Sunday School | Mark

We're getting close. Stay in. Grab what you need. And every week, we'd have not only the new weeks that we're doing here—this is Mark, Tim's got some more—but there's this accordion folder thing, and it's got all of them that we've done so far. So you can come up anytime you like, grab them. They're all here. Add to the collection. Thank you, Tim. Appreciate you.

Reading the New Testament

Alright. So here's the deal. What we've been doing for months and months is walking through each book of the New Testament, not so that you don't have to read it, but so that when you do read it, you'll just kind of have an assist to understand the main ideas.

My suggestion to you—and you can start this anytime, you can start this today—is that if you wanted to read the entire New Testament, typically the New Testament's about 250 pages, which means if you read 10 pages a day, you can be done in twenty-five days. If that's too steep, you could do five pages a day and it would take you fifty days, less than two months. At a pretty modest pace, you could read through the whole New Testament.

But I don't recommend that you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans in that order because then you've got all the gospels all at once, they'll start to feel redundant and you'll zone out. So I'd recommend you do it like this: read Luke, then Acts, then Romans. Read a gospel, then read Acts because it gives you the history of the church, and Acts is the sequel to Luke. And then read Romans. That little set right there—Luke, Acts, Romans—gives you a fantastic foundation. The story of Jesus, how the church experienced this as things began, and the most foundational theological document ever written.

Luke, Acts, Romans. Then read whatever you want. Just read a couple of letters, read a handful of letters. Paul's letters, John's letters, Peter's, whatever you want. And then when you've forgotten Matthew a little bit, go back, or when you've forgotten Luke a little bit, go back and read either Matthew, Mark, or John. And then read five or six letters. Then read another gospel, five or six letters, final gospel.

And then just do this: I would save Hebrews and Revelation for the very end because they're the weirdest, the hardest, the most complex. So Luke, Acts, Romans, and then intersperse gospels and letters, and then end with Hebrews and Revelation. That's my suggestion to you.

And that's basically what we're doing here in this class. We've kind of followed that general pattern. And today, we're in our fourth and final gospel, which is going to be the gospel of Mark. Although usually when I say the fourth gospel, I mean John's gospel. But the last one we're doing is Mark. Usually we'll call John's gospel the fourth gospel, but we're looking at the final one for us, and then we have a handful of letters, and then we're going to do Hebrews and Revelation. And we'll be done, I think, in March. Maybe early April, we'll be done. And I don't know what we'll do after that, but something fun.

The Gospel of Mark

So we're going to start here looking at the gospel of Mark. And I've got to warn you two things. One, I taught on Mark in this class about five years ago, and this is that document. It's not exactly formatted like the other ones were. In fact, when I looked at this after I printed it, I was like, "Oh, I probably should have cleaned this up." But I didn't. So here it is. It doesn't quite fit with the rest of the ones that we've done. It's a little janky relative to the rest, but the content's pretty good. I just would have formatted it a little bit differently.

So Mark's gospel—let's talk about it. What do you guys know about Mark? And we'll start with this: we're going to talk about what you know about Mark the gospel, his letter or his biography of Jesus. But first, what do you know about Mark the man? You got anything to kind of open the bidding on Mark? Who is this guy? What do we know?

John Mark. Okay. Why do you distinguish that? John Mark. That is what it says in the Bible. Right? So Mark is John Mark. There's a lot of Johns in the Bible. Things can get a little bit confusing. And so Mark is John Mark. Sometimes we clarify that name. What do you guys know about him? You got any kind of sense of who he was or what he did?

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So what's being said is he went on an early missionary journey with Paul, but he biffed it. He actually deserted them. He kind of whisked out and he didn't finish the job. And Paul didn't like Mark at that point. Well, not that he didn't like him, he didn't trust him. He didn't want to bring him along. But Barnabas—think about it—Barnabas was the one guy that was willing to kind of engage with Paul when nobody else would touch Paul. That's just kind of who he was. His nickname was Barnabas, which means "son of encouragement." He's just a super nice guy.

