Introduction to — Mark 1

0:00 Today, our intention, or my intention, is to try and give you an introduction to the Gospel of Mark. Hopefully, that exercise will sorta set the tone, okay? Think about the history, if you will, that we've gone through, the history since then, the people that lived, the time that it was, okay? And so let's just move along into it. We'll talk a little bit about when it was written, okay?

0:27 Gospel of Mark, if you will. Who wrote the book? Talk about Mark himself. Why do we have it here with us today? That'll sort of come up in the discussion.

0:38 Who was Mark? Maybe who wrote the book kind of covers that again. Who influenced his writing? Why is it important for us to study? What's unique about it a little bit?

0:48 What can we glean from it today? We'll run all over all of those things, hope, today. And if we get some time, we're gonna start into the book and talk a little bit about John the Baptist, okay? Now, I would normally spend a lot of time in the scriptures. I thought this was important for us to spend some time understanding these matters so that we can understand why it's important.

1:49 We'll call it the first century, right? That whole timeline. You know, the first thirty years or so, the Lord was growing up. He ends up working as a carpenter, we know that. He's baptized by John somewhere around A.

2:07 D. Thirty, plus or minus there. He has about a three year ministry. There's a period of time between '33 and '45 or '46 where there's nothing written down. It's as if the Lord is coming.

2:20 That's what their expectation was, right? That's what they were told to expect him. And then they started saying, you know, there's some things that I need to communicate to others, things that I want people to remember, things that were important to record. And then the bulk of the New Testament writings happened somewhere from the forty five, forty six to this AD seventy, which is the fall of, or the destruction of the temple, the fall of Jerusalem, and it's an interesting fact that I've read about that is that they burned the temple. And my understanding is, or what I've read is that when they burned it, it was so hot that it melted the gold, all the gold that was in the temple, and it flowed out of there in rivulets through the stones of the foundation to the point where the soldiers took and broke the foundation apart.

3:13 Broke it down, as it were, stone by stone to get the gold out. And I don't know, I'd have to give some more historical digging to confirm that, but that's what I understand. So a very interesting point. There's a quiet period here, and then John ends up being exiled to the Isle Of Patmos where he ended up dying. The only apostle, as the legend goes, that died of natural causes, but he ended up writing the book of John, one, two, three John, and Revelation about that time.

3:50 So it was interesting to perceive this, where John was and how this period of time had gone by, and I see in the book of John him having a reflective view of it and say, wait a minute, I want you to know these things. And we see that in John chapter 20. I want you to know that Jesus is the Christ and that through him you can be saved, John, one John, those things. So this is the way it breaks out book by book. There's quite a bit of discussion about whether or not Matthew is here, but most people that I've been reading will put it somewhere around A.

4:58 At the end of the day, I don't think it's as important exactly when they're written, but that they were written and that the church understood them as to be authoritative. Talk a little bit about that. All right, so let's move on a little bit. So we go from one hundred years to now four hundred years. The first century, this is one hundred years.

5:19 Second century, third century, fourth century. Okay, follow that. And if we stick John on there, right, there's the lifespan of John, if you will. We just talked about John, how he ended up dying late in about the turn of the century there, and he was born somewhere here early in that century. Some people put him at A.

5:41 D. Six. So he was younger than the Lord. We see him as young in his ministry, his time, the way he was the younger of the folks, or of the apostles, if you will. And it's important to understand that John was here and lived long, and there's a couple other guys that did a significant amount of work during this time, okay?

6:05 And not only did they, were they well known, but they were writers. The first guy here, Josephus. Josephus is a Jewish historian, not considered to be a believer. So, he would be considered an unsympathetic historian of the Christian faith. In other words, the things that he wrote, he didn't write because he was a believer and wanted people to believe it.

6:31 He wrote it because he heard about it, he wrote it down, he knew about it, he wrote it down. So some of the things that he wrote help confirm what happened in the New Testament and the church history and that sort of thing. So he's a significant writer of that time because of that. History puts him as having died around the turn of the century as well. And then there's another guy here, one of my favorites to read off and on.

