Thinking about Distractions with Mary, Martha, and Jesus

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer. And today on Thinking Christian, we're actually going to start a new segment. Every Monday, I'm going to be doing a devotional. And this just gives me and you an opportunity to step back, take a second, read through some of the scriptures, and really try to understand how God's word should be patterned in our lives. And I phrase it like that because I'm not real big on application. I may slip into that language on occasion, but I really believe that our lives should be patterned after the scriptures. You know, Jesus came. He revealed himself. God revealed him to us. And his life is supposed to be the pattern that we follow. We are to imitate him. And so as we think about what that means, sometimes it means that we have to do something very specific and actionable, a concrete activity, a concrete act of obedience. But oftentimes it also means developing a pattern and a posture in the world that is similar to Jesus, that would be Christ-like. And so as we imitate Christ, I want us all to be thinking about not only application and very specific actions that we might take, but also how do we create a pattern within our lives? How do we adopt a posture within the world that says we are with Jesus? We believe that Jesus is Lord. Our primary allegiance is to God. And our love for neighbor flows out of that. And so today, the passage that I'm going to start with is out of the Gospels. We actually have a 30-day Gospel reading guide up on useful2god.com, useful2god.com. It's a free download. I didn't realize until some time ago when I mapped it out that you could actually read through the Gospels in 30 days and you only have to read about four chapters a day. So it's pretty reasonable. And so we've got that laid out for you in a Bible reading plan. I'd encourage you to go to useful2god.com and check that out. We'll be keeping this part of the podcast, this weekly Bible study in the Gospels over the next several weeks. So you should have plenty of time to get through that 30-day reading if you'd like to. So useful2god.com, you can download that 30-day reading. And if you'd like to go in greater depth in the Gospels and a study of the Gospels with me, you can look at our Through the Gospels course. It's there on useful2god.com as well. But right now, on to our study. Today, we're going to start with Luke 10, 38-42. I think I could say this about just about every passage, but this is one of my favorite passages. It's one of the ones that just right now, and probably over the last six months, maybe a year, has really been hitting me hard. And it's something that I keep going back to and reminding myself that I need to strip away the distractions of life and really focus in on who Jesus is and make sure that I am following him to the best of my ability. And so this narrative portrays Mary and Martha. Jesus is coming to visit, and there's some interactions that take place. So I'm going to read the passage, talk about it a little bit, give some thoughts on how I think this applies to our life, what patterns of life we should adopt based on this passage. And then we'll pray and close the episode. So here we go. Luke 10, 38-42. Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Now, the interesting part for me about this narrative is that Martha isn't doing anything wrong. Martha isn't asking, you know, Jesus to let Mary go so they can, you know, rob a liquor store together or so that they can go out and embezzle money from someone. Martha is really just trying to do the basic preparations that hospitality would require. And yet, in this context, those things, those social ideas, those social norms that we often feel like we have to conform to, were getting in the way of her relationship with Christ. And so she is distracted and worried about the hospitality, about the service, about getting everything prepared and in perfect order. And as she comes to Jesus and says, Mary's leaving me to do this all alone. What Jesus is saying, he's not rebuking her for what she's doing. He's not rebuking her in other words, and saying, listen, service is a horrible thing to do. You should never do it. Don't show any hospitality. What he's suggesting to her is that her anxiety, her fear, her distraction, her being troubled about these matters is creating a wall, a hindrance between her and what she could be learning from Christ. And so Mary, remember, is just sitting at the feet of Jesus and she's listening to his teachings. But Mary can't sit. She can't listen. She can't be in the presence of Christ because she's too distracted by the other things that are required of her when she's building out this hospitality and trying to do this service. And so as I think about this passage, I think about my own life and very quickly recognize that the pattern that I've created in my life is one of distraction. There are a lot of ways to be distracted in the modern world. It seems to have gotten a little bit worse, actually. I say that, but, you know, I grew up as I'm a Gen X kid. And so I grew up without the internet for most of my life. I can remember sitting around playing Nintendo. I can remember sitting around scrolling through the six channels on the, you know, black and white TV that we had when I was a kid. I can remember, you know, having songs ingrained into my