September 30, 2012 · Mark 9:38–50

Salted with Fire

"Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." "Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my…

“He uses the name of Jesus, and it worked. Now, this really upset John. There were twelve senior representatives of the master, and there's a proper order to things. They should have been consulted if anyone wanted to use the name of the master, because, you know, it could get confusing. I think there might even be a little bit more than this. If you read it in its context — it's one of the most important things to do with the scriptures. If you read Mark 9, it's really interesting. Just a little bit earlier, in Mark 9:28, there seems to be maybe a little bit of jealousy behind John's animosity, because what happens is there's this demon in someone, and they're trying to get rid of it, and they can't. … He replied, "Well, this kind can come out only by prayer." Oh, prayer — we didn't try that one. No, I think they did try that one, Jesus. So what's he doing? He's not just saying you should try a prayer. He's basically saying you need to have a life soaked in prayer. You have to be strong in prayer. You have to be consciously soaking yourself in the presence of God. Kind of like we do at the upper room. This idea of truly getting into prayer, getting into the deeper spiritual discipline. You need to do that well. When you hear this, Jesus is saying you've got to be strong in prayer to get this type of demon.”