Light is Given to be Shared

In this part of the sermon: Martin analyzes the questions in Mark 4:21, examining the common household objects (lamp, bushel, bed, stand) in their cultural context. He emphasizes that the questions have…

Describes the common earthenware lamp of Jesus's day, like a gravy boat with a wick, to help the audience visualize the 'lamp' in the passage.

Well, obviously, not a lamp that had batteries in it or that had a cord that you'd plug into the wall, nor was it a candle, as the old authorized translates it, but it was a lamp, something like you've seen pictures of. The Aladdin's lamp sort of looked like a gravy boat, with a pinched lip, and a wick would be drawn out of it, and often there would be an opening at the top, sometimes two openings, one for air and one in which the oil was placed, but it was made of earthenware, inexpensive earthenware, sort of a terracotta, clay-type lamp, and it would be a common household item, and apparentl...

14:33 - 16:01 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin analyzes the questions in Mark 4:21, examining the common household objects (lamp, bushel, bed, stand) in their cultural context. He emphasizes that the questions have…

Compares the 'bushel' (a peck measure) to a bedroom wastebasket to make its size and function relatable for the audience.

We are told that the matios was a Roman measuring instrument or vessel equal to about one-fourth of a bushel, approximately our pet, sort of be like the wastebasket that you have in your bedroom, and in every home, they would have this to use when they went to market, didn't have supermarkets where you had scales and everything were weighed on them. So if you were to buy a certain commodity, you would take your bushel, your peck measure with you in order to measure out your dry goods. So every household would know what the bushel was. Now, what about this matter of the bed?

16:01 - 16:41 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin analyzes the questions in Mark 4:21, examining the common household objects (lamp, bushel, bed, stand) in their cultural context. He emphasizes that the questions have…

Explains the 'bed' as a thin mattress/pallet or a couch, helping the audience understand the type of object Jesus referred to and the varying graphicness of hiding a lamp under it.

Was it referring to a waterbed or a platform bed or a hide-a-bed? No, the word is used most often, in the New Testament, to describe that thin little mattress like a pallet or like a thicker sleeping bag that would be rolled up when not in use and put to one side and then rolled out at night in order to sleep on. Sometimes the word is used to describe what would be more like our couches, and it was those couches that would be put up alongside a table, and in the Gospels you will read of certain ones who were reclining at meat, that is reclining as they ate, upon a bed or upon a couch. And it's...

16:41 - 17:46 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin analyzes the questions in Mark 4:21, examining the common household objects (lamp, bushel, bed, stand) in their cultural context. He emphasizes that the questions have…

Describes a simple stone shelf on a column in Pakistan as an example of a 'stand' in a poor home, illustrating how a lamp would be elevated for maximum light.

And then what about the stand? Well, the stand is a very important part of this. stand in an ordinary poor home would often simply be, and I saw something similar to this in Pakistan, where there was a support column made of some form of stone or stone and masonry. They would simply have one stone stuck out a little further, a flat stone that would be like a built-in shelf on a column. The same way as if this pulpit were simply this size straight down and this little shelf was out, that could be the stand on which they would place the lamp. It would be up high enough so that the light of the l...

17:46 - 18:39 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin analyzes the questions in Mark 4:21, examining the common household objects (lamp, bushel, bed, stand) in their cultural context. He emphasizes that the questions have…

Compares a wealthy home's lampstand to modern plant stands, helping the audience visualize a separate, decorative item for holding a lamp.

And then what about the stand? Well, the stand is a very important part of this. stand in an ordinary poor home would often simply be, and I saw something similar to this in Pakistan, where there was a support column made of some form of stone or stone and masonry. They would simply have one stone stuck out a little further, a flat stone that would be like a built-in shelf on a column. The same way as if this pulpit were simply this size straight down and this little shelf was out, that could be the stand on which they would place the lamp. It would be up high enough so that the light of the l...

17:46 - 18:39 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin analyzes the questions in Mark 4:21, examining the common household objects (lamp, bushel, bed, stand) in their cultural context. He emphasizes that the questions have…

A hypothetical scenario of a servant bringing in a lighted lamp and then covering it with a bushel or bed, demonstrating the absurdity of hiding light and making the point that the lamp's purpose is to illuminate.

dark at night. Company is coming. And people want to go into what we would call the sitting room or the parlor, which would simply be a relatively bare room. And again, I have seen these things. I've seen these things. I've seen these things. I've seen these things.

