Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 155. We are on day 2 of our second Messianic checkpoint. We are reading from Mark's Gospel chapters 3 and 4. We're also praying today from Psalm 20. As always, the Bible translation that I am reading from is the revised standard version, the second Catholic edition, and I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress. Com/bibleinayyear. You can also subscribe to this podcast to receive daily podcast episodes. Someone once told me that if you're using the Hallow app, you can't subscribe. You just keep checking the Hallow app, which is news to me and great. That way, you can just keep ignoring what I'm saying because you're committed deeply internally, and that's wonderful.

But as I said, it is day 155. We are reading Mark's Gospel, chapters 3 and 4, and we're praying Psalm 20. The Gospel of St. Mark, Chapter 3, The Man with a Withered Hand. Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand, and they watched him to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, 'Come here. ' And he said to them, 'Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? ' But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The pharisees went out and immediately will counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. A multitude by the sea. Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed, also from Judea and Jerusalem and Idumia, and from beyond the Jordan, And from about Tire and Sidon, a great multitude, hearing all that he did, came to him.

And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they should crush him. For he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, 'You are the Son of God. ' And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. Jesus appoints the twelve. And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired and they came to him, and he appointed twelve to be with him and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. Simon, whom he surnamed Peter, James, the son of Zebedi, and John, the brother of James, whom he surnamed Boanerges, that is, sons of Thunder, Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thadias, and Simon, the Canaanian, and Judas Escariat, who betrayed him. Jesus and Beelzebel. Then he went home, and the crowd came together again so that they could not even eat. And when his friends heard it, they went out to seize him, for they said, 'He is beside himself.

' And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, 'He is possessed of Beelzebel, and by the Prince of Demons, he cast out demons. ' And he called them to him and said to them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed, he may plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphèmes against the Holy spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. For they had said, he has an unclean spirit. The true kindred of Jesus. And his mother and his breothen came, and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him, and they said to him, 'Your mother and your breothen are outside asking for you.

' And he replied, 'Who are my mother and my breothen? ' And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my breothen. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Chapter 4, The parable of the sower. Again, he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching, he said to them, Listen, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold.

And he said, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear. ' Explanation of the parable. And when he was alone, Those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables, and he said to them, 'To you has been given the secret of the Kingdom of God. But for those outside, everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn again and be forgiven. ' And he said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word, and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word which is sown in them. And these, in like manner, are the ones sown upon rocky ground, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while. Then, when tribulation or persecution arise on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

But those that were sown upon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold. A lamp is not hidden. And he said to them, Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel or under a bed and not on a stand? For there is nothing hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear. And he said to them, 'Take heed what you hear. The measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to him who has will more be given, and from him who has not Even what he has will be taken away. ' A parable about seeds. And he said, The Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The earth produces of itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.

And he said, With what can we compare the Kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth. Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. The use of parables. With many such parables, he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples, he explained everything. Jesus calms a storm on the sea. On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side. ' And leaving the crowd, they took him with them, just as he was in the boat. And other boats were with him. And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care if we perish?

' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace, be still. ' And the wind ceased, and there was great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you afraid? Have you no faith? ' And they were filled with awe and said to one another, 'Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? ' Psalm 20: Prayer for victory to the choir master. A Psalm of David. The Lord answer you in the day of trouble. The name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion. May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices. May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans. May we shout for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God, set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed. He will answer him from his Holy heaven with mighty victories by his right-hand. Some boast of chariots and some of horses. But we boast in the name of the Lord our God.

They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand straight. Give victory to the King, O Lord. Answer us when we call. Father in heaven, we give you praise and thanks, and we just honor you and love you for the gift of your son, Jesus, and for the gift of knowing. Here is his teaching, here is his heart, here is your heart, because he is the word, the word of the Father. And when we see him, we see you, Father in heaven. And so we thank you. Thank you for every one of these moments that we get and every one of these clips, I guess, images we have of Jesus here in Mark's gospel. Thank you for Mark. Thank you for Peter who taught Mark this. And thank you for you, Lord God, because you are deserving of all thanks and all praise in everything. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy spirit. Amen. Okay, a couple of things to highlight. We just have two chapters today. Obviously, we have chapters three and chapter four. But one of the things I want to just go through and maybe make a couple of quick points.

