“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” “Who is my neighbor?” At first these questions seem contradictory. Some even accuse the questioners of attempting to entrap Yeshua. However, honest seekers of truth regularly challenged rabbis with tough questions, as did Abraham, Moses and others.
The trustworthiness of the Bible has been under attack in earnest by skeptical scholars for more than 200 years. In recent times, there have been popularist attacks that use morality arguments to argue against the morality of the Bible.
Dan Savage, homosexual rights activist, columnist and founder of the It Gets Better antibullying campaign, spoke to a large national conference for high school journalists hosted by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Association in April 2012. In a profanity-laden address, he attacked those who quote the Bible as a reason for opposing acceptance of homosexuality.
Given incomplete knowledge of the Torah time period, we can either trust God’s prescription for the situation or feign complete knowledge that the remedy was worse than the condition. Compared with the secular view of existence, God’s view of existence presented in the Bible is a better representation of reality.
There are profound similarities in these texts and the texts of the wilderness wanderings of Israel when God would move them into a “desolate” place and God supernaturally intervened to feed them and give them water. God is appealing to the world to come to Him for the Bread of Life and wants to gather the nations into His people, Israel. He is going to take back the Earth from rebellion of haSatan.
Herod Antipas thought he had silenced Yochanan (John) upon killing him, but Yeshua and His disciples were spreading the message everywhere. A common teaching on remarriage — that doing so is a sin — overlooks the likely teaching, shown in Antipas’ fear: divorce and remarriage in the course of adultery is what’s sinful.
Yeshua (Jesus) sent the 12 and 70 other close followers to various cities as witnesses of His message about the coming of the Kingdom of God. Key to this commission was a quotation from the prophet Micah at a time when Israel was about to be taken apart because of rebellion against God. The same was about to happen to Israel in the first century.
The story of the woman who had suffered with a hemorrhage for 12 years is woven beautifully into the story of the suffering, death and resurrection of the 12 year old girl.
Accounts in the gospels often are arranged more based on theme than chronology. It seems the four accounts in Luke 8 following the parable of the sower are those lessons lived out in Yeshua’s life.