From Romans 8:35, we learn that nothing in creation can separate believers from the powerful, active love of Christ, despite life's severe hardships like tribulation, famine, danger, or persecution, offering profound assurance and a call to unwavering faith, knowing God's love turns even suffering into triumph. It's a promise of unbreakable divine love and support, not a guarantee of a life free from pain, but a certainty of being held through it.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans 8:35-39 provides the ultimate assurance that nothing can separate believers from God's love in Christ. The passage represents the grand climax of Romans 8, emphasizing that no tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword can separate Christians from Christ's love.
He gives this law its authentic and authoritative interpretation: “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” With compassion, Christ declares the sabbath for doing good rather than harm, for saving life rather than killing. The sabbath is the day of the Lord of mercies and a day to honor God.
When we become afraid or distressed, it is exposing how weak our faith in Jesus is. It shows that we are not trusting Him and His plan, and that He's got this! Life is not predictable. There will be storms along the way, but God's unchanging character offers us a firm foundation when things feel unsteady and uncertain.
The holy things and the pearls represent the things of God, perhaps the gospel itself. The dogs and pigs represent hostile, unworthy people. And so the statement translates into something like this: Do not preach the things of God to hostile, unworthy people.
So too, here, the normal terms of derision for gentiles (“dogs” and “swine”) are used to refer to unbelieving Jews (or anyone else) opposed to Jesus and his disciples.
Cry Out For Help – While it is true that the disciples panicked when the storm arose, they had enough faith to do something very productive – they asked Jesus to help them. Worry is always useless, but prayer is always effective. Although we may not get exactly what we want, we will get what we need.
Jesus Christ alone can make the wind and water obey. As a result, the storm subsided, and the sea calmed. Christians can be comforted by this while engulfed in their own personal storms. A person's faith in Christ is never misplaced.
In the calm before the Storm, we (who are trusting in Him) are being made ready for our salvation, for rescue, NOT for the storm of His wrath, as the Bible clearly says: For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ ( 1 Thessalonians 5:9).
God knew we needed it. And He knew we needed dedicated time to stop, reflect, and acknowledge Him as the Creator and sustainer of life. Each week, Sabbath frees us from the constant rat race of a world that expects so much from us. It's a gift that keeps on giving.
The Sabbath was the sign of the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic covenant and the Sabbath as the covenant sign are no longer applicable now that the new covenant of Jesus Christ has come. Believers are called upon to honor and respect those who think the Sabbath is still mandatory for believers.
Through Jesus, God is even more present than He was in the temple; He is a living, walking Sabbath. As Lord of the Sabbath, Christ invites us to come to Him for rest. Sabbath to come to Him for rest. Because He has done this, we are free to accept the sustenance and the healing He provides.
(Do a Google image search and you'll see what I mean.) This story is often read as a lesson in priorities, the take-away being that we need to stop working and spend all our time praying, that being busy and distracted is something to be ashamed of, that Mary had it right and Martha had it wrong.
When Jesus answers by talking about a narrow door, he is saying that this narrow door is precisely how anyone must come to God. To walk through a narrow door, we must strip off every pretension we have. All the things that clutter our lives, all the things that we are often loath to lose—we must give up.
Jesus calms our fears because of his love. Whenever we're afraid, we can ask Jesus to be with us, to comfort us, and to calm us. Jesus will be with us just as he was with the disciples when they were scared.
Keeping our faith strong in Christ is another lesson we can take from this Bible story. At times, faith is kept one step at a time. Jesus will never ask more of us than we are capable of giving. However, once our faith waivers, just as Peter's faith in Jesus and being safe had, we begin to sink.
Born of the Storm Storms are symbolic of the circle of life, representing transformation and renewal. While they can be destructive, storms also create the necessary conditions for new growth.
The key truth I hope that we can understand is simply this: we must learn to trust Jesus through the storms, when we are following him in obedience to His will. Now, storms in life are never pleasant. They are filled with hardship. They are filled with pain.
Friends, our Gospel today is the story of Jesus walking on the water (Matthew 14:22–36). Water is, throughout the Scriptures, a symbol of danger. At the very beginning, the Spirit of the Lord hovered over the surface of the waters. This signals God's lordship over all of the powers of disorder.
So, in this story from Luke's Gospel when Jesus calms the storm and the sea is stilled, it is a symbol for us that God can still the chaos and disorder in our lives.
Resting behavior
Pigs spend the majority of their time resting or lying. On average, grow-finish pigs spend 75 to 85% of their time lying, and 5 to10% eating, with the remainder of their time involving in other activities such as walking, sitting, rooting/nosing, and drinking [3].
Pearls: The OG Symbol of Purity and Wisdom
In Revelation 21:21, the gates of the New Jerusalem are described as "twelve pearls," each gate a single pearl.
So, where was Jesus for the three days in between His death and resurrection? For a time, He was in Hades, preaching to the spirits in prison (whoever they were). Then, He released all of the righteous dead of Sheol/Hades and took them with Him to heaven. But, again, there is controversy on virtually every point.