Mark 4 Part 1
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 beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
mk3:31-34
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!
Again he began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him. So he got into a boat on the sea and sat down, while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore. He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them,
“Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly, since the soil wasn’t deep. When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce fruit. Still other seed fell on good ground and it grew up, producing fruit that increased thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.” Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”
When he was alone, those around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables. He answered them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables so that they may indeed look, and yet not perceive; they may indeed listen, and yet not understand; otherwise, they might turn back and be forgiven.”
Then he said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand all of the parables? The sower sows the word. Some are like the word sown on the path. When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them. And others are like seed sown on rocky ground. When they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. But they have no root; they are short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away. Others are like seed sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.”