Mark - Lesson 3...Continued from page 3

DAY FOUR:  The Heart of our Actions

Please carefully read Mark 2:18-22 and answer the following questions.

1.  Another incident Mark records about the conflict that the religious leaders provoked about Jesus was His treatment of fasting.  Evidently this was one of the weekly fast days that the Pharisees and John kept, so this led to a clash of standpoints.[12]  What was Jesus’ response to the lack of His disciples fasting like theirs did (v. 19, 20)?

 2.  Fasting was indeed an important part of the Jewish experience, but to fast during the wedding feast, or at a time of great joy, made little sense.  Indeed they would fast, and Jesus taught guidelines about fasting especially in the Sermon on the Mount.  What kind of fast is most important to God anyway according to Isaiah 58:6-12?

3.  It is indeed the heart of the person that God is concerned with, not their legalistic efforts to try to please Him.  What analogy did Jesus use to try to describe this to them (v. 21-22)?

4.  It is the heart of our actions, or perhaps better the actions of our heart, that God is looking for.  How did the prophets Hosea (2:18-23; 6:1-3, 6), Micah (6:6-8), and Jeremiah (31:31-34) try to teach these principles of newness, not dead religiosity, several hundred years before this?

Scripture Memory:  Try to fill in the missing words in the blanks below, by memory if at all possible, and then review the passage several times today. 

When Jesus ______________________ it, He said to them, “Those who are _______________ have no need of a ____________________, but those who are ________________. I did not come to _____________ the ________________________, but ___________________________, to _________________________.”  Mark 2:17, nkjv