Jesus Christ lived a very full, if short, life. He did and accomplished more in his thirty years than many men do in twice that. The gospels each tell their versions of his life. Of the four, I found the gospel of Mark to be the most interesting. I enjoy the style of writing in this gospel more than the others. I feel it gives a better summary of the events in Christ’s life. Whereas the other gospels tend to get bogged down with parables or spend too much time on specific events, the gospel of Mark moves along at a good pace and adequately gets the message across.
A majority of Mark deals with Christ’s travels throughout the area around the Sea of Galilee and the various miracles he performed during that time. Most of these involved healing those with leprosy or other plagues, exorcising demons, or curing the blind/deaf/dumb. The stories of Christ feeding thousands with but a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish are also told, as is the story of Jesus walking on water. All of the miracles are described well, without getting too wordy. The style of writing also makes them believable.
Only a handful of Christ’s parables are included in Mark. One speaks of how “the sower soweth the word.” In this parable, Jesus speaks of himself as a sower and compares spreading the Word of God to planting seeds (the Word being the seeds). He also compares people to the different types of ground you can plant seeds in. At the end of the parable, Christ says that any man who spre...
The authors of the Gospel According to Matthew, and the Gospel According to Luke made some considerable modifications, deletions, and additions to the Gospel of Mark. To the average reader the changes seem rather significant and one might ask why these changes were made. Well, there are several reasons why these changes were made. For example, the authors wanted to show readers that Jesus was more holy than the original author set him out to be. Also, the authors sought after to express the gospel in, what they thought, were better words to make it appear more authentic. Furthermore the authors of the Gospel According to Matthew and the Gospel According to Luke wanted simply to modify the text because they didn’t see eye to eye with what the original author said.
In the beginning of Mark, the author does not include Jesus’ genealogy or his birth story like Matthew and Luke do. Instead, the gospel begins with John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus. Interestingly, unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark’s author also does not mention or allude to Jesus’ earthly father, Joseph. An example of the intentional omission of Joseph is when Jesus is rejected at Nazareth. In Matthew, Joseph is alluded to when people ask, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (English Standard Version, Matt. 13.55a). In contrast, in Mark people ask, “Is not this the carpenter…”(Mark 6.3a). When compared with Matthew, it’s
One of the focuses of the Gospel of Mark is the messianic secret. The secret exists because Jesus tells the crowds not to tell of what they have seen, yet people tell and the secret remains. The messianic secret stayed as the awe of Jesus spread because fear spread too and perhaps even more rapidly. The people did not know what to think of the man who could stop the wind and calm the sea. The crowd grew around Him, but in the end they were the ones who forced Pilate to sentence Him to crucifixion. It wasn’t until the third day that people finally understood that Jesus was the
Mark was Peter's son (I Peter 5:13, possibly spiritual son), who wrote down what Peter said about who Jesus was, what He did, where He went and what happened; Mark's gospel is therefore Peter's account, an eye-witness account, written down by Mark.
- The secrecy motif is Jesus refraining from revealing why he himself is pleasing to God. There are many examples of this, including after the multiplication of the loaves of bread and fish. After this miracle, Jesus is called the Christ and he commands his disciples to “…tell no man of him” (Mark 8: 30). This Messianic Secret is not just reserved to the character of Jesus, but the text of the gospel too. He best example of the text not explaining who Jesus is, is during the wilderness account. The Holy Spirit “…sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him” (Mark 1: 12-13). The account is concluded as fast as it is introduced and this is to keep the reader wondering as to how and why Jesus escaped the
What my hope to do is explain the Gospel of Mark, how I plan to do it is tell the main points of what the Gospel of Mark thought was most important and why he decided to write it that way compared to the others that wrote the gospels also. What the Gospel of Mark mainly talks about is how he emphases on how the people should get ready for the coming of the Lord. Also that Jesus had come for the sick and not the healthy because he had been healing a lot of the sick and the poor, even though the Pharisees didn’t think that was right. He also highlights the death in Jerusalem and how he rode in very quietly and not very fancy like just on a little donkey, compared to what was happening on the other side of the town. He also highlighted the last supper and how Jesus’ died for our sins so that everyone of us could go to heaven. According to the journal that Stephen wrote he states that the audience for the Gospel of Mark would be that “Mark simultaneously includes that audience in other events and teachings that only the disciples witness, and he even discloses information
Mark provided the early church with a distinctive literary genre, the gospel (Guelich, 1998, p.19). Therefore, it is indicated that his work most likely served as a pattern for Matthew and Luke and contributed to the eventual use of gospel as a literary designation in the early church. According to Guelich, “numerous early Christian writings are called gospels and many attempts have been made to identify more precisely the literary genre of the gospels in general and mark’s gospel in particular and the variety of recent suggestions includes an apocalypse, a drama, a Hellenistic aretalogy and a biography” (Guelich, 1998, p.19). Another genre for mark is narrative which is about telling a story. According to Guelich, “”Mark [is] read as a narrative” (1998, p.22).For example, in the beginning of Mark is narratives about Jesus with the baptism of John the Baptist and the ending on a notes about the
In his book, Matthew tells of the Good News and the Kingdom of God. He also tells about the time of Jesus’ birth, how he lived, and his time up to his death. He also explains the different things that Jesus taught the people.
