Mark 1:1-15

philologos

Mark 1:1-15:

[John the Baptist Prepares the Way]
[1:1] The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
[2] As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
[3] the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”
[4] John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. [5] And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. [6] Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. [7] And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. [8] I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

[The Baptism of Jesus]
[9] In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. [10] And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. [11] And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

[The Temptation of Jesus]
[12] The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. [13] And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

[Jesus Begins His Ministry]
[14] Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, [15] and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

(Mark 1:1-15 ESV)

As per my previous thread, I'm looking to start threads where people on boards.ie can study the Bible together so that we can understand better as a collective as to who Jesus is, and as to how we can glorify Him in our daily lives as Christians. This thread will consider Mark 1:1-15 and hopefully we'll move through Mark's Gospel week by week.

I would thoroughly advise prayer before reading and consulting God's word, as it is important to notice that it is only by the power of Jesus Christ that we can understand the Scriptures.

Below I have quoted the Scriptures for this weeks study, mainly the passage in Mark, and below this I've provided a number of questions that will hopefully aim our understanding and guide the discussion.

Overall Questions:
1) What does this section tell us about Jesus?
2) What does this section tell us about John the Baptist?

Specific Questions:
1) What does Mark tell us about Jesus in verse 1?
2) What does the word 'gospel' mean?
3) Why does Mark quote from the Old Testament in verse 2 (see Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1)
4) What does this quote have to do with the following section about John the Baptist?
5) What was the purpose of John's Baptism? (v.4-5)
6) Why do you think that Mark mentions John's appearance in verse 6? (see Malachi 4:5 and 2 Kings 1:8)
7) Who is John speaking about in verse 7?
8) Why is John so humble towards him?
9) What is different about the baptism described in verse 8 from the one discussed in verses 4 - 5?
10) Why is Jesus baptised by John if his baptism was for the "confession of sins"? (v.9-11)
11) How can verse 8 help us to better understand the baptism of Jesus (v.9-11)?
12) Who speaks from heaven in verse 11? (Compare with Psalm 2:7-9)
13) What is peculiar about verses 12 - 13?
14) What do we find out about Jesus in these verses?
15) What does Jesus mean in verse 15?

Plowman

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philologos

This is a passage that I learned a lot from when I studied it about 2 weeks ago with my small group at church. I was surprised at how much I didn't know about it.

Plowman wrote: »

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Mark's Gospel is interesting in that it opens explicitly telling us that Jesus is the Messiah, the King that was prophesied. John waits a good deal longer to tell us that, he wants us to work out what he is saying almost in a logical fashion.

When Mark refers to Jesus as being God's son, he seems to be alluding to Psalm 2:7 which was written to King David. It seems that Mark is implying that Jesus is the Davidic King that was prophesied in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 23:5-6). That the nations would be Jesus' inheritance, and as we will find out later in Mark's Gospel that all authority has been given to Jesus by the Father.

The wilderness as far as I see it probably means where John was preaching, but there is a case that there is more than this. The passage tell us that John was baptising by the Jordan. I would presume that in terms of Israel's geography it would be probably a place much like this in the Jordan valley. I could be completely wrong and I welcome correction from someone more knowledgeable . Needless to say it would have been very remote, which is why Mark emphasises that people came from Jerusalem and Judea to see him. This tells us that John was either considered notorious or fascinating enough for people to make that effort perhaps.

Plowman wrote: »

Also, did John understand his mission, or was it the disciples and early Christians who fitted the pieces of the scriptural jigsaw together?
The quotation from Isaiah associates John the Baptist with the “messenger … voice of one crying in the wilderness.” I suppose it also shows that God is still at work among the Israelites, fulfilling his promises to them.

This is cheating a little, but if you look to John the Baptist in John 1:23 it is John the Baptist himself who is saying that he has fulfilled this prophesy. He knew that he would usher in the Messiah, but as for him knowing who exactly the Messiah was before that point it is a little more questionable.

Plowman wrote: »

This verse confused me a little. Mark says that the baptism was “of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” It sounds like no water was necessary for this. If John’s job was to “prepare the way of the Lord,” surely he should have been preaching and left people’s confessions to Jesus?

