Episode Details

Introduction

Imagine you’re a Christian in the city of Rome, the year is about 55AD. You’ve heard stories of Jesus, you’ve heard about and believed the message concerning the forgiveness of sins; a forgiveness given freely to all who trust in Jesus as the perfect Son of God who died in the place of sinners, and who rose again triumphant over death. But while this gospel preaching has reached your city, and a church has formed as believers in Jesus come together weekly to worship him and read the Scriptures - what we now call the Old Testament - seeking to understand how it all points to Jesus, there’s one thing you don’t have: an authoritative written record of the gospel story. All you have are verbal stories, no one written story. And if the church is going to live on past the first eyewitnesses, men like Peter (who was one of the leaders in the church at Rome), then this story, this good news, needs to be put down in writing. 

Enter Mark. Mark was a close associate of the apostle Peter, and though he was not himself an eyewitness to most of Jesus’ life and ministry, we know that he was very close to several who were. Peter calls him my son in 1 Peter 5:13. In the book of Acts he is called “John Mark”, and we learn from Colossians that he was a cousin of Barnabas. He traveled with the apostle Paul on missionary journeys in the book of Acts. Those initial travels with Paul didn’t end well, but by the end of Paul’s ministry he says that Mark is “very useful to me” (2 Timothy 4:11), so reconciliation must have taken place. In sum, we know Mark was a close associate of the early church leaders, and Peter especially. And he seems to have been entrusted with the task of writing down Peter’s account of the events of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry. 

This helps explain some of the stylistic features unique to Mark’s gospel. We know from all of the gospel accounts that Peter is quick to speak and quick to act. There is nothing hesitating in his personality. And that comes through as this gospel account focuses on action. Thow word immediately occurs over 40 times, over 80% of the time you find that word in the New Testament it is in Mark. The details of the stories are extended and more detailed than the other gospels, while at the same time the details of the teaching are fewer, with a focus on simply getting to the point. Peter focuses prominently in many of these stories, but not always in a positive way: his failures, sins, and foolishness are just as evident as his faith. So the story is told from a very Peter point of view. But that view is always aimed somewhere else: it’s the gospel concerning not Peter, but Jesus. 

The Beginning

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1).

What should we take from Mark calling this the “beginning” of the gospel? I think the two most likely explanations are that 

* He is calling this whole story the beginning of the gospel which his readers have already received. Or,

* This is an introductory phrase for the prefatory part of the book. 

Of these options, I think the second is more likely. Verses 1-13 form the opening section, which prepares us for everything else that follows. While the apostle John starts his narrative in the eternal life of God, even before creation, and Matthew and Luke both have birth narratives around Jesus coming into the world, Mark’s picture of Jesus will jump straight into Jesus’ preaching ministry in v14-15. These first thirteen verses which, Lord willing, we’ll look at over the next two weeks, prepare us to hear Jesus’ message of repentance and the coming kingdom.

Beginning with…John?

Why, then, does Mark start with John?

 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,