Study Guide /
3 common people:
The Sinner /
e d i u G y d u t S
The Rich / The Blind
INDEX
Introduction ...................................... 2 The sinner: Imperfect people ....... 7 The rich: Eternal life ...................... 11
The blind: Real happiness ............ 15
Introduction
Common people Jesus was an exceptional person. His story, his miracles, his character, everything was very surprising. Nevertheless, he gets along with people like you and I: common people. Fragile people, people with problems, who struggle, people who are frequently rejected, imperfect people. We will see that there were these imperfect people whom Jesus got closer to, and gave them love. In our study guide we’ll meet three average people, with real problems who met Jesus and were confronted to who they were, who Christ was, and the life they were carrying. Your story can be like these, stories of frustration, rejection, illusion, suffering. It is possible that you identify yourself with something from their stories. If this happens, don’t forget that we can also, just as they did, experience the grace and the love of Jesus.
A common author Mark is the author of the New Testament with the lowest profile. We don’t know many things about him, and what we know is not very special at all. A common man, who was used by God to be the writer of the probably oldest gospel. In Mark’s life God also shows how common people can make incredible things. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is presented as a savior, mighty, dynamic, holy and above all: a redeemer King. According to tradition, this Gospel was written by virtue of the fact that Peter’s listeners insisted to be given a summary of Peter’s preaches1. The Gospel of Mark, then, brings us a double purpose: to be deeply doctrinal and definitely practical. Mark’s Gospel is also the shortest of the four Gospels, the one that was probably the first to be written, and from which the Gospels of Luke and Matthew take most of their material. It is also a very objective vision of Jesus ministry, focused on what Jesus did, while Matthew focuses on His speeches, Luke stands out for the parables and John in his encounters and dialogues.
1 HENDRIKSEN, WILLIAM. New Testament Commentary, Exposition of the Gospel OF Mark. Desafío Editorial, 2007. P.17.
An extraordinary King Mark is Jesus in action. It is a fast, dynamic, powerful account. The dynamism of The Gospel of Mark bring us to learn, on Jesus’ steps, to live today’s Christianity. In every miracle, in every exhortation, in every moment of His ministry, Jesus spreads grace, restoration, forgiveness, hope. Not always people obeyed His words, but within his sovereign plan was the largest mission: to be the price for the sin in our place. Mission perfectly accomplished. This very Jesus calls us towards himself, to discover who we are through His person. That is why we will study three stories: an irreligious man who came to be an apostle; the story of a rich and very religious man, who was living a great illusion, and the one of a blind beggar who, because of his ability to see what others couldn’t, was finally able to see the one who is the life itself with his own eyes. Three stories that are exciting, not all of them have a happy ending, but all of them carry a message of hope, acceptation, restoration and love. We will contrast each one of these stories to other ones, so that we can see with a greater clarity what is essential: Who is Jesus.
How to study This study guide is divided into three topics, with two lessons each one. There will be a main biblical text and an auxiliary one for each topic. There will also be, at the beginning of each lesson, a complementary text and questions to discuss. The idea is that as we start with the complementary text at the beginning , we have a wider vision of the topic to study, and then we will go to the two biblical texts, answering to three series of questions:
observation questions: To get more acquainted with the text making an analysis of what it says. There will be a series of questions for each text.
Interpretation questions: To understand what the text means. This is a deeper step, where we will harden the concepts that we have found in the text. Questions related to the complementary text will be included in this round of questions, to form just one series of questions for the three texts.
Application questions: To question our stance on what the biblical and complementary texts say.
I hope that you enjoy this journey and stories, above all of the Story that defines all the other ones: the one from Christ.
