Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

As we enter the New year we are going to go back to the gospel of Mark and pickup were we stopped before the Christmas Series.

This series will be done expository style and so I will do my best to let the text be the place that we derive our topics and meaning from.

I believe that this method as I shared in the sermon about it last summer is the best way to grow ourselves, our families, and our church.

We are going to look at the ideas the writer is trying to convey lead us to our conclusions.

I believe that God has chosen every word and thought for our edification and spiritual growth.

I'm trusting God to use his word to change us and to not leave us where we are.

In this season I'm asking our church to pray that God will reveal himself to us so that we are impacted by his word in this New Year and that God changes us to reflect his son.

My goal while preaching through this series is that we all are impacted by it in great spiritual ways.

We will be in Mark on and off throughout this year, taking a break for an Easter series, a special summer series, and again at Christmas.

Mark will take us some time and I am trusting God to use his word.

So as we pick up this journey lets trust our God.

Re-Introduction to the book

Author

All four Gospels are thought to be anonymous, and together they provide the church an authorized, collective witness to Jesus’ person and work.

Although the apostles were the primary witnesses, there is nothing inconsistent about their using fellow workers such as John Mark to put their collective and individual witness into writing.

The Jerusalem church gathered for prayer in the home of John Mark’s mother (Acts 12:12).

He assisted his cousin Barnabas, as well as Saul (Paul), in ministry (Acts 12:25; 13:5) but abandoned them in Pamphylia (Acts 13:13).

Mark’s reasons for this abandonment are not specified, but Paul judged them unacceptable (Acts 15:37–39), although the apostle later expressed appreciation for Mark (Col.

4:10; 2 Tim.

4:11; Philem.

24).

Mark’s authorship is established by certain external considerations.

In addition to the title attached to this document in ancient manuscripts and canonical lists, early church fathers such as Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria all affirmed in the second century that Mark wrote the second gospel.

Papias refers to Mark as Peter’s “interpreter” or “translator.”

Mark’s presence with Peter in Rome is implied in the greetings conveyed in 1 Pet.

5:13 from “Mark, my son” and from “she who is in Babylon” (probably the church in Rome, capital of the empire that oppressed the apostolic church, as Babylon did Judah).

Another reason to accept the authenticity of Markan authorship is that in the second and third centuries of the church, books falsely claiming apostolic authorship usually claimed well-known apostles as their authors rather than a secondary, and not altogether exemplary, figure such as John Mark.

Within the text itself, a veiled indication of Mark’s connection with this gospel may be seen in an otherwise apparently irrelevant notice of a “young man” who fled, unclothed, when Jesus was arrested.

Some interpreters have suggested that this embarrassing incident is Mark’s way of referring to his own presence on that occasion (14:51 note), while others see it as a reference to an anonymous eyewitness to the events in Gethsemane.

Possible evidence that Mark recorded Peter’s recollection of Jesus’ words and actions is the simplified chronological order of events in Mark, which mirrors Peter’s rehearsal of those events in the book of Acts (Acts 3:13, 14; 10:36–43).

Sproul, R. C., ed.

2015.

The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition).

Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust.

Date, time

If Mark was used by Matthew and Luke, it is the earliest of the Gospels and cannot be dated later than about A.D. 70.

If Luke and Acts were finished around A.D. 62, when the narrative of Acts ends, Mark would be even earlier if he was the first evangelist to write.

Likewise, Matthew was likely written before A.D. 70 (Introduction to Matthew: Date and Occasion); hence, if Matthew used Mark as a source, then that serves as another argument for Mark writing his gospel before the fall of Jerusalem.

Beyond these considerations, an argument can be made that all the books of the New Testament were written within the lifetime of the apostolic generation.

Sproul, R. C., ed.

2015.

The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition).

Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust.

Audience

Mark seems to have targeted Roman believers, particularly Gentiles.

MacArthur, John, Jr., ed.

1997.

The MacArthur Study Bible.

Electronic ed.

Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

Purpose for writing

Mark presents Jesus as the suffering Servant of the Lord (10:45).

His focus is on the deeds of Jesus more than His teaching, particularly emphasizing service and sacrifice.

Mark omits the lengthy discourses found in the other gospels, often relating only brief excerpts to give the gist of Jesus’ teaching.

Mark also omits any account of Jesus’ ancestry and birth, beginning where Jesus’ public ministry began, with His baptism by John in the wilderness.

Mark demonstrated the humanity of Christ more clearly than any of the other evangelists, emphasizing Christ’s human emotions (1:41; 3:5; 6:34; 8:12; 9:36;),

MacArthur, John, Jr., ed.

1997.

The MacArthur Study Bible.

Electronic ed.

Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

What is a Gospel letter?

This is a biographical document that tells the good news of what Jesus has done for us.

They demonstrate Jesus's life, his character, his mission, he love of mankind.

The gospel teach us Jesus's divinity, they reveal to us the triune nature of God.

Each gospel is doing a different thing, so you will notice that some event in Jesus's life are not included in every gospel.

You'll notice that the sermon on the mount isn't in every gospel you'll notice in mark that the birth narrative isn't here.

That is because every gospel is doing something different.

Just as a quick note: differences in the gospels do not mean contradictions.

When two or three people are giving an account of an event or a person they are going to give different perspectives.

This happens throughout history and it happens today.

You'll hear several different views on George Washington for example based on different people who knew him and how they knew him.

Benedict Arnold, the soldier under Washington's leadership, John Adams, and the other founding fathers are all going to have a different views and opinion of George Washington.

There may be some overlap there may be similar stories or events that one man experienced that another man did not but that does not make a contradiction.

What it does is paint a full picture the same is true for Christ.

John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all telling the true story about Jesus from different perspectives.

That's not a contradiction.

It's noted how much the Gospels of Matthew and Luke overlap with Mark, but that is because of using Mark as a source to write their gospel accounts among others.

1) Calling Levi.

a. What's wrong with Tax collectors (then and now)

Mark 2:14 (RSB:ESV2015E): tax booth.

Tax booths were set up on highways, bridges, and canals for tolls and at the lakeside to tax fishing.

See note on Luke 3:12.

Tax collectors were despised by their fellow first-century Jews for their collaboration with Rome’s occupying forces and extorting higher-than-justified levies to enrich themselves dishonestly.

By seeking out and enlisting Levi, Jesus demonstrates the shocking mercy of God toward the most undeserving people, even those on the margins of society (Luke 18:9–14; 19:1–10).

-reformation study bible

b.

Jesus sees past the Office of tax collector

(v14)

The Merits of Levi - Nothing that Levi has done merits him being called of God.

He was a traitor he kept company with the worst, and yet Christ saved him.

We teach that salvation is wholly of God by grace on the basis of the redemption of Jesus Christ, the merit of His shed blood, and not on the basis of human merit or works (John 1:12; Eph.

1:4–7; 2:8–10; 1 Pet.

1:18, 19).

MacArthur, John, Jr., ed.

1997.

The MacArthur Study Bible.

Electronic ed.

Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

c. Levi's Obedience - Jesus calls and he obeys, Mark uses the imperative here, the command verb to Levi.

(V14)

to be a follower or a disciple of someone, in the sense of adhering to the teachings or instructions of a leader and in promoting the cause of such a leader—‘to follow, to be a disciple of

Louw, Johannes P., and Eugene Albert Nida.

1996.

In Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains, electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., 1:469.

New York: United Bible Societies.

Christian Jesus is calling you to be a disciple, an adherent to his teachings and instructions for your life.