The Gospel of Mark Part One

Series Preview
Written By Jeremy Duncan

PART ONE

The First Gospel.

Mark is generally considered to be the earliest of the four gospels we have in our Bibles. In fact, the consensus is that Mark served as a reference for what Matthew and Luke would later write. Mark is fast-paced, moving quickly through Jesus’ life, probably offering our first look at the historical Jesus. And in that look, we see a Jesus who is focused on the practical concerns of those he serves. Economics, politics, pressures, these are the issues that shape Jesus’ teachings in Mark. He may have an eye toward heaven, but he is firmly rooted in the praxis of God’s kingdom here now in the Gospel of Mark. In this series, we will crack open this first Gospel and begin a two-part journey through Mark’s memory of Jesus.

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We Are LEGION
We Are LEGION

We wrapped up the series by looking how the stories of healing in Mark encourage us to seek and offer grace to those far and near in our lives.

Calm That Storm
Calm That Storm

This week we join the disciples in the storm to reflect on our experience of meeting the divine in the moments that rock our world.

All That Soil
All That Soil

This week we look at four parables in Mark 4 and again interpret them in their connectedness. The main point was that truth is being sown in our lives even now, and we need to explore how we hear it, where we make room for mystery of the divine in our lives and how open we are to give ourselves over to the way of things and see the kingdom in the things and life cycles around us.

How to Save a Life
How to Save a Life

This week we look at four more stories in Mark, to see how Mark uses a package of confrontations to bring differences to the surface and show us how Jesus steadily works on expanding our imagination of the kingdom of God and what the good news is all about.

Social Location of Healing
Social Location of Healing

This week we looked at Mark 1 and 2 and a sequence of four healing stories. Mark uses the narrative itself as a tool to give us a picture of what the kingdom of God is like when we grasp its communal aspect and see how God is at work to heal everything that separates us.

Mark, an Introduction
Mark, an Introduction

This week, we begin our new series on the gospel of Mark. In his message on Sunday, Scott invited us to see how the synoptic gospels help us to “see together” without demanding that we all see the same. Scott talked about how Mark frames his gospel as a new beginning, how the term “good news" was heard as a political statement, and how Mark’s use of “time” encourages us also to step into time.

Jeremy Duncan
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Mark, an Introduction
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