Mark 1

Recently I have felt that God has been calling me to fall back in love with His word. So I have decided to use my blog as an outlet for my adventure with Gods word. I am over the next 16 days going to write daily on each chapter of Mark. I pray through this that God renews a passion in you for his word in the same way he is doing for me.

A little back story on the book of mark before I start this adventure with you. John Mark who is believed to be the author of this book was a relative of Barnabas and he is said to have written down what Peter had told him about the stories of Jesus. This book is considered to be the earliest written of the four gospels, and estimated to have been written around 70 ad. This book is the shortest of the Gospels and does not have the birth of Christ and any teachings of Christ after his resurrection. Now of course there is Mark 16:9-20 which most scholars believe was added later and early manuscripts do not have and every bible that is not KJV has a little note that says the same. This section does have a possible teaching of Jesus after his resurrection but it is disputed more than it is called reliable. But I will talk more about that section in 16 days so stick with me and you will be able to read more about that.

Mark 1 starts out with a verse from Isaiah about John the Baptist who came before Jesus to prepare the way. John the Baptist was preaching and teaching repentance because he knew that Jesus would soon be coming to redeem the world. A verse that made a big impact on me from this section comes in verse 7. It is John talking about Jesus and he says that he is not even worthy to bend down and untie his sandals. It is easy to forget how holy Christ is and how honestly we are not worthy to even speak to him but he makes us worthy by his death on his cross. Even though John the Baptist said these things it was him that God used to baptize his son Jesus.

The first chapter also shows a very brief moment where Jesus calls out to Simon, Andrew, James and John and calls them to come and follow Him and he will make them fishers of men. Now this is always interesting to look at and many people always asks the questions would you drop everything immediately for Jesus. Now many people believe that these disciples had already heard of Jesus and some may have even been followers of John the Baptist. That is not an obvious from this scripture but ether way it is amazing how quickly they would leave their jobs behind to follow Him.

The next part of this chapter was also very meaningful to me in the fact that it is where you begin to see Jesus compassion for people. He goes to the synagogue and heals a man who has an evil spirit in him and after that goes to the house of Simon and Andrew and heals their mother along with lots of people who came to the door that night. This is such an amazing thought because it shows that if people come to Christ he truly does care and wants to help them. How often to do we come to him with the faith these people have that they will be healed? It is an interesting thought because I do not believe we do it enough.

In verse 35 Jesus wakes up in the morning to go to a place alone to pray. He did not even let his followers know where he was going. It is always interesting because in scripture jesus always goes alone to pray. How often do we truly get away to pray? Jesus even did it a lot. The chapter ends with Jesus healing a man with leprosy and Jesus tells him to not go and tell anyone of this but the man does not listen and tells everyone. Because of this Jesus stayed outside of cities instead of them because of the crowds.

So closing this first chapter a couple questions come to my mind for myself and you to think about. First is when is the last time we truly thought how Holy Christ is? He is so Holy that John the Baptist says he is not worthy to untie his sandals. The second question is how often to do we have faith that when we come to Christ he can help us like he did the people with illness? Thirdly is when is the last time you got alone and prayed and looked into Gods word? Even Jesus went to a quiet place to pray. So if you made it this far I hope god has renewed your passion for his word and that you will look back tomorrow for Mark Chapter 2.

Much love
Brent