Overcoming Our Inconsistency
“They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
Mark 1:27
Two weeks have passed since we rang in the New Year. If you are like most Americans, you probably set New Year resolutions. How is it going? Have you been faithful to the resolutions that you set? Not to discourage you, but according to U.S. New & World Reports, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by mid-February. It’s one thing to write down goals, but quite another to put them into action. The key, of course, is consistency.
Jesus was good at being consistent—at putting His teaching into action. In Mark 1, Jesus impressed the crowds with His teaching. While Jesus has many titles, e.g., Son of God, Messiah, Lord, King of Kings, etc., the title of “teacher” is perhaps the most common. Of the 90 times Jesus was addressed directly in the Gospels, 60 times He was called “teacher.” Jesus Himself used the term when He said, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am.” (John 13:13)
Yet, Jesus was much more than a teacher of philosophy or dispenser of moral platitudes. His teaching had authority. We get a glimpse of this in Mark 1:21-26, where, just after teaching in a synagogue, Jesus confronts a man with an unclean spirit. Jesus says to him, “Be silent, and come out of him!” Mark then tells us that “the unclean spirit…came out of him.” Jesus put His words into action. Eugene Peterson’s translation of Mark summarizes the incident this way: “The crowds were amazed because Jesus had backed up his teaching with action…”
When we think about the issue of staying true to what we believe--living out our faith--we immediately recognize a problem. We often fail to live in ways that are consistent with what we believe. We’re all hypocrites in some way or another.
Christianity is good news for the inconsistent person. Jesus came to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He lived a life that was consistent. He practiced what He preached. Jesus offers us hope to all of us who might fail, or stumble, or not live up to what we believe. Because in Jesus, our inconsistency is made consistent. The kingdom of God has come and with it, “A new teaching that does what it says?”