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“Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
FOR THE LEADER
BASE IDEA:
GRACE ACCEPTS ME
Goal: to show that God doesn’t love us for what we are, but for what He is. Then, the key is to understand who Christ is, so that we can understand who we are. The goal of this study guide is to show that we do not need to be perfect so that God accepts us. Though Levi’s life, we can show the grace of Jesus shared by means of the calling to be a disciple of a person who was not valued as a spiritual leader and wasn’t even accepted for the leaders of his time. Highlight: Grace: Undeserved favor. Jesus calls imperfect people to be by His side, He eats and shares with them. In contrast to the religious mindset, Jesus is closer to imperfect people rather than “fair and religious ones”. This happens because Jesus performed based on the logic of the grace, not the merit. Observations: This study guide presents the relation between two texts Mark 2. 13 – 17 and 1. 1 – 13, nevertheless Levi’s story is the main story. The idea is to show Christ as God (v. 1), as Lord (7) and as the promised Messiah (v. 8), and then to contrast it with
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Levi’s life (also known as Matthew) who is a man isolated from the religious life because of his profession (2.14) and the kind of friends he had (2.16). From the religious point of view, Levi would be the last to be invited by Jesus to follow Him, mostly if we consider that this calling would end up in the apostleship of a man who was considered a traitor by his people. The Christ of God calls a sinner, rejected by the “church” of his time, to be a follower of the Gospel. This is why the Gospel is not about merit but about grace.
HELP: 1. Sinner: “Lit., a person who misses the target; meaning that must not be imposed. It is an adjective, used frequently as a noun; it is the most usual term to describe the fallen condition of mankind. It can be applied to every men (Ro 5.8,19). In the synoptic Gospels the term is used, quite frequently, by Pharisees, to talk about the publicans (tax collectors) and women with a bad reputation, e.g.: <<a woman from the city, who was a sinner>> (Lk. 7.37); <<a sinner man>> 819.7). In Gl. 2.15, in the phrase <<no sinners among the gentiles>>, the apostle is assuming the same area of the Judaizer, reminding them with irony their affirmation of moral superiority over the gentiles; then he shows that Jews are as sinners as gentiles are.” 2. Publicans: It denoted firstly a person who had the responsibility of collecting taxes, then, like in the New Testament, a subordinate of these, who collected taxes in a district, a tax collector. These were naturally greatly rejected by the people. They are classified among the <<sinners>> (Mt 9.10,11; 11.9; Mc 2.15,16; Lc 5.30; 7.34; 15.1); with the prostitutes (Mt 21.31, 32); with the <<gentiles>> (Mt 18.17); in RT appears in MT 5.47; the manuscripts more commonly accepted have ethnikoi: <<gentiles>>; also see Mt 5.46; 10.3; Lc 3.12; 5.27,29; 7.29; 18.10, 11,13.”.
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To start: LET’S START BY JESUS. “There are two principal reasons why our enquiry into Christianity should begin with the person of Christ. The first is essentially Christianity is Christ. The person and work of Christ are the rock upon which the Christian religion is built. If he is not who he said he was, and if he not do what he said he had come to do, the foundation is undermined and the whole superstructure will collapse. Take Christ from Christianity, and you disembowel it; there is practically nothing left. Christ is the centre of Christianity; all else is circumference. We are not concerned primarily to discuss the nature of his philosophy, the value of his system, or the quality of his ethics. Our concern is fundamentally with the character of his person. Who was he? Second, if Jesus Christ can be shown to have been a uniquely divine person, many other problems begin naturally to be solved. The existence of God is proved and the character of God revealed if Jesus was divine. Again questions about man’s duty and destiny, life after death, the purpose and authority of the Old Testament and the meaning of the cross begin to be answered because Jesus taught about these things, and his teaching must be true if his person is divine.” (John Stott, Basic Christianity)
To discuss: 1. Why the person of Jesus is so fundamental to understand Christianity? 2. According to the text, which are the benefits of starting to study the Christianity through the person of Jesus?
