As we started discussing in our last time together, Mark 5 is an amazing account of three miracles of Jesus. Michael Card wrote “Each individual described in Mark 5 is being held captive: one by demons, one by disease and one by death.” It will take us a few classes to work our way through all of this chapter so we will go back to that quote from Card several times. I think that it is important for us to see that the events and the way that Mark writes of them all build upon each other, from the calming of the sea to the casting out of a legion of demons to the healing of the woman with the issue of blood to the resurrection of Jarius’ daughter Jesus is being revealed by the leading of the Father. Each action shows more of His compassion, His power, His authority and His identity. The disciples are fearful because they have never seen anyone have authority over nature, an entire region is fearful because they have never seen anyone have authority over evil, a woman is fearful because she had never seen anyone have authority over her disease and a father was fearful because he didn’t know that anyone could have authority over death. In each instance people saw Jesus as more than a man, a prophet or a miracle worker they saw Him in His authority as Creator, as Messiah and as Lord. It is important that we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what it is about Jesus that He desires to reveal in each instance, in each Scripture we read. To again take us back to our last lesson, John 20:31 says “these [accounts] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” The purpose of the Scripture is to reveal Jesus. If we approach this thoughtfully the Scripture itself makes this clear. Jesus said that the purpose of the Holy Spirit was to glorify the Son, the Scripture says of itself that it was all God-breathed (meaning spoken by the Spirit) so if the Spirit’s goal is the glory and revelation of Jesus and He breathed the Scriptures doesn’t that necessitate that the purpose of Scripture is the glory and revelation of Jesus? We are not reading a book about humanity, or a rule book or a guide book, while all those things can be found within, the purpose of Scripture is for man to see Jesus as the Son of God, in that context everything else flows, outside of that context everything else gets abused. I share that little tangent tonight as we get started because I don’t want us to get lost in the details of miracles or in the things we still don’t understand (there are many) but instead to read with a watchful eye that sees Jesus in His glory so that we can continue to be amazed by Him and desire to love Him with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength.