Mark 4
Read verses 1 and 2. Jesus told stories that use common0 things (that we can see) to explain spiritual things (that we cannot see).
Read 3 to 9. “Ears that can hear means that a person’s heart is open to God, so he can understand the meaning of the story.
Read 10 and 11. Jesus speaks directly and clearly to the people who believe in him, but Jesus does not speak clearly to the people who do not believe in him. Jesus tells them stories. Jesus knows that if He speaks to them directly, they will give some reason to say that Jesus is wrong. But if Jesus tells them stories, they cannot say anything against the stories. In fact, they will be curious. Because the stories are not very clear, they will think about the stories for a long time. They will try to find out how the stories can help them understand their life. During this time, they may start to believe in Jesus.
Read 12. This sentence is from Isaiah 6:9-10. The most important thing that God wants is that people will be sorry for their sins and come to God. If they don’t fell sorry for their sins, but they do understand God’s teachings, then they will be proud and they will not come to God. So God hides the meaning of the stories from them until they change their attitude.
Read 13 and 14. This story explains that peole have different reactions when they hear the message about God’s love. Through this story, we should ask ourselves: what kind of person am I
Read 15. Some people don’t understand about God and God’s love. The reason is that Satan does not let them understand. Therefore we pray that God will make Satan stop dong this (see 1 Corinthians 4:3-4).
Read 16 and 17. Some people think God’s message is acceptable, but they don’t learn enough about it, and they don’t begin to trust in God. Since they don’t trust in God, they don’t fell God’s help when they are under pressure. So it becomes obvious that they never really believed in God.
Read 18 and 19. Some people agree with God’s message, but it is not the most important thing in their lives. Other things are more important. Eventually, these other things cause them to reject God’s message completely. Those other things could include things like love of money, desire for high positon, dong bad things in order to succeed, or making your decisions based only on trying to make people like you.
Read 20. If we accept God’s message and trust in god, our lives will be full and meaningful and we will be able to help many other people. Some of us will be able to help more people than others.
Read 21. If you have a light, it does not make sense to hide it.
Read 22. For example, you might try to hide your sins, but you cannot” God knows your sins. Another example: God’s message might be clear to you now, but if you trust in God, God will make it more and more clear to you.
Read 23. See verse 9 explanation.
Read 24. Other people will treat you the same way you treat them. If you decide that people are good or bad based on their behavior, that means you also want people to decide whether you are good or bad based on your behavior. Do you want that? If not, then “be careful.”
Read 25. Here Jesus is telling us the way our world is. You probably have seen with your own eyes that rich people seem to get more and more money, but poor people seem to get poorer. It is the same way with spiritual things. If you believe in God, then you will keep getting more and more blessings. If you reject God, you will become more and more empty.
Read 26 to 29. The meaning is that we do not understand how God makes peole become Christians. It is a mystery to us, just like the mystery of how a seed can become a plant.
Read 30 to 32. The meaning is that God starts with something very small — just the message about jesus — but this message has very big results/.
Read 33 to 34. Jesus did not tell the meaning of his stories to everyone, because many of them did not have faith. But he told the meaning to his disciples.
Read 35 to 41. Jesus showed that he can control nature. In this way, Jesus proved that he is God. Psalm 89:9 tells us that God can control the sea.
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