 come back everyone. So before we begin, we'll just do a small recap of what we covered last week. But with some prayer please for that. Let us pray. Heavenly Father we just thank you for this time of study. We just pray Father that as we get into your word Father that your word will minister to us and lead us in this topic Father. We also pray Father that we will be able to retain whatever we're going to learn today and be able to apply it in our daily lives Father. We pray for a blessing on all the staff and students Father. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. Okay so we'll just do a quick recap of what we did last week. We looked at the author of the Gospel of Mark so John Mark who had accompanied Paul and Silas on their first missionary journey had then Paul and Barnabas sorry and then he left them in the middle of that journey and so Paul didn't want to take him along on their second journey together. Then we see that he became a companion to Peter later on and so the Gospel of Mark is believed to be primarily Peter's account of Jesus' ministry and a lot of what we see in Mark is from his recollection, his recording of what Jesus did and Jesus' life. So who it was written to? It was written to the Roman Christians so much more focused on a gentile audience than a Jewish audience and we see how all of that comes into the way Mark writes the Gospel so less OT, less Old Testament quotations explanation about some of the Jewish practices and customs he talks about and then also some parables that he chooses not to include in the Gospel itself. Why he wrote the book was specifically to a persecuted church so we see Mark talking a lot about suffering Jesus' suffering and then suffering as disciples so when Mark is talking about Jesus as the Messiah he closely connects that with Jesus' death and resurrection. Every time Jesus is talking about the fact that he has come as the Messiah or he's the Son of God he talks about himself going to the cross and connects that also to the disciples call to take up their cross and follow him. So that is Mark's focus on Jesus' suffering servant and the call of disciples to suffer so writing to the persecuted church to encourage them that this is what we are called to but just as Jesus overcame we will overcome by the power of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. So yeah we see Christ the tireless servant of God and man and then we talked about the messianic secret where Jesus didn't want the fact that he was the Messiah to be revealed to people because the more and more people knew it he would get more attention that would come in the way of what he had to do during his ministry on earth and also because it would also get him attention from the authorities and he had to finish his ministry before the time of his death so he wanted to focus on doing that work on keeping his focus on the ministry that he was doing without people knowing who he was until it would be revealed after his resurrection. The dating various dates given by various scholars but mostly in the 60s is when Mark is believed to be written and then we looked at some of the features of the gospel it's the shortest gospel focus on the divinity of Christ and his humanity and a lot of focus on his miracles rather than teaching rather than teaching on eschatology or Jesus of teaching itself he teaches a lot more he talks a lot more about Jesus's miracles so we listed the we looked at the list of all of the miracles so there's a total of 19 miracles that Mark records so for a very for the shortest gospel he records a lot of miracles so you know then just by the fact that he's recorded so many miracles that the book itself is very very focused on what Jesus did and how what Jesus did proved who he was and proved the heart of God itself for all humanity to free us from sickness from power from the power of satan to empower us to live in victory over the works of satan and then we looked at I think we did look at this okay first on the slow gas this just sister girl yeah okay thank you okay so we also looked at we compared it with other biblical books so like Isaiah Mark also presents Jesus as a servant of God in comparison to Luke and John whereas Luke and John present Jesus as a victor over over sin and death so the cross is a place of victory Mark and Matthew present him as a victim of suffering so they are much more focused on the suffering rather than the victory John emphasizes the power of miracles so John talks about the word of God becoming flesh and it's a much more theological book whereas Mark is much more focused on the actual acts the miracles themselves and what was accomplished through the miracles so with that we will go through an outline of the book of Mark it's just a summary of everything that Mark covers wherever possible or if needed we can go into the passage and read it so it begins with the introduction of Jesus as God's obedient servant okay so we have if you can open so open your bibles with me and we'll kind of scroll through as we are also looking at this outline so beginning with Mark we see John the Baptist preparing the way so John the Baptist is preaching and the prophecy of Isaiah is mentioned here a voice of one calling in the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord