The subject matter of my lessons come to me in various ways. Many times I run across something spoken in the Bible record that inspires me. It can be a word or a phrase or even a question that fires up my editorial juices, so to speak. I’ve even developed a category for these types of inspiration and I refer to them as being “Great _____ of the Bible.” Today’s lesson will thus be: Great questions of the Bible.
First allow me to offer
some preliminary thoughts before we take up our question in chief. All of
us are familiar with another question we ask when faced with an offer to purchase
something. That question is “What’s the price?” What will it cost
me? Or, perhaps a better way of saying it is: “What’s it worth?”
Have you ever paused to
consider that the soul of a person has a price, has a cost? That it’s
worth something? Jesus spoke directly to this when He asked, “What is a man profited, if he shall
gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or, what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26)
The question then
becomes - What is your price? Or, do we all have a price? There’s
numerous examples in the Bible of what some valued the worth of their soul
at. Judas figured his was 30 pieces of silver. (Mt. 26) Lot’s wife
wanted one last look at the world (Gen. 19). Adam & Eve’s price was a
bite of the forbidden fruit. Demas had his price, his love of the world
(2Tim. 4)
Do you note something
here? Everyone is tempted in different ways and our particular temptation
equates to the value we place on our soul. Christ showed us the value He
placed on our souls by purchasing them with His death on the cross.
Purchase is a good word here because Christ says that we were bought by His
blood, but there’s another buyer in the market - Satan. It’s him that is
making us the offer to buy it back and sadly, sometimes he gets them at bargain
basement prices, doesn’t he? And, in accordance with our initial passage,
just remember that whatever we sell our souls for, we “choose death.”
You know, present in the
religious world today is something referred to as the “Jesus Movement.”
And, there are many who teach this false doctrine. The gist of their
doctrine is “just call on Jesus and you’re saved.” There’s a phrase that
goes along with the description of this doctrine and it’s: they “want the man -
not the plan.” Basically the adherents of this doctrine are
rejecting the Gospel, which is “the plan” and thus, making their own plan.
In other words, they
want Jesus but reject the church and we know this can’t be done. You
cannot separate the two. Read Matt. 16:18 and Rom. 16:16. So, by
just taking Jesus, they’re rejecting His commandments. They don’t want
baptism or other forms of obedience to the Gospel.
A lot of people are just
not satisfied with doing what the Gospel says, they have to improve on it, to
change it in some way that fits their thinking. They either want to leave
out the things they don’t want to do or include things that they like.
Either way, anyone who does this, who isn’t satisfied with what the Gospel
says, nothing more, nothing less, has “chosen
death.”
Well, this brings us to
our “Great question of the Bible.” We find it recorded in Mark 10, verses
35-38. There we read that Jesus is approached by two of his apostles,
James and John, who ask Him a favor: would you do something that we would
desire? In reply is where we find our “great question.” Jesus
basically asked them, “What do
you want?” That is the topic question under discussion.
But isn’t that a great
question, really? If you read the rest of the scene depicted there you’ll
find that they wanted positions of honor and power in the coming kingdom which
they believed at the time to be an earthly type of kingdom. But, the
important part of that whole conversation is Jesus’ question: “What do you want?”
Turn that question
towards ourselves and look at it from this angle. What do we want from
Jesus? Do we want earthly wealth? Power or prestige? As a
matter of fact, do we want anything of an earthly nature? No - what a
Christian wants from Jesus has already been given. “The Way” to inherit eternal
life.
Think about it, nothing
on this earth compares in value with that. Why is that, you ask?
Because all of this earth is temporal, meaning that it doesn’t last
forever. If what we want is something of this earth which is doomed to
death, then we have “chosen
death” too.
Jesus has already given
us something that lasts forever and by taking advantage of that, we’ve “chosen life.” But if
we allow Satan to buy back our souls for whatever offer that we are willing to
sell for, we do not remain in a covenant relationship with Christ. No
matter what some try to preach to us such as the “Jesus Movement.”
Consider the value of
your soul and pray that it will always match the value that Christ placed on
it. If it ever doesn’t - we’ve “chosen
death.”
Respectfully submitted,
Ron Covey
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