mind, just playing records all day. Yes, records before they were cool. They were actually just the normal way of listening to music. But I had records. I had cassettes. And, you know, you do all these different things during your day. But as a kid, I wasn't really interested in sitting at the feet of Jesus. But I had all these different distractions. And now as an adult, having come to Christ, there are still a lot of those distractions. You know, social media is one thing that I've focused on over the last several years of my life, just thinking through how to use social media effectively, how it hinders at times our relationship with Christ. And I'm not suggesting that we get rid of social media totally or even media in general. But the reality is that we have a lot of information options, a lot of information coming at us. And that can become a distraction. Even when we're pursuing good things like Martha is in this narrative, she's really just trying to provide hospitality. And so we may not be looking at anything inappropriate on social media or the news. We may be, you know, trying to just understand what's going on in the world. We may be looking at election sort of related items. We may be looking at news items about the war happening in Israel or, you know, various economic policies or whatever have you. They may be things that are good and important to know and not trivial in the least. And yet those things can still become distractions. And I think that's the real power of this narrative is that what we see is not someone doing something bad. They're doing something good that ends up hindering them from being and sitting at Jesus' feet, being with and sitting at Jesus' feet. And so as we pattern our lives, what I think we need to do and what we need to learn from this lesson, from this passage, is that the pattern of our lives need to leave room for us to sit at Jesus' feet. And even saying it like that, I would say, let's strengthen it and say that the pattern of our lives should prioritize, should make primary, should, you know, push away anything else that seems to keep us from sitting at the feet of Jesus. In other words,

I grew up on television. I love watching TV. I love watching movies. And so I spend a fair amount of time streaming movies, streaming TV. And so those can be problematic in some ways. And a lot of times when I really feel like I'm getting too distracted and disconnected from God's word, that those teachings of Jesus just aren't being heard because I'm distracted by many other things, I try to take a step back from that. The other thing that a lot of times I have trouble with is just academics. I love academics. I love reading. I love reading books. You know, I have a big thick book sitting by me here on my desk right now that I'm reading through that aren't the Bible, but they're books on theology. They're books on sociology. They're books on, you know, different sorts of biblical topics and those kind of things. But the reality is that those aren't necessarily the teachings of Jesus. And so sometimes I can get enamored with reading the scholarly books and miss out on coming back to the scriptures and really hearing from God straight on. And so those are a couple patterns in my life that I tend to watch for. And when I start to, you know, miss out on the voice of Christ, when I don't feel that I am spending that time in his presence, when I start to feel harried or anxious or frustrated about things, that's a trigger for me to look back and say, wow, where am I losing Christ in my life? Why is it that he is fading into the background and something else is coming to the foreground? And so I think we have to pay attention to some of those things, but identifying the things that are distracting us are really important. The second thing is I want to encourage us not to think about this in terms of making room for Jesus. Making room for Jesus, I think, is always a wrongheaded approach to this. What we want to be doing is we want to be recognizing that Jesus is infinitely more important, more relevant than any other actor or factor we will ever encounter. And so Jesus needs to be in the forefront of our vision always. And everything else needs to sort of be filtered through him. We don't usually think about it this way. We like to think in terms of balance or prioritization or what have you. And a lot of times, even when we talk, it's hard not to use those words because that's sort of what makes sense to us. But the reality is that when we're trying to understand this particular narrative and what Mary understands but Martha doesn't seem to, is that when Mary looks around and sees everything else in her life that needs to get done, and then she sees Jesus, Jesus doesn't just take priority. He causes everything else to be set aside. And so that's where we need to get to in our relationship with Christ. We need to understand that he is infinitely more relevant than any other actor or factor that we may be facing. And that as we sit and listen to his teachings, as we deeply understand them, as we truly become his disciples and sit at his feet, our lives won't become better in the sense that we'll have more money or we'll get that better job or we'll, you know, you know, have health and wealth forever. I don't think they'll become better in that way, but what I do think is that we will have a more centered existence that allows us to participate with all God is doing and building up his kingdom. That may involve discomfort at times, but at the end of the day, what we know is that because Jesus is infinitely more relevant than any other actor or factor, any other choice we make is going to be a poorer one than the one we make for Christ. So we need to keep that in mind here as well. Finally, I would just say that we need to watch out for those moments where we're starting to feel a little anxious. When we start to feel like, oh, this has to get done. People are going to be disappointed. You know, I'm going to somehow break or, you know, transgress some social norm. Who cares? On some level, who cares? These things don't have to distract us from... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. ...being who Jesus asks us to be from sitting and listening to his teachings. I think distraction is one of the biggest challenges facing the church today, folks. I think it's one of the biggest challenges Christians are struggling with right now. Distraction is a real challenge. If we think about all the information, all the things that are vying for our attention other than Christ, these are big deals. And so we've got to pay attention to this. We have to learn not to be distracted by these things. And so just one final tip before we end this up. I would say that as I think about what it looks like not to be distracted, one of the things that I've had to come to grips with is that I'm not going to have an informed opinion about everything. There are a lot of topics I just don't address. I don't think about them. I don't have any particular opinion on them. Yes, I obviously believe what God's Word says about them, but it's not as if I've dug down deep into those issues. Over the last couple years, I've looked at social media. I've looked at artificial intelligence. I've done some work in various other areas of politics and those kind of things. I've dug deep into those areas, and I paid attention in those areas. But then that leaves almost everything else out. I was asked a question about climate change the other day. No idea. No clue. I have my doubts about it, but those aren't informed doubts. They're just sort of doubts, partially because a lot of the time I just don't understand what's being said. And I'm okay with that. I'm not going to get distracted by every little fire that comes up, and I'm not going to get pushed to become an expert on everything. I'm not going to get pushed to even have an opinion on everything. It's okay not to understand everything that's going on in the world. Find those things that you're passionate about, interested in. Find the things that God is leading you to and focus on those. And don't worry about the rest of it. A lot of times I think we get pushed in to needing to have an opinion. We see all these different things going on in the world, and we feel like, wow, I'm ignorant if I'm not aware of what's happening here. And there's a sense in which that's true. You are ignorant if you don't know what's happening there. But being ignorant isn't always a bad thing. And so I think part of the way I try to manage my distraction has been to say, I'm just not going to be interested in this topic. I'm just not going to be well-informed about it. And I'm not going to talk about it, and I'm not going to share an opinion about it. I'm not going to have debates with people about it. I'm happy to listen if people want to talk to me about it, but I really have no opinion on the matter. We need to be okay with that because at the end of the day, all of these things that are swirling about around us, just like they were with Martha, all of these things that she had to get done with her serving, all of the news and the media and whatever else is going on in our lives, right? Those things are swirling around us, but we need to find the courage and strength to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his teachings because that is the most important thing we can possibly do as we grow in our relationship with Christ. So let's take that to heart. Luke 10, 38 through 42. Check out the 30-day guide, 30-day reading guide, reading plan at usefulthegod.com. Also check out the Through the Gospels course if you're interested at usefulthegod.com. Usefulthegod.com will be where you can find all that information right there on the front page. Just look for the 30 Days in the Gospels guide and for the Through the Gospels course. Let's finish up with prayer, and then we'll close out this episode of Thinking Christian. Lord, we're grateful that we get to read your word and understand it. We pray that you would help us to pattern our lives after that of your Son. Help us to be imitators of him, truly imitators of him, that we may be undistracted in our dedication and loyalty to you and that we may follow you with an unreserved loyalty that is truly aimed at loving you, loving others, but ultimately, Lord, we just want to see Jesus in the forefront of our vision always, that as we look out at the other situations in the world, we recognize him as the most, as infinitely more relevant than any other actor or factor. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We will catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Thanks, everybody, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for

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