make straight paths for him and so John begins this ministry pointing people to Jesus we then see the baptism of Jesus where Jesus is affirmed as being the son of of God himself in verse 11 which we read last week and we know about Mark's emphasis on Jesus as the son of God and then we see right after Jesus's baptism that he is led into the wilderness and he is tempted for 40 days by Satan so that's just we have a very brief account of it just two verses right mark gives us two verses about Jesus being in the wilderness no details on the temptation like we see in the other gospels then from verses 14 so chapter one verses 14 to chapter nine verse 50 it moves to Jesus as a servant ministering in Galilee we see the calling of the first four disciples from verses 14 to 20 of chapter one this comes after John is imprisoned so John is imprisoned and then Jesus begins ministering and he starts to preach about the kingdom so he goes out to the Sea of Galilee he calls Simon and Andrew after that he calls John and James and then he goes on to do a few miracles we have a listing of some of the miracles that he does here healings and exhaustisms and then in chapter two verse one we see where some of the conflict with religious leaders begins right so right here in chapter two it has already begun so this is why Jesus wanted to keep his ministry or his identity as the son of God as the messiah a secret because of this opposition that would come up but but if we read I think at the end of mark one yeah at the end of mark one Jesus healed a man with leprosy and he tells him don't tell anyone go show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded but verse 45 says instead he went out and began to talk freely spreading the news as a result Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places yet the people still came to him from everywhere so the reason why Jesus didn't want it to become public knowledge was because knowing that the crowds would follow him knowing that the opposition from other religious leaders would begin so two one two three six is a lot of miracles that Jesus is doing clubbed with opposition from from other religious leaders so the first story they're questioning how can Jesus forgive sins in the second story they are questioning why why Jesus is eating with sinners and tax collectors after he calls Matthew to follow him in the next story they're questioning why he is why his disciples are taking grains from the field on the Sabbath day why are they working on the Sabbath day and then in mark three we see them questioning him because he healed someone on the Sabbath and the end of mark chapter three verse six it says the Pharisees went out began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus so right here they've started that plot to kill Jesus right in chapter three after this Jesus chooses from all of the people who are following him he chooses the 12 disciples chapter 3 verses 7 to 19 and then from verse 20 onwards the conflict with religious leaders continues so we see his family questioning him wondering if he is out of his mind because because he's not stopping to even eat like he's always doing ministry he's always surrounded by people he has no time to rest no time to eat and so his family is upset about that then we see that the teachers say that he is casting out demons by the spirit of Baals above and so Jesus responds to that as well from mark four onwards we go to parables of the kingdom so we have the sore and the seed the hidden light the growing mustard seed and after that we have the miracle of the calming of the sea the miracle of the man being set free from demons where the demons are sent into the pigs in chapter five verses one to twenty the healing of jeres' daughter and the women with the issue of blood in chapter five verses 21 to 43 then in chapter six we see Jesus's rejection at Nazareth so this is where he goes and he preaches in the synagogue and people are offended because he is one of them he grew up amongst them and now he's come back and he's preaching to them and so they are unwilling to accept his ministry then six chapter six verses seven to thirteen we see the sending of the twelve they are sent out to minister two people chapter six verses 14 to 29 the death of John the Baptist this is Herod killing John the Baptist because of his wife Herodias and then chapter six verse 30 to 44 we have the feeding of the five thousand chapter six 45 to 52 Jesus walking on water 53 to 56 healings more healings chapter seven verses one to 23 warning about the Pharisees and in this chapter we also see in this same passage where the disciples still don't understand Jesus's ministry so he's just fed the five thousand and he tells them he's warning them about the Pharisees be careful about the Pharisees the yeast of the Pharisees and they think he's talking about bread because they have not carried bread and so he says do you still not understand so we see both that warning about the Pharisees as well as the lack of understanding of the disciples about Jesus's power Jesus's ability to to do to provide for people then we see more healings we see the feeding of the four thousand again a warning about the Pharisees in chapter eight verses 10 to 21 and then followed by that heal the healing