This may come down to my denominational mindset, but one could argue that water isn't required at all, but due to its likeness to washing one could say that it has a symbolic character. Remember that John was the one in the wilderness preparing the way for the Lord (Isaiah 40). Perhaps people confessing and repenting was what was to prepare people for the Lord Jesus.

Plowman wrote: »

He does appear to acknowledge the inadequacy of his baptisms when he says that “I have baptised you with water, but He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.” A few verses later, Jesus is baptised with the Holy Spirit and, later in Acts, the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples too. I guess John baptises Jesus because Jesus is entirely human like the others. However, my understanding is fuzzy here.

Cheating a little bit again but we find out a little bit more in John's Gospel as to why John baptises Jesus: (John 1:32-34)

And John bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."

It appears that John is telling us that John the Baptist knew beforehand that the one who would baptise with the Holy Spirit would himself be baptised. In Matthew's version of events it shows John as being reluctant to even baptise Jesus. I guess in all reading of the Gospels we have to read and compare and fuse them all together.

Plowman wrote: »

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Verse 12 struck me also. It's important to keep in mind that the Trinity is living and active through the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit during the life of Jesus. I think Christians can learn that we need to listen and follow the Holy Spirit in every sphere of our lives. This naturally can be difficult, but Jesus presents a good example of how He is convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit to do the will of His Father in heaven.

The fact that Jesus is tempted is interesting, it means that Jesus can understand our pains, our sufferings and our trials. It means that Jesus is the bridge between God and mankind in a sense.

Hebrews 4:14-16 builds on the theme that we find in this part of Mark's Gospel a little more:

Hebrews 4:14-16 wrote:

14Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Plowman wrote: »

These verses cement the idea the Jesus is God’s Son, with the Holy Spirit and angels tending to him. They also hint that Jesus’ sufferings were more than the mortal ones recounted in the Gospel narratives.
He is saying that the prophesies and promises of the OT scriptures are being fulfilled, and that the Messiah the Jews have been waiting for has arrived (even if he is not what they expected). Presumably this is the good news/gospel he is referring to. He also urges people to repent – although Jesus has not died for our sins at this point, so how useful is people’s remorse alone really?

It appears that there is as much a spiritual battle in the case of Jesus than a physical one. John is the Gospel which phrases it very clearly in terms of light and darkness. You'll see that Mark describes demonic activity in the coming verses which I'm hoping to study in the coming week depending on how much time we need on this section.

Your next point could be potentially a philosophical can of worms, but I've always understood it as this. Jesus' death wasn't time bound, His death and resurrection weren't time bound. If people believed and trusted in Jesus, and believed that He would eventually ransom them from their sins they were as much saved by His death and resurrection then (before His death and resurrection) as we can be now. Perhaps this is a wrong understanding and perhaps I'll be corrected by another poster

Plowman wrote: »

These are my musings on the passage. I should point out that I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about the Bible as many other posters here, so feel free to correct any errors or enlighten me on certain points.

They are welcome, and I think there is a great power in Christians studying God's word together. Let's hope that some of the others come in and bang a few ideas around with us!

Pompey Magnus

Out of interest how do modern inerrantists deal with Mark misattributing the quotation in 1:2 to Isaiah when it actually came from Malachi?

I know many used to claim that the original text said "As is written in the prophets" but as this has been pretty well discredited I was wondering what the modern workaround the problem is (I'm sure there are plenty but is there one dominant view)?

philologos

Mark 1:2 contains Isaiah 40:3 as well as Malachi 3:1. There seems to be some form of synthesis. I think what is happening is that Mark is using Malachi 3:1 to give context to the latter verse Isaiah 40:3 which is in the second clause of the sentence.

Isaiah 40:3 only tells us that there will be a voice crying in the wilderness. Malachi 3:1 puts some meat to the bones and says that this messenger is the one who will prepare the way for Jesus. Although one could argue that further on in Isaiah much the same is said albeit in metaphorical terms such as mountains being made low for our God.

