us food and clothing and shelter; parents, children, friends; the fellowship of the body of Christ, that is, our local congregation of believers. Our minds can grow dull, our hearts hard, and our spirits wounded. Yet we cannot forget the mighty and the ordinary works of the Lord in our lives. Tell them to your children. Tell them to your friends. And tell them to anyone and everyone.

Can God spread a table in the wilderness? Yes. He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused water to flow down like rivers. …And he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven (15-16, 24).

And you know what else? Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37b-38).

PRAYER: Thank you, Lord, for providing our daily bread. Thank you for forgiving my sins. Thank you for your living water. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Daily Devotions

Posted on July 28, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; … For you, O Lord, are my hope, … Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent. … My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, … You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? … my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long (Psalm 71:1a, 5a, 9, 15a, 19cd, 24a).

The morning psalm today in the Bible reading guide I use, The St. James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year, published by The Fellowship of St. James, was Psalm 71. I certainly needed it. What did John Newton tell us? God’s amazing grace had taken him through dangers, toils, and snares. Indeed. Jesus called it tribulation (John 16:33). James warned us about what our sin would do to us and our relationships (see the whole epistle, but I am thinking of James 4:1-12). Even Paul spoke frankly about a thorn in the flesh (see 2 Cor. 12:1-10).

Psalm 71, which I believe to be by David, was a good one for me today. It is twenty-four verses of the psalmist’s relationship with God. He knows Him as God, Lord, and Lord: the One with power, authority and covenant faithfulness. He pleads for help and acknowledges God’s help—in the past, present, and future. He acknowledges God’s care of him from the womb and even to the tomb (vv. 6, 9, 18, and 20). David pauses to see beyond the current crisis to God’s care for him throughout his days and the days of His people. He is confident that God will keep helping and saving and comforting. And he is persistent in telling God that as God continues to deliver, so he will continue to remember, ponder, and speak of God’s acts, helps, and the hope he has in Him.

Do you need a mentor today to guide you? Do you need to see beyond today’s urgencies? I did.

PRAYER: Thank you, Lord, for the psalmists. They help us remember. They help us meditate. They help us pray. Your word, O Lord, is indeed my life and my light. Amen.

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The Conviction in the Ten Words (and a Case Study in Expository Brilliance)

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

Do not commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14 CSB [Cf. Deut. 5:18 & Matt. 5:27-30])

The framers of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Longer and Shorter Catechisms convened as called together by Parliament at Westminster Abbey in London between 1643 and 1648. Their exposition of the Ten Commandments, included in each of the Catechisms, asks questions for each commandment considering both the positive duties set forth in the commandment and the sins forbidden by the commandment. Let’s look at the seventh commandment as a case study using the Larger Catechism.

138. What are the duties required in the seventh commandment? The duties required in the seventh commandment are, chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior; and the perseveration of it in ourselves and others; watchfulness over the eyes and all the senses; temperance, keeping of chaste company, modesty in apparel; marriage by those have not the gift of continency, conjugal love, and cohabitation; diligent labor in all our callings; shunning all occasions of uncleanness, and resisting temptations thereunto.

139. What are the sins forbidden in the seventh commandment? The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts; all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections; all corrupt or filthy communications, or listening thereunto; wanton looks; impudent or light behavior; immodest apparel; prohibiting of lawful, and dispensing with unlawful marriages; allowing, tolerating, keeping of stews, and resorting to them; entangling vows of single life; undue delay of marriage; having more wives or husbands than one at the same time; unjust divorce or desertion; idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company; lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancing, stage plays; all other provocations to, or acts of uncleanness, either in ourselves or others.

Bottom line: we are called to purity in thought, speech, and conduct. The Westminster divines display a formidable grasp of biblical theology and the big picture of the consistency of Scripture. It seems they could see the temptations and the moral and societal upheavals of the twenty-first century in plain sight almost four hundred years prior. We would do well to study and to heed this gift they have bestowed to us. The Westminster Standards were providentially written for such a time as this.

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The Preaching of Christ

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15 CSB)

John the baptizer had been arrested. The final Old Testament prophet proved faithful to his calling. His task was complete. He would now fade into the background. The one he had proclaimed was now on the scene. Behold, God is making all things new.

Jesus’s first words, as noted in Mark 1:15, were like the crowing of a rooster announcing the rising of the sun. Jesus’ voice was the sound of the alarm going off. But in this case it was not just the sun coming into view and the day of work ahead. It was the kingdom of God that was in there very midst. Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God had come—in him! And so he gave a two-fold command: Repent and believe.

We continue to preach his authoritative message today.

Repent. Turn away from your sins, from a prevailing lifestyle and belief system that you have received from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Rather, turn back to God, the one who made you in his image. Yes, turn to very one you have offended. Run to his name for it is a strong tower—a place of refuge and safety against the wiles of the devil and the only shelter from the wrath of God for sinners. He is your only safe please. And he bids you to come in Christ and by the power of his Holy Spirit.

Believe. That is, believe the gospel—the good news. Jesus does not offer good advice about how to live. He brings the good news that the prophet like Moses, the king like David, the Suffering Servant-sacrifice of Isaiah had come. The final grains of sand were falling through the hour glass. The pure one born under the law in order to fulfill the law on behalf of his people was here and on the move. Believe in him and him alone.

There is one name under heaven given among men and women through which we might be saved: Jesus. Repent and believe the good news!

PRAYER: Dear Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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The Wonder of Mark’s Gospel: Jesus’ Forty Days

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Joseph V. (Josh) Carmichael

And he was with the wild animals. (Mark 1:13b ESV)

Mark tells us that while Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness he was with the wild animals. Writing with Mark’s gospel likely before them, neither Matthew or Luke mention this. Mark, with the assistance of Peter, was writing to the Christians in Rome to tell them about their Savior, Messiah, Lord, and Suffering Servant (see Isa. 50 and 53). Let’s draw two inferences from Mark’s extra detail.

Jesus has come as the second Adam to undo the damage our first father brought forth and make things right. Adam and Eve were created and placed in a garden where they would have dominion over the animals and be stewards of the creation. With the fall, however, came curse and alienation. The animals are now “wild.” Jesus, therefore, entered a wild and unsafe wilderness in which to accomplish his work to bring his blessings as far as the curse is found. Sinclair Ferguson puts it eloquently, “It was in a fallen, broken, sinful, disintegrating world that Jesus faced temptation and the powers of darkness, in order to win for his people a way back to the Tree of Life” (Understanding the Gospel).

But the Christians in Rome also knew about wild beasts. Nero would drape the skin of a wild animal over himself as he would torture Christians in the Roman arena. Further, those who would not renounce their faith might also find themselves running from wild beasts in the arena as spectators watched them meet their Savior face-to-face through a grisly end. Mark knew his recipients. He knew his Savior. And under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he wrote just what God’s people needed to hear.

The writer to the Hebrews would elaborate later on: This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all the same testings we do, yet he did not sin (Heb. 4:15 NLT).

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