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The Bible Study—The Gospel of Mark  

 

Preface

Since 1968 I have focused on verse-by-verse, sentence-by-sentence, phrase-by-phrase, even word-by-word, Bible study. Though I’d read the Bible through a number of times and thought I knew it well, through a number of events in which my biblical knowledge was tested, I found I really didn’t know it so well after all.

On a Tuesday night in 1968 I began a home Bible study with the Gospel of Mark. With a few interruptions, that Tuesday night Bible study continues to this day, and it was and is still verse-by-verse, and so on. Not that I think this is the best possible way to study the Bible, it is simply the one I am most comfortable with. Over the course of years, I have worked through all the New Testament books, some several times over, and many of the Old Testament books especially Genesis and the Psalms. The main benefactor of this study has been myself. Part of the blessing of being a teacher of the Word is that the Word becomes a part of the teacher.

My method of preparation is simple: read the passage each study day, read the passage in an interlinear Greek-English New Testament, read several commentaries, and carefully think about and reflect on the text over the course of study. Occasionally I will make notes, but usually I only make a few notations on the margins of my Bible. By the time for the study itself arrives, when the small group gathers, I know the material well enough that notes are not usually necessary. Commentaries: I like all sorts of commentaries, both those with which I mostly agree (I never agree with anyone entirely), and those with which I don’t agree. I learn almost as much from the one as from the other.

The study lasts from 7:30 pm to 9:00. We work straight through the text without the use of study guides or commentaries. There are questions, comments and conversation (major tangents are avoided), the direct study dominates. We are in no hurry to get to any particular place. The following week’s study begins where the previous one left off. It is not a prayer meeting or a worship service—it is Bible study, pure and simple.

This is what has worked for me; it was not planned; rather this study format developed naturally. Not everyone likes it, and some find it too difficult. (I never make any effort to dumb it down.) It is challenging and anyone who sticks with it will learn something about the Scripture and usually learn to appreciate and love it.

In this Bible Study section, I will attempt to write like I would teach in an actual study.

The version of the Bible I will use for the study of the Gospel of Mark will be the English Standard Version. Over the years I have used the King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, and the New International Version. Each version has its strengths and weaknesses. The ESV is currently our church’s pew Bible and copies of this version are always available, but several people bring other versions to the study. It does not matter to me which version is used; however, I am opposed to an insistence that there is only one genuine and holy version.|
 

Introduction

To get the best out of a text of Scripture we must first look at a few basic facts about the document itself. Real people, moved by the Holy Spirit, authored each book of our Bible. This is, therefore, also true for the Gospel of Mark.

General Characteristics. Mark is our second Gospel account, one of three Gospels we call the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Synoptic is from the Latin and can mean, from the same viewpoint. It means that in many respects these Gospels look alike.

Many theories have been advanced as why it is they look so much alike. Some scholars will say Mark was written first and then Matthew and Luke used Mark to write their own Gospels. A recent theory suggests that actually Matthew was our first Gospel. One of these ideas may be true, but for practical purposes, it matters very little.

The Synoptic Gospels do differ from each other in small ways. No essential doctrine hang on these differences—and the credibility of the Bible is certainly not compromised nor suspect as a result. In fact, the authenticity of the Scripture is enhanced by these differences since it is obvious that no church council or conspiratorial group of editors conspired to smooth out technicalities. Three corroborating eyewitness accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ meet the requirements of the Jewish, Mosaic Law and the laws of most human judicial systems.

Mark is the shortest Gospel, by a considerable degree, and may have been used by the early church to teach new believers, especially Gentiles, the basic story of Jesus Christ. It has nothing about the virgin birth or childhood of Jesus unlike Matthew and Luke. It begins with John the Baptist and ends abruptly with three frightened women discovering that Jesus rose from the grave. I have found it a very useful Gospel, just as Christian teachers and preachers have found it so down through the centuries. 
 

Author. The book itself does not identify the author. It is by tradition only, ancient tradition, that we are told the book was written by Mark, or John Mark, one of the first missionaries, a friend of Paul and Barnabas, and of Peter. Mark worked with Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey and later was identified with Peter. In fact, Mark’s Gospel is closely identified with Peter. Papias, writing in the middle of the second century, attested to the close relationship between Peter and Mark and that Peter communicated to Mark the events of Jesus’ life and ministry. This Gospel has then a double authentication because Mark was a disciple of both Paul and Peter. First and second century Christians relied on this identification to include Mark among the documents they used for worship, teaching, and mission.

Mark was his family name, but he was also called John, perhaps a nickname, and was the son of one of the biblical Mary’s who was a sister to Barnabas. It is likely in the home of this Mary that the famous Passover Seder, known as the last supper, was celebrated. Luke gives us a glimpse into Mary and her role in the early church when he relates the miraculous escape of Peter from prison. “When he [Peter] realized this [that he was free from his prison chains] he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.” (Acts 12:12)    

There is an interesting account of an event that took place when Jesus prayed at the garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed. “And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked” (Mark 14:51-52). It is possible that the young John Mark was awakened when Jesus left Mary’s house after the Passover Seder was concluded for the garden to pray and followed Him and the three disciples Jesus had taken with Him, Peter, James, and John. Arriving late, and not having had time to properly dress, he was nearly captured by members of the Roman guard but escaped. It is only in Mark that we find this story and it has all the earmarks of a personal experience.
 

Date. Possible dates for Mark run from the early 50’s to the late 60’s. It is generally understood that it was written before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Dating depends on whether Mark was used by Matthew and Luke in the composition of their Gospels, which would yield a date in the early 50’s, or whether it was the other way around, yielding a date in the late 60’s.        

It is probable that Peter died in Rome as a result of the Neronian persecution in A.D. 64, but this does not mean that Mark wrote his Gospel after that date, since the witness of the early church fathers is split between Mark being written before and after Peter’s death.

Likewise in regard to Paul, it is not known if Mark’s Gospel was written before or after Paul’s death, which was sometime in the middle to late 60’s.

There are many opinions pro and con for each dating claim, none of which will ever be proved. They are interesting and worth noting, but do not effect the understanding of the biblical material.
 

Next

This concludes the Bible Study for this issue. Let me suggest that the Gospel of Mark be read in its entirety at least once before we begin verse one in chapter one.