Episode 24S43 Mark 1:1-20 with mini-lesson the moral argument ( 11/03/2024 written by Dr. Kip Wehrman)
I hope you had a chance to listen to the music video. The song was “You make everything beautiful” by Rebeca St. James and her brothers from the group King + Country. We should acknowledge that without God, there would be no beauty, no truth. God truly makes everything beautiful. Amen.
Let’s Pray
So we are going to do things a little differently today. Before we begin our Bible study. I to talk about evidence for God. You might not think about this but there is a lot of evidence that there is a God and that God is the God of the Bible. You are going to meet people who struggle with this. So, I want to give you a few evidences over the next few weeks that might help you. In the Book, I’m currently writing I’ve identified more than 50 practical evidences for God.
Today I’m going to share one, the so called Moral Argument.
There are many forms of the moral argument but they all go something like this
– If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
– Objective moral values and duties do exist.
– Therefore, God Exists
Many atheists have tried to come up with a working objection to this reason. To date none have succeeded. Simply without God, there can be no basis for right or wrong. Its just opinion. Yet that is not what we experience as human. We seem to know what is right and wrong.
One notable challenge was by Sam Harris an Atheist American philosopher. One of the group called the New Atheists or TNAs. He has a philosophy degree from Stanford and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. He wrote the book, “The Science of Values: The Moral Landscape”. Harris says, “apparent morals are explained by what is best for human flourishing“
So good and bad is based on what results in Human Flourishing. Okay, who gets to decide what human flourishing looks like.
Would you like Hitler or Stalin determining human flourishing. They both thought that was what they were doing when they killed millions of people. All in an effort to help their version of human flourishing. We all are selfish, our version of human flourishing would only be good for us, at the expense of others. Only Jesus can set a standard that truly works best for everyone and promotes human flourishing. That is one of the reason for the tremendous advances in science and medicine and industry all advanced by Christian originally. Christian worldview actually has proven to provide unparalleled human flourishing.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “conscience reveals to us a moral law whose source cannot be found in the natural world, thus pointing to a supernatural Lawgiver”
No matter how people try, they cannot find a basis for morality by science or any other social construct. Any concept of right or wrong leads us to there must be a God.
Blaise Pascal wrote this, “Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.”
Pascal means that despite what scientists try to tell us. Science is not very comforting when you have a bad day. If I don’t know right from wrong, bad things will happen regardless of whether I understand the intricacies of science and technology. It is much better to understand morality than all the knowledge of science. Remember I’m a scientist.
The Moral Argument is excellent evidence that there must be a God. No other worldview can explain our basis for right and wrong. Amen.
Okay back to our Bible study, We are going to listen to to Mark Chapter 1:1-20
Let’s take a closer look at these verses in Mark. Fair warning I think it will probably take us a couple weeks to go through Chapter 1. Like we talked about last week. I think the gospel of Mark was probably written very soon after Jesus ascended into heaven. I’ve even heard that the disciple might have even begun complying stories while they waited for the Holy Spirit before Pentecost. That’s only speculation but is it very likely that they discussed these stories of Jesus during that time, whether they thought to write it down yet is just a speculation. Regardless we need to understand that this is collaborative effort and many of the stories must have come from Jesus himself.
Mark 1:1-3 (NIV) 1The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I WILL SEND MY MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY” 3“a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘PREPARE THE WAY FOR THE LORD, MAKE STRAIGHT PATHS FOR HIM.’ ”
<SLIDE 31> The story of Jesus the Messiah. Some translations say Jesus Christ instead. The Greek word was “christos” or Christ and the Hebrew word was “mashiach” (maw-shee-akh). They mean the same thing, the anointed one. Jesus Christ or Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the anointed one of God.
Then verse two says as it is written by the prophet Isaiah. Mark immediately ties his good news about Jesus to the old testament. Specifically, Malachi 3 and Isaiah 40.
Okay what and where in Isaiah. Isaiah 40:1-5(NIV) 1Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. 3A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
This is a beautiful prophetic poem in Isaiah. Isaiah has told Israel they will be completely destroyed. The Judgement has not come yet, in fact Babylon will not conquer Jerusalem for another 100 years or so. Isaiah wrote this in the 8th Century BC, The Babylonians exiled the Jews in the 7th Century BC and then they return 70 years later in the 6th Century BC, and Jesus comes on the scene in 5BC-AD30s that’s more than 700+years. God has a big plan and its not on our timeline.
But God it is giving them this poem as a reminder that God has plan after the exile to bless the world through the Jewish people with Jesus. And John the Baptist will be the voice in the wilderness preparing the way.
Some Bibles also cross reference this with Malachi 3:1 which also talks of John. Malachi 3:1 (NIV) 1“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.
I don’t think Mark is quoting this scripture but this verse in Malachi is definitely talking about John the Baptist and Jesus.
Without a doubt Mark is showing that God has told Israel Jesus was coming. But before Jesus was to come, first there would be a prophet. A voice in the wilderness. This was John the baptizer.
