SALE ON NEW & PROVEN WORKS

[R. Mansfield]

SALE ON NEW & PROVEN WORKS!

 

• Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
• Longman's Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom & Psalms
• Lenski's New Testament Commentary
• Barclay's New Daily Study Bible Revised Edition
• Apologetics Study Bible
• Gospel Transformation Study Bible
• ESV Study Bible
• Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Clowney)
• Using Illustrations to Preach with Power (Revised Edition) (Chapell)
• Practical Wisdom for Pastors: Words of Encouragement and Counsel for a Lifetime of Ministry (Thomas)
• Inductive Preaching: Helping People Listen (Ralph Lewis, Gregg Lewis)
• The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Anyabwile)
• Glory of Preaching (Johnson)

 

Discounted prices are in effect from June 16 - 22. 

 

[Daniel Francis]

Edited June 16, 2015 by Dan Francis

[Alistair]

Wasn't Lenski on sale just a few months ago?

[R. Mansfield]

Wasn't Lenski on sale just a few months ago?

 

Sometimes items come back around quicker than others ;-)

[Daniel Francis]

It has been on sale before too, but always nice to see one of my favourites, come on sale. Barclay is someone you can always count on for some wonderful insight, indeed I remember reading one of his contemporaries saying "William Barclay has forgotten more on the Bible than most of us will ever know." And while he wrote for a less academic audience and did not always tribute his quotes, this edition has attempted to attribute recognizable quotes to their sources making it even more useful. Matthew and John are both covered most in-depth in two volumes but even Mark and Luke get good coverage in his commentaries. As you will see in my example below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN THE HOUR OF NEED

 

Mark 5:21–4

 

  When Jesus had crossed over in the boat back again to the other side, a great crowd gathered together to him; and he was by the lakeside. One of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, came to him; and, when he saw Jesus, he threw himself at his feet. He pled with him, ‘My little daughter is lying at death’s door. Come and lay your hands on her, that she may be cured and live.’ Jesus went away with him; and the crowd were following him, and crushing in upon him on all sides.

 

 

THERE are all the elements of tragedy here. It is always tragic when a child is ill. The story tells us that the ruler’s daughter was twelve years of age. According to the Jewish custom, a girl became a woman at twelve years and one day. This girl was just on the threshold of womanhood, and when death comes at such a time it is doubly tragic.

The story tells us something about this man who was the ruler of the synagogue. He must have been a person of some considerable importance. The ruler was the administrative head of the synagogue. He was the president of the board of elders responsible for the good management of the synagogue. He was responsible for the conduct of the services. He did not usually take part in them himself, but he was responsible for the allocation of duties and for seeing that they were carried out with all seemliness and good order. The ruler of the synagogue was one of the most important and most respected men in the community. But something happened to him when his daughter fell ill and he thought of Jesus.

(1) His prejudices were forgotten. There can be no doubt that he must have regarded Jesus as an outsider, as a dangerous heretic, as one to whom the synagogue doors were rightly closed, and one whom anyone who valued his orthodoxy would do well to avoid. But he was a big enough man to abandon his prejudices in his hour of need. Prejudice really means a judging beforehand. It is a judging before the evidence has been examined, or a verdict given because of refusal to examine it. Few things have done more to hold things up than this. Nearly every forward step has had to fight against initial prejudice. When Sir James Simpson discovered its use as an anaesthetic, especially in the case of childbirth, chloroform was held to be ‘a decoy of Satan, apparently opening itself to bless women, but in the end hardening them, and robbing God of the deep, earnest cries, that should arise to him in time of trouble’. A prejudiced mind shuts out many a blessing.

(2) His dignity was forgotten. He, the ruler of the synagogue, came and threw himself at the feet of Jesus, the wandering teacher. He was not the first man who had to forget his dignity to save his life and to save his soul.

In the old story, that is precisely what Naaman had to do (2 Kings 5). He had come to Elisha to be cured of his leprosy. Elisha’s prescription was that he should go and wash in the Jordan seven times. That was no way to treat the Syrian prime minister! Elisha had not even delivered the message personally; he had sent it by a messenger! And, had they not far better rivers in Syria than the muddy little Jordan? These were Naaman’s first thoughts; but he swallowed his pride and lost his leprosy.

There is a famous story of Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher. He was captured by pirates and was being sold as a slave. As he gazed at the bystanders who were bidding for him, he looked at a man. ‘Sell me to that man,’ he said. ‘He needs a master.’ The man bought him and handed over the management of his household and the education of his children to him. ‘It was a good day for me’, he used to say, ‘when Diogenes entered my household.’ True, but that required a certain loss of dignity.

It frequently happens that those who stand on their dignity fall from grace.

