Medical misdiagnosis is a serious problem.  Recent studies have estimated that as many as 12 million adults a year seeking outpatient care are misdiagnosed.  Worse yet, diagnostic errors may result in as many as 10% of patient deaths — more deaths annually than breast cancer.  To be fair, diagnosis is incredibly complex.  And patients place extraordinarily high expectations for accuracy on their doctors. 

Add to that the perennial philosophical debate regarding whether diagnostic focus should be on “root cause” or “symptom management.”   Patients often bet their lives on the opinions of their doctor.  When those opinions are inaccurate the prescribed treatment will fail to address the real condition and may even make the condition more acute.  

Misdiagnosis is a serious problem. But it is nothing compared to the misdiagnosis of a deeper sickness that affects us all – a spiritually terminal condition the Bible calls sin.  This condition is congenital and inherited.  It is always fatal.  Every one of us has it.  Yet it is often misdiagnosed.  Or its symptoms merely palliated with legalistic or hedonistic opiates. 

Doctors of skepticism dismiss that any sickness exists. While doctors of philosophy are more concerned with classification than cure.   Doctors of psychology declare this sickness to be a non-fatal dysfunction, easily resolved with the right therapeutic tweak.   Doctors of religion prescribe a course of works, coupled with a regimen of rituals and outward piety.  But with all these prescriptions, the cirrhosis of the heart and soul continues unabated.

The prophet Jeremiah expressed this most poignantly.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) The ancient word heart used in this verse is an inclusive idea, encompassing the heart, soul, mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory, inclination, resolution, will, conscience, the seat of appetites, emotions and passions and convictions and courage.   All these, Jeremiah says, are treacherous, rebellious and incurably sick.  Yet, we cannot see it. 

 And one pundit acknowledged.

“The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” ― Malcolm Muggeridge

The prophet Ezekiel rightly noted that a transplant was the only remedy.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. – Ezekiel 36:26-27

A rock-hardened heart is always fatal.  Only a transplant will help.  But the religious leaders of Jesus day tried to manage their sin by building a containment fence around it based on expansive, ‘keepable,’ interpretations of God’s law.  A strategy of symptom management that Paul, the “Pharisee of the Pharisees,” sharply condemned.

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” – Galatians 3:10-11

The Pharisees cherished both their sin and the good opinions of men.  They were concerned only with superficial conformity to a version of God’s law eisegeted by their self-serving desires.  They sought eternal life in legalism and misdiagnosed their condition thus misjudged the remedy.   In Mark 10 they came to Jesus and with a difficult legal question about divorce and remarriage.  Not because they wanted his answer, but because they wanted him speechless. 

As is often the case, they sought to lay a trap.  But as always, he easily slipped their Gordian knot and revealed the real issue at stake.  Bringing out God’s plan for marriage, he noted that divorce is always a result of the “hard-heartedness” of a husband or a wife or both.   And here Jesus used a word found only once in Mark’s Gospel, “sclerocardia,” hard-heartedness.  God’s laws regarding divorce and remarriage were only gracious concessions to the fatal diagnosis of sclerocardia.  

And in a passage that is still much debated among Christians, we are warned to ask the right question about marriage and divorce, assess the right problem in our relationships, and see the gracious remedy for marital brokenness.

Join us as we examine Mark 10:1-12 and consider what is really at issue when our deepest, most intimate relationships seem broken beyond repair.  We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

What used to be an insult is now a title of honorific respect.  Caught up by the jargonization of the English language from words with a history to acronyms which fit more neatly into texts and tweets, the word GOAT no longer describes grizzled old men, occult iconography or biblical reprobates.  Used now only with the definite article, “the,” GOAT refers to the Greatest Of All Time.  And voila! Fighting words have evolved into coveted title.

The GOAT is, of course, a title bestowed without any vetting process other than the opinions of sportscasters and social media influencers.  And so, there is endless debate in the blogosphere over which GOAT is The GOAT.  And there is even a primetime show on which reality TV GOATs vie to see who is The GOAT. Is there no end to the quest for Capra Magna?

While we might chalk this up as modern folly, it is nothing new.  Even (way back) in my youth, Muhammed Ali boasted, “I’m the Greatest.”  And we all declared Gretsky to be “The Great One.”  Men have always wanted to distinguish themselves in the pecking order as The Greatest of All Time.  Shockingly we even see this among Jesus’ closest disciples, the “Twelve.”