of the blind man so this also the healing of the blind man we see that gradual opening of the eyes of the blind man almost like a picture of how Jesus is slowly revealing himself to the disciples so here he heals the blind man the first time the blind man can see the people walking around like trees and then the second time is when he can actually see almost like a comparison to where the disciples are the disciples are still not able to understand what Jesus is doing his ministry and they are like that blind man seeing trees walking around but it is only with after Jesus's death and resurrection that their eyes are fully opened to who Jesus was and what he what it meant to be the Messiah and what Jesus's final goal as the Messiah was was to redeem all people from sin then we see from Galilee Jesus moves to Caesarea Philippi we read about Peter's confession of Jesus as the Son of God the Messiah this is where Jesus first tells his disciples about him going to the cross they then see the transfiguration this is Peter James and John go with Jesus they see him transfigured on the mount and he tells them again don't tell anyone about this until after the resurrection so again they don't understand what he means by resurrection but it's only post that that they are allowed to tell people about it and when they come back from the transfiguration is when the disciples the story about the disciples being unable to heal the boy possessed by a demon and Jesus says this one comes out only by prayer ministry in Galilee Jesus goes back to Galilee we see most of Mark Jesus is ministering in Galilee so again the understanding of the geography of Galilee who were the people there that Jesus was ministering to is very helpful to understand this book the book of Mark um Christ's second prediction of his death uh so Mark records this much more than the other gospels Jesus telling his disciples about the fact that he's going to die um then uh the children and the kingdom uh chapter 9 versus uh 33 to 37 maybe we can just read that chapter 9 33 to 37 then he came to cavernum and when he was in the house he asked them what was it you disputed among yourselves on the road but they kept silent for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest and he sat down called the 12 and said to them if anyone desires to be first he shall be last of all and servant of all then he took a little child and set him in the midst of them and when he had taken him in his arms he said to them whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me and whoever receives me receives not me but him who sent me thank you so uh here Jesus talking about not fighting over greatness in the kingdom uh so just as a child um was not given much importance in that culture uh it's Jesus Jesus came for the least right the people who were least important uh and so that was the attitude that he was calling the disciples to um versus 38 to 41 of chapter 9 he is talking about whoever is ministering in my name don't stop them because if they are ministering in my name then they can't turn around and then deny who I am uh right so the disciples had stopped some people from ministering uh in Jesus name because they were not one of the 12 disciples but Jesus said don't stop them because they were ministering in my name that's something for us to just think about in ministry as well uh to be able to acknowledge the ministry of others uh not based on whether they are part of our group or not but whether Jesus himself is being glorified in that ministry whether they're doing whatever they're doing in the name of Jesus um then uh we see versus 42 to 50 again Jesus talking about children here he's talking about judgment coming on people who lead children astray so anyone who uh causes a child to fall away from god uh causes a child to stumble uh will be judged severely uh because they've taken someone who's innocent and they have uh they have destroyed the faith of that innocent child and so they are in danger of hell uh from here we move on uh in chapter 10 to Jesus the servant starting to journey to Jerusalem uh so very early on uh the book has 16 chapters so from 10 onwards is this journey to Jerusalem um on the way he ministers uh in Peria and Judea he teaches on divorce uh he teaches on children and the kingdom again so we see uh just in these two chapters children coming up three times right so uh a lot of focus on children in this part of Mark and in Mark in general I think compared to the gospels uh then we see the rich young ruler um also a lot of teaching on uh what how we can enter the kingdom of god right we saw in the previous chapter where he said you have to be like children you shouldn't be fighting over who is greatest and here in the rich young ruler story he talks about how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of god uh but it's only by the grace of god that people are saved and able to enter the kingdom of god um and then we see Christ's third prediction of his death here uh again talking about greatness in the kingdom versus 35 to 45 and then uh end we end that chapter with Jesus's ministry near Jerusalem uh so this is before they reach Jerusalem uh Jesus heals a blind man this is a really powerful story of someone who persists till Jesus heals him so then