Having completed Jude and James, it’s time to move on here… what do I write about? I’ve quite enjoyed just going through New Testament books with you over the past few months, so that seemed natural enough to continue, and while I have toyed with the idea of going through Revelation, I’m not sure this format would work well with it… but I bet readership would increase… along with hate mail. 🙂
It seemed to me that it was about time we went through one of the Gospels. My favorite Gospel is that of John, but I’ve ruled that one out for now because I’m not sure my summer schedule will allow me to quite do it justice, and I’ve settled on Mark, a splendid little book! We are going to have some fun with Mark…
Oh, and the ‘Bonus Post’ opportunities; yes we are going to have a great time.
The best way I know to introduce this book is to compare it with the other three Gospels. Of course, it is one of the three synoptic Gospels, meaning that it is written with a chronological perspective, moving logically from one scene to the next. John, the non-synoptic Gospel, is not written in chronological order which makes it seem more difficult to many readers. It’s often helpful for students of the Bible to recognize that each of the four Gospels is written for a different audience. This aspect of differing audience has a unique result for each book that, when understood, makes the books easier to understand in relation to each other; the result being that they are in harmony with each other rather than in conflict. Each one tells the truth about the life of Jesus, and yet they don’t all tell exactly the same stories in exactly the same way, but when you understand that they are written for culturally diverse groups of people, each coming to understand Christ from their own points of view, we can not only comprehend them more easily, but we can also take an important lesson about sharing the message of Christ with diverse people in our own day.
Matthew was written for a Jewish audience, and this is why it is full of instances where its author points out what was done to fulfill prophecy. You don’t see much of that in Mark and Luke, since their audiences don’t know the Jewish prophets. Luke was written by a Greek so, go figure, he wrote it for a largely Greek audience. It is full of descriptions that are similar to those found in Greek literary and philosophical traditions of actions followed by explanations of the actions with Jesus playing the role (so to speak) of the Master, and the rest of us being the disciple (student) who is being taught the lesson.
John is unique in that he wrote to the mass audience, but unlike things written for mass consumption today, it isn’t dumbed down to the least common denominator, it is kicked up to a heavenly point of view. I would suspect John’s approach would have been confusing to many gentiles in his day, but in our day it ties all of humanity together as one family.
Now we come to Mark. While the Jewish perspective was centered on law and prophecy, and the Greek mind tended towards philosophy and intellect, Mark appealed to the man of action, and in the first century there was a very large audience composed of people who came from a culture that had little time for speculations about ancient prophecies and philosophy, for they were busy running the world; the Romans. Interesting isn’t it, that if you look carefully, you’ll find these three paralleled today in Christianity.
Mark’s gospel is a busy book full of action. He flies right past the Sermon on the Mount, preferring to move on to the next miracle, and he describes miracles with a flourish not found in the other gospels. If you like action, you’ll love Mark!
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Mark also seems to leave a bit more unvarnished truth in the story. One time Jesus literally could not perform miracles because of the hardcore unbelief of the people who demanded a magic trick. The other gospels do not include this account.
Yep, there are some interesting twists!
Looking forward to joining you on this journey through Mark. I read through it earlier this year on my read through the New Testament.
Fantastic, glad you’re coming along!
I think you should read Mark ‘immediately’. I love Mark
Getting right on it!
lol
you also noticed Mark’s love of that word? 🙂
you could say that! 🙂
Indeed yes!
Wish I was so quick to respond….. I keep trying 😉
I am so looking forward to this study!!!
See ya tomorrow!
Marking time till the first verse gets underway. And an enlightening introduction here, thank you Doc!
🙂
This will be a fun ride for sure. Hey, does the Batmobile have a back seat, or will we be in a chase car? 🙂
Lol- front seats only. 🙂
Don, I too decided to post about Mark! I will definitely be reading and please stop by to share your thoughts in my pages on this too. It’ll be neat to keep up for me with our different views. Reminds me in a very small way how the gospels themselves are different views of Jesus. And when 2 believers look at the same scripture, we will also come to different aspects of how it effects our life. Can’t wait to read what you have to share 🙂
That’s great! It will be fascinating to see how God leads us and how God relates with us both when we see the same thing as well as when God reveals things in a different way, thanks for the tip!
Really excited to start Mark with you. Thank you for your faithfulness, Don. 🙂
I am looking forward to reading your blog on Mark. May God fill with wisdom and direction as you write.
Thanks Tom, I really appreciate that!
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We just started reading Mark as a family in our morning devotions, so really glad to see you will be covering it here. Never noticed before that Mark could have been aimed at the Romans – that makes a lot of sense.
Glad to hear it, hopefully you’ll find this useful!
looking forward to these jewels. vw