Our Two Intercessors

Continuing reflection on Romans 8 and particularly the intercession of the Spirit.
Romans 8 is a passage about eschatological tension, and our groaning flows out of looking forward to the glorious hope of the revelation of the sons of God.
The groans of the Spirit are an acceptable prayer to the Father, because they express our eschatological yearning, for Christ to return, for our adoption, for our freedom and for our redeemed bodies. It is a forward looking prayer, concerning ultimately the work of the Spirit Himself, namely our uniting to Christ, our sanctification and the renewal of all things. It is a prayer from earth, because the Spirit is with and in us.
Contrast that with the heavenly intercession of Christ: not on earth, but before heaven's throne. Although I can't find where John Owen gets it from, he argues that it is also unspeaking, the showing of His Calvary wounds; that would be an interesting half-similarity, half-difference to the Spirit's groans. Christ's intercession is also not forward, but backward-looking, looking back to Calvary, to redemption not future but past and complete. And like the Spirit's intercession concerned the Spirit's work, so Christ's intercession concerns His own work.
In this intercession we see therefore the communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each in their common cause and in their genuine trialogue concerned for their own ministry to bring glory to the unity. And we see how dependent we are on a sovereign Trinity to save us: for without Christ's intercession, why should we benefit from His Cross, and given that we don't know how to pray in line with God's will (Romans 8:26), without the Spirit's intercession, how would we make any progress in the Christian life?
Praise God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, our saving Trinity, for their pursuit of their own glory in the demonstration of their saving grace and power!

The Bad Guys in Mark's Gospel ...

... are the disciples.
Whoa.
What do you think of that?
We've just reached as a homegroup Mark 8:1-26, as we approach the section I'll be leading the teaching on in a few weeks time. We focused today on how sinful the disciples are. But I've been noticing it everywhere. Twice they feed large crowds and twice they don't understand about the loaves (6:52; 8:21), they try to stop other people from being involved in the mission of Jesus (9:38-41), they won't let children come to Jesus (10:13-16), they argue about who's greatest, try and bagsy the best places in heaven and eventually they all abandon Him before the cross, Peter nosediving spectacularly from "have-a-go hero" to being petrified (pun completely intended).
But right now I am blown away by Mark 8:18: "having eyes do you not see and having ears do you not hear?" Compare that with Mark 4:11-12, in which Jesus says that the secrets of the kingdom have been revealed to them but the parables are for the outsiders who ever seeing do not perceive and ever hearing do not understand. The disciples, for all the time Jesus has spent with them and invested in them, are too hard of heart (8:17). If you combine Jesus' critique of the heart in 7:20-23 and His experience of the hearts of the disciples, carefully brought together in chapters 6 to 8 of Mark alongside healing miracles among the unclean Gentiles, you have as clear a narrative case for the doctrines of total depravity and of regeneration (need of) as you could ever get.

Exegeting Mark 9:14-10:51 - a journey

Over the next few days I'll be preparing a couple of talks, one a Sunday all-age talk and the other a midweek seminar for Christians wanting in-depth study, on Mark 9:14-10:51. The Sunday talk just focuses on the rich young ruler, but I want to cover over the days I work at the passage the different elements to my study.
I sat down this afternoon and read the section in the ESV. I was actually supposed to stop at 10:31, but I couldn't, as I started to note in the sections I was reading echoes of the section afterwards. This is my conclusion:

9:14-29 Miracle associated with faith

9:30-32 Announcement of sufferings

9:33-37 Argument over who is greatest/"servant of all"

9:38-50 Disciples try to stop something and Jesus rebukes them

10:1-9 Argument with Pharisees over law

10:10-12 conversation continues with disciples

10:13-16 Disciples try to stop something and Jesus rebukes them

10:17-22 Discussion with rich young man over law

10:23-31 conversations continues with disciples

10:32-34 Announcement of sufferings

10:35-45 Argument over places in heaven/"servant of all"

10:46-51 Miracle associated with faith

Now what do I do? Feel free to help!