Greatness Is Serving

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

Read Mark 10:32-45 here.

Jesus explains to the Twelve exactly why He has come into the world. He has come to be betrayed, to be condemned, and to rise again, because He is God incarnate. He has come to suffer these things, not for His own benefit, but for ours: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.[1]

The Twelve do not understand this.  From our perspective, reading Mark’s Gospel, we might find it difficult to understand why the disciples don’t understand what Jesus is telling them. They were the ones who heard John the Baptist call Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They were with Jesus when He forgave the sins of the paralyzed man, and healed his physical infirmity.[2] They saw Jesus heal the man with the withered hand;[3] they saw Him raise the dead,[4] feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish,[5] and walk on the sea.[6] They were His hand-picked students who were given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven;[7] they heard Jesus declare that He was the fulfillment of God’s promise to send His people a Savior of King David’s line; they saw the people to whom Jesus preached, the ones to whom He was sent,[8] reject Him.[9] Why, when Jesus explicitly predicts His impending death, can they not understand what He is telling them?

The Twelve, like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Teachers of the Law, were expecting a different kind of savior. They were expecting the Messiah to be a political leader who would come and rescue the nation of Israel from the oppression of the Gentiles, and restore the kingdom. They did not understand that Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world.[10] Mark records proof of this when he tells us of James and John, the Sons of Thunder,[11] ask Jesus if they can sit at His right and at His left in His glory. They want, to put it in modern terms, to be appointed to high level cabinet positions in the kingdom’s government. The other disciples are not better in their thinking; they want the same thing. This is why, when the others heard what James and John ask for, they were upset.

Jesus doesn’t become angry with His disciples, however. He explains to them again what kind of kingdom the Kingdom of God is. It isn’t like the kingdoms of the Gentiles, where the high positions were for the benefit and glorification of those men who held them: Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.[12] Jesus came, not be served, but to serve. His service to mankind culminated in Him giving His life as a ransom for many. He died on the cross as the propitiation – the atonement, or the satisfaction – for the sins of the world.[13]

And what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Jesus’ disciples are also called, not to be served, but to serve. They will have prestigious posts in the Kingdom of God; they will be ministers in Christ’s government, so to speak. They will be servants. They will serve by preaching the Gospel and administering Christ’s sacraments as He has given them to His Church. In doing so, they will be bringing Jesus’ promises of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who believe, and calling all men to repent of their sin. Jesus continues to serve us today in the same way. Through His Word proclaimed and taught, through the washing of rebirth and regeneration that is Holy Baptism, through the eating and drinking of Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, Christ serves us. Through these means He grants us repentance and faith in Him, and we receive His promised gifts of forgiveness and life. Jesus will continue to extend His Kingdom in this way until He returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, when those who believe will be raised to everlasting life, and those who have rejected Christ and His gifts to everlasting shame and contempt.[14]

Jesus did not come to die and rise again so that we would live our best lives now in this world. In fact, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.[15] That means that we will suffer the effects of sin while we live in this fallen creation, in this corrupt and perishable body. We will struggle with all manner of trial and tribulations; we are not, by any means, guaranteed health, wealth, or success. But when He raises us from the dead on the Last Day, we will live under Him in His Kingdom with imperishable bodies like His. We will serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.[16]

---

[1] Mark 10:45

[2] Mark 2:1-12

[3] Mark 4:35-41

[4] Mark 5:21-43

[5] Mark 6:30-44

[6] Mark 6:45-52

[7] Matthew 13:10

[8] John 1:11

[9] Luke 4:16-30

[10] John 18:35-37

[11] Mark 3:17

[12] Mark 10:43-44

[13] 1 John 2:2

[14] Daniel 12:2; John 3:15-16, 36; 5:24, 29

[15] 1 Corinthians 15:19

[16] Luther, Martin. "The Small Catechism." The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Lutheran Church. September 2008. Accessed February 27, 2019. https://www.bookofconcord.org/smallcatechism.php#creed. From the explanation of the Second Article of the Apostle’s Creed.

Thy Faith Hath Made Thee Whole

And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague (Mark 5:37).

Read the entire Daily Lectionary reading (Mark 5:21-43) here.

Modern preachers of the prosperity gospel have ruined the preaching of this passage. In the second half of Mark 5, Mark recounts the stories of two people who receive miraculous healing from Jesus. The one, the woman with the issue of blood, Jesus meets while going to the aid of the other, Jairus’ daughter. After agreeing to go to Jairus’ house and heal his daughter who is near death, a woman with a serious medical condition reaches out from in the midst of the crowd and touches Jesus’ clothes: For she said, if I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.[1] This turns out to be true; Jesus ends up telling her, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.”[2] Jesus then goes on to raise the now deceased daughter of Jairus to life again.