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vi sus calls Le e J – 7 -1 3 1 K 2. XT 1: MAR E T : y d tu us s Biblical ntity of Jes e id e h T – 1-11 2: MARK 1. T X E T : y d Biblical stu
Observe
Interpret
Apply
TEXT 1
TEXT 1 and 2
TEXT 1
1. In the meeting of Jesus
1. What do you think the
1. In your opinion, which
and Levi, Who takes the initiative?
2. What calls your attention in Levi’s Jesus?
calling
from
TEXT 2 1. How is Jesus presented on the verses 1 – 3? 2. How did Trinity reveal in Jesus’ baptism?
author means when he calls Jesus as “Christ”?
2. The
author confirms the divinity of Jesus three times: His own opinion (1-3); what John the Baptist said about Jesus (7,8), and what the Father said (11). Why do you think he did this triple presentation?
3. Why
do you think Jesus called Levi to be His follower and not a master of the law, who were the ones who knew the whole bible in his time and also religious leaders?
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are the implications of seeing Jesus as God?
2. Which are the obstacles that many times we raise, when we think that God will not accept us?
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As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 9 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
FOR DE LEADER
BASE IDEA:
MATERIAL VERSUS ETERNAL
Goal: To contrast the longing for eternity with the search for material things. To show that the longing for eternity is common to every person. This longing is the indication that we were made for God and the material things cannot be compared to the richness of eternal life. Highlight: Values. The definition that we make of the values defines our way. The things we value is what we are searching for, it is worthwhile any sacrifice. Then, our definition of value is also a definition of destiny. That is why it is so important to check the values that we give to things, since our end depends on it. Observations: This study guide presents the contrast between two very interesting characters: The rich young man (The bible does not mention his name) and Zacchaeus. The first one was a young, merciful and well respected man. Parallel texts show that he was rich and important, probably chief in the local synagogue. The other one was a “sinner”, chief of the tax collectors ( a higher level job compared to Levi’s, as we learnt in previous studies) The first one comes before Jesus, almost dramatically, asking for eternal life; the second one only wanted to kill his curiosity to see the most famous man at that time. The first
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one comes closer to Jesus while the other one hides. The first one looks for Jesus while the second one is searched by Jesus. Both are rich, but the first one is respected and religious, while the second one is known as a thief and traitor by his people. The first one feels that he “deserves” the eternal life (it makes his question a rhetoric one), while the second one recognizes himself as a condemned, something that the religious leaders and the society don’t let him forget. The first one wants the eternal life but he gets sad because he doesn’t believe it is worthwhile to get rid of all his earthly goods to obtain it. The second one is found by the eternal life, he is accepted by the Eternal before he “deserved it”. When he finds the richness of the forgiveness and the eternal life, he is willing to give half of his goods to the poor people and to pay back four times what he could have stolen. The first one, end up being more miserable he could have imagined because he did not want to be “poor”, since he only owned his money. The second one, by understanding the value of what he had been offered was willing to give up all his “richness” and making himself poorer, he became rich.
HELP: 1. Comparison: Read the parallel texts: Mathew 19.16-30 and Luke 18.18-30. 2. “Good teacher”: by answering the greetings of the young man, Jesus is correcting the vision that he has about kindness. Popularly it is believed that a good person is the one who fulfills externally with the commandments. However, before the eyes of God all our best efforts are nothing, because the kindness that God expects from us is in a divine level, then what we consider “good” is not good enough. When he calls Jesus good, the man was also considering himself good, since he measured him by his deeds. Jesus expresses that kindness has God as a source of measurement. The, to be saved, you have to be as good as God. That is why we must endorse our faith in Jesus, since he fulfills the requirements of God’s kindness in our place, so that, in Him, we are acceptable to God. 3. “You already know the commandments”: Jesus didn’t mean that if you obey the commandments you obtain the salvation, as if it was by deeds and merit. What Jesus does is to expose the hypocrisy of the young man, showing him that at the bottom, his heart had a hidden idol behind their merciful lives. His obedience hid al the love for himself and the money.