And so the son of encouragement was kind to Paul. And then when Mark screwed up, he was kind to Mark. But Paul wasn't having it. He said, "Man, there's too much at stake and we're not gonna bring him along." And so they had a rift.

In fact, you can see this in Scripture. Acts 12:25 says:

When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned to Jerusalem taking with them John also called Mark.

But he screws up. Acts 13 continues:

When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in Jewish synagogues. John was with them as a helper. From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga and Pamphylia where John left them and returned to Jerusalem.

Then in chapter 15, you get a little more commentary on it:

Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with him, but Paul did not think it wise to take him because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work.

Paul was like, "I don't—we don't trust this guy." But by the time more time passes, Mark gets restored and Paul's trust in him is restored. Which is why Paul's gonna say in Colossians 4:

My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. You've received instruction about him. If he comes to you, welcome him.

And then he says that Mark has proved a comfort to him. He commends Mark a handful of times. So there was a rift early on because Mark blew it. Paul had a hard time with it. Barnabas stayed with him, encouraged him, and he finishes well. It's gonna end well, but he biffed it like we all do—like a lot of us do. I mean, Peter screws it up. There's all kinds of ways that we mess things up. So Mark went through that, comes back in, and gets restored.

Mark's Connection to Peter

Now, Mark is very closely associated with Peter. He was kind of like what Luke is to Paul. Luke is in some sense Paul's companion, Paul's almost biographer a little bit if you read the book of Acts. That's what Mark was to Peter. Mark was a companion of Peter. Mark was a disciple of Peter. Peter calls Mark his son, and the Gospel that Mark writes is the Gospel of Peter.

So Mark was not one of the 12. He was not running around with Jesus during those three years. Matthew was there. John was there. Luke was not there. Mark was not there. But what Mark is doing is he's writing down Peter's gospel.

Now, this wouldn't be obvious to you if you read Mark's gospel. He doesn't say, "My name is Mark, but I'm writing down Peter's thoughts." So the question is: how does anybody know that? How do we know this stuff?

Sources for Understanding Mark's Gospel

Well, we generally believe that Mark is the earliest Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke were definitely written before John. But where does our knowledge come from? When we look at these texts, we're gonna draw stuff from internal sources. We're gonna read things and notice details. For instance, none of them say anything about Jerusalem being destroyed, which happened in 70 AD. It would be like writing a history of Hawaii and not mentioning Pearl Harbor. We'd say, "Okay, this must have been written before the 1940s because you would have mentioned this. It was such a big deal." So there are things internal to the documents—things that are present or absent—that we notice.

But there is also other reports that are not in the Bible but are early. We have what we call the church fathers—these early writers who are not part of the scriptures but are the first generation. These are the guys that lived in the early centuries, and we have what they wrote. I actually have a couple of excerpts here.

If you look in the back of this thing on the right side, listen to this. This is from Fox's Book of Martyrs. It says, "John Mark is supposed to have been converted to Christianity by Peter whom he served as an amanuensis—that's like a scribe, a secretary—and under whose inspection he wrote his gospel in the Greek language."

Or this here, this is from Eusebius. This is early, early stuff. John the presbyter also said this. Now we're quoting John the elder, John the beloved disciple. John the presbyter said this about Mark. Let me clarify this. John didn't say this in his gospel. He didn't say this in First, Second, Third John. He didn't say this in Revelation. But somebody else, a contemporary of John, said that John said this.

Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded, he wrote with great accuracy, but not however in the order in which it was spoken or done by the Lord. For he—this is Mark—neither heard nor followed our Lord, but as before said, he was in company with Peter who gave him such instruction as was necessary, but not to give a history of our Lord's discourses. We'll come back to that. Discourses is meaningful. We'll come to that in a second. Wherefore, Mark has not erred in anything by writing some things as he has recorded them, for he was carefully attentive to one thing: not to pass by anything what he heard or to state anything falsely in these accounts.

This is early, early, early record of where Mark comes from. So we have very strong reason to believe that Mark really is the reflections of Peter, what he directly experienced. Just like Luke carefully inspects everything that's happened but wasn't there himself. Matthew and John were. Mark reflects Peter who was there, and then Luke reflects many who were there. That's kind of where we end up with Mark's gospel.

