Mark 3
Notes
Transcript
What is a gospel?
What is a gospel?
The “gospel” is the Greek word for “good news”. So we often use “gospel” and “good news” interchangeably. We get words like “evangelize” and “evangelical” from the Greek word for gospel. The word “gospel” can refer to the good news itself (message of Christ, the kingdom of God, and salvation) or the 4 books containing the gospel. Later in the NT, “message” and “proclamation” are used interchangeably with “gospel” or “good news”.
The 4 Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) tell the story of the “gospel”. We often equate “the gospel” with the confession formula that Paul uses in 1 Cor. 15, Rom. 1:1-17, 2 Tim. 2:8ff, 2 Cor. 4, and other places. 60 of the 75 times the NT uses the word “gospel”, it is in Paul’s letters.
We’re sometimes surprised, therefore, that the books called “Gospels” don’t contain the confession formula clearly. The Gospel of Mark does not contain clear instructions on how to become a Christian. But it says that it is about the gospel! The Gospel of Luke doesn’t have clear instructions on how to become a Christian, but the sequel (Acts) has the whole or partial instructions up to 28 times!
Let’s find out what Mark means by “The Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. It’s more amazing than we normally consider it.
The Synoptic Problem
The Synoptic Problem
Matthew, Mark, and Luke share so much material, they are called the Synoptic (“with”=”see”) Gospels.
We do this all the time in the modern world.
The Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark is well-attested beginning in the first century to have been written by Mark, aka John Mark, a disciple of both Peter and Paul. Although he travelled with Paul in Paul’s early ministry (Col. 4:10), after a disagreement with Paul, John Mark and Barnabas left to return to Jerusalem (Acts 15:37-39). Sometime after that, Mark followed Peter to Rome (1 Peter 5:13).
Based on Papias writing around AD 90, Mark recorded what Peter’s memory told him and wrote down the Gospel for the church at Rome around AD 64, around the time of arrest or death of Peter. The Gospel preserves what Peter taught after his death.
The audience of Mark, therefore, is the church in Rome. However, the church in Jerusalem is in mind also, based on the content, as well as the church universal.
Trouble with authorities: 5 stories in Mark chapters 2-3:12
Trouble with authorities: 5 stories in Mark chapters 2-3:12
Many notions of the messiah existed in Jesus’s day. Many individuals in the first century called themselves “messiah”.
Mark uses “Son of God” and “Son of Man” to redefine this term. The person described would be more than the savior of the Egyptian Exodus (Moses) and of the Babylonian/Persian Exodus (Cyrus), although with aspects of both.
5 disruptive stories:
He could forgive sins (healing of the paralytic)
He associated with the “wrong” people (Levi and the tax collectors)
Prayer and fasting (Jesus at the wedding vs. John’s fasting)
Reason for the Sabbath (eating grain on Sabbath)
Healing on the Sabbath (man w/shriveled hand)
Rather than a sitting holy man dispensing teaching, Mark presents an active Jesus to emulate. He defines forgiveness, friendship, prayer/fasting, and worship through action.
Insiders and outsiders: different reactions to Jesus in 3:13-4:34
Insiders and outsiders: different reactions to Jesus in 3:13-4:34
“The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.
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I also gave them my Sabbaths to serve as a sign between me and them, so that they would know that I am the Lord who consecrates them.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. After looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him.
Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a large crowd followed from Galilee, and a large crowd followed from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon. The large crowd came to him because they heard about everything he was doing. Then he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, so that the crowd wouldn’t crush him. Since he had healed many, all who had diseases were pressing toward him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God!” And he would strongly warn them not to make him known.
Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, to send them out to preach, and to have authority to drive out demons. He appointed the Twelve: To Simon, he gave the name Peter; and to James the son of Zebedee, and to his brother John, he gave the name “Boanerges” (that is, “Sons of Thunder”); Andrew; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
Jesus entered a house, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat. When his family heard this, they set out to restrain him, because they said, “He’s out of his mind.”
The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “He drives out demons by the ruler of the demons.” So he summoned them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is finished. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house. “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for all sins and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
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His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent word to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him and told him, “Look, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside asking for you.” He replied to them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Looking at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!