19:37 - 19:48 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin analyzes the questions in Mark 4:21, examining the common household objects (lamp, bushel, bed, stand) in their cultural context. He emphasizes that the questions have…

An analogy of a mother lighting candles during a power outage and placing them strategically, not under a wastebasket, to illustrate the common-sense purpose of light.

storm and all you had was some candles and mommy went to the cupboard and got the candles and lit them. After she lit the candle, what would she do with it? Would she take and put it underneath the wastebasket so you couldn't see its light? Of course not. She would put it on a candlestick somewhere where it would give the most possible light. So, the question has an obvious answer. No, you do not illuminate or light up a lamp in order to bury the lamp to its light under a bushel, under a peck measure, or under a bed. And then he asks the second question, is it not brought in to be placed on a ...

21:49 - 22:49 Read in full sermon

Driving home: This secrecy is but a temporary expedient in order to secure the widest possible proclamation of truth in days to come.

Compares Jesus's inner circle to Greek philosophers who had 'initiated ones' to whom they passed secrets, to highlight and correct the misconception that Jesus's teaching method was about creating an exclusive society.

And this was continued right through this segment, verse 34 of the same chapter, without a parable, speaking not unto them, but privately, in secret, in the hidden place, to His own disciples, He expounded all things. But lest any of His followers get the notion that Jesus was raising up a following, like many of the Greek philosophers did, who would gather around them those whom they called the initiated ones, those to whom they would pass on their secrets, and outsiders could only drool and could never be included, lest they would have any notion that this drawing of His own into an inner ci...

25:52 - 27:09 Read in full sermon

The point: My unconverted friend you must hear. You now have before you the secrets of those garden discourses, the intimacies of the upper room, the full revelation of those things which in the days of His flesh were only known by…

Compares the once-hidden 'secrets of those garden discourses' and 'intimacies of the upper room' to 'precious statements stored up in someone's safe deposit box' that are now 'placarded upon the billboards of any highway of life,' emphasizing the open proclamation of the Gospel.

You now have before you the secrets of those garden discourses, the intimacies of the upper room, the full revelation of those things which in the days of His flesh were only known by our Lord and His inner circle. They've now become common domain. Common domain! Where once they were like precious statements stored up in someone's safe deposit box.

34:34 - 35:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Whatever light is given to us in the context of our peculiar intimacy with Christ and his word is given that we might put it in the place of most prominent display.

Quotes Bishop Ryle's commentary on Mark 4:21-25, reinforcing the principle that religious light is given not for oneself alone but to be spread and diffused to others, challenging the idea that only clergy should teach.

That's the message of the passage. Whatever light is given to us in virtue of our more intimate attachment to Christ, we are under solemn obligations to put it in the place of maximum display. And I can do no better than read from Bishop Ryle's comment on this passage in which he extracts this as the major principle. We learn from these verses that we ought not only to receive knowledge but impart it to others.

37:45 - 38:24 Read in full sermon

The point: To do good and diffuse light is a duty for which all members of Christ's church are responsible whether ministers or laymen.

An analogy of neighbors telling neighbors about an unfailing remedy for the plague, illustrating the urgency and naturalness of sharing the 'medicine for their souls' (the Gospel).

Neighbors ought to tell neighbors if they have found an unfailing remedy in time of the plague. Christians ought to tell others they have found medicine for their souls. If they see them ignorant and dying for lack of it what saith the apostle Peter? As every man has received the gift even so minister the same one to another.

39:27 - 39:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold up your lamp before men, hold it up fearlessly, let it shine, but do not dash it into anybody's face.

Quotes a wise old seminary teacher: 'Young man, hold up your lamp before men, hold it up fearlessly, let it shine, but do not dash it into anybody's face.' This provides practical guidance on how to share the Gospel effectively and graciously.

I close with a very cryptic word that I found in one of the commentators this particular man who wrote back in the 1800s mentioned that when he was in seminary in a foreign country a certain a certain wise old man who was teaching him said this to him I quote young man hold up your lamp before men hold it up fearlessly let it shine but do not dash it into anybody's face that says it all hold up your lamp before men hold it up fearlessly in that school in that shop across the back fence in every situation where you can wisely under the impulse of the enterprising love of Christ and burden for t...

44:18 - 45:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold up your lamp before men, hold it up fearlessly, let it shine, but do not dash it into anybody's face.

Uses Jesus's interaction with the immoral woman (likely the Samaritan woman at the well) as an example of how to deal with people in a 'God-honoring, Christ-like way,' making them feel at ease to draw them to truth and mercy.

we are not advocating that kind of coarse God dishonoring un-Christ like way of dealing with men no we're advocating doing what Jesus did when in the presence of an immoral woman he made her feel at ease long enough to be able to draw the conversation around to living water to see what our Lord Jesus did when with a cast off of society standing under the condemnation of all of her peers he drew her to the place where she was prepared to forsake her sin as well as embrace his mercy when he said go sin no more neither do I condemn thee dear people God has privileged us to receive much light and ...

45:45 - 47:07 Read in full sermon