Succintly - part 1
| 15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark1:15) |
In Mark's Gospel these are Jesus' first words. There's a lot of meaning squeezed into these three sentences. We'll look at the first one today.
1. The time has come: According to my dictionary, the Greek Word for time (kairos) indicates "occasion rather than extent." In other words Jesus was not saying that 33AD was a good period of history for the message to be preached (even though it was if we think about the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome), the common use of Greek worldwide and the network of roads and communication.)
What Jesus did was to bring each of His hearers face to face with the urgency of the decision that is needed. When it comes to making a decision concerning Christ, now and not tomorrow is the best time. Paul says a similar thing in 2Cor6:2 "I tell you, NOW is the time (kairos) of God's favor, now is the day of salvation."
This "occasion" comes to us as we are. So often people argue with the call of Christ on their lives: "I need to go and sort myself out first. I need to get my ducks in a row. I need to deal with this or that issue."
The other clue that the original Greek provides us is that the word used for "come" can also mean "been fulfilled" or "has been brought about." There is nothing accidental or incidental about it. When a kairos moment takes place in our lives, it is not by accident but by Divine Design!
CHALLENGE:
Jesus pronouncement of the Kingdom is an occasion and not a timescale. To what extent do we "procrastinate" doing serious business with God?? If you've been putting some aspect of your relationship with God on hold until a "better" time, why not sort it out now? It's Kairos!
