Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

Have you ever struggled with a particular scripture passage? I have, many times. I remember struggling with Mark 11:12–14 after reading it for the first time. It gave the perception that Jesus was being petty.

I have had people say to me that they don’t read the bible because they find it difficult to understand it. I have been fortunate to attend churches that have encouraged me to belief that I was intelligent enough to read the Bible for myself and that the Holy Spirit would be able to help me interpret it correctly. So I have never shied away from reading God’s Word.

However, every now and then I would meet with a passage that challenged my thoughts and feelings. Some passages felt too difficult to accept. At times it was because they spoke about an area where I was conflicted. It wasn’t saying what I wanted it to say, so I wanted to cut it out of the bible and create something like the Jeffersonian Bible. Then at other times, it just didn’t make sense. Rarely however did I find a passage difficult because it portrayed Jesus in a way that seemed strange. In Mark 11:12–14 my first thought as I read about him cursing the fig tree was, “well that was so petty.”

I had the image in my head of the commercial where the person gets out of character because they were “hangry”. Was Jesus just hangry? The scripture said that he was hungry and that he walked a distance to a fig tree that was in leaf hoping to get something from it to eat. When he reached the tree he found only leaves but no fruit so he cursed the tree so that no one would eat from it again. The scripture took pains to note that it wasn’t the season for the fruits in the first place. So what’s the deal with cursing the poor fig tree?

This scripture bothered me for years. It really went against all I knew and believed about Jesus and the way he loves his people, his righteousness and fairness. It didn’t seem fair for him to curse the tree, what had the poor tree done, it was preparing to have fruit in season, wasn’t it? It had leaves, so it had potential. Why curse it just because you are hungry!

One thing I believe about reading scripture is that all scripture is purposeful and intentional (2 Timothy 3:16–17). With that belief I started to dig into the reasons why this scripture was there and…

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