Tuesday, August 19, 2025
“And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself” (Mark 3:21 KJV).
With “friends” such as these, did Jesus need enemies? (NO!)
Although the Bible never identifies these “friends” of Christ, we infer they were people near Him, with Him, or connected to Him in some intimate way. In other words, they were no strangers to Him. Hearing about the multitudes around Him, these “friends” went out to take Him into custody—probably going to tell Him something along the lines of, “Come on home, Jesus, and take a rest now. All this excitement is too much for You! We cannot have You roaming around like this, making a fool of Yourself in front of all these people!”
They seem to be looking out for His personal wellbeing, wanting to take care of Him; howbeit, it is their unfavorable assessment of Him that forces us to conclude they were operating on nothing more than (worthless) natural-man wisdom: “for they said, He is beside himself” (today’s Scripture). These “friends” regarded the Lord Jesus as being out of His mind, insane, mentally unstable! These were definitely not people of faith, but people of unbelief. To them, His preaching was nothing more than the ravings of a nut, and He needed to withdraw from the crowds and quit embarrassing Himself with this “negative publicity.”
Incidentally, John chapter 10 records another occasion where many in the Lord’s audience supposed He was not worth listening to because they thought He was crazy: “[19] There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. [20] And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad [lunatic]; why hear ye him? [21] Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?” Again, look at the unbelief in Israel!
Brethren, it should therefore not surprise or discourage us if our “friends”—even our “Christian friends”—malign us for serving in God’s ministry. They may not be justified in speaking evil words about us, but they say them anyway because they have no real spiritual discernment….
333 Words of Grace 