Bible Study

I think we should be starting to notice a bit of a difference in how Mark is constructing his Gospel at this point. The first 10 Chapters, as we’ve noticed several times, often comes across as a little bit chaotic, with stories often thrown together with little obvious purpose or at best with a very think thread holding them together. But after Chapter 10 you start to notice that Mark works with definite themes, and the chapter divisions from that point on tend to mirror those themes. That difference probably flows from the fact that Jesus is now in Jerusalem. Clearly this is the story Mark really wanted to tell, and the story up to Jesus’ entry into the city was primarily for background and to establish a few basic facts. But Jesus in Jerusalem is the story that Mark really wants to tell. The theme of last week’s readings was clearly “Angry Jesus,” as Jesus displays his anger toward different groups or situations in various ways. The theme of Mark 12 I would argue is “Jesus’ Opponents...

The beginning of Chapter 11 strikes me as just so typical of how Mark writes. We’ve seen all through the Gospel that while there’s often a theme, Mark’s way of telling the story of Jesus still seems to jump around suddenly from one event to another. The story of Jesus seen through Mark’s eyes often seems to be a series of vignettes as opposed to a well structured narrative. This is a case in point. Chapter 10 had ended with the story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus. The only thing that might have suggested that something important was about to happen was that even though Jesus had told Bartimaeus to “go” the story tells us that Bartimaeus didn’t actually “go” – instead, Bartimaeus followed Jesus. Aside from that slightly curious note the story of Bartimaeus ends without any hint that anything of great significance is about to happen. And yet Chapter 11 starts with the words “When they were approaching Jerusalem.” Both Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel set the stage for Jesus’ arriv...

 Although Chapter 10 looks like a random collection of stories, I would argue that there’s actually an overarching theme holding it all together. In a variety of ways, all of the stories deal with issues of status and privilege in society, and they all make the point that, as always, Jesus challenges the prevailing norms of his culture and the traditions of his faith community.   One interesting thing that happens as Chapter 10 opens that could be easily missed is the note from Mark that Jesus taught the crowds, “as was his custom.” I’m not suggesting that Jesus never taught the crowds before, but I think you could argue that teaching the crowds wasn’t customary for him. His teachings generally had been directed to his disciples. What the crowds tended to see had been miracles and exorcisms. Now Mark seems to be widening the scope of Jesus’ teaching ministry to the wider community. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that the first subject Jesus teaches about as he opens what ...

 I’m going to start on a bit of a technical note. Last fall when we were looking at the first half of Mark’s Gospel I pointed out several times the apparent inconsistencies in the chapter divisions that we find in the Bible. We have another example of that tonight as we start our look at the second half of the Gospel. Chapter 9 starts with the words, “ And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” How do we interpret these words in context? Are they meant to be the end of the stories Mark had told in Chapter 8, or are they the lead-on to the stories he’s going to tell in Chapter 9? Or there are a couple of other options – this could just be a stand alone verse not directly related to either, or it could be a bridge verse moving us forward from one collection of stories to the next. What we do know about Mark 9:1 is that it’s caused some degree of discomfort for many Chr...