Bible Study

Chapter 16 of Mark is the last Chapter of Mark and in many ways the most confusing Chapter of Mark. As a matter of fact, I’d be prepared to say that in my opinion Mark 16 might be the most confusing Chapter in the entire Bible! There are really two separate pieces of writing included in Mark 16. In fact, you could say that there’s two and two thirds separate pieces of writing included in Mark 16 – and it’s arguable that each of those separate pieces of writing was written by a different author and has a very different message. So without getting into the content specifically for now let me just outline how Mark 16 is structured. The Chapter begins with an account of the resurrection – although, to be fair, it isn’t actually an account of the resurrection. It’s an account of the discovery of the empty tomb by the women who had gone to anoint Jesus’ body but there are no actual appearances by Jesus. Mark’s Gospel in its original form seems to have ended on a bit of a note of mystery. Tha...

Next to Jesus, the most important person once we get to this part of the Gospel is almost certainly Pontius Pilate. Pilate is an interesting and somewhat mysterious figure who has been the subject of a lot of conjecture over the years, so it might be a good idea to lead off our discussion of this chapter with some thoughts and background information about Pilate.   Pilate, according to all of the Gospels, was the Roman Governor of Judea who (apparently reluctantly) sentenced Jesus to be crucified. We know little else about him from the Gospels. There was at one time a movement (which never became widespread) that suggested Pilate was a mythical figure who symbolized Roman authority over Judea but didn’t actually exist – that he was a kind of composite character. We do know, however, that Pilate did exist and that, as the Gospels tell us, he was the Governor of Roman Judea – the 5 th Governor of Judea, to be precise. His family is believed to have come from south central Italy....

Chapter 14, to me, is a reminder of some of the earlier chapters of Mark’s Gospel. The story in this chapter moves frantically and appears to be a series of vignettes more than a structured narrative. Having said that, it may well be a good depiction of this last relatively normal day in Jesus’ life. A lot apparently happens in this period of just a few hours, and it almost feels as if, to try to capture everything, Mark is almost writing in bullet form.   Chapter 14 opens by making it clear that Jesus’ opponents have given up on the idea of trying to trap him in some sort of word contest. They can’t trap him. Remember that the purpose of trapping him was always to eliminate him as a threat by showing him up in front of the crowds. The problem had been that whenever they had tried to spring such a trap, they had only ended up embarrassing themselves instead. Jesus with every humiliation he inflicts upon his opponents is gathering more and more of a following and becoming more a...

 I’ve been pointing out that in the last few chapters of Mark’s Gospel each chapter seems to have its own self-contained theme, so right off the top it’s important to establish what the theme of Mark 13 is, and I think it’s pretty obvious – Mark 13’s theme is “What’s To Come” or you might even say “The End Times.” Jesus looks ahead to things he says are going to happen and to things he tells the disciples to be watchful for. Along with its parallel chapters in the other Gospels, these are called apocalyptic writings. Jesus doesn’t really deal very much with apocalyptic matters over the course of his recorded ministry, but in each of the synoptic Gospels it becomes an issue after the entry into Jerusalem and before what you might call the final events of his life. That being the case I suppose that it’s natural enough for Jesus to be focussing on “the end” right at this moment. All throughout the last two thousand years there have been some Christians (and more than just Christians)...