Missing the Point - Gospel of Mark #17 - September 08, 2024

There’s no mistaking it - God made us in his image and gave us rational minds. Though all of us are gifted differently, using our minds to think is part of what it means to be human. Because of this, followers of Jesus should be making real efforts to understand the God who made us - How does he act? What does he want? What has he done? The life of a Christian is spent trying to get to know God better through studying the example of Jesus while being led by the Holy Spirit.
The broad study of God is known as “theology.” Theology gets broken down into different categories of study, such as soteriology (the study of God’s salvation), ecclesiology (the study of the Church), Christology (the study of Jesus as the Son of God and promised Messiah), and many more. Over the centuries, Christians have poured over these studies! Through careful study of what the bible teaches about these categories, “doctrine” has been established.
Doctrine is (generally speaking), established, systematic teachings that a church or denomination adopts and endorses - and doctrine is INCREDIBLY important! However, no matter how hard we try to understand everything about the Triune God of heaven, we are finite human beings - there are things we can’t fully piece together. There are places that our established doctrine seems to fall short, and if we’re not careful, we can demand that the bible conforms to our convictions, rather than letting God’s word shape them. When we put our effort into proving our point, it becomes easy to miss the point of what God is actually saying.
Today we are looking at one of the most controversial gospel passages that has frustrated, challenged and stumped many great Christian thinkers for many centuries. We’ll do our best to come before God in humility and hear what he wants us to hear.