So Mark 1:2 is also pointing to the divinity of Jesus Christ, if John is the one preparing the way for Jesus, and if Isaiah says that the messenger will prepare the way for our God, then it follows that Jesus is to be considered as divine in Mark's mind.

It's a good question though, but I'm not quite sure that it is a misattribution considering that Isaiah 40:3 is there.

Did you find anything else interesting about the content Pompey Magnus?

Pompey Magnus

philologos wrote: »

Did you find anything else interesting about the content Pompey Magnus?

Cheers for the answer, I hadn't heard the argument that that opening quotation from the Hebrew Bible could be seen as evidence for the author's belief that Jesus was divine before, I'll have to have another look at that.

Well just something else that has been confusing me for a while would be the question of just what is the gospel that Jesus speaks about in 1:15, in the Christian context is the gospel not the good news of the resurrection of Jesus and therefore only a term that would make sense after his death?

Another aspect of the opening passage of Mark that I find interesting is the point at which he starts the Gospel, Jesus' baptism. If the stories found in the other Gospels relating to Jesus' miraculous birth and early childhood were historical (or even just tales which were invented in the very early years of the religion), then I can't see any good reason why Mark would fail to mention them.

If Mark wanted to suggest Jesus' divinity to his readers from the very start of his Gospel then why go such a round about way through John the Baptist and linking it to passages in the Hebrew Bible instead of mentioning the visitation and virgin birth. At the very least I have always seen this as being good evidence against the author of this Gospel being Mark the secretary of Peter and instead being someone much further removed from the events he described. It also could be seen as evidence that the virgin birth claims arose relatively late in the formation years of the religion, perhaps only becoming widely spread in the years between the writing of Mark and then Matthew and Luke.

I really just can't think of a good reason why he wouldn't mention these highly significant events, it isn't like he knew Matthew and Luke would cover it later on and so he wouldn't need to (I am assuming Mark is the earliest Gospel of course).

philologos

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Cheers for the answer, I hadn't heard the argument that that opening quotation from the Hebrew Bible could be seen as evidence for the author's belief that Jesus was divine before, I'll have to have another look at that.

There's other stuff in Mark's Gospel that would point towards Jesus' divinity. Much of it we will see in the coming sections. I've really opened up to some passages that I almost skimmed by in the past at my church small group. If you sit and probe each verse one by one you begin to understand just how incredible Jesus is, particularly when you have a group of people to bang ideas off.

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Well just something else that has been confusing me for a while would be the question of just what is the gospel that Jesus speaks about in 1:15, in the Christian context is the gospel not the good news of the resurrection of Jesus and therefore only a term that would make sense after his death?

That struck us when we were reading this too. The Gospel isn't just about repentance, it is also about belief in the message that Jesus brought. I don't think this precludes Jesus' death and resurrection as a key part of the gospel, but there is more to the gospel than this. There is also a personal transformation that takes place. It isn't just that you believe that Jesus died and rose again, it's that your belief in Jesus brings you on a journey with Him to glorify God in every single possible way.

The message of Jesus is as important than His death and resurrection. Some people skim by what Jesus actually taught by focusing only on His death and resurrection.

I think the Gospel in 1:15 is left intentionally ambiguous by Mark in order to encourage us to read on and ask this question in subsequent chapters.

If you feel I'm wrong give this a mulling over. I think it is a good idea that we can do this on this thread. Understanding why Mark wrote this is something that I've been coming more and more to grips with over the last few weeks.

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Another aspect of the opening passage of Mark that I find interesting is the point at which he starts the Gospel, Jesus' baptism. If the stories found in the other Gospels relating to Jesus' miraculous birth and early childhood were historical (or even just tales which were invented in the very early years of the religion), then I can't see any good reason why Mark would fail to mention them.

Personally, I think it is about asking what is the aim of Mark in comparison to other Gospels. I think they differ to a degree, although it is a valid question to ask why Mark differs.

