On This Day: When Jesus Explains Everything to His Own

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. (Mark 4:33-34)

   It is really standing out to me in this present journey through the gospel of Mark how Jesus taught his disciples. He preached the good news of the kingdom of God everywhere he went and constantly used parables to illustrate things to the crowd. He was even sensitive to how the crowds were able to hear what he was saying and taught them like a shepherd feeding his sheep.

   But this picture of Jesus getting alone with his disciples and explaining everything to them is so amazing to me. The word “explained” means “to interpret, conceived of as untying or untangling something knotted” (Bible Sense Lexicon). 

   That is such an accurate description of what my time with God in his word feels like each morning. It isn’t that the Scriptures are tangled and knotted, but that my befuddled mind experiences God’s word like that. As David sang, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6). 

   But then I felt Jesus doing this exact thing to me, explaining everything to me in private! And he did this by taking my little chin in his hands and turning my eyes to see the expression “the word”. I looked this up and discovered that the word for “the word” is “logos”. This word means, “gospel ⇔ word n. — the content of what is preached about the good news of Jesus’ way of salvation” (Bible Sense Lexicon). It is the same word John used when he wrote his prologue, “In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word (logos) was with God, and the Word (logos) was God” (John 1:1), and his theme statement, “And the Word (logos) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). 

   I cannot put into words the wonder and delight of feeling "the Word" (Jesus) explaining his "word" to me. I know that spending time with God every morning can be a challenge, particularly with all the demands, distractions, decoys and deceptions that are all around. 

   But when we discover for ourselves that Jesus will meet with us by his Spirit and explain his word to us in the most real and personal of ways, we will hunger and thirst to “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly” (Colossians 3:16) so that we not only grow in our knowledge and understanding of the word of God, but we get to know the Word of God better than we have ever known him before.     

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)