COV LIFE BLOG

Mark 6 – Who Is This Jesus?

In the conflict between supernaturalism and naturalism, between miracles and rationalism, few stories draw the “line in the sand” more clearly than Jesus walking on the water.

For example, you can go online and consult “Christian Biblical Errancy Debate” whose web page states, “If you are tired of having Bible-quoting friends and relatives throw Scripture in your face and would like to have an avalanche of information to throw back at them, you have come to the right place….We provide a level playing field for Biblicists to defend the Bible’s absurdities, contradictions, fallacies and inconsistencies.”

Now, how do they handle the absurdity of the miracle of Jesus walking on water? They do not take the route of the Enlightenment skeptics who postulated “an optical illusion caused by Jesus walking along the shore, or a deception caused by his walking on a sand bar” (Edwards, 196). No, they take the more post-modern approach and consign it to the fanciful world of mythology, comparing Jesus to the Egyptian sun-god Horus who walked on mythical waters in another world. Their certain conclusion, “When it is conclusively proved that the Christian miracles are nothing more than a pagan mode of symbolic representation literalized, there is no longer any question of contravening, or breaking, or even challenging any well-known laws of nature. The discussion as to the probability or possibility of miracle on the old grounds of belief and doubt is closed forever.” In other words, “dead men don’t rise” and “men don’t walk on water.”

I hope you will not be surprised when I say I agree! Men don’t rise from the dead and they don’t walk on water! However, God can do both. Further, in 2 Peter 1:16, the apostle Peter himself reminds us, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you 2 the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” The early church was not ignorant of the mythical views of the Egyptians, Greeks or Romans. They knew of them and they rejected them. Instead, they followed and worshiped the one that, as 1 John 1:1 says, “We have heard, seen with our own eyes, looked upon and have touched with our hands…”

Daniel Akin

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SCRIPTURES FOR THIS SUNDAY
Read Mark 6 and look for clues to who this Jesus is. What about this picture compels us to follow him? What does our following look like if these things are true?

SONG FOR THIS WEEK
Jesus, Strong and Kind by CityAlight