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

If Mark wanted to suggest Jesus' divinity to his readers from the very start of his Gospel then why go such a round about way through John the Baptist and linking it to passages in the Hebrew Bible instead of mentioning the visitation and virgin birth. At the very least I have always seen this as being good evidence against the author of this Gospel being Mark the secretary of Peter and instead being someone much further removed from the events he described. It also could be seen as evidence that the virgin birth claims arose relatively late in the formation years of the religion, perhaps only becoming widely spread in the years between the writing of Mark and then Matthew and Luke.

The Hebrew Bible is of huge importance in substantiating Messianic claims. In order to determine that someone was the Messiah they had to fulfil a number of criterion that are in the Tanakh. This is why the Gospels make such a keen effort to do this. The Gospel is the fulfilment of Judaism.

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

I really just can't think of a good reason why he wouldn't mention these highly significant events, it isn't like he knew Matthew and Luke would cover it later on and so he wouldn't need to (I am assuming Mark is the earliest Gospel of course).

It is an interesting question. I'm interested to see what some of the other guys think.

I'm feeling that I will postpone the next study until after this section of Mark has been adequately discussed.

noah45

I am new to bible study and delighted to see this thread. Thank you guys. I will be reading along with this thread,:) It is exactly what I need to help me understand the bible.

PDN

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Another aspect of the opening passage of Mark that I find interesting is the point at which he starts the Gospel, Jesus' baptism. If the stories found in the other Gospels relating to Jesus' miraculous birth and early childhood were historical (or even just tales which were invented in the very early years of the religion), then I can't see any good reason why Mark would fail to mention them.

If Mark wanted to suggest Jesus' divinity to his readers from the very start of his Gospel then why go such a round about way through John the Baptist and linking it to passages in the Hebrew Bible instead of mentioning the visitation and virgin birth. At the very least I have always seen this as being good evidence against the author of this Gospel being Mark the secretary of Peter and instead being someone much further removed from the events he described. It also could be seen as evidence that the virgin birth claims arose relatively late in the formation years of the religion, perhaps only becoming widely spread in the years between the writing of Mark and then Matthew and Luke.

I really just can't think of a good reason why he wouldn't mention these highly significant events, it isn't like he knew Matthew and Luke would cover it later on and so he wouldn't need to (I am assuming Mark is the earliest Gospel of course).

I think there are at least two possible explanations as to why Mark doesn't include the virgin birth, or indeed any birth narrative.

1. We have to look at why each Gospel writer wrote their accounts. Obviously the aim was not to write a biography of Jesus, including every detail they could find. Each Gospel shows evidence of being carefully edited, only including material relevant to their aims (indeed the Fourth Gospel specifically states that this is the case).

Matthew presents Jesus as King of the Jews (hence a geneaology that goes back through David to Abraham). Luke presents Jesus as the Perfect Son of Man (hence a genealogy that goes back to Adam). John presents Jesus as the divine Logos, or Son of God (hence he skips genealogies and goes back to the eternal existence of the Logos before Creation). Mark, however, presents Jesus as the Servant of God, doing everything the Father sent Him to do. Servants don't have genealogies, and their births and childhoods are considered unimportant. Therefore Mark jumps straight into the ministry of Jesus.

2. The second explanation is to do with Mark's intended audience. If Matthew was written to Jews, then the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies would obviously be included. If Luke, as we think, was written to Gentiles who had come to worship the God of the Hebrews (godfearers, or the God lover - Theophilos - to whom Luke dedicated his Gospel) then it makes sense to show how the Messianic prophecies of a virgin birth found fulfillment in the Saviour of all nations. If John wrote to diaspora Jews who were familiar with Greek philosophy, then it makes sense to cut straight to the eternity and pre-existence of Christ. But Mark wrote for Gentile Romans - and such people were much more interested in action than in whether Jewish prophecies were fulfilled or not. The Roman mindset reminds me of Americans who would rather watch a movie with lots of explosions and car chases than one with a subtle plot! So Mark's Gospel rushes from one event to another (with lots of 'immediately's) rather than getting introspective.

JimiTime

Good Start Philologos. Bravo:) A rather concise discussion there.