The first is, here is the story of the man with the withered hand. This is in chapter three, story right away. He's a man with the withered hand who comes into this synagogue. Again, it's on the Sabbath, and we're going to talk about the Sabbath in just one second. But Jesus, he knows that The elders, the people in charge, are looking around at him because they want to see him break the rule, break the law. It says, Jesus asks them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? Now, you know this because you've been journeying through the Bible for the last 155 days. And so you know that in the old covenant, you can save life on the Sabbath. This is a real thing. It says then this, it says, But they were silent, and he looked around at them with anger. I just think that whenever I come up on this, this scripture, it happens quite often that we read Mark's gospel, chapter three, this story, that when Jesus looks at them with anger, I just think, what would that be like? Because it's just so convicting.

It's so convicting that these people, they know the truth, they know the right thing. They knew the right answer, but they were silent. It wasn't that they gave the wrong answer. It's that they were not willing to give the right answer. It's not that they told a lie. They just weren't willing to tell the truth. Jesus looked around at them with anger. I just think, Man, gosh, that is just so powerful. It's so convicting because how many times I can say how many times, Yeah, I didn't lie, but I didn't speak the truth when it was needed, when it was necessary, when I was being asked directly, Hey, Do this now. How often not only lying dishonors the Lord, but how often not speaking the truth when it needs to be spoken can dishonor the Lord. And that's just a heavy thing to pray about, to reflect on, and to acknowledge as true. The next quick thing about the Sabbath that I just wanted to highlight is I was reading a commentary by Dr. Mary Healey. She's just phenomenal. I think I might have mentioned her yesterday. And she says, All these healings, all these things that happen on the Sabbath that Jesus keeps getting accused of, why wouldn't he just avoid the Sabbath?

It seems like he's almost intentionally doing this provocation on the Sabbath. I mean, he could have done it the day before, he could have done it the next day. Why on the Sabbath? And she posits and puts forth the idea that actually Jesus is doing this intentionally? Because remember, yesterday, he said, Is the Sabbath made for man or man for the Sabbath? Jesus, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. Basically, Jesus is revealing his Lordship by exercising his Lordship on the Sabbath day. He's undoing the effects of sin, and he's inaugurating a new creation by which humanity is restored to the fullness of life that God meant from the beginning. This is what Dr. Healey had said, that Jesus thereby fulfills the original purpose of the Sabbath, which is to bring humanity into communion with God. So that's why Jesus is spending this time healing and doing these works on the Sabbath, is that it's not just I'm breaking rules for breaking rules sake. It is I'm revealing my very identity, and I'm demonstrating The whole purpose of the Sabbath, which is to bring humanity into covenant, read back into covenant, back into communion with God himself, which is just, oh, that's good to know.

Another thing to highlight is that Jesus talks about the sin against the Holy spirit. He says, All blasphemies, all sins can be forgiven except for the sin against the Holy spirit. And that has given rise to so many people wondering, Okay, so how do I make sure that I don't commit a sin against the Holy spirit? Which is great because it means that you don't want to have an unforgivable sin. But what is the unforgivable? The, Unforgivable sin, the blasphemy against the Holy spirit. The church has come down to realize that and declare really clearly that the sin against the Holy spirit is any sin that we do not allow God to forgive. That's it. That's what it is. It's not a blasphemy against the Holy spirit in terms of saying something negative or saying something blasphemic, saying a blasphemy against the Holy spirit. But what it is, is ultimately any sin that we refuse to surrender to the Lord for his mercy. The catechism says, There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy spirit.

And such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss. So keep this in mind, is that any sin can be a sin against the Holy spirit. But there's not one thing that is like, I did this, now it's unforgivable. It basically means I need to bring everything to the foot of the cross. I need to bring everything to the Lord Jesus and allow to give me his redemption, allow him to forgive me. Now, the second to last point is there's a section here we just read that talked about the brothers of Jesus. And it's important for us to understand because the church tradition from the very beginning is that Mary remained a virgin for her entire life, that Jesus was her only and always was her only child. Now, we talked about this a little bit, but I want to remind us, this doesn't just come out of nowhere. This doesn't come from just a desire for Mary to be a virgin her whole life. This It comes from actually the text. In fact, when it says, you might say in your Bible, it says, His mother and his brothers arrived. In the translation that we use, the revised standard version, it says, Brethren, which is more helpful in some ways.