7:31 Tried to, as the story goes, burn him at the stake and the fire didn't touch him. So they had to stab him to kill him. Interesting story from history. So there's Josephus, now we have Polycarp. So Polycarp, a student of John, continuing that teaching, and we move forward.

7:55 There's a guy that wrote somewhere here in the third and fourth century called Eusebius, if I said that, Eusebius, who wrote a significant history, an ecclesiastical history, if you will, a history of the church up to that point. Now, some of these names, the writings that they had, some of them started veering off onto paths that we might not appreciate today in some of the historical documentation and digging. But you can imagine, I mean, this is only a few hundred years or a couple hundred years after the crucifixion and the resurrection, and so he's writing not too long after that. And he would attribute the book that we're talking about today to Mark. But it's better than that.

8:51 There's another guy, Papias, whatever his name is, I'm sorry, I apologize. But he has written down, or apparently he's written something as late or as early as one hundred ten AD that says he's quoting John the Elder, who many believe it to be John the Apostle, as know, somewhere around here, as saying, this book is attributed to Mark as well. So you can see the history and the reason that it's important for us to understand that people have gone back. There's a lot of work that's been done to determine these things and to dig them up and to determine the veracity of what we have in our hands today. Okay?

9:40 Let's move on a little bit. We'll throw a few more guys up there. You can see, here's Justin Martyr, lived, you know, early in the second century, excuse me. Irenaeus, a guy that is said to have been tutored by Polycarp. So watch the progression, right?

10:00 We've got John the Apostle, tutor Polycarp who tutored Irenaeus. Irenaeus would say, This book is from Mark. Justin Martyr, the same thing. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, all agree. Origen later says the same thing.

10:20 So all these guys, you can see, having passed it down, like Mrs. Reeder's story, orally or in a written format are attributing this, finally as they wrote it down, attributing this book to Mark. What's interesting is that, let me make sure I get this right, Justin Martyr was born in Samaria among Judea as a Gentile, died in Rome. Irenaeus was originally from Smyrna in Asia Minor. Let's see, he eventually evangelized in Southern France.

10:57 Clement was from Alexandria in North Africa. Tertullian from Carthage in North Africa as well, South Of Italy, across from Malta. And then Origen also from Alexandria. Now why is that important for me to tell you those things? Because all of these folks, all of them would say, this is from Mark, okay, in this period of time, and look where they came from, okay?

11:22 This is the early church expansion, if you will. Jerusalem over here on the Eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, Alexandria, where Clement and others were from, Carthage, way over here, Rome, across from that, Smyrna, up here in what's now what we would call modern day Turkey, okay? All of them wrote from different areas at different times for different histories passed down, and all of them come to the same conclusion, Mark. This book was written by Mark. Okay?

11:54 It's important for us to take that. Now, I didn't go back and read Origin. I didn't go back. I read through these folks, okay? These are the ones that helped me, because they've done some condensation and some explanation in the English language, etcetera.

12:10 So I think it's important that we all realize who we're reading, okay? It's easy to get on Wikipedia and get off into a tangent over here, okay? But I will tell you, it's also easy to go and verify dates really quickly and information quickly on that site as well, okay? But we need to be careful. From what perspective are they coming from?

12:33 What do they believe? How do they stack their theology up? Those kind of things are important. So these are the folks I use in this particular case. I challenge you to understand where you're coming from there.

13:11 They thought they should do it, then they did it, which was even, they followed through, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. So they're on their way, they go to Jerusalem, and they are there while this amazing story happens. Do you remember the story of when Herod decided he was gonna capture, he was gonna take control of James and he kills him? He thinks, Oh, that worked so well, I'm going after Peter. He imprisons Peter.

13:42 Peter, it says that he's in chains between two guards with two posts beyond him and a gate. An angel comes to him in the middle of the night, breaks him free with a kick in the side, is why I imagine it. He says he struck him and said, Get up Peter, let's go. Right? Gets him out from between those two guards, who later, you'll find out were put to death, okay, because they let him escape, walks past one post, past the next post, up to the gate, which opens on its own.

14:16 That's the revelation in scripture. Now, do you believe that? You remember, a famous sportscaster made a career out of a statement one time. In the early '80s, the Miracle on Ice occurred, and Al Michaels said, Do you believe in miracles? Yes, you can, right?

14:39 And he wrote that statement, if you will, to a career that's Monday night football and many others, very famous now. So do you believe it? Do you believe that happened? The angel came, struck Peter and said, let's go. Well, that's what the scriptures show us.

14:55 And he goes out and he gets out of there, says he's dazed and confused. He doesn't realize it, but once the angel leaves him, he sort of comes to and says, that wasn't a vision, I'm on the outside, and now I know, now I know that this has happened. Now he's more convinced than he was before. Peter, even Peter, right? And what does he do?

15:22 I gotta go tell somebody. I need some help. I know where to go. I'm gonna go to Mary's house. Mary is Mark's mom.

15:30 So he goes there, and they've been praying for him. It says they were constant in prayer. Constant in prayer during that time. This is one of the places they were praying at. He shows up there.

15:43 Now, this was no secret. They knew Peter. Peter knew them. This was a house, I personally believe, that Paul and Barnabas were staying at. Okay?

15:54 We'll talk a little bit more about that in the future. But he goes there and this is where we're first introduced to Mark. Mary, his house. Peter shows up. Says he knocks on the gate, a girl named Rhoda answers and hears that it's Peter, runs back, doesn't even let him in the door.

16:12 Right, she's so excited. You gotta say, it's Peter. No, it can't be. Finally, it's Peter. They can't believe it.

16:17 He tells the story and leaves, and they're just completely amazed by what has happened. And the story is written for us and recorded there. Well, this happens, the next thing we learn is that Paul and Barnabas return to Antioch just before they're commended by that church to go out and tell others. And what do they do? It says, Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry of the relief, providing those funds, and they also took with them John, whose surname was Mark.

16:51 This is the Mark we believe wrote the book. So, all of a sudden, they get commended, they go off on their journey, the first missionary journey, if you will, and along the way, something happens. We don't know exactly what, but it wasn't a good thing. It was a little bit of a sour feeling between Paul and Mark, but Mark leaves Paul and Barnabas and he moves on, it leaves a sour taste with Paul. Barnabas, when they are gonna go back out again, says, I wanna take Mark with us.

17:23 Paul says, No. Barnabas says, Yes. Paul says, No. Barnabas says, Well, if that's the way you feel about it, I'm gonna take him, and you can go your other way. And that's what ended up happening.

17:35 So we sort of see the rise and fall of Mark very quickly, but not too long because we know that Mark gets restored to Paul, if you will. We do find out, Colossians four ten, that he is a cousin of Barnabas. Paul speaks the highly of him and says, If you see Mark, you should accept him. You should bring him in. Okay?

17:57 And he also says in what we think is Paul's last writing, two Timothy, go get Mark. Not, I heard good of him, I think well of him, go get him, he's useful to me, Okay? So they've obviously restored that relationship. When he writes Philemon, he says, Mark is with me. Eventually, Peter writes one Peter.

18:24 You remember Peter knew the house of Mary where Mark was, so he knew Mark. Later in his life, Peter refers to him as his son. Now, Mary wasn't ever considered Peter's wife, so it's a spiritual son, we believe. And Peter is considered to be the one who influences Mark's writing, okay? Mark was with Peter as he spoke.

19:00 He recorded those things of Peter, but we shouldn't take it away that it's just what Mark thought, okay? We still can believe that this was inspired by the Holy Spirit and his writings are authoritative as well. And then Mark fourteen fifty one-fifty two, let's read that one. It says, A certain young man followed him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body, and the young men laid ahold of him, and he left a linen cloth and fled from them naked. This is around the time that Peter is denying the Lord, right?

19:31 And most scholars would say, who would put that in there other than the guy that it happened to, Right? So this might be like a Stan Lee, right? This is the cameo appearance of Mark in his own book. Okay? So just an interesting point.

20:24 I take the scriptures to be authoritative. I take them to be inspired, okay? I don't in any way want to take away from that as I'm saying that, and yet we have a historical record that supports a lot of that too. There's 16 chapters in the book of Mark. The first 10 from John the Baptist up to the final week of the Lord's life, and then the final six dealing with the final week, which is not the rest of the other Gospels have a similar breakdown in that way.

20:54 Only six sixty one verses. Interesting point is that 600 plus of them are included in Matthew and Luke, and also in John. If you look at the different verses in Mark, you'll find out that much of it is either repeated or said similarly, or the same instances or stories and that are recorded elsewhere, okay? It's a condensed version of the Gospel, if you will. We'll talk a little bit more about that.

21:25 It's probably written in Rome for Gentile believers, so it's pertinent to everyone, not just Israel, okay? It begins with the ministry of John the Baptist, ends with the resurrection, and basically says in brief, vivid, direct, colorful language that this is what changed the world. The world was different after this, okay? Now, all of this is important, and we could talk about genealogies. That's important.

22:01 Matthew started off with that, right? We could talk about the virgin birth. That was important when Luke wrote. Probably associate of Mary. We can talk about the trinity.

22:13 That's really important too. We can talk about prophecy from the Old Testament. We can talk about deity. We can even talk about the church history and what could have caused the explosion of the church throughout history other than the release of the Holy Spirit. We could talk about all those things, but unless we stumble over this block or this rock, if you will, okay?

22:39 Peter said it, therefore to you who believe, he is precious. This is one Peter two:seven-eight. But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble, being disobedient to the word to which they are also appointed. It's echoed again by Paul in Romans nine thirty three.

23:03 So, here's the point. There is a story written about a man named Jesus Christ. Okay? And if you walk through this life on earth, you can't help but stumble over it in this world. Okay?

23:24 So that's the way I take Mark to be. Do something, you must do something with the man who is Jesus. What will you do as you walk through life and you stumble on that fact? These facts that were written down and are very historically reliable, Okay? Josephus, remember the one that didn't even, you know, he wasn't a believer, not sympathetic, but he would say, He was alive.

23:54 Everybody would tell you he was alive. What are you going to do with this story? I think that's what Mark is trying to tell us. Look, look at the man. Look at who he was.

24:09 Look at what he did. Look at the claims he made. Look at the history behind it. Then tell me what you're gonna do. Okay, so let's jump into that real quick.

24:44 But more than a man, he makes a claim right here in verse one. What does it say? He's the Son of God. Okay? It's a bold statement to start the book.

24:55 When you start a novel or something like that, you're supposed to have just a crowd pleaser, a catcher, an eye catcher, right? Well, it is. The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Great way to start. He gives limited backstory.

25:10 He doesn't spend a lot of time like Luke does in establishing the virgin birth and other things. He jumps right into it and basically is saying, this is when it changed. Now we went back and looked this other stuff up. We went back and heard the rest of the stories, but you gotta deal with this first. There's the harmony of the Gospels, if you will.

25:33 I just took a few first few verses of Mark. As we go through the study of Mark, and we intend to do that over the next months, I would encourage those who are doing it to do just this, to look at what Mark has written, but then, you know, add a little bit of additional information from Matthew and Luke and potentially John as we go forward. Okay? So let's move on. The second two verses of Mark start off with this prophecy, right?

26:50 There was great anticipation by Israel of these words. You know, we hear people say, Is he the one? Is he coming? Etcetera. Then the next one, Isaiah chapter 40 verse three was repeated in Matthew, Mark, and John, and was written more like seven hundred years.

27:08 He's considered the crying prophet, very prolific and detailed in the poetry that I have a hard time reading, I'm sorry, but Isaiah is a very important book in the canon, if you will. The purpose, John's purpose in coming, because this prophecy is of John, was to prepare the way before Christ, to begin the message of change, if you will. Also go to, if we went to Luke, we could understand that there's some more information behind this, right? Zacharias had a prophecy of, or was prophesied to about the son that would be born to him, and he said, Can't be. My wife is barren.

27:49 Elizabeth, they were older. He had this unbelief. He was struck mute as a result of that, and then he ends up prophesying about the Lord after John is born. Interesting to know that he was a priest, a descendant of Abijah, who was one of Samuel's sons, and Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. That comes in important, I think, later.

