Project 119: Mark 4:21-34
| Project 119 | Mary Splawn
As we’re gearing up for March Madness, I can’t help but think of how difficult it would be to play in front on thousands of boisterous fans. All the heckling and booing would surely get to me after a while.
When I read Mark 4:21-33, I imagine Jesus sitting on a hillside teaching to a rule following crowd that were as quiet as people in a library, but that probably wasn’t the reality. Instead of a serene environment that we see portrayed in children’s Bible books, Jesus’ teaching on the hillside might have been more the scene when a North Carolina player is on the free-throw line in Cameron Stadium at Duke University.
Okay–maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. But you get the point. Jesus didn’t always teach to just His team. He also taught crowds that may have been filled with people who were hostile to His message.
This may be one of the reasons Jesus taught in parables, a sort of subversive speech that requires people to ponder the message He was bringing. He taught messages that packed a punch, but took some time to decipher. What is He talking about? Lamps on stands and mustard seeds?
Throughout the day, ponder the parable of the lamp on a stand, the growing seed, and the mustard seed. Ask the Lord to reveal to you how you might continue to be a light for God’s growing kingdom.
Mark 4:21-34 (ESV):
21 And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 24 And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. 25 For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth,32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. 34 He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.