Women to Women
Listen to Ruth and Lesley share a testimony and introduction to the passage this week
Mark 7:24-8:30
Who do you say I am?
CONTEXT:
The disciples accompany Jesus and witness his many miracles and his teaching with authority. They see Jesus calm the storm, walk on water, raise dead people, free the demon-possessed, heal the blind and the deaf. Mark carefully reports the feedback and sentiment of the crowd and the disciples in response to Jesus’ actions (chapter 1-8): amazed, terrified, completely astonished, overwhelmed with amazement. However, the disciples witness the opposition against Jesus, too. Jesus’ family want to take charge of him because they think he is out of his mind (3:21). The teachers of the law proclaim he is possessed by Beelzebub (3:22), Pharisees confront him on eating with sinners and tax collectors (2:16-17), picking corns on Sabbath (2:24-25), criticize his disciples for eating with defiled hands (7:2). People ask Jesus to leave because they incur a financial loss (drowned pigs) while Jesus performs a miracle. Residents in Jesus’ home town take offence at him because they know his family and assume he thus can’t be anyone special.
Through his private and public teachings, Jesus poses the same ultimate question to the people around him and to us: Who do you say I am and what will you do with it?
Read the story of Syrophoenician woman, Mark 7:24-30.
- What does the woman’s reply reveal about her attitude towards Jesus and why was she commended for it by Jesus?
- What does it teach us about the kind of attitude that God is pleased by?
After this healing, Jesus heals a deaf and mute man and is about to dissolve a large crowd that gathered around him in a remote place.
Read chapter 8, verses 1-4.
- The disciples are confronted with the need of the crowd to eat. What does their initial reaction show us?
- In times of need, does our reaction resemble that one of the disciples or the one of the Gentile woman? How would we like to react in the future?
Read verses 10-21
- Why did Jesus sigh deeply at the request of the Pharisees for a sign?
- In what ways can Spiritual blindness be seen in these passages?… what is spiritual blindness? Who is most blind? (Gentile woman, Disciples, Pharisees, etc) and in what way are they blind?
7. What is the cure to spiritual blindness? How does the two stage miracle help illustrate this? v22-26
See also Eph 1:17-18..
8. In verses 27-30 Peter seems to finally get Jesus identity. How has he come to deduce who Jesus is? Is he now seeing something or seeing everything?
Are there any aspects of the Christian life, Jesus’ character, etc… that you feel blind to? Pray with humility that God would open your eyes?
Think of anyone who you know is not yet able to see that Jesus is the Son of God? Pray that God would open their eyes?
How might God use us to do this?
