“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and
came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked
each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives
orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole
region of Galilee.
This is Jesus’s public synagogue teaching debut in the book
of Mark and he makes a big splash. Like
the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964, people immediately realize they
are experiencing something brand new.
They describe their surprise because Jesus teaches “as one with
authority.” You see, before Jesus, the Rabbi’s,
scribes, and other spiritual leaders speak from the authority of what has been
written by others, namely what we now call the Old testament and the many
Rabbinical Writings written about the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus may reference those documents, but He
speaks as one who has His own innate authority that matches and even exceeds those
of the scriptures. He then demonstrates
this unique authority by commanding demons to “hush” and come out of the man
they had possessed. Shockingly, the demons
obey. The people are amazed by this
because they have never encountered it before.
It is as if God is speaking directly to them and commanding demons in
that very room. It seems like that because
that is exactly what is happening.
This text raises a monumental issue for the Judeo-Christian
tradition that is still being wrestled with today. Do the teachings of Jesus have more authority
than that of the Old Testament? Hundreds
of very long books have been written that attempt to answer that question. I have read several of them over the years,
but I do not aspire to answer the question definitely. I have a personal conviction and I simply
share it with you here. I believe Jesus’s
teachings do deserve primary consideration within the scriptures contained in
the Old and New Testaments.
I believe this for at least a couple of pretty unscholarly reasons. Nevertheless, they are reasons. First, Jesus Himself seems to think that His authority
is greater than what was written before.
In several places within the Gospels, Jesus quotes scripture and then
personally supplants it. Often, it goes
something like this; “You have heard it said …,” (fill in the blank with a
known scriptural quotation), “but I say . . ..”
Jesus goes on to introduce a new teaching that supercedes or changes the
previous scriptural teaching. My second
reason is that if I believe Jesus to be God in the flesh, than it makes sense
that what He says carries more authority than what someone else wrote about their
experience of what God said. If I hear my
brother relay something to me that my Dad said, but then I personally hear my Dad
say something different on the same issue, I tend to trust the first person experience
over the hearsay.
I like the illustration that Adam Hamilton uses to support
the same idea. He says that the
teachings and commands of Jesus serve as a filter or “colander” to sift through
the whole of the scriptural writings.
This by no means invalidates the Old Testament or the other New
testament authors, but all of that should be interpreted in the light of the
revelation of Jesus. As Hamilton himself
states, "It is Jesus who serves as the final Word by which other words of
scripture are to be judged." (p.
177, Making Sense of the Bible)
Jesus is my scriptural colander. You don’t have to agree with me, but I do
invite you to think about it.
Question: We all pick
and choose “our favorite scriptures.” On what basis do you decide what your favorite
scriptures are?
Prayer: God, I thank
you for becoming a human being and speaking your Word directly to us. May your teachings guide all that we do and
how we live. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for God to bless people you have a hard time agreeing with today. I know it’s hard, but do it anyway.
Song: The B-I-B-L-E –
Kids Worship
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