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To start: SATISFACTION The Christianity says: Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger, well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.” There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of “Heaven” ridiculous by saying they do not want “to spend eternity playing harps.” The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendor and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does no trust) and the preciousness of it People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs. C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity To discuss: 1. Lewis says that the earthly wishes does not exist to fill us with satisfaction but to provoke what is really satisfying. Do you agree with the vision of the author? 2. Do you believe that thinking of eternal life is coherent with the reality where we live in or it is just a way to escape from reality?
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man rich young e th d n a s u Jes 10.17-22 – K R A M : 1 dy: TEXT eus Biblical Stu nd Zaccha a s u s e J – -10 : LUKE 19.1 2 T X E T :: y d Biblical Stu
Observe
Interpret
Apply
Text 1
Text 1 and 2
Text 1 and 2
1. The young man calls Jesus
1. The text of C.S Lewis, at the beginning, shows us that we were created to find satisfaction in a life that goes beyond this one. This seems to be what the young man was searching for, but it was Zacchaeus who found it. How can we relate this kind of satisfaction with the answer that both expressed?
1. Lewis said: “must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.” What is your ideal in life?
“good” and then he asks about how to reach the eternal life. What relation is there between these two phrases?
2. Jesus numbers a series of commandments on verse 19. What is it common in all of them?
Text 2 1. How does the bible describe Zacchaeus? What is the importance of this in the story? 2. What clues does the text give us about the meeting between Jesus and Zacchaeus to be intentional and not accidental?
2. Both Mark and Luke show the feeling that both characters had at the moment of answering Jesus (see Mark 10.22 and Luke 19.6 and 8). What could have triggered such a big difference of feelings and decisions? 3. Both characters are rich men, but both, somehow, express dissatisfaction. What does that mean, in the light of Lewis’ text?
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2. What kind of things does Jesus ask you to quit so that you can follow him?
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Study Gu
“Then they reached Jericho, and as Jesus and his disciples left town, a large crowd followed him. A blind beggar named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) was sitting beside the road. When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him. But he only shouted louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” When Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.” So they called the blind man. “Cheer up,” they said. “Come on, he’s calling you!” Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked. “My Rabbi,” the blind man said, “I want to see!” And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road.”
FOR DE LEADER
BASE IDEA:
GOD RESTORES US IN CHRIST
Goal: In this study guide, the main goal is to show how God restores our life through Christ´s work. By virtue of being Jesus who he is, and having done what he did in our place, there is real hope, sense and purpose for our existence. Highlight: Restoration and purpose. To show hoy God restored the life of Bartimaeus the blind, through faith in Christ as the Lord. Highlight the grace of God reaching poor and rejected people, restoring life and giving new purposes to Bartimaeus. Observations: The real happiness is not something that God gives us. It is something that God is and the he allows us to enjoy by his side. In this way, we shouldn’t look for God so that He gives us Happiness but we should find it in Him. We must understand that when God comes into our lives, everything becomes new. A new purpose, new challenges, newer and higher dreams. Bartimaeus deeply changed in this encounter with Jesus. First because the person that he first saw was precisely his savior, and second because Jesus was the only person that he wanted to have in front of his new eyes for the rest
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of his life. Jesus not only gave him sight, He mainly gave him a reason to live, an opportunity to abondom the life of beggar and dream of what he was before. Faith in restoration lies only in the fact that Jesus is God and Saviour. Jesus didn’t come to give comfortable lives, as a synonym of happiness, but He came to free us from hell and sin, so that we live for him and then we find the real reason why we exist: His glory. We don’t exist to satisfy our pleasures and we will never find real sense in life if we keep using God to achieve this. Before that, Jesus restores us for a life with a full sense, where He, and not us is the centre. Here happiness is a synonym of living to please God.