The problem with this passage isn’t in it’s recounting of events, but in how it has been twisted by prosperity gospel heretics for years and years. These types of preachers point to what Jesus tells the woman, “…thy faith hath made thee whole.” They tell their eager and oftentimes desperate hearers that, if they just have faith as this woman did, God will grant them the healing, the financial security, or well, whatever they ask for. This woman’s faith healed her, after all; your faith can heal you as well. She demonstrated her faith by reaching out to touch Jesus’ clothes. You can demonstrate yours by writing a check for the largest seed offering you can to Kenneth Copeland, or one of the other health and wealth heretics. If you don’t receive your blessing, you must not have had enough faith.

Such an understanding of these events, however, gives us a wrong impression of what Jesus came to earth to do, and what the purpose of His miracles was. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus goes about preaching that the kingdom of heaven has arrived: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.[3] He tells the people in the synagogue at Nazareth that He is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Messiah;[4] and, to validate His proclamation, He does those things only the Messiah should be doing. He heals the blind and deaf; He raises the dead; He forgives sins.

We see a similar incident when Jesus heals the paralytic: When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there was certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.[5]

The woman wanted something more from Jesus than only physical healing, something that the paralytic also received from Jesus. The Greek word which the KJV translates “make whole” is sozo. Sozo means save, heal, preserve, or rescue, and is certainly used to indicate physical healing.[6] It is used also, however, to indicate spiritual healing and deliverance. This is the word used in Matthew when the angel tells Joseph in a dream that Mary is pregnant by the Holy Ghost, and will bear a son who will save His people.[7] When Jesus sends out the Twelve to preach and heal, He describes to them what it means to be sent out as sheep in the midst of wolves. He tells them of the tribulations they would endure for His name. Sozo is the word Jesus uses to indicate how, after enduring worldly tribulation at the hands of those who don’t believe, they will be saved – to be made partakers of the salvation of Christ: And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.[8] The miracles Jesus, and the Apostles performed were to show that, in Christ were both physical and spiritual healing. Those things will be ours fully and completely upon Jesus’ return to judge the quick and the dead.

Jesus didn’t come to make our lives on earth better. In fact, being a Christian will oftentimes make our lives more difficult. Jesus told his disciples, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”[9] He came to earth as the lord of life and death. His healing miracles demonstrate this; they are not a guarantee that, if we have the right attitude, or demonstrate just the proper act of our will, God will give us whatever we want. God is not a vending machine; He certainly cannot be manipulated. Jesus’ healing of the woman, and His raising of Jairus’ daughter, shows us that He is God incarnate; He does indeed hold the power of life and death. He is the one who heals all our diseases. But He doesn’t heal us as we might expect: Jesus saith unto her [Martha] I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?[10]

Jesus doesn’t promise us healing of all our physical illnesses and hardships in this life. He promises us that, by His stripes, His death on the cross, we are healed. For even the Son of Man came to earth not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.[11] He promises us an eternal healing, and that is so much better than just getting rid of the physical problems we face in this world. He promises us healing from sin; sin is a far deadlier disease than the issue of blood the woman in the gospel faced, or the diabetes, heart disease, or cancer we may be facing. It is even more serious than the death which Jairus’ daughter suffered. Sin, in fact, is it’s cause; scripture tells us that the wages of sin is death.[12] In our baptism, Jesus washes our sins away, by water and the Word. He connects us to Himself and to His resurrection. He gives us His body and blood to eat and to drink, to nourish our faith, and forgive our sins, and as a pledge that the redemption He promises to fully realize in us on the Last Day, belongs to us fully, right now.

If Jesus should delay His coming, we too, like generations before us, will experience physical death. But, because of the resurrection of Jesus, we understand that our physical death will be nothing for us to fear; it will be for us a fearful as going to bed. When we go to sleep at night, we know that it isn’t permanent; we will awake in the morning. We know that, because of Jesus’ resurrection, death has been defeated for us as well. This is how our faith heals us. We can take great comfort in Jesus’ words about Jairus’ daughter: the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.[13]

Teach me to live that I may dread

The grave as little as my bed.

Teach me to die that so I may

Rise glorious at the awe-ful Day.[14]

---

[1] Mark 5:28

[2] Mark 5:34

[3] Matthew 4:17

[4] Luke 4:16-37

[5] Mark 2:5-12

[6] "4982. Sozo." Strong's Concordance. Accessed February 20, 2019. https://biblehub.com/greek/4982.htm.

[7] Matthew 1:21

[8] Matthew 10:16-22

[9] John 16:33

[10] John 11:25-26

[11] Mark 10:45

[12] Romans 6:23

[13] Mark 5:39

[14] Ken, Thomas. "All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night." In The Lutheran Hymnal. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1941. Stanza 3.