Mark 1:4-5 (NIV) 4And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
Mark 1:6-8 (NIV) 6John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
The description of John is a little crazy. He wore course wool and ate bugs. Crazy but people came to John anyway. They knew something special was about to happen. I think many believed the Messiah was coming and John was fulfilling the prophecy from Isaiah & Malachi. But who was this one John kept saying was mightier than himself. And what was this baptism by the Holy Spirit. These are questions that the people would have be wondering about.
Mark 1:9-11 (NIV) 9At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
John was predicting it and then Jesus arrived. I often wondered if everyone heard the voice from heaven or just John and Jesus. We just don’t know. Mark does not give us a lot of details, but we see the spirit of God, God the father and the son of God Jesus all together. Then Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days.
Mark 1:12-13 (NIV) 12At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
Mark does not give us as much detail as Matthew (3-4) and Luke (3-4) for these events. It’s almost like a summary here in Mark. But, even here in Mark it is clear that Jesus was tempted just like us. Matthew chapter 4 has more details about the temptation of Jesus. He was tempted in ways we can relate to; physical needs like food, health, protection against harm, power and influence, and pride and selfishness. But Jesus was not like us, Jesus was able to say “NO” to all of these. And with the help of Jesus, we can say no to these temptations as well.
Mark 1:14-15 (NIV) 14After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
I was asked once what was the gospel of Jesus. The actual way Jesus taught it in the gospel’s. This was a challenge for me. Jesus plainly says the good news or gospel is the kingdom of God is available to us. Repent and believe experience the good news of Jesus.
If you have a KJV Bible the word is gospel, in most modern Bibles it says good news. The Greek word is “euaggelion” (yoo-ang-ghel-ee-on) which means good news in English. The reason some of our Bible use gospel is a very interesting story. The Greek word “euaggelion” (or good news) is also the word “evangelium” in Latin which is where our English word evangelism comes from or sharing the “good news”. The Latin word was translated into Old English as “gōd spel”. “gōd” meant good it was later spelled “gōde” and “spel” meant news. Good news or “gōdspel” and over time “gōdspel” became the word we use gospel.
The Greek word “euaggelion” which means good news or gospel. They mean the same thing. Good news is the accurate translation but we all know that word gospel means the Good News of Jesus.
But an interesting aside. Evangelist really means one who shares the good news.
Anyway, the gospel that Jesus taught was, the kingdom of God is here, repent and believe the good news about the kingdom. The word gospel actually only occurs 17 times in the four Bible gospels according to King James. 8 times across 6 verses in Mark (Mark 1:1;1:14-15;13:10;14:9;16:15); 4 times in Luke (Luke 4:18;7:22;9:6;20:1); and 5 times in Matthew (Mat. 4:23;9:35;11:5;24:14;26:13).
Most of these only say the gospel was proclaimed or preach. Only Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 24:14 define what the gospel is, just like here in Mark. They proclaimed that “the gospel of the Kingdom or kingdom of God.” Even Paul summaries the Gospel this way.
Mark 1:16-17 (NIV) 16As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”
Mark 1:18-20 (NIV) 18At once they left their nets and followed him. 19When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
There are many who point to these verses and the parallel verses in Matthew, Luke and John have apparent discrepancies or contradictions. There are none. On your own read Matthew 4:18-22 and John 1:35-51. These stories are very different but there are no discrepancies, only different events and details. If you truly lay them out together you can see that Andrew and Peter had met Jesus before they were called from the boat in Mark chapter 1 and Matthew 4. Plus, John is not trying to give chronological account, only capture the events but not necessarily in the order they happened chronologically. I know that is difficult for us but Hebrew writers often did not write chronologically. You only need to read the first few chapters of the bible to see that. Somewhat chronological account with flashbacks to earlier parts of the story. Very similar to John’s account. We assume John expected most of his readers to already be familiar with Mark, Matthew and maybe even Luke’s accounts. That’s why John’s is so different, he was not trying to retell the same stories just like Mark, Matthew and Luke.
Mark does not say so, but this is probably taking place in the area of Capernaum on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Peter, James, John, and Andrew lived there and the next story takes place in Capernaum. Take a look at our map. Jesus was probably baptize near were the sea of Galilee spills into the lower Jordan river to the south, and now in verse 21 they are in Capernaum up on the north shores of the Lake Tiberias which was also called the sea of Galilee. It’s a freshwater lake that dumps into the Jordan River.
But already in Chapter 1 of Mark, Jesus is recognized everywhere he goes.
Let’s close and pray.
Let me leave you with this today. Jesus is the anointed of God, Messiah, or Christ. This means Jesus is the God’s answer to our problem and to everyone’s problems. He, Jesus, made a way for us to be in the family of God again. The miracles remind us that God has all power, yet God does not heal everyone. And he does not promise us healing. He promises us rest and peace, and joy, and assurance. And so much more. Jesus is in charge, not us. It is God’s bigger, better plan, not ours. He knows best, we just need to be trust in the Lord.
Don’t forget to do your homework for next week. reRead Mark Chapter 1 in another Bible translation. See you next week.
Before we end. I want you to watch the music video. We have used this video before. It is Lauren Daigle, “You Say” the song has a beautiful message. God says you are exactly as he wanted you made. We should have confidence, the creator of the everything, says you are important, you are loved. Amen.
Thank you and God’s Blessing my friends.