the story of Bartimaeus Jesus is passing by and he's crying out to Jesus to heal him and the disciples people around him are telling him to be quiet not to disturb the teacher but even though they are saying that he cries out even louder until Jesus stops calls him to him and asks him what do you want me to do for you uh so persistence not giving up even though people were uh telling him to be quiet to stop asking Jesus uh to not disturb Jesus Bartimaeus continues to call out to Jesus and then the result is that he is healed and uh what's beautiful in the end of this chapter is that he begins to follow Jesus after that so he's healed and he starts to follow Jesus end of chapter 10 uh then we move into chapter 11 Jesus enters uh Jerusalem on uh on a cold right uh and then he curses the fig tree he cleanses the temple uh then there's a lesson on the fig tree uh which is a lesson on faith if you have faith as small as a mustard seed uh you can move you can say to this mountain be thrown into the sea and if you don't doubt in your heart then it will be done uh so that's a teaching on faith based on that cursing of the fig tree then we see uh teaching on forgiveness let's just read that mark 11 25 and 26 and whenever you stand praying if you have anything against anyone forgive him then your father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses but if you do not forgive neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses okay so uh Jesus is teaching on forgiveness here um again 27 to 33 uh is Jesus authority being questioned because he has just cleansed the temple uh so has offended a lot of people uh so the um chief priest the teachers of the law the elders come to him and ask him by what authority is he doing this and his responses whose authority was john the Baptist using when he was ministering was it authority that came from heaven or was it a human authority and their response is what are they responding what's it yeah they say I don't know right because they don't want to uh choose either of those options uh and then Jesus says then I won't tell you uh by whose authority I'm doing this um then in chapter 12 we go into the parable of the wicked farmer uh this is Jesus teaching on the religious leaders so they recognize that Jesus is uh talking about them as uh servants who have been unfaithful in taking care of the field that has been entrusted to them by the owner by God himself uh and so um by the end of this story uh they are looking for ways to arrest Jesus uh because they know that he had spoken the parable against them uh versus 13 to 17 there's a question about paying taxes to Caesar again uh the Pharisees and Herodians are trying to trap Jesus so they ask who do we should we pay taxes to the Roman government um and then versus 18 to 27 is uh the Sadducees questioning Jesus asking about uh resurrection right so if a man dies his wife doesn't have children she marries the next brother they don't have children and he dies she marries the next brother in the resurrection whose uh wife is she so again in this chapter a lot of people who are coming against Jesus so the Sadducees are not really wanting to know an answer right they're just trying to prove their own wisdom and trying to see whether Jesus can come up with an answer that can satisfy them and then Jesus obviously at the end of it says that they don't know the scriptures uh and in the scriptures it says that God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is the God of the living and so there is a resurrection that we can look forward to uh based on those passages so Jesus here when he's talking about this is actually talking about the he's using the Old Testament to talk about resurrection which is very interesting right we look at the resurrection only based on Jesus's death and resurrection but right in the Old Testament we can see the resurrection being pointed to the hope of resurrection being pointed to uh right in the Old Testament and then chapters 11 to 13 is Jesus's servants ministry in Jerusalem uh so we see 28 to 34 the question about the greatest commandment uh versus 35 to 37 question about the son of David this is where Jesus asks why if the Messiah is from the line of David uh why does David call him Lord right he asks them this question in verses 35 to 37 uh of chapter 12 uh and then uh 38 to 40 uh denunciation of the scribes so just talking about how they seek honor they do things for human honor uh so not to not to follow their example uh the end of chapter 12 is the widow's offering uh and then in chapter 13 is where Jesus teaches um uh on the he talks about the temple uh and then he is in the mount of olives and he starts to teach the disciples and that whole chapter is so there's just one chapter in mark where there's extended teaching the rest of it is uh much more you can see just Jesus doing one thing after another right miracles conversations with people uh much more focus on that uh and then chapters 14 to 16 uh we see the plot to kill Jesus uh is uh starting to be made here in chapter 14 uh the anointing by Mary with the jar of alabaster uh Judas uh going to the uh going to the religious leaders and saying that he will betray Jesus um then we see the Passover and the Lord supper uh that the disciples have together with