Study Desk

Later on Jesus was having a meal in Levi's house. A large number of tax collectors and other outcasts was following Jesus, and many of them joined him and his disciples at the table.

Some teachers of the Law, who were Pharisees, saw that Jesus was eating with these outcasts and tax collectors, so they asked his disciples, "Why does he eat with such people?"

Jesus was walking through some wheat fields on a Sabbath. As his disciples walked along with him, they began to pick the heads of wheat.

Jesus answered, "Have you never read what David did that time when he needed something to eat? He and his men were hungry,

so he went into the house of God and ate the bread offered to God. This happened when Abiathar was the High Priest. According to our Law only the priests may eat this bread—but David ate it and even gave it to his men."

Jesus and his disciples went away to Lake Galilee, and a large crowd followed him. They had come from Galilee, from Judea,

The crowd was so large that Jesus told his disciples to get a boat ready for him, so that the people would not crush him.

James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee (Jesus gave them the name Boanerges, which means "Men of Thunder");

Then Jesus went home. Again such a large crowd gathered that Jesus and his disciples had no time to eat.

When his family heard about it, they set out to take charge of him, because people were saying, "He's gone mad!"

"No one can break into a strong man's house and take away his belongings unless he first ties up the strong man; then he can plunder his house.

Jesus went on to say, "The Kingdom of God is like this. A man scatters seed in his field.

When the grain is ripe, the man starts cutting it with his sickle, because harvest time has come.

Jesus preached his message to the people, using many other parables like these; he told them as much as they could understand.

He would not speak to them without using parables, but when he was alone with his disciples, he would explain everything to them.

On the evening of that same day Jesus said to his disciples, "Let us go across to the other side of the lake."

Jesus was in the back of the boat, sleeping with his head on a pillow. The disciples woke him up and said, "Teacher, don't you care that we are about to die?"

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Why are you frightened? Do you still have no faith?"

Jesus and his disciples arrived on the other side of Lake Galilee, in the territory of Gerasa.

many times his feet and his hands had been tied, but every time he broke the chains and smashed the irons on his feet. He was too strong for anyone to control him.