I worked through Mark 1:21-28 with some people yesterday. You may wish to refresh yourself with this passage now. I think this would be an advantageous exercise to see where our conclusions match and differ. The passage is about Jesus teaching at the synagogue, and goes on to tell the miracle of Jesus casting out an evil spirit. I first asked the group to give me the main point of the passage. One said, “It’s about a miracle.” Another said, “It’s about an evil spirit.” A third said, “It’s about authority.” I was most pleased with the third response because this idea ties both the synagogue and the evil spirit passage together. If you notice both verse 22 and verse 27 specifically bring up the issue of authority.
I then pressed the group to give me the application point, and how they would teach the take away point to others. They struggled. To be fair and frank, I think we all struggle with this part. If we’re not careful we provide general and vague teaching points (differing little from that of our mental rolex of Sunday School summary statements), and make our application fit not only our particular passage here, but a whole lot of others passages as well. I think doing the general and vague take away points shows that we’re not grasping what is going on in a particular text. It shows we’re really having a hard time focusing in on the uniqueness of each passage and the specifics being addressed.
An aside on this issue of “troubling focusing on the text at hand” follows. Many Sunday sermons are also guilty of this and contribute to this problem of general vagueness. When it is modeled and practiced in the pulpit, I can’t really fault a congregation for not having an in-depth reading of Scripture. This is a problem across churches of America, and I think examples of such sermon types are typical rather than atypical. I bet the majority of sermons you’ve heard have faltered on this point or were on the borderline of faltering. (Especially those who preach story fashion and rather than an expository preaching style.) I’ve always appreciated John Piper’s approach as his style steers clear from faltering in this vague mush of generalities, or to state it positively, Piper is text specific. To conclude this aside, we struggle to properly model careful Scripture analysis for congregations in America. It is a norm to see Scripture mentioned at the beginning, or somewhere, and even referenced back to, but in the end it’s some muddy, non-specific, hundreds of passages have that same point in it conclusion.
So, back to the issue at hand. Let’s see a meaningful conclusion from Mark 1:21-28. I made a provocative question/statement for those with me. I asked if they were happy with the conclusion that we should be as obedient as the evil spirit. After all, wasn’t the evil spirit obedient in coming out of the person? And obedience is surely a good thing, right? And shouldn’t we strive to be obedient when Jesus calls out to us? Puzzled, no one knew what to say because no one was comfortable linking obedience with evil spirits. But, whatever…I suppose this is a kind of can of worms…But I do think setting forth this idea helps to formulate love into the final analysis in how our response is to differ from that of an evil spirit. Meaning, should we be obedient? Yes! But obedience not just driven by the authority of Jesus with feet dragging Nick saying “I have to because Jesus says so.” But rather obedience to Jesus driven by a love for Jesus! I think these are some good linking thoughts for reflection with the introduction of the love-obedience concept not mentioned in the text. In fact, it’s the absence of the love-obedience concept in the text of the evil spirit that makes me go there trying to illuminate this idea with the provocative idea that we should behave like the evil spirit.
I’ll conclude with a short final pastoral synthesis. If you’ve been following along with your Bible open, compare how your gelling of thoughts compares with mine. Jesus, the one who shows authority both in the synagogue, and while casting out the evil spirit, desires obedience from us. Jesus, the one in authority, wants us to live obediently to his authority, not out of obligation like evil spirit had to do, but rather to live obediently to Him because we love Him. I’ll even try to make this more concise and a bit more pithy. Mark 1:21-28 teaches us that Jesus is the authority. Let our love find it’s rightful expression in obedience, and let us be glad in radical expressions of dangerous obedience. Bow at the feet of King Jesus, Pharisees and evil spirits are but His footstool.
Wow. Challenging. Amen!