(3) His pride was forgotten. It must have taken a conscious effort of humiliation for this ruler of the synagogue to come and ask for help from Jesus of Nazareth. No one wishes to be indebted to anyone else; we would like to run our lives on our own. The very first step of the Christian life is to become aware that we cannot be anything other than indebted to God.

(4) Here we enter the realm of speculation, but it seems to me that we can say of this man that his friends were forgotten. It may well be that, to the end, they objected to him calling in Jesus. It is rather strange that he came himself and did not send a messenger. It seems unlikely that he would consent to leave his daughter when she was on the point of death. Maybe he came because no one else would go. His household were suspiciously quick to tell him not to trouble Jesus any more. It sounds almost as if they were glad not to call upon his help. It may well be that this ruler defied public opinion and home advice in order to call in Jesus. It is often the case that we are wisest when our worldly-wise friends think we are acting like fools.

Here was a man who forgot everything except that he wanted the help of Jesus; and because of that forgetfulness he would remember forever that Jesus is a Saviour.

 

 

 

 

A SUFFERER’S LAST HOPE

 

Mark 5:25–9

 

  Now there was a woman who was suffering from a haemorrhage which had lasted for twelve years. She had gone through many things at the hands of many doctors; she had spent everything she had; and it had not helped her at all. Indeed she rather got worse and worse. When she heard the stories about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd, and she touched his robe, for she said, ‘If I touch even his clothes I will be cured.’ And immediately the fountain of her blood was staunched, and she knew in her body that she was healed from her scourge.

 

 

THE woman in this story suffered from a trouble which was very common and very hard to deal with. The Talmud itself gives no fewer than eleven cures for such a trouble. Some of them are tonics and astringents, but some of them are sheer superstitions like carrying the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen rag in summer and a cotton rag in winter; or carrying a barley corn which had been found in the dung of a white she-ass. No doubt this poor woman had tried even these desperate remedies. The trouble was that not only did this affect a woman’s health, it also rendered her continuously unclean and shut her off from the worship of God and the fellowship of her friends (Leviticus 15:25–7).

Mark here has a gentle gibe at the doctors. She had tried them all and had suffered much and had spent everything she had, and the result was that she was worse instead of better. Jewish literature is interesting on the subject of doctors. ‘I went to physicians’, says one person, ‘to be healed, but the more they treated me with ointments, the more my vision was obscured by the white films, until I became completely blind’ (Tobit 2:10). There is a passage in the Mishnah, which is the written summary of the traditional law, which is talking about the trades that a man may teach his son. ‘Rabbi Judah says: “Ass-drivers are most of them wicked, camel-drivers are most of them proper folk, sailors are most of them saintly, the best among physicians is destined for Gehenna, and the most seemly among butchers is a partner of Amalek.” ’ But, fortunately and justly, there are voices on the other side. One of the greatest of all tributes to doctors is in the Book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) (one of the apocryphal books written in the time between the Old and the New Testaments) in chapter 38:1–4, 7–8, 12–14:

 

      Honour physicians for their services,

      for the Lord created them;

      for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,

      and they are rewarded by the king.

      The skill of physicians makes them distinguished,

      and in the presence of the great they are admired.

      The Lord created medicines out of the earth,

      and the sensible will not despise them.

 

      By them the physician heals and takes away pain;

      the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.

      God’s works will never be finished;

      and from him health spreads over all the earth.

      Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him;

      do not let him leave you, for you need him;

      There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians,

      for they too pray to the Lord

      that he grant them success in diagnosis

      and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.

 

The physicians had had no success with the treatment of this woman’s case, and she had heard of Jesus. But she had this problem—her trouble was an embarrassing thing; to go in the crowd and to state it openly was something she could not face, and so she decided to try to touch Jesus in secret. Every devout Jew wore an outer robe with four tassels on it, one at each corner. These tassels were worn in obedience to the command in Numbers 15:38–40, and they were to signify to others, and to remind the man himself, that the wearer was a member of the chosen people of God. They were the badge of a devout Jew. It was one of these tassels that the woman slipped through the crowd and touched; and, having touched it, she was thrilled to find herself cured.

Here was a woman who came to Jesus as a last resort; having tried every other cure that the world had to offer, she finally tried him. So many people have come to seek the help of Jesus because they have reached their wits’ end. They may have battled with temptation until they could fight no longer and stretched out a hand, crying, ‘Lord, save me! I perish!’ They may have struggled on with some exhausting task until reaching breaking point and then cried out for a strength which was not their own. They may have laboured to attain the goodness which haunted them, only to see it recede ever further away, until they became utterly frustrated. No one should need to be driven to Christ by the force of circumstances, and yet many come that way; and, even if it is thus we come, he will never send us empty away. As that best-loved of all hymns puts it:

 

      When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

      Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

 

 

William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark, The New Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2001), 145–151.

 

-Dan

Edited June 17, 2015 by Dan Francis