Having said that, is there anything else you want to say about Mark the man before we take a look at what he wrote?

What Makes Mark's Gospel Unique

Okay, now let's take a look at what did he write. What do you know about Mark's gospel? What makes it peculiar? How does it stand out among the other three or four accounts?

Chris, you mentioned focus on humility, servitude, and self-denial. Okay, very good. That's a really strong observation.

You might recall, we can do this little four-point grid of how each one of the gospels is giving us a particular facet of Christ's life. So in Matthew's gospel, Christ is portrayed as King—the Jewish Messiah. There's all kinds of language of his coronation. Matthew shows Christ as king.

What is Luke's portrait of Christ? Human. Any clues for that? Son of man. The Son of man language. The genealogy traces back to Adam as opposed to Matthew which traces back through the kings to Abraham. Luke makes it a point that he's a descendant of Adam.

What is John's vision of Christ? He is God. Any clue for that? "I am." Yes, absolutely. It's a major theme throughout John's gospel.

And so we've got king and man. We have God and what's the final thing? Servant. In Mark's gospel, Jesus is portrayed as servant. Now, there's a whole bunch of clues inside the text that leads us to that conclusion. What are some of the things that make Mark's gospel have a stronger focus on Christ as servant than as king or God or man? What are the clues of service in this book?

There's a washing of the disciples' feet? That's a good question. So the washing of Jesus' disciples' feet is a peculiar thing in John's gospel, not Mark. John avoids the communion meal—there's no breaking of bread at the last supper. That's where you get the foot washing. So that's actually something that shows up in John.

I'll give you a clue here. Something we read of in ancient text. Listen to this. What is the significance of this? It says that "Peter's purpose in writing through Mark was not to give a history of our Lord's discourses." How is that consistent with his portrait of Christ as servant?

I want you to think about that. What does discourse mean? His teaching. His words. So Matthew gives us lots of Jesus' words—get the Sermon on the Mount.

You get lots of verbal content. There's a lot of red letters in Matthew and Luke and in John, but you do not get long discourses in Mark's gospel because servants are meant to be seen and not heard. Right? Just do things. So Mark is gonna portray Christ doing stuff much more than giving speeches. Right? Because it's not really—I mean, he speaks. There are red letters in Mark, but it's not these long sermons that you get in Matthew. You get tons of long stretches of pure red ink in Matthew and Luke and in John. You don't find that in Mark. He's doing things. Okay. That's one distinctive.

You guys know I can give you the whole list. Anybody remember? Catherine? Jesus is servant in Mark? Healing. Healing. Well, he's gonna do that everywhere. That's true. But that's right. So healing. So what you're saying is in the absence of his teaching long parables and stuff, you're gonna have him doing things more—healing. There's a funny little detail that you wouldn't notice that I never would have noticed if somebody didn't point it out to me. But Mark likes to talk about Jesus' hands. I even collected this. Look at how much—the servant's work is shown. Let's see, where did I put it? The hands of the servant. So he likes to point out: he healed Peter's mother-in-law, he took her by the hand. He took the blind man by the hand. He put his hands on him. He put his hands on his eyes. Jesus took him by the hand, lifted him, put his fingers in his ears. At the very end in chapter six: "How are such mighty works done by his hand?" Okay. That's a significant factor because he's just doing. He's not talking, he's doing stuff, he's touching stuff, he's got calloused hands.

Not only that, and it's right here next to that. Remember last week we looked at Titus? And what is the title differential in Titus that's so weird? What's the weird thing about Paul's the title he ascribes to Christ? Savior. Savior. Savior. Savior. And never ever ever Lord. Very similar in Mark's gospel. Look at the bottom here, the bottom of the front cover. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is directly called Lord 70 to 80 times. In Mark, it happens twice. Isn't that interesting? And even one of them is in a way that is simply the way of calling somebody "sir." Right? And then the final one is as he's about to ascend to his throne, finally here in chapter 16, the very end.

