This episode brings a new series, this one on the Gospel of Mark.
Mark is the shortest of the gospels, running just sixteen chapters. But just as Mark’s was a great narration of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to share with Roman gentiles in 67 AD, it’s a great gospel to share with the spiritually-disconnected or those who are atheists, as I myself once was. Mark appears to have been indifferent to Christ at one point, which makes his gospel all the more remarkable.
I’m using the following commentaries in preparation for this series:
The Interpretation of St. Mark’s Gospel by R.C.H. Lenski
Mark (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries) by R. Alan Cole
The New Interpreters Bible Commentary (volume 7)
I share a bit about the Gospel of Mark in this episode. Here’s what I drew that from.
A Bit About the Gospel of Mark
Pastor Mark Daniels, March 12, 2025
First: What’s a Gospel?
The word gospel is the English rendering of εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion) in the Greek, the language in which all the writers of the New Testament composed their books and letters. Eu-angelion is a compound word that means good message, good tidings, good news. In English, we get words like evangelist (someone who shares the good news) and evangelism (the practice of sharing the good news).
The good news or the gospel, a word we get from Old English, God-spell, which is just God’s news or good news, is presented most simply by Jesus in John 3:16 (a passage Martin Luther called “the gospel in a nutshell”):
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
So, when we speak of the Gospel, we’re speaking, first of all, of this good news of promise from God that what we couldn’t do for ourselves–cleanse of ourselves of sin, overcome the sentence of death, and make ourselves fit for life with God, God has already done for us in Jesus, the Son of God. The Gospel is that, while we are born sinners and under God’s Law, deserve only condemnation and death, God the Son, Jesus, bore our sins on the cross, taking our rightful punishment, then rose from the dead to tear open eternity with God for all who believe in Him, and sent His Holy Spirit, Who gave the good news, the gospel, to the Church to share with the world so that we sinners could do what is foreign to us, namely, believe in Jesus. The Gospel assures us that, in Christ, God has done everything needed to make us children of God and we can embrace that truth with the faith the Holy Spirit gives us in God’s Word.
OK, that’s the Gospel. But we’re beginning a study of the Gospel of Mark. The New Testament contains four gospels. Here, we have another meaning of the word, gospel. In this case, a gospel is a book that tells us about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Their purpose is to lead us to turn away from sin and death (repentance) give us faith that saves us from sin, death, and condemnation in Jesus (belief, faith). Mark, along with Matthew, Luke, and John is one of the four gospels which the Church holds give us the true Gospel of Jesus.
So, a bit about Mark itself.
1. Church tradition has long said the author of Mark is the “John Mark” mentioned in Acts:12:12. He was the son of the Mary mentioned Acts 12; it was to her home in Jerusalem that Peter went after being miraculously released from prison. This Mary’s home was the site where a house church gathered regularly.
The evidence seems to indicate that Mark was likely raised or at least spent his earliest years outside of Jerusalem or Judah, but that his mother, like many Jewish widows of the Dispersion, moved after the death of her husband so that she could die in Jerusalem. Mary seems to have been among the first Christians.
2. Whenever we read in Acts or the New Testament letters about Mark, he always acts as an assistant to leading figures of the Church: Paul, Barnabas, and Peter. Mark was never thought of as an apostle.
3. Mark was either a cousin or nephew to Barnabas, one of the earlier preachers of the Gospel to the Gentiles. Acts 4:36 tells us that Barnabas was a Levite. The Levites were descendants of the patriarch Levi that, centuries before the birth of Jesus, included Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. The Levites were the priests of God’s people. If Barnabas was the brother of Mark’s father, that would make Mark a Levite too. There is a tradition that holds this to be true.
4. In 44 AD, Paul and Barnabas took “alms,” financial assistant, for the Church in Jerusalem from the Church at Antioch. (Acts 11:29-30) That summer, they returned to Antioch, bringing Mark with them. Mark was enlisted as an assistant to the two preachers to the Gentiles and seems to have remained in Antioch for six years. (We don’t know if Mark was yet himself a believer in Christ. More on that in a moment.)
5. In 50 AD, Paul and Barnabas took Mark with them on their first missionary journey. According to Acts 13:13, Mark left Paul and Barnabas and went back to Jerusalem. This upset Paul and is the occasion of an early conflict in the Church. (Conflicts aren’t in themselves bad. What matters is how Christians deal with them.)
6. In 52 AD, Paul wanted to take another missionary journey, carrying the Gospel to Gentiles, with Barmabas. When Barnabas wanted to take Mark along, Paul sharply disagreed, questioning Mark’s reliability. So, Barnabas took Mark to Cyprus to spread the Gospel while Paul took Silas as they shared the Gospel in Syria and Cilicia. Note: After conflict separated these two evangelists as they agreed to disagree, the upshot was a greater projection of the Gospel than would have happened had they gone out preaching together. An old German saying is that preachers are like manure; if you spread them out they can do a lot of good but stink if they pile up together in one spot for too long.
