Chapter 28. Famous People Who Suffered
Loneliness And Depression
Chapter 28: More Examples Of Loneliness And Depression In The New
Testament
Luccock comments, "...a narrow and intense devotion
to religion conceived as a logical system, as a set of rules, rather than as
‘the life of God in the soul of man’ and a way of love, one to another
– that such narrowness and intensity can have a hardening effect on
character. ... When concern for people and their rights and welfare drops
out, leaving only a concern for code and regulation, as empty of love as a
textbook on geometry, religion can be a dehumanizing thing."
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said,
"Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.
15 Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him.
Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’ "
vs 14-16 What does Jesus mean by this parable? (If you don’t
understand this parable, read on. The Disciples didn’t either!)
THIS CHRISTIAN DATING SITE’S MISSION IS
TO HELP CHRISTIAN SINGLES OVERCOME LONELINESS AND DEPRESSION AND FIND TRUE
LOVE.
Jesus is speaking of spiritual matters. Americans seem to
be obsessed by materialism – those outward things such as food, garment,
shelter, good looks. But Jesus teaches that those outward things are not
important. What’s important is what goes on in the heart.
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house,
his disciples asked him about this parable.
18 "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don’t you see that
nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’?
19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out
of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods
"clean.")
vs 17-19 Why do you think the Disciples would have had a
difficult time understanding this saying? How did Jesus have to teach Peter
this lesson again in the Book of Acts?
The Disciples had been raised to believe that certain
foods were unclean. In a day with little understanding of germs and small
consideration for sanitation, these rules were essential to good health. But
since they had been ingrained in them since birth, it was hard for them to
see what Jesus was talking about. They were probably thinking about clean
and unclean foods.
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