Repeatedly, at the most inappropriate times, arguments broke out among the Twelve over which of them was the greatest.  After stunning failure to exorcise an epileptic boy’s demon they debated their comparative greatness.   And at the Last Supper their grief that one of them would betray Jesus quickly gave way to heated discussion over who would be the greatest in the Kingdom! James and John even enlisted their mother to plead with Jesus for recognition.

Time and time again we read “an argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest.”  They had visions of grandeur. They were thinking of regal thrones, not the enthronement of the awful tree or the baptism of Jesus’ suffering and death.  They could not comprehend Jesus’ teaching about the suffering and death which would proceed His entry into glory.   Mark 9 records the sorry juxtaposition.

[H]e was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.   -Mark 9:30-34

There is nothing wrong with desiring kingdom greatness, but there is everything wrong with confusing kingdom and worldly greatness.  Earlier Jesus had given his disciples a glimpse of true greatness in speaking of John the Baptist.

Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? …A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.  Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. -Matthew 11:7-11

Jesus repeatedly reminded his disciples and us, what kingdom greatness looks like.  In Mark 9 and 10 Jesus instructs the Twelve in true greatness and turns our expectations on their heads.

 [H]e said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all…. You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. -Mark 9:35, 10:43-45

Desire greatness? Yes! But do you understand what it is? Are you willing to be the slave of all? To serve rather than be served?  To give your life in service to others? Or as Paul wrote, to “[d]o nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. [looking] not only to [your] own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Join us as we examine Mark 9:30-37 and consider what true greatness looks like.  We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is highest standard of evidence in a criminal trial. A standard that requires that evidence demonstrate guilt to such an extent that no reasonable person could doubt a defendant’s guilt.   It is a high bar, but still a subjective one.  After all who can define a “reasonable person?”  Then there is the matter of the litigators’ skill in casting doubt on the implications of the evidence.  And what about the integrity of the evidence itself?  Has it been tainted in collection or tampered with?  Is it really what it appears to be?

We say ‘seeing is believing’ and ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ but we also live in a world of AI and CGI.  Beyond that, a picture rarely comes with any context. Its meaning must be supplied. Consequently, the ambiguity of evidence is proverbial.  How much is enough to believe?  How much is enough to accept a verdict which is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt?’  We demand evidence for belief then raise the bar and impugn clear and compelling proofs.

And what is true for criminal trials is even more true for deeply held beliefs.  Which is why an evidentiary faith is no faith at all.   The reaction of the Pharisees to the empty tomb is a stunning example.  Time and time again, following the remarkable signs of Jesus power and authority, they asked for a sign from heaven.  They knew what Jesus had promised about rising from the dead.  They took measures to prevent it.  Then they had most compelling evidence that Jesus had risen as he said.  Yet it was not enough to soften hearts hardened by unbelief. 

Every skeptic demands proof.  But if it were given it would never be enough.  More proof would be demanded.  More doubt expressed.  This is why Jesus warned, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign.”  Faith is reasonable, but never reasoned.  No evidence will be enough, because faith is not something you can work out yourself.  It is a gift. 

In Ephesians 2 we read, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”   But this gifted faith is not a growing confidence in our own power to believe, but in the faithfulness of the object of our faith which is Jesus, the “author and perfector of our faith.” 

In Mark 9 as Jesus descends from the mountain with Peter, James, and John, where his glory was revealed in the transfiguration to struggling disciples, he descends into a chaotic scene.  The scribes are taunting the disciples about their failure to exorcise a demon who brought untold misery to the only son of a distraught father.   Everyone’s faith is laid low.  The scribes’ hearts are rock hard.  The disciples have confused faith in their abilities with faith in Christ.  And the poor father’s faith is hanging by a thread because of sorrow, helplessness, and disappointment.

But into this chaos of struggling faith, Jesus comes and brings clarity, grace, and restoration.  And from a weary father we learn how to pray when our faith seems to be hanging by a thread and circumstances have taken us almost beyond belief.

Join us as we examine Mark 9:14-32 and consider how prayer, not proof, sustains our faith in the middle of failure and disappointment.  We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.