7. By 62 AD, we see changes in the relationship and attitude of Paul and Mark. Paul is imprisoned for the first time in Rome and Mark has traveled there to assist him. (Colossians 4:10; Philemon 24)
8. In 66 AD, during his second and final imprisonment for preaching the Gospel, Paul asks Timothy to come to him in Rome and to bring Mark with him. Paul explains, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:11) Note: If you want confirmation of how the Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ can change people and relationships among people, just consider Paul and Mark and their relationship! Paul was martyred in 66 AD.
9. In 1 Peter 3:15, written in about 64 AD, the apostle Peter, who refers to Rome as “Babylon,” a seat of human pride, idolatry, and approved injustice, writes to the churches of Asia Minor (basically modern Turkey), saying that the Church in that Babylon greeted them, as did “Mark, my son.” (1 Peter 3:15) This does not mean that Mark was Peter’s genetic son. We know Mark’s lineage. Peter is saying that Mark is his spiritual son in the same way that Paul referred to Timothy as his “true son in the faith.” (1 Timothy 1:2) Paul uses a similar phrase when he calls the church at Galatia his children in the faith. (Galatians 4:19) The point is that God had used Peter to call Mark to faith in Christ, a faith the young man whose mom was an early Christian may not have had when he accompanied Paul and Barnabas on that first missionary journey. Peter was martyred in 64 AD.
10. Tradition says that Mark authored the book that bears his name.
A. The tradition has merit, first of all, like the Gospel of Luke, attributing authorship to a non-apostolic name means that, unlike false gospels that were produced by sub-Christian books, there was no attempt to buttress Mark’s credibility by claiming one of the Church’s big-guns wrote it.
B. The tradition has merit too, because attribution of authorship to Mark was unanimous. No credible claim that anyone other than Mark wrote this gospel has ever been made.
C. The tradition also says that Mark largely based his gospel on the testimony of the apostle Peter. While Mark is the shortest of the gospels and tells its story with economy, it also gives us little, unimportant details we don’t read in the other gospels: the pillow slipped beneath Jesus’ head when he fell asleep on the boat during a storm; the young man running naked through the garden (which no credible commentator I’ve consulted believes was Mark himself, by the way), and others.
11. In about 130 AD, Papias, an early bishop who lived from c.60 to 130 AD, described Mark’s gospel as an “interpretation” of Peter, not meaning that Mark had been Peter’s translator–we know that Peter knew Greek, the world’s second language–but that Mark shared the teaching of Peter in his gospel.
12. Mark’s gospel is one of the three called “the synoptics,” a compound word meaning that the three look similar in many regards. The synoptics are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But Mark, like Jeremiah in the Old Testament, would probably make no claim of presenting the Gospel story in a perfectly chronological way. Mark, after all, is presenting the Gospel as remembered by Peter, largely based on how Peter presented the Gospel when he preached. For great chronology, the reader would best be advised to go to Luke or John.
13. Mark’s style of writing is breathless, relentlessly lashing the narrative to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection in just 16 chapters. (Matthew takes 28, Luke tells all in 24, and John in 21.) You’ve head me say before: Matthew is the Scribe the Kingdom; Luke is the Historian; John is the Poet and Artist; Mark is the Journalist. Mark reminds me of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, breathlessly bringing breaking news. The word immediately is a favorite of Mark’s, as in “This happened…and immediately,” the next event is narrated.
14. Not surprisingly then, the general outline of Mark’s Gospel can be rendered fairly simply, although there are interesting details that can be mentioned.
Title (as far as Mark was concerned):
The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s Son
I. Jesus proves himself to be the Christ, God’s Son, by his mighty teaching and deeds (1:14-8:26)
II. Jesus proves himself to be the Christ, God’s Son, by teaching and enduring the Passion which is followed by the Resurrection (8:27-16:20)
15. Mark seems to be addressing his gospel to a Gentile audience, probably in Rome. His purpose is to spread the Gospel of Jesus that brings everlasting life.
16. In his commentary on Mark’s gospel, R. Alan Cole, mentioned eight motifs in Mark’s gospel first identified by William Telford. I mention them briefly so that you can be on the lookout for them as we move through our study.
1. The secrecy motif, with its emphasis on the true but hidden identity of God. This has to do with Jesus wooing us rather than wowing us, what Luther would call “theology from below” (or the theology of the cross), rather than “theology from above.”
2. An interest in the Passion of Jesus (his suffering, death, and resurrection) and what it shows us about Who Christ is. (Who Christ is is the subject of an arm of theology called christology.) You can see this dovetails with the secrecy motif.
3. An interest in the nature and coming of the Kingdom of God and in Jesus’ return as the Son of Man mentioned in Daniel 7. (Jesus is the One Who brings the Kingdom of God, as Jesus says in Mark 1:15)
4. An interest in Galilee, a region far from the center of things.
5. Mark’s use of the term “gospel”
6. An interest in Gentiles and the mission to the Gentiles
7. An interest in suffering, persecution, and martyrdom and the nature of discipleship.
8. The stern treatment of Jewish leadership groups, of Jesus’ family and of Jesus’ disciples.
Here are links to articles I refer to in the episode:
Levi
Antioch
Pamphylia
Papias of Hierapolis
After an introduction to Mark in this episode, we covered Mark 1:1-4.
The next episode will be recorded on Wednesday, March 26, and hopefully be posted on all your favorite platforms on March 27.
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