28:19 Mary came before the two, John and Jesus, were born, stayed with Elizabeth for a few months. Okay, so the next verses is John came baptized in the wilderness. You can read that, Mark one, four, five. And he's in the wilderness, right? He's outside the city, outside of the center of attention, outside of the temple.

28:42 He's in the wilderness doing this work, and he's saying repent. Okay? Repent of what? Well, if you take the Old Testament, the law and the prophets, they shout over and over again that in spite of all the good the Lord had done, those people could not keep the law. The prophets kept reminding them of it.

29:12 They could not not sin, if you will. Okay? It's essentially, here he is defining the problem. Salvation is needed, okay? You've heard of politicians that drum something up to be able to create a problem.

29:27 Well, wasn't drummed up. This was John coming as prophesied saying, There is a problem you all need to address. Okay? It's called sin. You need to repent, look back, look at the prophets, look at what they've said.

29:44 The response was that many came to hear. It was a revival of sorts, the way I would understand it. And many confessed. You know, it's important to understand that there's a problem, but if it's with you, you have to accept it and confess, yeah, it's my problem. I got this problem.

30:04 So many people were accepting that message and they're confessing it. As we approach the Lord, that applies to us today too. Matthew and Luke said that there was a big Pharisee and Sadducee conflict And they said, look, act worthy of the repentance that you are confessing. Okay, last slide here. It says that John was out in the wilderness clothed in camel hair, a leather belt, locusts, and honey.

30:38 Does that sound odd to you? I think it did to them as well. That's why they wrote it down. Or does it make him seem humble? I would say humble more than anything.

30:50 Don't you remember Zacharias and Elizabeth? He was an heir to a priestly office, if it will. Okay? His dad was a priest. He was right there.

30:59 He could have been part of that, those trappings, if you will. But he was different. He was out there. Contrast this to the sons of Samuel. Remember the sons of Samuel that were considered wicked.

31:11 I wrote it down, it says they had dishonest gain, they took bribes, and they perverted justice. Well, not Zacharias' son, okay? He went out and was a humble man in the wilderness preaching repentance. He was focused not on himself. He said, I'm not the guy, but there is one coming.

31:37 He was pointing the direction towards him. He knew his proper position, said, I'm so low. I'm so low. You think I'm important? I'm not important.

31:48 I'm so low, I can't even tie the sandal strap of that guy, which would have been an act of a low servant. He's baptizing with water versus the Holy Spirit. Baptism, we get, it's a big word in the church today, right? The church period, right? But it's really in the sense that he's talking about here, it's a public act.

32:14 It's identification with the message. It's a demonstration of the heart with which the person has been convicted, if you will, in this particular case. We know that baptism is a picture of death under the water and new life coming out, okay? A before and an after, so to speak. And it just struck me that John said, I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

32:45 And I always imagined that as coming as the Holy Spirit coming to me, dwelling me, those kind of things, but I got a picture this time of you've seen somebody be baptized, And we fill up the tank and then we dunk them in and we pull them out, right? When that person stands up, do they look dry? They're soaking wet right to the very skin. Every part of them is wet completely. Okay?

33:18 And they went down and died a new life, a before and an after. And think about it now. Think about it, that picture, the Lord Jesus baptizing us in the Holy Spirit, right? Underneath, up out, soaking wet, all over you, stuck to you everywhere, the Holy Spirit. Just a picture that I thought was an interesting one to consider.

33:52 John said, I'm not the Christ. Okay, then he quoted, I'm just the one coming before in Isaiah forty:three. So I hope I didn't go too fast for you. I hope that we accomplished something here today. I hope it was beneficial to you and let's wrap it up with a word of prayer.

34:11 Father, we're thankful Lord that you've given us this opportunity. Once again, we say it again, but we thank you that we can rely on these scriptures. We thank you that the history of what was written. We thank you for Mark and the life that he lived and the book that he's written, the inspiration that you gave, and we just pray, Lord, as we move on that we'll continue to learn. It's in your son's precious name that we pray.

34:39 Amen.