GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 3:23
Putting Out a Fire
Imagine a man awakened during the night by the smell of smoke. He checks his room—nothing there. He goes through the house room by room, tracing the smell until he comes to the kitchen. There, on the stove, is a fire. So he sits at the table and ponders about fire. Is this actually a fire, or is he still in bed dreaming? What does it take to make a fire? He thinks. First, there must be a consumable; he considers the consumables available. Second, there must be oxygen, and that must be available because he is breathing. Third, there must be a source of ignition, which he considers. He scratches his head, deep in thought.
“No!” the sensible person shouts. “There’s a fire! Get a hose and begin dousing the fire. Get a fire extinguisher! Call 911! Use everything available to put out the fire!”
Or maybe the imaginary man is a die-hard optimist like Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s story Candide, who always said that this was the best of all possible worlds no matter how much suffering and misfortune there was. Everything happens for the best. So maybe this fire is for the best; it will necessitate the renovation of the kitchen.
“No! The fire will burn the whole house. Put it out now!”
According to St. Mark, the teachers of the law said Jesus was a tool of Beelzebul (or Beelzebub in some translations). He taught and performed miracles by the power of Beelzebul. “And after he called them, he began to speak to them in parables, ‘How is Satan able to drive out Satan?’” (Mark 3:23) Neither the teachers of the law nor Jesus denied the existence of evil or the existence of Beelzebul or Satan. Jesus did not engage his critics in a ponerological debate (the study of evil) or hamartiology (the study of sin).
Before wrapping oneself in Paul’s variously interpreted Romans 8:28, it’s good to remember that Jesus didn’t deny the existence of believers’ spiritual arch-enemy, and hence the existence of evil. He did demonstrate, over and over, the power of the Father to defeat evil, sickness, and pain.
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