Why? Because the word that's used for brother is the Greek word, Adelfos. Adelfos is singular for 'breathering' or for 'relative'. Adelfos can mean brothers, yes. It can mean siblings, like I have my brothers, Mark and Matthew, but also can mean cousins. It can mean uncle and nephew, because we've seen this in other times in the Bible, where Lot and Abraham are Adolfoi. But we know that they are not brothers, not siblings. They are an uncle and a nephew, but they're Adolfoi, they're relatives, they're kinsmen. And that is the word that's used here. And so when you read the Bible and it says Jesus as brothers, to automatically just assume what that means, his siblings, that's actually incorrect. In fact, the early church never believed this. In fact, in the third, fourth century, there was a man named Saint Jerome. Saint Jerome had translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into the language of the people, into Latin. At one point, some people were coming to Saint Jerome and saying, Hey, you need to write an article because there's this one guy he's teaching that Mary had, that when it says the Brethren of Jesus, that it means the brothers, the siblings of Jesus.

You need to write a refutation against this belief. And Saint Jerome, here, third, fourth century, this is so interesting. He said, There is no need to write a refutation against this person because no one in their right mind would possibly believe that Jesus actually had siblings. And they said, Well, no. But if you don't write a refutation of this person who's positing this idea that Adolfoï should be translated sibling or brother, then people will think that maybe he's right. And so then Saint Jerome put pen to paper and wrote a refutation of this. The early church was unanimous in understanding that Adolfoi simply meant relative or kinsman and not and not sibling. In fact, the Bible goes on to explain or demonstrate, almost I would even say, prove that The people who are referred to as Jesus's brothers are actually the sons of another woman. For example, we recognize that Mark is not referring to full siblings of Jesus. This is indicated by his later mention of James and Joseph as sons of a different Mary. He says that in Mark 6:3, and in chapter 15:40. You also see in a Matthew's gospel. And that's just really remarkable.

Not only that, but we recognize that at the end of the gospel of John, we heard this last time we were reading through a messianic checkpoint, is that Jesus, from the cross, gave his mom to the care of John, the beloved disciple. And then John took her into his home. This would be unthinkable if she had other sons who could care for her. It would be absolutely, Absolutely unthinkable if Mary had other sons that could care for her. So the unanimous tradition of the church is that Adolfoie refers to Jesus's cousins, his relatives, his kinsmen, and not to his siblings, because Jesus didn't have siblings, because Mary was always perpetually a virgin. Now, okay, there's that point there. Made the point. Last thing. I said that was the second to last. This is the last. It's actually the last thing we heard, basically, in chapter 4. After Jesus calms the storm, it says that they were filled with awe and said to one another, Who then is this that even wind and sea obey him? This is so important because the whole point of the gospel in so many ways is to establish the identity of Jesus.

It's to establish the identity of Jesus. And what they're going to discover is what the demons already know. You are the Holy one. You are the Son of God. They already know this in some way. And here are the Apostles, and they are filled with fear and awe and are asking the question, who then? Who then possibly could he be? And that's the question that Jesus ultimately answers with every miracle, that question Jesus ultimately answers with the resurrection, that he is the Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth, and he is the word of the Father, the eternal Son, of the Father. And he truly is God. He truly is God. And man, I'm just so grateful. So grateful that Jesus was sent to us from the Father, that he came forth from the Father to be our redemption, to be our salvation, and to make us into adopted sons and daughters of the Father. As we continue our journey, a couple more days in Messianic checkpoint, we got a few more, which is great. We have finished chapters three and four. We're going up to chapter 16. And so we have a number of days to continue to watch Jesus, to listen to him and to just walk with him.

Let's pray for each other that we continue to walk in faithfulness, that we continue to walk in joy and in hope and in love, and that we continue to be the men and women that God has made us to be. Let's pray for each other. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.