Table of Contents
Mark
Mark’s Gospel never names its author, but the earliest Christian tradition is unanimous: this is John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas who once turned back partway through a mission with Paul (Acts 13:13, 15:37-39) and later became, in Peter’s own words, “my son” (1 Peter 5:13) — the Gospel is widely held to preserve Peter’s own preaching, set down in writing by his interpreter. It shows: this is the shortest and fastest of the four Gospels, opening with no genealogy and no birth narrative at all, moving from scene to scene on Mark’s own favorite word, “immediately,” used more than forty times in just sixteen chapters. And it is unusually candid about Peter’s own failures, pausing at the very end on a nameless young man who flees the scene of Christ’s arrest naked (14:51-52) — a strange, unexplained detail many have read as Mark’s own signature, hidden in the one scene he alone witnessed.
This series reads Mark chapter by chapter, immediately following this site’s own chapter-by-chapter study of Matthew. It is the second book of the New Testament on this site, and the first of Mark’s own sixteen chapters — the wilderness temptation compressed into a single verse, four fishermen called before the day is out, demons and disease and a stilled storm, and a Messiah who keeps commanding silence about who He is until the cross finally forces the truth into the open.
List Of Articles
The Beginning Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ
no genealogy, no manger, no birth narrative — Mark opens with a grown man at a river, and by the end of this one chapter a voice has cried in the wilderness, heaven has torn open, Satan has been faced down among wild beasts, four fishermen have dropped their nets, and a demon has screamed out the truth before anyone else in the room understood it
Mark 1The Sabbath Was Made For Man, And Not Man For The Sabbath
four friends dig through a stranger's roof to reach Jesus, a tax collector drops his ledger the moment he's asked, and religious men accuse him of the wrong crime four separate times in one chapter — wrong every time about what they think they've caught him doing
Mark 2He Is Beside Himself
a withered hand is healed in a room hoping it won't be, a mountainside prayer that lasts all night produces a list of twelve names — one already marked for betrayal — and by the chapter's middle it isn't the scribes who are most alarmed by Jesus, it's his own family, convinced he has lost his mind
Mark 3Peace, Be Still
a farmer scatters seed without checking the soil, a man plants a field and simply goes to sleep with no idea how the growing happens, a shrub smaller than almost any seed becomes big enough for birds to nest in — and on the same evening this quiet talk of growth ends, the sea nearly swallows the boat carrying the man who told it
Mark 4My Name Is Legion
a man too violent to be chained lives among the tombs and gives his name as a number, not a word; a woman who has spent twelve years and everything she owns on doctors is healed by touching a robe in a crowd without asking anyone's permission; and a synagogue ruler's daughter is pronounced dead while her father is still on the road home with the one person who could have saved her
Mark 5Is Not This The Carpenter
the people who watched him grow up dismiss him for it; a king who is afraid of a prisoner he himself is protecting throws away that prisoner's life rather than look weak at a party; a crowd of thousands sits down on the grass expecting a sermon and is handed dinner instead; and that same night, on the water, the men who had just watched it happen still can't tell him from a ghost
Mark 6Full Well Ye Reject The Commandment Of God
religious experts travel from Jerusalem to complain that his disciples ate lunch without washing their hands, and walk straight into a definition of purity that has nothing to do with hands at all; a foreign woman turns his own hardest words back on him as an argument he can't refuse; and a deaf man who can't ask for anything himself is carried forward by friends who ask on his behalf
Mark 7How Many Loaves Have Ye
a second crowd is fed with almost the same miracle as one chapter ago, and he makes his own disciples count the leftover baskets out loud; a blind man is healed in two stages instead of one; and the moment one disciple finally says the truest thing anyone has said about him yet, he's rebuked in the very next breath for refusing to hear what it's going to cost
Mark 8This Is My Beloved Son: Hear Him
three disciples watch their teacher's face turn as bright as the sun on a mountaintop, and before the day is over are back at the bottom of it, failing in front of a crowd to heal a boy their own teacher heals with a word; a desperate father offers the most honest prayer in this whole gospel — 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief' — and it is enough
Mark 9What God Hath Joined Together
religious leaders ask a question about divorce hoping to trap him either way; a rich, sincere young man walks away sad because the one thing he lacks is the one thing he won't give; two brothers ask for the best seats in the kingdom right after hearing, for the third time, that the road ahead runs through a cross; and a blind beggar outside the city refuses to be silenced by the crowd
Mark 10Hosanna: Blessed Is He That Cometh
a crowd shouts hosanna to a king who will be dead within the week, not understanding what kind of king he actually is; a leafy fig tree is cursed for looking fruitful while being empty, and it doesn't visibly die until two whole scenes later, after a temple has been turned upside down in between
Mark 11Not Far From The Kingdom Of God
a trap question about taxes gets an answer so precise it leaves both sides speechless; a trap question about marriage in the resurrection quietly ends an entire denomination's doctrine of the afterlife; one honest scribe asks a real question and hears something no one else in this gospel is ever told; and a poor widow gives away everything she has, not knowing the Son of God just called it the largest gift dropped in the treasury all day
Mark 12Not One Stone Upon Another
he stands in the very buildings his disciples are admiring and tells them not one stone will be left standing on another; he goes on to describe wars, betrayals, an abomination standing where it ought not, a darkened sun, and falling stars — and then admits, in the very same breath, that even he does not know the day or the hour any of it will happen
Mark 13She Hath Done What She Could
a woman breaks open a jar worth a year's wages and pours it on his head, and is told the act will be remembered everywhere the gospel is ever preached; in the same house, a man who has eaten at that table walks out to sell his teacher's life; a prayer is prayed three times in a garden while three friends can't stay awake for one hour of it; and when the soldiers come, one young man runs into the night leaving his only garment behind
Mark 14Art Thou The King Of The Jews
a governor who finds no fault in him hands him over anyway, to save his own position; soldiers dress a condemned man in purple and a crown of thorns and mock him as a king in the same breath they beat him; a stranger just passing by is grabbed out of the crowd and made to carry a cross that was never his; and at the moment everyone expected a rescue or a curse, what comes from the cross instead is a question
Mark 15He Is Risen; He Is Not Here
three women come to finish a burial and find the stone already moved and the body already gone; the message they're given makes a point of including, by name, the one disciple who three days earlier swore with curses that he never knew him at all; and this gospel ends with women running from an empty tomb, too afraid to say a word to anyone
Mark 16