When they ask Jesus to leave, he does so without any objection; Jesus ministry will not be imposed on those unwilling to receive it. Years earlier, when the ancient Israelis came to the border of the Promised Land, part of the eastern shore was controlled by the Geshurites (and the Maakathites) but Joshua told Israel to possess their land (Joshua 13:11-13). We use cookies to provide you with a great user experience. Without a doubt, both men know God never came up with the line, Put pork on your fork. My research shows swine kill poisonous snakes. The good pastor actually believes that a Jewish man can rationally decide the best sleeping quarters Tomb or no tomb? David did the same to a bear that took a sheep. This one verse alone, without all the extra proof from Jesuss joke, should convince us that his commandments are the 613 commandments of the Law of Moses. WebGerasene: [noun] an inhabitant of the ancient Palestinian town Gerasa. Scripture exhorts us to care for animals and not to be cruel to them. No, the Gentiles are not simply non-Jews. Gentiles are loved by God and redeemed by Jesus. While animal-abuse cases arent normally rampant among church-goers, its no thanks to this bishops official policy. But are these good pastors on the right track? The district of the Gerasenes probably included that of the Gadarenes; so that the demoniac of Gergesa belonged to the country of the Gadarenes and also to that of the Gerasenes, as the same person may, with equal truth, be said to live in the city or the state, or in the United States. Nothing we have belongs to us. Lord God, even as we sing this hymn, cause those who do not know Him to love Him and cause those who love Him to love Him more than anything else in this world. Was He asking us the impossible because He had nothing better to do or is He sadistic? They have therefore made important decisions about the proper treatment of animals. In the Book of Acts, Chapter Nineteen, we read about Demetrius, a Greek silver-statue maker, who was connecting a few dots of his own and had reasoned that a certain big-mouthed Jew was bad for business. What need have we of further witnesses? Yes, this man is extraordinary. To suggest God retracts or repeals laws tarnishes His Dignity. The thinking behind each chart is contrary to the unity and oneness of God. Before the war it was a Gentile settlement. He doesnt want to connect the dots and he doesn't want us to either. We should ask the good pastors if love thy neighbour as thyself has any bearing on killing your neighbours livestock. Note: Demetrius was angry only because of speculation of what Pauls preaching might do to business Paul had not physically caused any damage. Notice how Gods, Plus, when Jesus chased the sellers out of the Temple courts (. The story of the Gerasene demoniac thereby foreshadows the mission to the Gentiles that would begin in full force with the conversion of the Apostle Paul and Peter's ministry to Cornelius (Acts 910). The pastors attempts to laugh off the haunting question about the meek and lowly Son of Man killing all the pigs is pathetic. They dont care about about the demon possessed men, they want their pigs back, (My opinion) Jesus was raised with sacrifice so animals were thought of for food, not so much as pets like today. Being teachable is a great avenue for learning! Just remember the wonderful folks in Jesuss hometown? He also said after much work with people that was possess that most of them dealt in occult practices. This, by the way, is the miracle story that happens in Gentile land. Every place the Master went on his travels it was to minister to a Jew, just as Paul said, To the Jew first (Romans 1:16 and Romans 2:9-10; ever notice that the New Testament never mentions Christians, just Jews and Gentiles?! It's almost like the demons are inexorably drawn to Jesus. He stabbed in the day of his wrath the kings. So lets have an exquisite examination of Scripture to better appreciate what happened beside the lake and why the pigs ended up in it. The exorcism and the slaughter: Did they happen? The real irritation is people saying the Law was impossible to obey, when Scripture says the opposite it true. WebGerasa, Gadara or Gergesa (Luke 8;26, 37) As Jesus was climbing out of the boat, a man who was possessed by demons came out to meet Him. Excavations at the modern Jarash (by the British and American Schools of Oriental Research and Yale University) clearly show that Gerasa was a large and important city already in Jesus time. Dont demons like sheep? And from what I have heard, preferrably pig blood. Ellicotts Commentary, for one, believes the four Greek words were a latter addition. The account occurs in all three Synoptic gospels; in Mark (the shortest gospel) the story is in the longest and most detailed version; Matthew 8.2834 is the shortest, The action is no different than, Lets return again to when Jesus cleaned up the Temple courtyard of merchants and merchandise. Now the big-mouth irking this Greek artisan was our good friend, the Apostle Paul. Again, these classifications come from God, not man, and show up in Scripture as early as Genesis 7:1-9. III. Originally published in Tabletalk, our daily Bible study magazine. Gadarenes, Girgesenes, Gerasenes: (These three names are used indiscriminately to designate the place where Jesus healed two demoniacs. (Later, in Genesis 8:20, Noah sacrificed some of the clean animals to God as thank you offerings because their ship had come in! The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with Him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.. I would, however, be a little skeptical of stories about Jesus Himself visiting Spain. Well let's pray before we read God's Word together. evidence), Ye know that when ye were Gentiles