Your Best Life Now

Creflo Dollar: Word of Fatih Preacher

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly (John 10:10).

This is one of the favorite verses for prosperity gospel heretics to twist. Jesus, they say, wants us to have life abundantly. The more faith we have, the more God will bless us. He’s just waiting for us to give Him the go-ahead. Prosperity preachers, like Creflo Dollar, then try to convince people that Jesus’ plan was that everyone who believes in Him should have a happy and fulfilling life.[1] You see, God is a god of abundance. He wants us to enjoy life.[2] When we really believe in Jesus, and attune ourselves to Him, we get supernatural results.[3] That sounds fantastic! How can I get God to bless me like that? How do I have faith and attune myself to Him? Here is where the aptly named Dollar and his prosperity gospel preaching heretic friends step in. They can help you step out in faith. All you have to do is get your mind right by not allowing the wrong thoughts to enter into our minds, and dwelling on those thoughts, which causes us to think wrong.[4] We also have to sow a seed offering into one of their anointed ministries. Your blessings will be on their way, in size and speed directly proportional to the size of the seed (read: monetary offering) that is sown. If you don’t, by some chance, receive your miracle cure for that case of terminal cancer, your job promotion, or the monetary blessing, it’s your fault. You simply didn’t have enough faith. Maybe you need to be bolder, and sow another, bigger seed that really shows God you’re serious. The health and wealth preachers will be happy to accept your seed. After all, private jets are expensive to maintain.

This, of course is dangerous and heretical false teaching. Christ is not saying here that He wants us, to borrow a phrase, to have our best life now. Jesus explains that in the world, rather than peace and happiness, we will have trouble.[5] The reason we can be happy and take heart is because Christ has overcome the world by His death and resurrection. Our sins are forgiven. He is ultimately concerned with mankind’s eternal well-being, not how comfortable our lives are here on earth. He has not promised us physical healing, no matter how badly the prosperity preachers mangle Isaiah 53:5: But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and By His stripes we are healed.

Far from having happy lives, free from disease and filled with monetary blessing, Jesus promises His disciples that they will be betrayed by their unbelieving family members. They will be delivered up to be killed. They will be hated by everyone on account of His name.[6] Jesus calls His disciples to confess Him before men. He warns not to lay up for ourselves treasures on earth, but rather treasures in heaven, because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.[7] No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.[8] The word mammon means material wealth. Rather than using God as a magic genie to seek after material wealth, possessions, and long life, we are called to seek first the kingdom of God. Jesus teaches us to pray, not for an abundance of wealth, but for daily bread. We are commanded not to covet and steal our neighbor’s possessions, but to help and be of service to our neighbor in keeping his money and possessions.

Knowing that we are of more value than the birds of the air, who neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet are fed by our Heavenly Father, we recognize what is truly important, and sing with Martin Luther: And take they our life, Goods, fame, child, and wife; Though these all be gone, Our victory has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.[9]

---

[1] "Living Life to the Fullest." Creflo Dollar Ministries. March 27, 2017. Accessed May 10, 2018. https://www.creflodollarministries.org/Bible-Study/Articles/Living-Life-to-the-Fullest.

[2] Dollar, Creflo. "Sow Your Seed Until You Reach Your Destiny." Creflo Dollar Ministries. August 01, 2014. Accessed May 10, 2018. http://zoe.creflodollarministries.org/zoeclub/impartationletter_aug2014.

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe it is God’s will for you to be successful in every endeavor in life? If you don’t believe it, you should because that is what total-life prosperity means. Don’t allow religion to rob you and tell you that God doesn’t want you to be successful in every way. God’s will is that everything you touch prospers! He wants you to depend on and trust Him for your success. His grace is on your life for a reason—to bear fruit. God’s grace is what empowers you to have sweatless victory in life. If you’re sweating to produce something, you’re not yielding to God’s grace that’s been bestowed upon your life.

[3] "Living Life to the Fullest." Creflo Dollar Ministries. March 27, 2017. Accessed May 10, 2018. https://www.creflodollarministries.org/Bible-Study/Articles/Living-Life-to-the-Fullest.

[4] Dollar, Creflo. "Abundant Life to the Fullest." Creflo Dollar Ministries. January 22, 2018. Accessed May 10, 2018. https://www.creflodollarministries.org/Bible-Study/Articles/Abundant-Life-to-the-Fullest.

[5] John 16:33

[6] Matthew 10:22-31

[7] Matthew 6:19-21

[8] Matthew 6:24

[9] Luther, Martin. "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." In Lutheran Worship. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1986.

Stanza four; Composite translation.