Day four of the Questions for Mark study and I will again use one devotional question to inspire this devotional.

“What does Jesus do here that’s unexpected or controversial?”

Mark 2:18 And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?

This is just the first example that points out the issues at hand in today’s reading from Mark 2:13 to Mark 3:6. Every example shown is about challenging Jesus for His teaching because it did not line up with all the rules and regulations that the religious leaders of the day had set up for the Jews to follow. Here is a quote from Jack Wellman on whatchristianswanttoknow.com.

“God never intended the Sabbath to become a burden but that’s what the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had done. They made that day seem to everyone to be like a camel that’s been weighed down by every possible weight imaginable.  In fact, they had added hundreds of other manmade traditions, which they considered to be equal to or in some cases, greater than the law, that were not in the original Sabbath command.”

We did not live in that era and we have no experience with being put to the test over issues that God never called out. We do live in an era today where a prophetic warning seems to be playing out in main stream churches.

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

They are falling away from sound doctrine, the truth, Christ.