ye were, &c. In this and the following verse the Apostle reminds his readers that so far from regarding the marvellous manifestations of the Spirit, such as speaking with tongues and prophesying, as the most wonderful miracles, the All we know now is that the demoniac could have been either: Jew or Gentile. Such a contradiction in character! ]. Money Maker Software enables you to conduct more efficient analysis in Stock, Commodity, Forex & Comex Markets. And Jews are forbidden by God and His eternal commands to own pigs. The hard hearts of those who reject Jesus. Instead they joke around and give pat answers. And why werent they demanding compensation for their pigs? Sign up now for the latest news and deals from Bible Gateway! And in Malachi 4:4, why did God say remember the Law of Moses if God had His own law? What pigs?? Isnt this what hes paid for? There he meets a man seized with an unclean spirit (Mark) or with demons (Luke). When people start putting a value on animal life equal to or higher than the value they put on human life, something is seriously wrong with the culture. (, Although the Almightys statement is only one sentence in, For I myself witness truthfully to everyone hearing the words of the prophecy of this book, , Besides Johns cute play on words dont, Also, Orthodox Jews see a clear connection between, This curse should deter makers of dispensational charts from chopping up Scripture because having my share taken from the Book of Life, or my name , Also, Johns emphasis do not take away from , As a result, our biggest take-away lesson is to never take away from the Word of the Almighty.But dispensational-flavoured pastors ignore this and teach us that Moses and David and even Jesus lived by different rules. Even so, the Bible never puts the worth of animals on the same level as the worth of human You don't have to look very far. When Jesus said that he had not came to destroy the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17), he was not talking to the Jews who already knew the Law was permanent, he was looking into future centuries and talking to those Christians who would try to destroy it. The land of the Gerasenes was on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced searchad free! I beg You, do not torment me. For He (that is, Jesus) had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Some of my Christian brothers and sisters see this as coded language referring to a confrontation with the political and military power of Rome. This made them fit for consumption. This verse alone puts an interesting twist on the oft-quoted man was not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath was made for man because originally Scripture makes the point that the Sabbath is for man and mans animals. In the Book of Acts, Chapter Nineteen, we read about Demetrius, a Greek silver-statue maker, who was connecting a few dots of his own and had reasoned that a certain big-mouthed Jew was bad for business. We pray that he would find liberation in Jesus Christ and see his life and family restored, but my friends, any one of us, any one of us, can be in the same thralldom today. There are echoes of exodus in Marks story, and echoes of Davids battle with Goliath. And they are no more capable of liberating themselves than this man was capable of liberating himself from this host of demons. If you have your Bibles I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 8 and this great story of the man who was possessed by demons, liberated by the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, when it came to sacrifices on it, the menu was even shorter. 2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. ix. He wrote under his own name, and also as John Oxenham for his poetry, hymn-writing, and novels. And if I remember correctly, I think there is some tradition about other Apostles going to Spain. Many of the events are corroborated by other authors. Origen says this is a good example of how Biblical writers simply were not concerned to precisely identify certain sites. Also, Demetrius only needed to speak a few choice words against the Jew (compare with Act 19:34), to get the crowd all worked up the silversmith didnt have any real evidence that Pauls preaching was going to slow sales. Now do you see how silly the Jesus-kept-the-Law-perfectly statement is? He didnt give any new commandment. I love irritating those charlatans who pretend the Law of God is somehow different than the Law of Moses. Download Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1 Framework. They know that Jesus can cast them into the abyss, into the lake of fire, into the bowels of hell, and theyre frightened. But this is not the full explanation or the main one. First of all theyre forgetting that Jesus Himself has already said that His Heavenly Father cares even about the sparrows that fall from their nests. But we should never get too smug, thinking that we have corned the market on truth. Now, if a Jew can be treated so badly by fellow Jews, lets put on our thinking caps and imagine what happens to a Jew walking straight into a big group of Gentiles. Thou lovest men, we love swine. Many of you have seen, maybe fewer of you have read, a book by the famous British philosopher and skeptic, Bertrand Russell. To top it off, Jesuss farmers see Jesus and see their property floating belly up in the surf, but they dont throw him after them! Unfortunately, Pastor John is not alone, joking at the expense of this tragedy. Every creature on land, or in the water, or in the air is classified by either the Hebrew term, (tahor), meaning ritually clean/pure, or by the term, (tameh), unclean/defiling. The entire herd ran straight off a cliff and drowned. Jun 21, 2021. Of course not. And was the Master doing