Mark

Let the Gospel tell the Story:

We are challenged to a deeper study of Scripture. In this case, the Gospel of Mark. We don’t mean anything like an academic study. Sometimes, an academic study is one that may appear to some as going deeper but is really just wider instead, spreading out from the text in the Bible and adding all sorts of extra information, thoughts, opinions, etc. Information that is not the Gospel, often just an opinion, not useful to our walk with Jesus and sometimes just plain wrong.

For instance, Mark 1:21 (CSB) says “They went into Capernaum, and right away he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach.” An approach that immediately goes into a discussion of Capernaum, where it is geographically, why some author think it would be a good base of operations for Jesus, what archaeological evidence there is for it, maybe where they think the synagogue was, what kind of industries might have been there, etc. And then commenting that it was on a major road and so that was why just a bit later in Mark 2:14 we hear about a tax office there. Those sorts of things are all interesting and some of them may help some people feel that the gospel accounts are more real because they understand some peripheral information about them. But in the end they tell us little to nothing about the good news of the Gospel. They do not help us be more obedient, more faithful, more trusting disciples of Jesus.

As we begin our next step in discipleship training, we will stay away from this type of study and the information in it. The challenge is to read the scripture and allow the scripture to do the work. We will trust God’s Word to have its way with us and learn what the Gospel of Mark has to say to us in our day, in our context and in our personal lives.

We will read one chapter a week for the sermon series. Get ready! Let the Gospel tell the story.