After the Lord had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. — Mark 16:19-20

So the focus is on him as the servant who serves, not as the Lord who rules, not as the teacher who teaches. He is doing things. It's conspicuous. It's one of those things that as you read through, just look for what you don't notice. Right? What's not really there. It's a very much a lowly book. Okay? What else? Other things you remember are distinctive about Mark's gospel?

Yeah, Lily? This is a little more personality or stylistic, but he's so very to the point that even my son noticed. When we read through Matthew, we got to Mark and he was like, "What is this? It's terse. It's quick. It's concise. Clips, clips, clips, clips, clips." Absolutely the case.

Now there's an irony to this, however. Okay? So Mark's accounts of things tend to be briefer. They tend to be more concise. So if you—how many of you like efficiency? You guys like some of you are like "just give me the bottom line" kind of thing. Others of you are just babbling on loquaciously. Okay? So Mark is on the tight end. He's concise. But here's the irony of this. Mark's gospel, even though it's tight, it's pithy, doesn't have a lot of time to waste, he fills it with details that Matthew and Luke do not include. And those are more evidence that this is Peter's memories. Look at this. I highlighted this. If you just go through, you can find all of these things. Go open this up. The servant's work is shown with numerous vivid details unique to Mark. If you go through his gospel, you're gonna find all of these things happen in the other synoptics.

Now, do you guys remember that? Let me—when I keep saying Matthew and Luke, we divide the gospels very clearly into three and one unmistakably. If you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you're gonna have a sense that these are similar, similar, similar. And then when you read John, it's like a completely different genre. It's totally different. The three—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are called the synoptics: s-y-n, the same optics. They look the same. They see from the same vantage point. There's an enormous amount of overlap. John is totally independent of the way these things function. Okay?

Even within those synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—there's a lot of overlapping stories and language. But all of these things show up in Mark. The things that are in bold are only in Mark.

The whole town gathered at the door.

Peter remembers it was at the door.

A few days later when he had entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.

Not even outside the door. All of those bold lines:

They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. The grass was green. They were straining at the oars. He was about to pass by them. He carried the sick on mats. Some of them had come a long distance.

These are all personal remembrances. Matthew doesn't include them. Luke doesn't include them. But Peter's like, "Oh yeah, but that's what happened." Which is one of the things that gives us more evidence of the personal remembrance of this. So he's in a hurry, but he does not exclude the details that were significant to him—the things that made it vivid and memorable.

Just like when you walk into a room and smell something and that smell is transportive to a memory and you're there. That's what's happening for Peter as he walks through these things. He can see it all happening in his mind's eye. And that's what Mark is writing down. So brief and quick, absolutely, but not devoid of detail.

Mark's Supernatural Elements and Pace

Mark's gospel by percentage has the most supernatural stuff going on. Oh, because he cut the discourses? The discourses are eliminated, but if you go through Mark and just highlight the supernatural stuff, it's an immense percentage. And I bet you're right. So because he's trimmed out all the discourses—which by their nature aren't supernatural—it's going to be more condensed into that.

The shortest gospel is only 16 chapters long. Matthew's 28, Mark's 16, Luke is 24, and John is 21. And so it's tight. It's quick. In that, he's really going to pack a whole bunch of stuff in.

That phrase with the wild animals—that's the first thing you have here. And that just opens up all kinds of things. And that's again one of these details that Peter was aware of, but that others either didn't know or didn't think to mention, when Jesus goes into the wilderness.

Mark's the only one that starts right at John the Baptist. Matthew has the genealogy, and John says the beginning. So Mark's gospel just jumps right in and hits the ground running. He doesn't waste any time on the genealogy. Kings need genealogies. But who cares who your servant's great-great-great-great grandfather was? It's not pertinent to the point. So he just hits the ground and runs. And by the way, he runs the whole way.

What is Mark's favorite word? Immediately. Everything happens immediately.

When he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens. The spirit immediately drove him out of the wilderness. Immediately they left their nets. Immediately he called them. He went to Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath, immediately there was a synagogue with a man. At once his fame spread everywhere.

