Old Testament Studies

The Gospel of St. Mark

By Robert C. Crowder

Lesson One

Mark starts out this book in a fast and furious pace.  Hang in there and enjoy. 

We will begin the study in the New Testament with the book of the Gospel According to St. Mark.  Why not Matthew you may be asking?  I wish I had a better answer, but the truth is I do not know.  Recently I have had the Gospel of Mark on my mind.  I have the bible downloaded to my Palm PDA and my daily readings have been in Mark.  Also I have never completed a study to any group on this book alone.  So there you have it.

In the 1980s there was an act on Broadway in New York where the entire show was a single man reciting the Gospel of Mark from memory.  I have been intrigued with that thought for some time.  And just as the study in Genesis is a great and unique study in beginnings, the New Testament is a great study in the beginnings of Christ's ministry here on earth.

Background

To better understand the Gospel of Mark we should spend some time looking at each of the Gospels.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the first four books and form the very foundation for the New Testament.  In them we find the birth, life, miracles, parables, temptations, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  Jesus life and ministry is in these four books.  They are the culmination of the Old Testament writers foretelling the Messiah and the Gospels coupled with the remaining books of the New Testament are the forth telling of Jesus ministry.

So who wrote this Gospel?

As I started this study I found pages of discussion around this subject from every different point of view.  Because I am the simplistic sort will stay with the mainstream and agree that The writer of the second Gospel, Mark, called also John, was the son of one the New Testament "Mary's", and nephew of Barnabas. He was an associate of the apostles, and is mentioned in the writings of Paul and of Luke Acts 12:12; 15:37,39; Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 1:24.[1]

What is in a name?

John is a Hebrew name while Mark, or Marcus, is Roman. It was customary for those Jews who interfaced with Greeks and Romans to assume Greek or Roman names; as, Saul in the Hebrew and Paul, or Paulus in the Roman: Simon, Hebrew; Peter, or Petros, Greek.

What makes the Gospel of Mark different?

The Gospel of Mark is brief and condensed than the others while Matthew and Luke go into great detail. Mark omits many things of particular interest to the Jews, such as the genealogy and the childhood of Jesus, quotations from the prophets, &c.; and it inserts occasionally explanations of Jewish manners and customs, as if it were written for circulation among a foreign people. As Mark went to Rome, and spent some time there, it has been supposed that his work was written there, and intended for that people.[2]

This Gospel records more of the miracles than of the discourses of our Lord, and though in many things it relates the same things as the Gospel according to St. Matthew, we may reap advantages from reviewing the same events, placed by each of the evangelists in that point of view which most affected his own mind.[3]

So let us begin this exciting study in the Gospel of Mark:

Mark 1:1-3

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.  The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Each of the Gospels starts off with a beginning, just like Genesis.  Matthew starts off with the genealogy of Jesus.  Luke starts off with the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist.  John begins with the statement that Jesus was the Word and was from the beginning.

Since the writer of Mark does not spend the time listing the genealogy of Jesus that was very important to show if you were trying to show the Jews that Jesus was the Christ, nor does he start with Jesus being eternal, instead he starts with the beginning of Jesus ministry here on earth.  This leads us to the idea that Mark was not writing only for the Jews, but the gentiles as well.

The first words penned by Mark tell us that this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  This simple statement is, by the writers words, Fact.  The Fact is the end of debate, end of the story.  Those words were setting the stage for the fast and furious first chapter of Mark.  You can almost feel him so eager to get started, but stopping just a moment to let us know in one verse that he is writing the good news that Jesus is the Christ, Gods only begotten Son.

The word gospel means, to announce good news and what good news it its.  Interestingly, only Matthew, Mark and John use the word gospel; John does not.  The word rises to the surface again in Acts and many of the epistles.

Mark continues with stating what the gospel was and that being that Jesus is the Christ and is the Son of God.

Jesus name is defined by God in Matthew chapter one, verse twenty-one: And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.  You see Jesus is his saving name.  Jesus is the Saviour of Man.  Mark has other names for Jesus; Stone Mark 12:10, Chief Cornerstone Mark 12:10, Power Mark 14:62 and King of Israel Mark 15:32, to name a few.  Both Matthew and Mark refer to Jesus as a carpenter when describing the questions asked about him from those who knew him and watched him grow (Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3)

And just to keep the facts straight, Mark continues the description that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God!  Not a god, the God.  Mark was writing to a mixed lot.  It was important for him to tell the readers up front that this book was about the good news of the Son of God and his name is Jesus.  And just to top it off, Jesus is the Christ.

Mark did use the language of the Prophets of Malachi and Isaiah to describe that there was to be one who would precede the Messiah, and that person is John the Baptist.  This also gives credence to naming Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God because the scriptures would be fulfilled in John crying in the wilderness to prepare for the Messiah.

Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

Isaiah 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Next Study

In the next study, we will look at the ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus baptism and his tempting for forty days.

Please read ahead and prepare your heart and mind for the adventure in the Gospel of Mark.

ã 2002 bobsbiblestudies