the right thing sacrificing someone elses pigs. He showed mercy to the men who were possessed and brought judgement on the pig farmers. Yet a complete interpretation of Mark 5 needs to clear up one last point: the pigs were forbidden but did they have to be destroyed? (But that may sadly describe a good number of Christians.) Ill take Mark at his word; hes thinking of an army of demons, not an army of human soldiers. We said the last time that we were together that in Luke 8 you begin four miracle stories, all of which either happen in Galilee or in Gentile lands. The apostle had been busy preaching in Demetriuss hometown of Ephesus and Pauls message about the one true God was catching on. It's entitled, Why I Am Not A Christian. He dispatched Lucius Annius with a force of cavalry and an army of foot soldiers, who took the city on the first attack, slaughtering a thousand young men, taking their families captive, plundering and burning the city and the surrounding towns (Jos. Sproul also agrees with this preference of people over pigs when he writes, a man is worth more than 2,000 pigs.. If Paul got himself into hot water because of a Gentile speculating about declining silver sales, how could Jesus have avoided a ton of hot water for killing hundreds of Gentile-owned swine? The real irritation is people saying the Law was impossible to obey, when Scripture says the opposite it true. The Law of God states that the Sabbath is a day of rest for all livestock (Deuteronomy 5:14). And guess what this week's focus is on? Why doesn't the good pastor entertain that avenue of possibility or is he too busy making one-liners to connect any dots? Herod had massive building projects all over Israel. This town is not to be confused with either Gerasa or Gadara. Lots of non-Jews lived there. And not only that, he's about to be a witnessing disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. If our faithful, unchanging Heavenly Father God made a straightforward decisive yet divisive decision and repeated it over and over and over, then why cant the good pastors connect the dots and figure out Jesuss real relationship to the pigs? And that permanence of the Law matches well with the fact that the first time, and the second, He wrote the Ten Commandments in stone: Exodus 31:18 and again, Exodus 34:1. All of these commandments and more are still taken literally by many Jews today. Jesus is equating his commandments which can only be the ones in the Law of Moses, because he gave no commandments in the Gospels with his Fathers commandments in the Five Books of Moses. Suddenly, Mark 5 is clear. Luke 1:6 says, [Zachariah and Elisabeth] were both righteous before God, walking in all of the commandments and judgements of the LORD, guiltless. Sound like perfect obedience to me. But thrice is no dice if we dont understand the reason or the message behind the event. You understand that Legion is not his name. The Syrians made reprisals, and took many prisoners. Christians never finish reading the chapter. Post the Definition of Gerasene to Facebook, Share the Definition of Gerasene on Twitter, More than 250,000 words that aren't in our free dictionary, Expanded definitions, etymologies, and usage notes. But Christianity early became important in the city; several churches were built during these centuries, so that by the 5th cent., Gerasa could send a bishop to the Council of Chalcedon. Pig meat, according to Scripture, is as, Suddenly, Mark 5 is clear. Owning those defiling animals was illegal and having two thousand head, the farmers were more than flouting the Law that Jesus had not came to destroy but to fulfill (Matthew 5:17). in which he transferred the demons afflicting a man to a number of swine, that thereupon In the 2nd cent. The other part of the eastern shoreline was controlled by Og, king of Bashan, but it and sixty walled cities were taken from them by Moses and given to the tribes of Israel (Deuteronomy 3:1-7, 16; compare with 1 Kings 4:13). Jerash (aka Gerasa, Gerash or Gerasha) is the capital and the largest city of the Jerash Governorate in Jordan, but in ancient times it was one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities in the ancient Near East.Settled by humans as early as the Neolithic period (c. 7500-5500 BCE) and founded as a Hellenistic city in the 2nd century BCE, Jerash is 9 My question is: Its the exodus that Jesus has come to lead, an exodus from slavery to the prince of this world. Gerasa is identified from various sources as a city in Arabia, Decapolis, Gilead, or Perea. Sinai. WebApparently Gerasa was rebuilt by the Romans before the revolt began, prob. Mr. Hippo read Mark 5 and convinced himself that Jesus did not care about swine, or any other animals, and therefore, spread a church doctrine that Christians have no genuine duty to animals. Thats really why they were sent. Yet being part of the Godhead means Messiah cannot not flip-flop his opinions. But should you also doubt, my friendly blog reader, read on. 1), and apparently occupied these cities with Jewish patriots. The action is no different than Revelation 14:14-15 where we see the Son of Man brandishing a sharp sickle. However, it is anticipated that the following verses will be thrown up as excuses, as pat answers, and as proof that God has changed, the Law is fulfilled (a.k.a. Because in all of Holy Writ, the phrase first appears in Leviticus 11 (Leviticus 11:44) right after God talks about clean/pure meats. Therefore he had every right to judge the Jews and how they used land. Their dead bodies you must not touch. Somewhere I read that that region actually raised pigs and worshipped them or considered them as idols so study about the region and style of worship for that region.
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