What a Study of Mark's Gospel can Tell Christians About the Nature of Discipleship
In Mark's Gospel, the true nature of Discipleship to Christians was
giving all that they have in the service of God and of other people.
Also giving time and money to help others and requires total
commitment. It was important in Mark's Gospel because Christians were
being persecuted for their beliefs in Jesus. True Christian
Discipleship means being prepared to accept this suffering even if it
leads to death.
Christian discipleship was reached out to anyone. In mark's Gospel,
Discipleship may mean leaving everything behind to follow the
Christian way of life. In Mk 1-16-20 Jesus calls four fishermen by the
lake. He said,
'Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men'. They dropped
everything and left immeadiately with Jesus. This here is effective
because they left without any explanation and just left they were
doing behind. Jesus called these people to be his Disciples. They were
different from the people in Mark's community because they either had
problems, were bad or of low-class. Discipleship is the willingness to
be dependant on God; to trust that he will provide through others.
This teaches Christians today that Jesus has a call for everyone.
Individual people have their own specialty, own uniqueness, which
Jesus favors most. Everybody is accepted. God's call is more important
than anything else. Discipleship requires a total commitment, whatever
occupation you are doing, you are required to turn your back on
personal wishes and commit yourself to God regardless of the cost.
Jesus knew that his work for God would lead to suffering and Death.
His disciples had to be prepared to suffer for their beliefs and
Discipleship. Mk 8:34-8 Jesus tells his disciples that the cost of
Discipleship means to deny self, to take up cross and to follow him.
This here is the true Nature of Discipleship because is the base of
Discipleship. You have to go through these challenges if you want to
be a true Disciple of God.
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Show MoreThere are four Gospels in the new testament; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each one writing his perspective story about Jesus, his teachings, his works, his sacrifice, and his resurrection. At the same time, they each seem to elaborate on specific elements of Jesus. The gospel of Matthew writes about the bloodline, the ancestors of Jesus. The gospel of Mark, writes about Jesus as a servant to God. The gospel of Luke, writes about Jesus being the son of a human. The gospel of John, writes about Jesus being the son of God. Having an understanding on the focus of each gospel will help the reader know Jesus and his works better. However, this essay will concentrate on “The Gospel According to Mark,” written in Bruce Manning Metzger, translator of, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version with The Apocrypha (p. 1791). The gospel of Mark is documentation of
had great faith in Jesus and teaches us that we should do the same. In
The beginning and ending of the Gospel of Mark really support the four main themes present within the Gospel. The four main themes in the Gospel are: Jesus as being enigmatic, Jesus as a sufferer, Low Christology and Apocalypticism present within the Gospel. The beginning and ending of this Gospel support Jesus as being misunderstood because in the beginning, there is no birth story of Jesus or any background information presented, Jesus is just there. This makes one question where did he come from and who was he born to? In the end of the Gospel, the tomb is described as empty and the last sentences of the Gospel in Mark 16: 8 says: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (1743). This ending of the Gospel is enigmatic because there is no mention of Jesus’ resurrection or whether anyone ever found out that Jesus had ascended to Heaven. The beginning and ending, not to mention the entire Gospel, leaves one wondering many things about Jesus, because his whole existence in Mark is very mys...
who "does what God wants them to do". This simply means that if we put
Mark's Gospel, Christians, and Persecution In Mark's Gospel it shows that Jesus was persecuted in many forms; rejection, threats, mockery and being arrested, this ended up as death. Persecution still happens in the less developed world of today in countries like Egypt, China, Pakistan and parts of Indonesia. The main persecutions Jesus suffered in Mark's Gospel were; threats Jesus reacted by feeling angry but as soon as he looked around he changed his anger to sorrow. When he was being treated he carried on normally and ignored them.