Everything is a huge rush. And what is he in a rush to get to? Ultimately to the crucifixion. Gospels do this. You can divide any one of the gospels into Jesus' life and all these really wonderful important things that he said, all these really wonderful important things that he did. But there's always a hinge—a moment where the story pivots toward the cross.

In Luke, it's Luke 9:51, where Jesus sets his face like flint for Jerusalem. And for the rest of the book, we're driving to the cross. This happens consistently in these books. In Matthew, it happens at the very end of chapter 8. This is that hinge.

So Mark is in a great big hurry to get to the cross. Everything's immediate. Everything's like, "Yeah, this happened. And then we do this and then we do this and then we do this." And right here is this moment, this pivot.

The Central Message of Mark

The central message in this whole book is found in the midpoint where Jesus affirms that he is the Christ. Watch it. This is where Jesus asked the question, "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" And Peter answered, "You are the Christ." And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And then immediately, from this point on, and it never lets up, he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, that he must be killed, and after three days rise again.

And on that right column, you can see how often this comes up. That's chapter eight. In chapter nine, he says the Son of Man must suffer and be rejected. In chapter nine, he'll say they will kill him. In chapter 10, they will mock him, spit on him, flog him, kill him. Again in chapter 10: "Can you drink the cup I drink?" That is the cross. Chapter 10, he's going to give his life as a ransom for many. In chapter 12, he tells a story about wanting to kill the heir. Chapter 14, his burial is coming. In 14, he will be betrayed. In 14, "This is my body that is broken for you."

Mark is interested in things that Jesus says, he's interested in things that he does, but he's far and away most interested in the cross. And everything is a race to finally get there.

Jesus and Secrecy

Dan was noticing in the parables that sometimes when Jesus heals, he says go and tell no one. But then in other parables, he'll say go tell everyone. So how does he choose?

Generally, his bias is towards secrecy. He knows as soon as the word gets out, it's going to make it a lot harder for him. And what's so crazy is that whenever Jesus tells somebody, "Hey, I've healed you, just don't tell anybody. Just keep it to yourself," they all go tell everybody. And of course they do. Right? And then when they do, it makes it difficult for him.

There's a really interesting juxtaposition where he heals a leper and he tells the leper, don't tell anybody. And the leper who had been formerly kept in the outside places goes and tells everyone and he's allowed back into the community. And then Jesus is no longer allowed in the community because he's got to hide. The pressure is on for him now.

Generally, Jesus wants there not to be a lot of fanfare because he's trying to get as much good done as he can before the authorities can't stand him anymore and kill him. He's got work to do to train these guys. So his bias is towards that.

There are times it's interesting—like when he gets to Samaria in John 4, when he's with the woman at the well—he doesn't quench her desire to tell everyone. I think that one is because they're not in Israel. They're in a little bit of a safer place for him. He's not likely to provoke the Pharisees because the Pharisees aren't hanging out with the Samaritans. Right? So in different spheres where he can be more public, he is, but his bias is really much more towards secrecy. You see it pretty persistently.

Mark's Focus on Servant Leadership

Judy's question is this: this editorial choice to focus on Christ as servant—was that Peter's idea or was that Mark's idea?

Now we always would say that scripture has two authors, meaning there's the human being who wrote it and then there's the Spirit of God who superintends all things. So at one level, we can say it's the Spirit's idea. This is what he's guiding these men to write. But this book doesn't really have two authors. It has three authors. Right? And so then how do we further divide who had the motive for that? And I don't know. That's really interesting.

It's true that you wouldn't think of Peter in lowly terms. He's kind of bombastic and loud and speaks all the time and puts his foot in his mouth. So it doesn't seem like Peter in his nature, but it might be Peter as he matures. I will say, we'll get to this in a second, there are other things that are odd about this being Peter's gospel we'll come to.

Robin, let me start with you and work our way across.

I think his nature may have been subdued and changed after the denial of Christ, you know, going to him three times and telling him to feed his sheep for Jesus. Then also when the Holy Spirit came on him, he became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Yeah.

