When I was a child growing up in Sunday School, of course we focused on Bible Stories. I loved my children’s Bible because not only were the stories pretty cool, but the illustrations and paintings that helped tell the story were memorable and wonderfully visual. My Bible would take a great story and help create an image in my mind that made aided in making it real. Interestingly enough, as a teenager when I began to make a real concerted effort to read my Bible regularly I was given a “Good News for Modern Man” New Testament at an Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp and that Bible has drawings in it to help illustrate stories (I’ve spoken of this Bible many times, as it is on my shelf today). That said… visuals of real stories are often extremely helpful because they help make it real.
One of the stories I remember well from my childhood is the story of the group of friends who had a paralyzed man they were helping and wanted to bring to Jesus. Jesus was in at home (Mark 2:1). But they had a problem of reaching Jesus because the crowd was so large all access to Him was blocked. So, they came up with a creative solution — they opened up the roof, made a hole, and let their friend down to Jesus so He could touch and heal him. The story is vivid to me not only because my children’s Bible had a painting of this incredible scene, but we used to act it out in Sunday School. We had great fun pretending to make a hole in a roof to let down our friend.
This Sunday November 3rd, this is the story that we are going to study together. To prepare yourself ahead of time please take the time to read carefully through this rather short but very intriguing story. We are reading it from Mark 2:1-12. It is a story that is also written in Matthew 9:1-8 and Luke 5:17-26. We not only see great compassion of the friends, but Jesus first tells the man “your sins are forgiven.” A fascinating proclamation from Jesus that stirred up the crowd, especially the religious scholars who were present. So… not only does Jesus heal, but He forgives sins!?!?
This is our story this week. Come prepared by reading and thinking this through beforehand. As we are studying the Gospel of Mark this year we are calling this series “Who Do you say that I am?” For these four Sunday’s, I am taking four of the miracles of Jesus healing someone. Last week was the story of Jesus healing a man of an unclean spirt.’ (Mark 1:21-28). This week Mark 2:1-12 and the paralyzed man. There will be two more over the next two weeks.
Great stuff! I’ll see you Sunday morning.See you Sunday morning. I so enjoy worshiping and studying with the family of faith here at LifeWay. I am preparing for our time together. I ask you to do the same.