A writer’s vision and thought can be extracted from the words that they use in their stories. The evangelists in the Bible are no different. They are writing about events from memory; many of them were stories that were passed on generation to generation. Thus, their personal thoughts begin to make an entry into the way that they write their gospel and the words that they use. The evangelist had the final say as to how he would portray Jesus in his story. This was especially true in Mark’s gospel. Being the first one to recount the ministry of Jesus, he was not influenced by other well known accounts. Thus, the understanding that Mark has is seen through the approach that he took to write his gospel, which include both Jesus’ character traits as well as the meaning behind his ministry. When studying the way that Mark wrote the gospel, it can be seen how he perceives Jesus.
He said to them " I have chosen you to be with me…I will also send you
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.
One of the main characteristics of the gospel of Mark is it’s length. Mark is much shorter than Matthew and Luke, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. The author of Mark does not slow down the gospel story and makes sure that only important and relevant details are included. When Mark is compared with Matthew and Luke, it becomes obvious to see what Mark has eliminated. The author’s omission of Jesus’ birth, lineage, resurrection, and ascension denote careful planning and purpose in the gospel of Mark.
At the risk of being judgmental this book is very complicated. The points are many and varied. In his lead up to his commentary proper Myers makes many points as he expounds the many topics that would influence that commentary. The World of Jesus and the World of Mark, the filters and models of that social world, the cross-cultural history and the socio-economic tensions of both worlds are all considered. The Jewish War is also a point to consider in that it occurs around the time of writing and most of the historicity comes from the works of Josephus. The major point to consider however is Myers' self confessed socio-historical hermeneutic.
The Sermon on the Mount is founded in the gospel of Matthew in chapters 5-7 in the bible. Also, the Sermon on the Mount is in the new testament in the bible. The New Testament gospels were collected around 70 to 90 C.E. Jesus Christ put a huge emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount because the passage showed how Christians are supposed to live and it is described as the teaching of Jesus. In addition, the Sermon on the Mount describes the people that were blessed by god. Furthermore, the reading basically said that if you did the right things as Christian, the individual will get rewarded. This was a big focus of the reading. Many people consider the Sermon on the Mount, the most important Sermon, Jesus
In the Gospel of Mark translated by Richard Lattimore, and in Borges’ Gospel According to Mark, paradox plays a key role in understanding Jesus and Espinosa, as well as understanding the larger meaning of each story. In the original Gospel of Mark, the resolution of these paradoxes assists in persuading the reader into viewing life the same way Jesus does, through the lens of faith and eternal life. In contrast, in Borges’ Gospel According to Mark, paradox is used to encourage the reader to examine Espinosa, and therefore Jesus, more carefully. Through the unresolved inconsistencies between the two stories, Borges uses paradox to challenge the idea of blind faith, which is a core theme of the Gospel of Mark.
The first way that Mark shows us what discipleship really is, is by the way Jesus demonstrated discipleship. Jesus did this in three ways: the way He cared about people, took care of their physical needs, and He took care of their spiritual needs. In Mark 7:31-37 we see an example of Jesus caring about people. In these verses a deaf and dumb man is brought to Jesus and the man's friends beg Jesus to heal him. Jesus takes him aside privately and says be open and immediately the man can hear and can speak normally. This passage shows that Jesus cared because Jesus specifically took this man aside, placed his hand on him to heal him. An example of Jesus taking care of people’s physical needs is in Mark 6:30-44. In this passage Jesus feeds the 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus broke the bread and the fish, blessed it and passed it around to all 5,000. Everyone ate and there were 12 baskets of left over. This passage shows that Jesus took care of people’s physical needs because the group of people following hadn't eaten all day and Jesus had compassion on them and fulfilled their physical need for food.
When Jesus asked his disciples about what people thought about him, they answered that some considered Jesus to be e prophet, some - John the Baptist. But Jesus wanted his disciples to understand his mission, the reason why God brought him to Earth. That is why it was important for him to make sure that people realize who he is and that his sayings are vital for the whole mankind. Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed one, above all other prophets. He was sent to suffer for the all human beings and the reasons why his suffering was necessary are described in Mark's Gospel 8:27-9:1.
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.