Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

After the events we discussed yesterday and read about again today, the

Triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the cleansing of the temple, Jesus and his

apostles go to the outskirts of Jerusalem to spend the night,

maybe even at the home of their friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus who live in the village of Bethany.

The next morning as they're heading back into the city, they pass the fig tree Jesus cursed.

Peter's like, whoa, check it out, it's withered down to the root.

And while this is actually a bad sign, as far as the imagery for Israel is concerned,

Jesus takes the opportunity to redeem the image.

He turns it into an object lesson for Peter, pointing out aspects of faith and prayer and forgiveness that he expounds on more elsewhere in scripture.

Since Jesus covers these topics at length in other spots,

we won't dive into them much here except to offer this quick reminder. The first

rule of scripture interpretation is that scripture interprets scripture. So we have to be careful not to isolate these passages from everything else Jesus says when he teaches on these things,

or we'll end up with an incomplete doctrine and a skewed theology.

These verses on prayer aren't just giving us the power to make things

happen if we believe them strong enough. This is not putting the onus on you to

create enough faith in yourself. And the verses on forgiveness can make it sound like some kind of work we have to do to earn our way into a relationship with God.

Neither of those things are what the greater teaching of scripture says in these areas, so these verses must be viewed in light of those other verses.

Hold these things with an open hand for now if you're still confused, and we'll dig into them more as we keep reading.

At some point that week, Mary and Martha and Lazarus make dinner for Jesus and his Apostles.

As usual, Martha is being Martha, doing the work.

Lazarus is hanging out and talking to Jesus and the guys, and Mary is being Mary, cherishing every second with Jesus.

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