I was listening to someone recently who was explaining that he thought part of the purpose behind writing of the gospel of Mark was to write in such a way that people could easily remember or even memorize it. I don’t know. Probably. It makes sense seeing as the early church didn’t have access to Bibles the way we do and that they weren’t as literate a society from what I understand. He pointed out though some of the ways that he thought Mark went about helping make his gospel easier to remember which I thought were at the very … Continue reading Remembering Mark

Part Two (Click here for part 1) Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God…” I don’t know that we always appreciate the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. It one of the main points of the gospel of Mark, that Jesus is the Son of God. Still I don’t think it’s really much of a main point for many of us. It’s not really something the average Christian thinks an awful lot about. I’m not even sure as I look back that I always could have answered the question as why … Continue reading Expository Thoughts on Mark

 (A new tuesday blog series…more to follow) Mark 1:1 “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark refers to Jesus in various ways, teacher, rabbi, Lord, Son of Man, and even as we see here, Christ, that is Messiah; yet it is this title “Son of God” that is probably most important in Mark‘s presentation of Jesus.  As James Edwards has put it, “the divine Sonship of Jesus is the theological keystone to the gospel of Mark.“ Or to quote another scholar, “it is this revelation of Jesus as Son of God which dominates Mark’s gospel.“ Still one … Continue reading Expository Thoughts on Mark

The difference between Jesus and the Pharisees is not in the fact that the Pharisees took sin seriously and Jesus didn’t. The difference between Jesus and the Pharisees is found rather in the way that they related to people they knew to have sinned – the way they treated sinners. I don’t want to take the time to get into exactly how the Pharisees treated ‘sinners. I want to make some unbelievably obvious comments about the way Jesus did. The first one being, he didn’t just avoid them. He could have you know, stayed up in heaven. When we read … Continue reading An Accepting Ministry…part two

In Jesus’ day people had a caricature of what it meant to be holy. They thought it meant not ever hanging out with anyone who might be considered a sinner. In our day, people have a caricature of what it means to be accepting. They think it means never ever directly confronting sin. There are whole lot of people today who think that if we are going to avoid being like the Pharisees and if we are going to have an open, accepting ministry like Jesus we must by definition minimize the seriousness of sin. The thing is, whatever it … Continue reading An Accepting Ministry…