Mark-Lesson 13...Continued from page 4

DAY FIVE: Extreme Exhortations

Please carefully read Mark 9:42-50 and answer the following questions.

1.  In many ways believers should approach Jesus like a small child, and He compares us with them several times.  Jesus suddenly turned from His exhortation about pride and disunity to something extremely serious.  What was the first extreme thing He said (verse 42)?

2.  A large millstone was literally in Greek “a donkey millstone,” a heavy, flat stone turned by a donkey when it was grinding grain; a small hand mill (mylos) used by women (Matthew 24:41).[xiii] Also, punishment by drowning someone this way was no doubt familiar to Jesus’ disciples; death without burial including death at sea was “regarded as the worst kind of death; pagans even believed that the spirit of the deceased hovered eternally over the waters where the person had died.”[xiv]  So this was pretty extreme, but Jesus really laid it out for them next.  What extreme exhortation did He give them, and why (v. 43-47)?
 

Jesus uniquely could relate to man the horrors of hell, and His warnings are drastic, but if such a place exists (and indeed it does), then what wouldn’t we do to stay out of there?  John Grassmick helps us understand the origins and meanings of this horrid place:[xv]

The Greek word geenna (“Gehenna,” trans. “hell”) is transliterated from two Hebrew words meaning “Valley of Hinnom,” a place south of Jerusalem where children were once sacrificed to the pagan god Molech (2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6; Jer. 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35). Later, during the reforms of Josiah (2 Kings 23:10) the site became Jerusalem’s refuse dump where fires burned continually to consume regular deposits of worm-infested garbage. In Jewish thought the imagery of fire and worms vividly portrayed the place of future eternal punishment for the wicked (cf. the apocryphal Judith 16:17 and Ecclesiasticus 7:17). Jesus used the word geenna in 11 of its 12 New Testament occurrences (the one exception is James 3:6)...Where the fire never goes out is probably Mark’s explanation of Gehenna for his Roman readers. The worm (internal torment) and the unquenchable fire (external torment) (quoted from the LXX of Isa. 66:24) vividly portray the unending, conscious punishment that awaits all who refuse God’s salvation. The essence of hell is unending torment and eternal exclusion from His presence.

3.  Jesus then turned from addressing the warnings of hell to experiences here on the earth.  What does He say about this in verse 49, and how does this also tie in later with what Peter wrote about trials in 1 Peter 1:6-9?

4.  Salt not only cleanses, it preserves.  What did Jesus exhort His followers to have and to be (v. 50)?

Pure salt cannot lose it saltiness. What was used as salt in ancient times, however, and especially what was gathered from the Dead Sea in Palestine, contained many impurities, and it was coarse, impure, and very susceptible to deterioration. If the true salt were removed, what remained might still look like salt but could not perform the life-giving and life-saving function of salt. A person may have the external appearance of a disciple, but not the internal properties.  Such a life can’t be regained like salt that has lost its saltiness.[xvi]  What a warning for us!

Scripture Memory:  Can you write out this week’s passage by memory here below?  Give it a try, and keep reviewing the passage several times throughout the day.

Mark 9:50: