Continuing in Mark’s Gospel, we’re looking at five stories in chapter 1, all with the same basic point.  Although they start from different angles, each story ultimately shows how Jesus has authority. So far we’ve seen how Jesus has authority over people, authority to teach, and authority over demons. We now look at two more ways in which… Continue reading Jesus’ Authority – Part 3 (Mark 1:29-45)

Continuing in Mark’s Gospel, we’re looking at five stories in chapter 1, all with the same basic point.  Although they start from different angles, each story ultimately shows how Jesus has authority. We saw yesterday how Jesus has authority over people – to call them to discipleship and ministry. We now look at two other ways in… Continue reading Jesus’ Authority – Part 2 (Mark 1:21-28)

Continuing in Mark’s Gospel (last week we studied the flow of the story from chapter 6 through 11), over the next three days we’ll be reading five stories about Jesus (and alluding to a sixth, in chapter 2). They’re not long, so have a read of all six now. (Mark 1:16-2:11.) You probably noticed that… Continue reading Jesus’ Authority – part 1 (Mark 1:16-20)

All week we’ve been looking at Mark’s Gospel (chapters 6-11) trying to make sense of the strange two-stage healing in Mark 8:22-26. We’ve seen some blind disciples finally “see” who Jesus is – yet not all that clearly. They’re still thinking in human terms. Jesus tries to tell them that he’s about servanthood, not the exercise… Continue reading A rental donkey and a visit to the optometrist (Mark 11:1-11, 8:22-26)

In our quest this week to understand the strange two-stage healing story in Mark 8:22-26, we’ve seen Peter and the disciples finally ‘get’ who Jesus is – sort of. He’s the Messiah, yet not the kind of Messiah they were expecting. While James and John were thinking of an earthly kingdom in which they could claim… Continue reading Status through Servanthood (Mark 10:42-45)

This week we’ve looked at the strange two-stage healing in Mark 8:22-26, trying to work out what it’s all about. So far, we’ve looked at the chapters leading up to this story in which the disciples (and others) are blind to who Jesus is, despite all they have seen. This may explain the “blindness” element of the story.… Continue reading Peter ‘gets it.’ Or does he? (Mark 8:27-33 and 10:32-45)

Yesterday, we looked at a strange story that’s unique to Mark’s Gospel, about a healing that didn’t quite work the first time around (Mark 8:22-26). And we’re investigating the context of that story in Mark’s Gospel to help us work out what it’s all about. It’d be best to read yesterday’s post first if you’re just… Continue reading The disciples go back for seconds (Mark 8:1-21)

Today we’re looking at a short story from Mark’s gospel. One that’s seemingly unimportant. In fact, it’s one of the few bits of Mark’s Gospel that doesn’t occur in either Matthew or Luke. Both of them copied large slabs of Mark’s Gospel (these days they’d get in trouble for plagiarism.) Yet neither of them found… Continue reading A bad healing day? (Mark 8:22-26)