I noticed a striking similarity between these two setences… in John 19, Pilate said, “Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you.” But earlier, in John 10, Jesus had said, “I have authority to lay down my life, and authority to take it up again.” So Jesus understood the true nature of power and authority, and he was able to reply to Pilate, “You would have no authority at all over me unless it had been given to you from above.” And actually the same if true for us. God has authority over our destiny.
The end of Mark is intriguing. I quite like the suggestion that Mark deliberately ended the narrative without a neat conclusion, because he says in Mark 1:1 that his book is ‘the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ’. And he couldn’t write the conclusion because the gospel is ongoing, even now. So it’s suggested that Mark ended with, ‘they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid’ as a way of challenging his readers ever afterwards that they (we) have a responsibility to continue the gospel message.
The same thing happened to me a while back - I missed a day when I was a couple of months short of the 2-year badge. I was annoyed at the time but afterwards I found that I was enjoying learning scripture more without the pressure of having to add one new verse each day (and seeing the review queue getting longer and longer).
Congratulations from me too! And I’m impressed that you’ve completed so many more verses than you’ve started in the last week. That means your long-term memory is a lot better than mine!!
It’s good to read your comments here. We home-educated our children (now in their 20s) right from when they were young up to age 16/17. It’s a big commitment, but the benefits are well worth it, as you’ve listed in recent comments below. Our children did a Bible Study O-Level for which they learned quite a lot of scripture from Luke and Acts.