Absolutely true. So a little humiliation might go a long way in taking the edge off. Have you guys noticed that in your own lives? Are you a little less bombastic than you were when you were 20? Has that happened yet?

I'm going to go back to the time this was written. It was written on the Italian Peninsula. If it was more of a servitude type writing, it would not inflame the authorities—the Roman authorities—as much. So I see it as a way of getting the gospel out there, but keeping it, if you will, under a certain level of harassment. Maybe something strategic to be a little bit understated in some things. There's a place to be understated for sure.

When Jesus was washing their feet in the upper room, was it Peter that said, "No Lord, don't wash my feet"? Absolutely. And that was his main lesson at that point—being a servant. Peter said, "No way, Lord, you're not my servant. I'm your servant. Don't wash my feet." That must have had a profound effect on him as well.

That is a really good observation. For Peter, who sees the supremacy of Christ's leadership and fancies himself to also be a supreme leader, may have been more struck by the humility of Jesus than another person. A humble person might see Jesus as humility and be like, "Yeah, I mean that's how we do this." But for Peter to see someone so great abase himself to such a lowly position—that really does make sense. That would really land in Peter's heart and maybe color the way that he frames this whole story.

What Mark's Gospel Reveals About Peter

Here's what I would want you to see: a couple other things. If it's Peter's gospel, and it is, it's interesting to note what doesn't show up. Peter gets no special mention. Mark's gospel does not include the time when Peter walks on the water with Jesus out in the sea. Mark's gospel does not have:

You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church — Matthew 16:18

Nor acknowledgement that the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon, the way Luke does it. Rather, that honorable distinction is given to Mary.

So when Peter—who is one who has not historically been the most humble of guys—when he writes this gospel, he includes the stuff that makes him look like an idiot and he excludes the stuff that makes him look like he might be bragging. The focus is on shame.

Peter's denial of the Lord is most full in Mark, with the added circumstance that it was not until the second cock crew that Peter suddenly called to mind the sad prediction of Jesus. Matthew and Luke said that Peter went out and wept bitterly. In Mark, it is only that he broke down and wept—lest reference to the bitterness of his tears should seem an affectation of humility.

And only in Mark does the risen Christ say:

Go your way, tell his disciples, and tell Peter—who perhaps might be excluded from that number since he has excluded himself from that number—that he goes before you into Galilee.

It's pretty extraordinary. This gospel in some way reflects the transforming work that happened in Peter's life as he met and knew and walked with this extraordinary man who was much more than a man.

Christ's Popularity in Mark

One final thing I don't think we've said: Mark reveals a sermon who was astonishingly popular. That's one of the things you'll see as you go through Mark. It rips along. But along the way, you just get this sense of how the crowds were amazed by him over and over again. The crowds followed him. Peter is painting a picture of Christ. He is the lowly one. He is the servant. But my goodness, he turns the world upside down and everybody wants to be with him.

So 16 chapters—you can blitz through it. It's the kind of book that you might even choose to read in a setting. It wouldn't take you that long to hammer through Mark and to catch it, get caught up in the pace of it. But I hope some of these details might be helpful too as you go through it.

Now, we're early, but we're early on purpose because I want to ask you to do something for me. The Church of the Holy Spirit has roughly 10 billion people. And one of the things that I've noticed—that's true in my life and it's true in many, many people's lives—is there's really nothing sweeter than your own name.

People like it when they're called by name. And I know lots and lots and lots of your names. And I don't know lots and lots and lots of your other names. And I would like to know them.

So here's my request of you if you'd be willing to do this. And if you tell me your name, be merciful. Like, there's 500 of you. I'm not gonna remember it, right? So here's what I need you to do. If you're willing, you guys are excused because there's just the two of you, okay? But would you take your phone and make a video and around the circle you're all just going to say your name within your table. I'm John, I'm Susan, I'm Bob, I'm Fred, I'm Martha. Go around the thing and then text it to me. Would you do that?

Okay. And if you're curious, you all look