Mark’s portrait of Jesus as a servant originates from the middle of the first century, Mark wrote his gospel during this time of persecution because the people being oppressed lacked faith that God would provide for them. Mark gives them the model of Jesus as a man submissive to the Lord so that they can receive salvation if they remain faithful to the servant of God. Mark stresses that Jesus is a suffering Messiah with the passage concerning Jesus praying to God that “Abba(Father), all things are po...
The Gospels of Jesus are a huge part of the religion of Christianity. The Gospels are summaries of who Jesus is and what he accomplished. There are four Gospels; The Gospel of Mark, The Gospel of Matthew, The Gospel of Luke, and The Gospel of John. The Gospels recount the stories of Jesus and they give us a unique perspective of his life. The Gospels are trying to convey a message about Jesus and to have everyone think of them as a kind of preaching. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke are called the synoptic gospels because they can all be understood together. Matthew and Luke made their story around the plot of Mark. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus begins in Galilee and he ends is life in Jerusalem. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is mostly with
Throughout the Gospel of Mark, the word “follow” is used twenty-one times. The word is either spoken by Jesus himself, frequently used in the phrase “Follow Me,” or is used in the third person perspective to describe people physically following Jesus. The usage of the word “follow” is not to be interpreted in the same way each time, however. There are two different meanings for the word within the Gospel of Mark. Each of these meanings also hold variances within themselves; different “shades” of meaning for the same stylistic variant of the word.
As Jesus comes within Jerusalem’s city limits, Jesus searches for fruit on the fig tree and comes away empty-handed (Mark 11:13). Mark lets the reader know that Jesus was hungry, and the distant fig tree was in leaf and that it was not the season for figs (Mark 11:12-13). Jesus knew the fig tree wouldn’t be able to bear fruit, but utilizes the fig tree as a teaching point to the disciples. Jesus’s teaching point encompasses previous lectures from the Old Testament such passages as Jeremiah 8:13: "When I wanted to gather them, says the LORD, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them." The fact that Jesus was hungry and approached the fig tree looking for fruit indicates his identity and authority as the Judge of Israel who finds that the nation, despite its "leafy" appearance, has not produced the fruit God desired. We also must consider that "it was not the season for figs" (Mark 11:13). Jesus uses the fig tree as an example to express his displeasure with the Jewish contingent in Jerusalem. Furthermore, the fig tree is a symbol, not the object itself, of the judgement. His intention was to condemn and forward judgment against the faithful barrenness of the nation. Jesus takes issues with the nation of Israel and how they have rejected him, their Messiah. Jesus judgement
Rich Man asks Jesus why he can not enter the Kingdom of God when he
Many important themes arose while I was reading the Gospel of Mark. In my week 2 group discussion posts, the themes I listed were faith, power of prayer, forgiveness, repentance, optimism, gratitude and mercy. However there are more that I found in the chapter and I read through it again such as the healing power of God and standing for righteousness.
Mark’s is Jesus Christ as a teenager. At this stage of His life, Jesus is learning about His family—God His Father, Joseph His foster Father, and Mary His Mother. Jesus has also occasionally taught at the Temple, much to the dismay of the Pharisees. He has not had much formal schooling, as He comes from a poor family and is learning to be a carpenter like His Father.