HELP: 1. “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him: we do not know exactly why the crowd did this. Possible answers: a. people were in a hurry to get to Jerusalem and did not want the beggar to delay Jesus; b. They thought that his shouts were not according to the dignity of the person he addressed to; c. they didn’t want Jesus to be proclaimed publically as the “Son of David”; d. They knew that their religious leaders wouldn’t like that. – William Hendriksen. 2. Bartimaeus shows the meaning of discipleship. He defeats all the obstacles with the goal to reach the only one who could help him. He knows that he does not deserve any favor, and claims only for the mercy of God. Bartimaeus asks Jesus to receive the sight, a request that contrasts to the answer of James and John to an identical questions made by Jesus (10.3637). Then, when Bartimaeus gets what he asked for, he showed gratitude by following Jesus, the one who was compassionate and heard him when he was crying out, and solved his sharpest problem. – Dewey Mulholland.
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d n i l B e Th y of Bartimaeus r The sto To start: CHRISTIAN HEDONISM Christian hedonism teaches us that de desire to be happy is given by God and must not be denied or resisted, but addressed to God to be satisfied. Christian Hedonism doesn’t say that anything you like is good. It says that God has shown you what it is good and doing it must bring you joy (Micah 6:8). And since doing God’s will must bring joy, the search of joy is an essential part of every moral effort. If you abandon the search of joy (hence you refuse to be a hedonist, as I use the term) you can not satisfy God’s will. Christian hedonism states that the most merciful saints on every age have not found any contradiction by saying, on one hand “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep” (Ro 8:36) and on the other side “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” (Phil 4:4). Christian hedonism does not meet the culture of self- rewarding that makes you a slave of your sinful boosts. Christian hedonism commands you not to be transformed to this world but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think (Ro 12:2) so that we can be pleased when doing the will of our Father in heaven. According to the Christian hedonism, joy is not an optional ingredient of the Christian cake. When you think about it, the joy of God is an essential part of the savior faith. -John Piper, Desiring God
To discuss: 1. What did you understand by ‘Christian Hedonism’? 2. How do you interpret the phrase: ‘if you quit the search for joy (…) you can not satisfy God’s will’? What are its implications?
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us the blind e a m ti r a B s and -52 – Jesu 6 .4 0 1 K R : MA s dy: TEXT 1 tu S l a c om parable li d g ib in B K – 6 .44-4 TTHEW 13 A M : 2 T X dy:: TE Biblical Stu
Observe
Interpret
Apply
Text 1
Text 1 and 2
Text 1 and 2
1. Mark shows us that Jesus
1. Compare the reaction of Bartimaeus, when he knew that Jesus was calling him, and the reaction of the man who finds the treasure. What is it common for both and why?
1. What are the things that have filled up your heart the most with happiness lately? How these things relate to what we see in the bible?
2. How do you understand the
2. How can we see the ‘Christian hedonism’ reflected in the story of Bartimaeus and in the parables of the kingdom?
2. Bartimaeus knew exactly what area of his life needed restoration. What area in your life needs the restoring action of God now?
listened to the desperate cry of Bartimaeus among the crowd and as he stopped, he called him. What does it show about the character of Jesus? phrase?: ‘Go, for your faith has healed you.’
Text 2 1. In these two parables. What does the ‘kingdom of heaven’ represent? What is it common to these two things? 2. Why do you think the Kingdom of heaven, as much as the treasure and the precious pearl, demands a radical measure for the ones who desire to be part of it?
3. How decisive was to believe in Jesus as Lord and God for the restoration of Bartimaeus’ life? To what extent this is related to ‘finding the hidden treasure’?
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Supporting material Some books will help in the development of the study since they are important as a reading and consulting material. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis. Basic Christianity, John Stott. Desiring God, John Piper. Biblical commentaries. â&#x20AC;˘ A great variety on biblical commentaries on the gospels. Biblical dictionaries. â&#x20AC;˘ A great variety on dictionaries and books to consult about words of the New Testament.