My Walk Through the Book of Mark by Annette Godtland

A House Divided Cannot Stand (Mark 3:20-27)

20Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 21But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, "He is out of His mind."

22And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebub," and, "By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons."

23So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables: "How can Satan cast out Satan? 24If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end. 27No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.

Have you ever been so busy that you haven't even had time to eat? Jesus understands that feeling. Here He was with such a great multitude again that they could not so much as eat bread. Jesus has lived through many of the same struggles we have to deal with.

In this passage Jesus does such a nice job of abolishing the idea that He could possibly be getting His power from Satan. If Satan gave Him power to go against his other soldiers, Satan would be waging war against himself - this would make no sense. This is like a kingdom divided against itself, which would naturally end the kingdom.

Also, Satan is strong and would not willingly let someone else come in to plunder his kingdom. As Jesus said, no strong man would simply sit back and allow that. He would first need to be bound by someone stronger. So the only way Jesus would be able to control any in Satan's kingdom is if he has more power than Satan, otherwise Satan would not let it happen. So the fact that Jesus could cast out demons is not power granted to Him through Satan, but power He has over Satan.

There is an interesting part of this passage that sometimes gets overlooked when we are looking for Jesus' explanation of why He cannot possibly be under the rule of Satan. Why does this passage also include how His own people went to get Him, claiming He was out of His mind? Why does Jesus' explanation talk about both a kingdom divided and a house divided?

I think we are to also look at our own house, our own family. Our house cannot stand either if it is divided, if there is constant warring between members. A husband and wife must come to agreements. Neither one has more power than the other. No sibling should rule another. For with this discontent comes a broken family. Pray that you don't do anything to distance another member of your family.

Jesus was a member of a house divided. His own family claimed he was out of his mind. They went to lay hold of him, intending to remove him from public eye. Jesus understands family strife and knows it is an unhealthy situation. A house divided cannot stand.

This passage here doesn't tell you what to do with being too busy to have time to eat, or how to handle a house divided, but at least it gives us some additional assurance that Jesus understands us when we get in those situations. Sometimes just knowing that the God we are praying to has first hand experience with some of the same troubles we have is very comforting. It makes it easier to share our troubles and to heed His advice.

Jesus loves us. Coming to live life as a man, with all man's struggles and tribulations had to have been a very difficult thing to do. But he did it for our sake, not his. What difficult things do we do for the sake of the ones we love?