Mark: the Son who came to serve

About the book

What a Gospel is, and why there are four, we saw with Matthew. Mark is the shortest of them. It too names no author, but the church has received it from the start as the work of Mark. Early in the second century Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, said that Mark, Peter's interpreter, wrote down accurately what he remembered of the Lord's words and deeds as Peter taught them, though not in order Eusebius, Church History 3.39. Around 180 Irenaeus wrote that Mark, Peter's disciple and interpreter, handed down in writing what Peter had preached Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1.

This Mark is taken to be the "John, also called Mark" of Acts (Acts 12:12). He set out with Paul and Barnabas but turned back, and over him the two later parted (Acts 15:37-39). Yet Paul came to write of him, "he is useful to me in the ministry" (2 Timothy 4:11), and Peter calls him "my son Mark" (1 Peter 5:13). The church has held that he wrote in Rome in the 60s, to leave Peter's gospel with the believers there.

The church long thought Matthew came first, but most scholars today hold that Mark was the first Gospel written, since nearly all of Mark's stories appear in Matthew or Luke, mostly in Mark's order, often in smoother wording. On the author, many scholars accept that a man named Mark wrote it, since there was little reason to attach the name of someone who was not an apostle. They differ on how close he stood to Peter, on whether he wrote before or after the temple fell in AD 70, and on whether in Rome, Syria or Galilee; many date it about 70.

Its events fall in the era the map under the Jesus tab calls Jesus (c. 4 BC–AD 30). Mark explains Jewish washing customs (Mark 7:3-4) and translates Aramaic, such as "Talitha koum!" (Mark 5:41), for readers beyond Judea.

How it unfolds

Mark moves from the question of who Jesus is, in Galilee, along his road to the cross. Peter's confession in chapter 8 is the hinge.

Mark's ending needs a word. The earliest manuscripts stop at 16:8: in their fear the women "did not say a word to anyone" (Mark 16:8). Verses 9–20 differ from the rest in vocabulary and style, so most scholars think they were added later, and many Bibles set them apart or add a note. Yet they were known by the second century, stand in most manuscripts, and agree with the risen Lord's appearances in the other Gospels and Acts. Whether Mark meant to stop at 16:8 or his first ending was lost is debated, and some scholars hold that verses 9–20 are Mark's own.

Key passages

The first line is the book's title: "This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1). Jesus begins with a call:

The time is fulfilled … and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gospel!

Mark 1:15

Then the story runs. A Greek word for ‘immediately’, euthus (εὐθύς), comes more than forty times, as Jesus moves from town to town, from the sick to the possessed. When he calms the wind and the sea, the disciples ask, "Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" (Mark 4:41).

At the centre of the book Peter answers, "You are the Christ" (Mark 8:29). From then on Jesus teaches that "the Son of Man must suffer many things" (Mark 8:31), be killed and rise again, and he says what kind of road it is:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45

A ransom is the price paid to set a captive free. Theophylact, an eleventh-century Greek commentator, writes that "this serving and condescension of humility was His glory, and that of all" Theophylact. Those who follow walk the same road: "he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me" (Mark 8:34).

The book and Christ

Mark opens with the prophets: "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet" (Mark 1:2), a messenger will prepare the Lord's way. As the risen Jesus explained himself from Moses and the Prophets (Luke 24:27), Mark tells that the Lord the prophets awaited has come.

Who Jesus is shows most clearly not in the miracles but at the cross. At his baptism a voice from heaven said, "You are My beloved Son" (Mark 1:11), and when he breathed his last, the centurion standing in front of him said:

Truly this man was the Son of God!

Mark 15:39

In this book the first human being to confess him Son of God is not a disciple but a Roman officer at the cross. At the empty tomb the young man says, "He has risen!" (Mark 16:6), and sends word to "His disciples and Peter" (Mark 16:7): even Peter, who had denied him, is called back.

Reading it

Two chapters a day take eight days, or you can read it at one sitting; begin with Mark 1. What believing the gospel means, in the New Believers course, asks a new believer to read this book through: it shows Jesus briefly and with force. Watch the three predictions of the passion (8:31, 9:31, 10:33-34), the disciples going astray after each, and Jesus teaching them to serve. Then go on to Luke.

Practice