Jesus uh Jesus predicts Peter's denial then prayer uh where Jesus goes to get seminary with the disciples and his praying um where he's arrested and then his trial uh during his trial is Peter's denial uh the crucifixion the burial and then chapter 16 is Jesus's resurrection uh so with that we come to the end of mark uh so mark is a very short book but it is uh full like there's no there's no downtime in mark it's just constantly Jesus doing one thing after another uh so it's very very full of action full of activity that's going on um the last two things that we look at in mark so on Thursday we'll go into the book of Luke uh if you are able to read Luke before Thursday please do try and do that uh or read uh read something at least a summary on the book of Luke um so we look at these two aspects of the book of mark the disciples uh let's just read mark 316 to 19 Simon to whom he gave the name Peter James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James to whom he gave the name Bonerges that is son of sons of thunder Andrew Philip Bartolomia Matthew Thomas James the son of Alpheus Thaddeus Simon the Kenanite and Judas Iscariot who also betrayed him and they went into a house thank you can you read um 13 to 15 as well and he went up on the mountain and called to him those he himself wanted and they came to him then he appointed 12 that they might be with him and they might send them out to preach and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons thank you so uh we see uh the term disciples that was applied to all those who were following Jesus during his time of ministry but these 12 were the disciples like the chosen people who Jesus himself had said would be the people who would be with him who would learn from him and then go out preach heal and drive out demons right so that was their their specific mission that Jesus had given them um so discipleship was a very common practice in the New Testament times we'll just read these three passages uh Matthew 9 14 20 to 16 and Acts 9 25 Matthew 9 14 then the disciples of John came to him saying why do we and the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast Matthew 20 to 16 Matthew 20 to 16 and they sent to him the disciples with the Herodians saying teacher we know that you are true and teach the way of God in truth nor do you care about anyone for you do not regard the person of men and acts 9 25 acts 9 25 then the disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall in a large basket so we see uh here all kinds of disciples mentioned right uh Matthew 9 14 uh we see a group of disciples uh that's sorry let me just open Matthew 9 14 uh group of disciples that were following John and they go to question Jesus about fasting so we have John's disciples Matthew 20 to 16 is the disciples of the Pharisees acts 9 25 are other disciples who joined the 12 disciples after Jesus's death and resurrection so those disciples uh lowering Paul in the basket uh so discipleship was something that was very uh a common practice in uh the New Testament times um we don't see it mentioned outside of the gospel and acts when it comes to uh our scriptures itself uh so it was first used to describe all those who are following Jesus then specifically the 12 disciples uh but then that those disciples started to be called apostles right so there wasn't much use of the term disciples until uh again it was revived uh later on to refer to other Christians who were following Jesus started to be called disciples that was much later but outside of the gospels and acts we don't see that term being used um and discipleship as a process is uh very well structured in Mark so if we read through the book of Mark you can see how Jesus discipled uh these 12 who were following him the process of discipleship uh they were with Jesus at all times they were learning from Jesus that is they were doing ministry with him they were observing the way he was living his life outside of the ministry right so they were not only with him when he was with the crowds they were with him when he was away when nobody was watching him so they saw his life they learned from him they were able to uh ask him questions they were able to talk about their doubts they were able to bring their weaknesses so Jesus is teaching them he is correcting them personally as well when they are fighting over who's the greatest uh when they are um when they are asking for a seat uh with him in heaven uh all of these things they are able to bring all those things to him and he is able to uh teach them to correct them uh to help them understand what it really means uh to be in the kingdom of god to be living as a servant just like Jesus had come as a servant and so um that was the process of discipleship that was followed there that uh actually was incredibly effective just for three years uh they were able to uh grow so much spiritually that they became the people who led the church after the three years who established uh the church so that's something for us to learn I think uh today in the church uh this form of discipleship uh mark is a good place to start uh looking at how can we do discipleship better in the church um so discipleship in those times uh there was a close relationship between the teacher and the person being discipled