Study Desk

One Sabbath Jesus and his disciples were walking through some wheat fields. His disciples were picking grains of wheat as they went along.

The Pharisees wanted to accuse Jesus of doing something wrong, and they kept watching to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath.

Jesus was angry as he looked around at the people. Yet he felt sorry for them because they were so stubborn. Then he told the man, "Stretch out your hand." He did, and his bad hand was healed.

The Pharisees left. And right away they started making plans with Herod's followers to kill Jesus.

and Jerusalem. People came from Idumea, as well as other places east of the Jordan River. They also came from the region around the cities of Tyre and Sidon. All of these crowds came because they had heard what Jesus was doing.

And whenever any evil spirits saw Jesus, they would fall to the ground and shout, "You are the Son of God!"

Jesus decided to ask some of his disciples to go up on a mountain with him, and they went.

When Jesus' family heard what he was doing, they thought he was crazy and went to get him under control.

Jesus' mother and brothers came and stood outside. Then they sent someone with a message for him to come out to them.

But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and dried up, because they did not have enough roots.

Some other seeds fell where thornbushes grew up and choked out the plants. So they did not produce any grain.

When Jesus was alone with the twelve apostles and some others, they asked him about these stories.

The reason is, "These people will look and look, but never see. They will listen and listen, but never understand. If they did, they would turn to God, and he would forgive them."

But they don't have any roots, and they don't last very long. As soon as life gets hard or the message gets them in trouble, they give up.

But they start worrying about the needs of this life. They are fooled by the desire to get rich and to have all kinds of other things. So the message gets choked out, and they never produce anything.

The seeds that fell on good ground are the people who hear and welcome the message. They produce thirty or sixty or even a hundred times as much as was planted.

Jesus used many other stories when he spoke to the people, and he taught them as much as they could understand.

So they left the crowd, and his disciples started across the lake with him in the boat. Some other boats followed along.

Now they were more afraid than ever and said to each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

Jesus let them go, and they went out of the man and into the pigs. The whole herd of about two thousand pigs rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.