Mark 13:10

Note

In the middle of a warning about councils, floggings and trials before kings, Jesus sets one short sentence. It names the thing that must happen before all the rest.

The disciples have heard that not one stone of the temple will be left on another, and on the Mount of Olives they ask when and by what sign. Jesus answers at length. Wars and rumours of wars will come, "but the end is still to come" (Mark 13:7). His followers will be handed over: "On My account you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them" (Mark 13:9). Right after this verse comes the promise for that hour: "it will not be you speaking, but the Holy Spirit" (Mark 13:11). The court of persecution becomes a place of testimony, and the testimony becomes the road by which the gospel reaches the nations. Matthew gives the same saying at greater length (Matthew 24:14).

The noun euangelion is the subject of an aorist passive infinitive, kēruchthēnai, "to be proclaimed," and before it stands dei, "it is necessary." Mark uses the same word of the cross: "the Son of Man must suffer many things" (Mark 8:31). As the suffering of Christ had to happen within God's purpose, so the going of the gospel to the nations has to happen. "First" (prōton) means before the end; "all the nations" (panta ta ethnē) reaches past Israel to every Gentile people.

The KJV says the gospel "must first be published among all nations," using "publish" in its older sense of making something public. The BSB and the LSV both use "proclaimed"; the LSV keeps the Greek word order with "to all the nations it is first necessary that the good news be proclaimed," which brings out the necessity more plainly than either of the others.

In the Catena, Theophylact explains why the sentence breaks in where it does: "that they might not think that their preaching should be impeded by troubles and dangers" Theophylact. Bede appeals to the church's historians, who record that the apostles were scattered across the world preaching the gospel long before Judea was destroyed. Matthew Henry puts the whole in a line: "Though they may be crushed and borne down, the gospel cannot be" Matthew Henry.

The first generation saw the saying at work. Around AD 96 the church of Rome wrote to the church of Corinth that Paul had preached in the East and in the West, and that he bore his testimony before the rulers and so departed from the world 1 Clement 5. Standing before rulers and carrying the gospel to the nations met in one man's life.

This verse says that courts and prisons do not close the gospel's road. What drives it on is God's "must," and in the hour of trial the one who speaks is the Holy Spirit.