right apart from teaching they were also living together um the disciple was expected not only to uh learn from the teacher but also to live the way the teacher lived that was the goal right they take what the teacher is teaching they start to practice it and they start to uh to follow the example of the teacher to be just like their teacher is and then from there to go out and disciple others so each of them was then to have disciples who followed them to pass on the teaching that they had received so that was the process of discipleship uh that we see in the new testament that Jesus uh practiced with his disciples another thing that we see in the book of mark is the crucifixion itself so the crucifixion was first something that was done by the persians before the romans adopted it it was a punishment that the persians used uh the romans then took that and they kind of made their own rules around it so they would never crucify a roman citizen they were only they only crucified slaves and criminals and the process of crucifixion was that uh there would be a stake in the ground right and on the top of the stake there would be another crossbar and the person was being crucified their hands would be fastened to the stake to the crossbar that was on top of the stake uh and when it was fastened it would be a little bit above their head so they uh it was kind of raised up above uh their head that they were fastened to the crossbar uh as they were raised like that and then uh the stake was in the ground the blood from their body would all go to the lower parts of their body because of the way they were positioned on the cross and over a few days as their blood drained from the top of their bodies to the lower part of their bodies the blood stopped going to their heart and to their head and that is that would be the cause of death because the blood would stop circulating uh their to their heart and head uh so it was a process that happened over a few days and it was a very painful process because death was slow it wasn't something that happened immediately happened over um over several days of hanging on the cross uh the way that they would hasten death was uh by beating the victim or the criminal whoever was being crucified before crucifixion and the other way was after crucifixion to break their legs those were the ways to make them die a little quicker to uh if there was a lot of pain or if they had not yet died they would do one of those things to kill kill the person finally so this is what is surprising about Jesus's crucifixion was that he died actually very quickly compared to uh how how people would have died usually it would take a few days right but in the record of scripture he's on the cross for about three hours before he dies also on the cross they would have uh uh it's called a titillus which would be above the head of the person being crucified and that would have the crime that the person had committed so what was it that by was why were they being crucified now all of this was a warning to other people the crucifixion was done in such a painful and uh a way that would shame people uh so that other people would be scared they would not do the same thing the person had done and the putting the name of the crime on the top would further dissuade other people from looking at that and saying okay i will never do this because i don't want to be in this person's place um but how is the crucifixion of jesus different from these crucifixions uh let's just we have just a minute or so if we can quickly read through these passages acts to 23 this jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of god you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men thank you so god's plan and for knowledge it was not uh the plan of the people uh it was not something that they were able to do it was what god himself had planned and intended and that's why jesus was crucified uh one peter 318 for christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to god being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit thank you so to bring us to god jesus was crucified to bring us to god colossians 1 14 in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins jesus was crucified for our redemption for forgiveness of our sins Ephesians 1 17 or 1 7 sorry in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace and Hebrews 10 14 for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified thank you so uh we see here that although the crucifixion was something that was uh was done intentionally by the jewish religious leaders by the roman authorities uh that it was god's purposes that was fulfilled uh through when we read the gospels when we read the new testament that god was fulfilling his purposes he allowed jesus to go through this process of suffering that was being used by the romans but his uh his plans his purposes were uh the guiding uh or the the uh the reason why jesus went through it it was not the purposes of man and so um we see that god himself was uh was responsible in the fact that god himself allowed this to happen god intended it for it to happen uh and um it was god's final uh will that was done in the crucifixion so we'll close here and uh we'll see you on thursday we'll start with the book of Luke thank you all