​Mark’s Gospel wastes no time in getting into Jesus’ ministry. By verse 15, with no mention of His genealogy and birth, John the Baptist or His temptations, it ventured immediately into an action-packed and brisk narrative, controversially expositing the Messiah’s definition of the Kingdom of God on earth. However, Mark’s pragmatic blend of viewing the disciples’ spiritual poverty and blindness, juxtaposed against our Lord’s inestimable patience and love was meant to highlight a perennial lesson of sovereignty in a clash of social values.
 
Jesus often uses the religious elite as comparative examples between those who are faithful to God and those who are hypocrites: the principal difference being the outworking of an active faith in redeemed hearts and minds. But time and again, His disciples either totally misunderstood Him or they simply were deaf to the kingdom’s claim on their lives. Having fed the 4,000, Jesus’ reference to ‘the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod’ was misconstrued by the disciples as their lack of making sufficient provisions for their journey across the Sea of Galilee. Their flippant debate among themselves must have revealed their unbelief in His earlier miracle, and the Lord chided them (Mark 8:15-21). A little later, Peter’s politically correct confession of Jesus’ personhood is immediately contradicted by his own challenge to the Lord’s prediction of His death, implying that the Almighty is spouting nonsense, which elicited another firm rebuke (Mark 8:27-33). Perhaps frustrated by His disciples’ faltering trust in Him, if not plain unbelief, the Lord turned to the crowds around Him, in His disciples’ presence, and addressed the critical issues of obediently forsaking all and shamelessly following Him (Mark 8:34-38). Preparing them for His demise was fundamental, but more so was the servant attitude that He was attempting to model for them when it came to fulfilling the will of His Father. Jesus repeated this lesson on two other successive occasions.
 
In each instant, Jesus foretold the manner of His death and His disciples immediately reacted without understanding, in challenging His position. Following the second encounter, He cautioned them to serve and respect everyone, even the children, who were the most disenfranchised at the time, and not be presumptuous over their privileged position as His disciples (Mark 9:30-50). Their retort to His final declaration was truly pathetic as soon as He informed them about His impending arrest - they began to quarrel among themselves, jockeying for leadership. Probably saddened, the Lord graciously directed their attention to the kingdom’s view of leadership style compared to this world’s (Mark 10:32-45). His departing shot most likely have stunned them into silence: “for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). That was not the end of the story. Mark continued to point out the disciples’ ingrained human self-centeredness that prevented them from believing their Lord through his whole Passion narrative (Mark 14: 12-15:50). After His betrayal, all His disciples deserted Him, with Peter denying Him, within Jesus’ earshot. The women followers were the only ones who were present at His crucifixion, burial and their discovery of the empty tomb.   
 
Mark portrays an awfully dim view of the disciples as these glaring disconnects are certainly not minor misconceptions on the disciples’ part, but a human problem hitting at the very root of Christ’s assertions about Himself as the divine Messiah from God and uncompromising nature of His kingdom. Much earlier on, the Lord might as well be speaking about His own disciples when He said, “so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand” (Mark 4:12). Trusting God goes beyond mere verbal acknowledgment. It requires a radical step to be listening to Him, in order to obey, and eventually staying faithful to the point of death: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me…” (Mark 8:34-38). The challenge of whether God is really their God remains as relevant then as it is now. This test will never cease!

Deuteronomy 4: 1 – 14
 
The Ten Commandments were not promulgated willy-nilly to the Israelites without a context; it would not fit into Yahweh’s normal customary preparation of His people for such an important disclosure. The groundwork began in earnest in Egypt; with their humiliation by the Egyptian overlords, the ten plagues, and their miraculous escape, just before their Negev exodus. Moses, the chosen leader, had an even more rapid orientation to what was on God’s mind than anyone else. God’s instructions for each event were specific, and obedience was expected. If we are listening and relating closely to Him, we will not miss His obvious incidental signals and cues of the advent of important events. I dare say, even what may appear inconsequential to us is significant in the eyes of the Almighty. Before giving them the Law, two cautions were included in the preamble: they were to listen carefully to His laws to perform them that they might live to possess the land, and they were not to forget the things they had seen all the days of their lives (Deut 4:1; Deut 4:9).
 
Deuteronomy encompassed Moses’ composite legal instructions from Yahweh to the fledgling Israelite nation after they crossed the Red Sea. None of us would ever dream of living under a lawless environment and in this case, as God had declared His love for His people as a nation, He was describing what it would entail for them to be in an intimate relationship with Him; He was, in fact, defining Himself (cf., Deut 5:6-21). The obvious impossibility is for man to be ‘god-like’ to keep His Commandments, hence the symbolism of blood sacrifices, that presage the definitive sacrifice of our Saviour, were required, before the Israelites could come before the Sanctuary. There were no other ways whereby fellowship with God could be secured (Heb 9:15-22; Heb 10:1-7). In gist, much later, God paid His own price with His life that we may be one with Him (Rom 5:6-11; c.f., John 17:21). The motive of the Commandments was to elicit humble obedience, and through it, intimacy with God. And like any child who unmistakably knows the boundaries his parents have set for him, where freedom and discipline will consistently flow from the child observing those limits. God’s relationship with ‘the apple of His eye’ (Zech 2:8) was illustrative of His broader intent with those who would follow Him in Christ.
 
“Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen, and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons” (Deut 4:9; c.f., Jer 31:33). Man is prone to forgetfulness simply due to our prevailing distractedness and self-absorption toward the cares of this world. The Israelites were not unfamiliar with the majestic acts of God during their migration from Egypt and through the wilderness, but it is man’s default mode to focus totally on an immediate distressing or fearful incident or object, thus overlooking God’s faithfulness, thereby discounting His ongoing Presence and commitment. Otherwise, there would be no necessity for this reminder by Moses (c.f., Jer 18:15; Jer 23:25-27). Moses re-emphasized this warning six times in Deuteronomy (Deut 4:23; Deut 6:12; Deut 8:11,14,19; Deut 11:18-20). 
 
It is significant that in Israel’s case, this forgetfulness invariably led to idolatry and into judgment (Ex 8:11-20; c.f., Ex 32:1-5), but she is not alone, as forgetting God’s faithfulness usually portents the beginning of our relational estrangement with our Creator. The antidote for spiritual malaise is to jealously guard our time with God, together with an intentional and disciplined awareness to listen and obediently follow through whatever He has for us each day. Hence, a healthy spiritual growth in Christ implies a consistent walk with His Holy Spirit during our earthly journey (c.f., Psalm 1).