Mark

As we've been reading Mark recently, we keep coming across crowds.  There were crowds of people coming out to hear John preach.  Crowds of people listening to Jesus.  Crowds wanting to be healed.  Crowds spilling out of the houses were He was.  So many crowds that He couldn't go into a city but had to preach outside where there was more room.  Crowds crowding around Him so that He couldn't get away to eat supper. 



My car needed a new battery last weekend.  That means I need to re-set the pre-sets on my car radio.  So this week I've been scanning radio stations, trying to hunt up which ones should be tagged by my radio buttons.  This morning I was checking out a station which turned out to be a Christian radio station with a Bible trivia quiz.  So I stay tuned for a couple of minutes.  The show concluded with a kids' Bible song about how important the Bible is, how we love the Bible, how the Bible is our delight ... because it shows us how God wants us to live. 

That's it?  That's what they think the Bible is full of?  Rules?  Behavior guidelines?  Things to do to make God like you?  And that's why they love it?

Those crowds (in Mark's gospel) weren't crowding around Jesus so that they could hear rules.  They got plenty of that from the scribes and Pharisees.  This Man did not teach like the scribes and Pharisees.  He preached something different, something they hadn't heard before, something for which their hearts yearned.  And the crowds poured out of the cities to hear more.