The Gospel of Mark background and preaching outline (2)

The Gospel of Mark background and preaching outline 8/30/21

The Gospel of Mark is one of four Gospels in the New Testament these give account of Jesus’ life and ministry. Each Gospel has its own emphasis and audience, Matthew was written to Jews to give evidence that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah (King of the Jews), Luke was written to a universal audience and focuses on Jesus’ perfect manhood, The Gospel of John was written after the destruction of Jerusalem and focused on Jesus’ being God born in flesh. The Gospel of Mark focuses on Jesus the ministry of Jesus and portrays Jesus to a Roman audience as the suffering servant who is Lord of all.

It is believed that Mark was written in Rome while his mentor Peter was in prison, many claim that Mark is Peter’s Gospel penned by Mark but I believe Mark himself knew Jesus and may have recalled much of what Peter taught/told him about Jesus. In Rome servants made up the over half the population therefore the story of the servant king would appeal to Roman culture and as Jesus did serve man especially as He died a ransom for the many. For this reason there The Gospel of Mark is unique the purpose was to prove Jesus as savior of even the gentiles and to reconfirm the believing gentiles in Rome that Christ is Lord and suffered great persecution just as they were being persecuted at that time by the hands of Nero emperor of Rome.

In Roman Culture the lineage of a servant was not important all that mattered was what that servant could do thus unlike Matthew, Luke, and John it is said to not have a genealogy. But as Matthew wrote to Jews he traced Jesus’ linage through his legal father back to Abraham the patriarch of the Jews, and Luke who wrote about the universal Christ traced Jesus from His mother all the way to Adam the first man, John whose focus was Jesus as God traces Jesus back before the beginning of creation and He was eternally with the Father. To say Mark does not have a genealogy is not exactly correct, the opening verse of the Gospel tells its reader of Jesus’ lineage “the Son of God.”

Since Mark writes to Romans who focus on more of what a servant can do compared to who he is this Gospel is quick to the point showing Jesus in action and giving evidence of many miracles but only one discourse. Romans were not interested in what a servant taught but what he wrought. In this Gospel Mark moves quickly and moves Jesus quickly for instance Mark uses the word Immediately or straightway forty times which is more than it use it the rest of the New Testament. Other important words in the Gospel of Mark are authority (ten times) and Spirit (twenty-three times) and spirit which do well to prove that Jesus was a servant to mankind but was Lord. Often a servant could not do many things immediately without the approval of his master, they had no real authority other than that which their master gave them and the use of Spirit shows Jesus under direction of God. With these things said it is important to remember that the Roman audience would have asked why would they accept Jesus if the Jews (His own people) rejected Him as their Messiah?

Mark’s gospel is a biography of Jesus’ life, ministry, and resurrection to the Roman audience in close form to the popular Greek Tragedy of the time, but with a happy ending in order to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus which in Mark is the Lord came to earth as a servant and died to pay the ransom required by God to be forgiven of sin and raised from the dead to bring resurrected life to those who would believe.

To all of this we conclude that the theme of Mark is Christ the servant of the Lord and its key verse is “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”