51 Mark

Mark.. he was a close companion to Peter, and he never changed his name. He hung out a lot with Peter and Barnabus on part of their first mission tour. Now near the end of Paul’s life, he requested that Mark come and help him out. so Mark has a lot of first hand information since he hung out with the two most powerful apostles in the bible. That is why there was a gospel of Mark, he was the IN guy. Mark focuses on the idea that Jesus was a servant. This can be seen by his lack of geneology of Jesus throughout his gospel.

Mark's work is meant to encourage Christians throughout Rome, despite being persecuted for their faith. He goes on to say that persecution is the price that Christian's must pay for following Jesus. His Gospel was the shortest of the four tho, fast packed and action packed. About one third of Mark’s Gospel focuses on the last week of Jesus’s life on earth, concluding with his death and resurrection. When you read it you will sense he was writing it for the Gentiles, the non Jews, cause he explains Jewish customs. and he wouldn’t have to do that if he was writing to Jews.

So with Mark, he starts off his Gospel with John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus, after which Jesus was baptized and then off to be tempted by the devil. Jesus is gone for 40 days and after he comes back he ministers to Capernaum and Galilee. He commissioned 12 disciples to be with Him and to preach and drive out demons. They were with him all the time. He taught in Parables like I told you before, to reveal the spiritual nature of the kingdom.

A parable is “A simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels”. He performed many miracles to demonstrate to them his authority and power, sometimes they got it, sometimes they didn’t. When Jesus returned to his hometown He was confronted with unbelief, of course, so he didn’t do much there. He sent out the disciples to heal the sick and tell them they must repent. Still same ol thing as the Old Testament. Repent people! but with Jesus, he had the power to show them by doing miracles, so people did repent when they saw what he could do.

John the Baptist at this point had been beheaded. and Jesus withdrew to a quiet place to get away from the crowds. But people couldn’t get enough of him and they followed Him and grew to a large size crowd. At this point there were about 5000 people just waiting to hear his word, all hungry. Jesus miraculously feed 5000 men, in addition to women and children with a mere five loaves of bread and two fish. You can just image how many followers he got after that! Mark goes on to tell us that Jesus walks on water, healed many, continued to rebuke the Pharisees and perform miracle after miracle. Then Mark tells us that Jesus explains that He had to go to Jerusalem, where He would be put to death. They were upset! They hoped this would be their saviour now, not later. They didn’t get it. Peter tried to stop Him, and Jesus at this point detected the Devil was behind Peter’s words.

Jesus reveled His glory to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. Of course they were in awe. But still had some disbelief. This is where Jesus rebuked His disciples for their unbelief and again spoke of his upcoming death and resurrection. They were confused to say the least. Jesus instructed the disciples on many matters including humility, hell, marriage, having childlike faith, the dangers of riches, and the difficulty entering God’s kingdom. He spoke again about His death and resurrection and urged His followers to remain humble.

He leaves and Mark tells of Him healing a blind man on route to Jerusalem. Now in the old testament it is mentioned how the Messiah will ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, this happens now,so that prophecy is fulfilled. The Jewish people still rejected Him tho. And all the hot shot priests questioned His authority. At this point Jesus prophesied about the destruction of the temple, as well as His second coming in glory in the end times. Then Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with Mark and the rest with the last supper. He tells all the disciples at this point that Peter will deny him three times.

In the meantime of course the plot to kill Jesus is being put in place and he prays in Gethsemane as He awaited the end. He was arrested, tried, taken before Pilate, crucified and buried in a tomb. Meanwhile Peter is off repenting for his denial towards Jesus. All predicted. Now Gloriously Jesus was resurrected from the dead three days later and made many appearances to His followers. He proved beyond a doubt that He was alive forevermore. Now I know it repeats itself, but in a different light. All the Gospels of each one.. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John say the same thing, but in a different way because that is what they saw and wrote down.. so hang in there.. I will try to pinpoint out the difference for you and I will elaborate with the Gospel of John.