I wanted to understand our theme verse (Mark 12:30) this year, so I reread that chapter of Mark one day; here are some take-away and random observations:
-It’s the second part of Jesus’s response to a scribe (a really, really educated scholar dude who has something like a PhD in Old Testament law studies)
-Jesus’s answer to what is the greatest commandment comprises of a two part command of knowing and responding (28)
-First, we must know that God is one and that there is no other God or object that is worthy of a Christian’s worship. (29)
-Second, we must act on this knowledge and love the Lord with all our Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength; in a sense that’s all we have, those are the only facets of humanity that we can control (like there’s not much else we can do). We must give our all to God if we truly believe that there is no other God to worship, or is worthy. (30)
-We’re also given a warning, to beware of fakers who look the part and do certain things outwardly (with their all… some of their strength?) but are not genuine (with not all their) mind, heart, or soul are being actually there. Basically avoid this, because the punishment is deadly. (40)
-Then we’re presented with an actual illustration of these fakers contrasted with someone who’s genuine. There’re these people who glean from their comfortable surplus; whereas, there’s a widow who gives all she has, “two small copper coins”. (41-42)
‘Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”’ (43-44)
tl;dr: In the passage, Jesus teaches about the greatest commandment, gives some words of cautions, and points out a person who lives out what Jesus has just taught.
Also, some miscellaneous trivia:
1) My penmanship is pretty illegible; once, a TA had me read out my midterm answers so she could score it.
2) My favorite punctuation mark is a semicolon ( ; ) because it can be used to connect a string of thoughts, can sometimes take the place of because, and it's stronger than a comma, but not weaker than a period. Plus, it’s used for conjunctions and I really like conjunctions.
3) I really like the book East of Eden because it invokes a pastoral, peaceful vibe.
4) At restaurants, Starbucks, or places that ask for your name I usually use a single-syllabic name (e.g. Fred, John, Tim) because it’s easier to pronounce and spell than Enoch. But one time, the employee asked me for my name name because I looked familiar, so I told her “Um, my name’s actually not Fred” and she was like “Oh, yeah Fred, that's such a serious name.”
5) Two of my good friends became engaged last weekend, so really happy for them:
6) I messed around a lot in class during high school, so almost couldn’t graduate:
7) Eating lunch at Mark Keppel:
8) My brother from another mother (actually Josh's brother):
8) Random picture of Jacob:
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