Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
In Mark 10:3, Jesus answers the antagonistic query of the unspiritual Pharisees with an appropriate question of His own: “And He answered and said unto them, ‘What did Moses command you?’” Our Lord immediately points to the authority of Scripture, an authority that the Pharisees claimed that they accepted. They certainly knew the words of the Old Testament well, for they quickly summarized the right passage from Deuteronomy 24:1-4: “And they said, ‘Moses suffered [permitted] to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away’” (verse 4). They knew the words, yes, but they did not know the Writer. I remember reading of a brilliant man who had memorized the entire New Testament in the original Greek but who, as a leftist scholar, denied the truth of the message and rejected Jesus’ offer of eternal life with Him in heaven. Perhaps this man’s pride in his academic achievements was a crucial reason in his refusal of “the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). The fact that people like the Pharisees and this acclaimed polymath could know the Scripture so well and completely miss its clear meaning is a troubling exposition of the extraordinary extent of man’s sin nature. All of us “have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We desperately need the Savior, Who died on the Cross to pay the full penalty for those sins that separate us from Him. We need to repudiate the way of pride and instead receive God’s free gift of everlasting salvation through faith in God the Son, Jesus Christ.