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Ministry to a Multitude, Apostles set in the Church, The unpardonable Sin, & Jesus’ Family
Mark 3:7-35
We read last time …
7 But Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea.
The Pharisees were plotting to kill Jesus and He knew it. It was not yet His time to be winding down His ministry in preparation to die on the cross. So He withdrew from their presence.
And a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea (8) and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan; and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him.
This is a very large multitude coming from quite a large area. From Galilee to Judea in the south, from beyond Jordon in the east, to Tyre and Sidon in the west. In other words from all of Israel and beyond. ‘they had heard …’ The news was spreading as fast as it could have on social media.
This particular ministry is taking place on the sea shore. I would think this refers to the sea of Galilee.
9 So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the multitude, lest they should crush Him.
10 For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him.
Jesus has been teaching and healing and the crowds multiplied. He has arranged to have a small boat ready in case He needed it for His own safety.
11 And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, “You are the Son of God.”
12 But He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known.
Mark does not tell us how long this day went, but it must have been physically taxing. So next we read that Jesus separated Himself from the crowds.
13 ¶ And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him.
Mark makes it sound like the whole group of disciples followed Him up the mountain. But in reality according to the other gospel accounts, after this long day of ministry Jesus actually had the group of disciples remain at the base of the mountain while He Himself went up and prayed through the night. In the morning He came down, called the disciples to gather around and 14 Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, 15 and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:
At this point Jesus, leaving a large group of disciples at the base of a mountain, ascends to the top, and spends the entire night in prayer. Coming down in the morning, Jesus proceeds to choose His 12 apostles. Luke tells us about this.
Luke 6:12 ¶ And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
13 And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles;
This is something new. New wineskins. The church is a new thing, created by Jesus Himself during His personal ministry here on earth and what we are reading here is Jesus 'organizing’ His new church. He has just created a category or ministry position in the church called Apostleship. This position would not be a permanent position. It would serve as a position of authority for the establishment of the church. The Apostles would hear from God and deliver that Word to the church until such a time that the New Testament would be complete.
What we have just read about in Mark is Jesus setting the apostles into His church.
16 Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter;
17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”;
18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite;
19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. And they went into a house.
That is the complete list of 12 Apostles. They would preach and they would heal. But they would first need to learn from Jesus' example and His words. They were ‘in seminary’ if we were to use a more current term. They would have a lot to take in before they would be up to the task.
As part of their training Jesus would, on occasion, assign them a practical task and upon their return, evaluate their progress.
Two examples are when He sent out the 12, two by two, and then sent out 70 disciples, two by two.
In the first case the commission was quite local, perhaps even in one city and surrounding area, but in the second case, the 70 were sent to minister throughout a large region. Jesus made a ‘date’ to meet them after an appointed time, followed by a debriefing. In every sense these were part of the practical training that Jesus gave them.
But the ‘sending out,’(also referred to as The Limited Commission), will be happening a bit later in Mark. For now we have the newly appointed 12 apostles, the rest of the disciples and their Master and He is teaching them many things.
20 Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.
It was very difficult for Jesus to train His apostles when the crowds were so demanding on His time. It seems that Jesus is going non-stop. Jesus is going to introduce a teaching tool that will make it a bit more possible to accomplish this daunting task.
What we see now is the concern of Jesus’ mother, Mary, and the rest of the siblings.
Because of Jesus' long hours of ministry, His sanity was actually being questioned, first by the scribes and then by His family.
21 But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.”
“His own people” refers to His family. Verse 21 says, They went out to lay hold on him … that is, they went out of their own homes and they were on the way to where Jesus is ministering. But they do not arrive on the scene until verse 31.
22 ¶ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebub,” and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.”
23 So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan?
24 “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
25 “And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
26 “And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end.
27 “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.
28 “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter;
29 “but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” —
30 because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Many people over the years have heard of ‘the Unpardonable sin’ and wondered if possible they were guilty of committing it. Bible teachers have commented on it, and they don’t all agree with one another. One bible commentator said that this sin only existed while Jesus was here and we don’t even have to worry about it today. And then, John mentions a ‘sin unto death’ and says if we see someone committing this sin, don’t even pray for them because it is of no use at all.
So what are the Pharisees saying? They are attributing Jesus’ work to Satan. Many people have done that. Are they committing the unpardonable sin? Probably not. There is one more aspect to what the Pharisees were doing. They were attributing Jesus’ work to Satan … when they knew full well that it was the work of God. In other words, they were believers, willfully rejecting what they knew was true.. They knew fully that His works were of God. They are lying about it and trying to lead people away from Jesus. That doubles their guilt. Many people have said that the miracles they witnessed were of the Devil. But the difference is they actually believed it was the Devil’s work. These Pharisees know better and Jesus says that this is the unpardonable sin.
Can a person commit this sin today or is it a thing of the past? My answer. Just be careful not to do it.
And is this the same as the sin unto death? This is difficult for me to make a definite statement about. John, you will notice, does not say that there are sins, plural, unto death. He makes it sound like one particular kind of a sin. So does Jesus. So I would say that they are one and the same.
And regarding the ‘sin unto death’ we are still unsure what this death looks like. It may be referring to a physical death. So what would it mean in that case? We wonder if the Pharisee who blasphemed the Holy Spirit by attributing the miracles of Jesus to the being the work of the Devil, even though they knew better, would somehow contract something terminal and fade away physically. John seems to say, when you see this, don’t bother praying for the person. Can you imagine how such an understanding could be abused and become totally judgmental?
So, we will be left wondering what sin it is that we observe in someone, for which we should not pray. And, above all, we must not set ourselves up as judges determining who has blasphemed the Holy Spirit and now faces certain judgment in the future. Until we know better we must stay with the scriptures that are very clear. The wages of sin is death. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. God desires all men (people) everywhere to repent. The gift of God is eternal life.
After the preaching and ministering of Jesus for an extended period of time, after a night spent in prayer in preparation for selecting 12 men out of the larger group of disciples and assigning them the special place in His church, after entering a house and being swarmed by a multitude so that they could not even eat a meal, and then being accused by Pharisees that He is doing His work by Satan’s power, we now read that His own family begins to indicate that Jesus may be losing His mind.
His family arrives.
31 ¶ Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him.
32 And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.”
33 But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?”
34 And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers!
35 “For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”
Does this sound a bit harsh on the part of Jesus? At this point in time we have no evidence that his brothers and sisters have believed that He is actually the Son of God. His mother, Mary, is a believer. Whether Jesus’ statement stung just a bit we only can imagine.
On the other hand, Jesus is giving us a beautiful lesson on the nature of the spiritual family. Biological family is what we hold so dear. We do everything together. We bail each other out of bad situations. We celebrate family milestones together. But spiritual families share an eternal hope. They fellowship together now and they look forward to knowing and loving each other forever in the ages to come. That is Jesus’ perspective on family.
At one point the apostle Peter worried out loud about the big change in his life since he left all behind and began to follow Jesus.
In Mark 10:28 Peter said, “We have left all and followed You…”
29 So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s,
30 “who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time — houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions — and in the age to come, eternal life.
That is Jesus’ answer to Peter. But how wonderful it is that these words apply to every child of God. We are family. We benefit now. And we benefit for all eternity.