Chapter # 4 Paragraph # 1 Study # 2
January 21, 2020
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: Jesus did not even try to "disciple" those who refused to yield to His identity and purpose.
Introduction: Last week, I attempted to establish my claim that Mark turned from his earlier thesis that Jesus is the Beloved Son to Jesus as the "Disciple Maker" by pointing to the multiple indicators in the opening words of chapter four.
I pointed out the multiple "backward facing" factors in verse one that serve us as reminders of the truths presented in chapters one through three. I also pointed out the key declaration in 3:14 regarding the reason Jesus created "The Twelve" in the light of both His focus in chapter four upon teaching His disciples and the historical development recorded in 6:7-13 that He sent them forth to preach.
Thus, we have begun to enter into the record of Jesus, the "Disciple Maker".
For our consideration this evening I have chosen to zero in on Mark's comment in 4:2 that Jesus was teaching them "many things" by the use of "parables". The major take-away is this: Jesus did not even try to "disciple" those who refused to yield to His identity and purpose (who are illustrated by the responses recorded at the end of chapter three). He did not cease His "evangelism" activities, but those activities are now set into a deliberate setting of "schooling" those whom He had chosen to carry on His purposes after His ascension. He has already made it clear that His major efforts of "fishing for men" and "disciplining of those caught in His nets" will boil down to one most basic method: "Teaching Truth". Every other thing done will be done in order to bring human beings into His "Life" by "Truth" declared and reinforced by actions taken.
This is highlighted in many ways in the New Testament epistles which were all written as "disciple-making" revelations to those who have embraced Him as God's Beloved Son, but a couple of the clearer ones are Paul's insistence that "everything done" (even to the least of our activities -- "eating and drinking") is to be done to make the "glory of God" more easily seen (1 Corinthians 10:31), and his declaration that his own fixation of ministry was staked down to the issue of bringing "the elect" into their places "in Christ Jesus" in view of their participation in His eternal glory (2 Timothy 2:10).
So, this evening we come to Mark's record of Jesus as "Disciple Maker".
- I. Jesus' Turn to "Making Disciples".
- A. Is, first, in perfect harmony with Mark's record of Jesus' promises to the original, proto-typical, "disciples" in Mark's introduction.
- B. Is, second, focused upon Jesus as "The Teacher" Who teaches "many things".
- 1. This "teaching" focus is everywhere, but it had its beginning in the beginning of Mark's record of Jesus' activities (post-introduction): 1:21-28.
- a. His repetitive "entrance into the synagogues" to "teach" was an "entrance" into the core-central "mechanism" of "training people how to live before God" in that culture.
- b. His "teaching" had its primary root in the "new" doctrine of the very beginning of that "training".
- 2. That Jesus, Mark tells us, "was teaching them ... many things" means that "the training of people to live before God" is no small task because of its enormous complexity: there are "many things" that people need to understand in order to relate to God in a proper way.
- C. Is, third, deliberately "puzzling".
- 1. It is "puzzling", first, because His teaching is "by means of parables".
- a. Mark's record of the disciples' reaction to this use of parables is given in 4:10 in a very general way that Matthew 13:10 clarifies: "Why are You using parables?"
- b. Mark's record of Jesus' answer (4:11) shows that the disciples were "puzzled" by Jesus' approach because of its oft-times self-defeating nature: "If You want people to understand Your "doctrine", parables does not seem to be a very effective way to accomplish that".
- 2. Second, it is "puzzling" because "parables", by their very nature, are "puzzles".
- a. What is a "parable"?
- 1) There are 48 texts in the New Testament that contain a reference to "parables".
- a) Forty-six of these texts are in the Gospels (excluding John) which assume people "know" what a parable is.
- b) Two of these texts (both in Hebrews) actually explain what a parable is.
- 2) To understand what a parable is, we need two "helpers".
- a) The first of these is "etymology".
- i. "Etymology" is the study of how words first came into being as "carriers of information from one mind to another".
- ii. The "etymology" of "parable" is a combination of "para" and "ballo": "to cast alongside"; or to place side by side so that comparisons can be made so that some understanding of an unknown can be achieved by something known.
- iii. Jesus, in Mark 4:30, actually makes this plain by using both "liken" and "compare" in regard to His use of "parables".
- b) The second of these is "actual use".
- i. There is a problem with "etymology": "drift" because of words being adapted to new situations that do not fit the original situation.
- ii. Thus, "actual use" becomes important to keep us from "the etymology error" (forcing the original meaning to be the present meaning).
- 3) In actual use, the Hebrews texts reveal the meaning of a "parable".
- a) In 9:9 (and context) the author says that the need of the priests to make offerings day in and day out was a "parable" to make it known that "the actual way for men to be able to enter into the accepting presence of God was not yet manifest" (9:8).
- b) In 11:19 the author says that Abraham's thinking about God was "parabolically" correct in that he viewed God as able to raise Isaac from the dead and, once the parable moved into the reality of "The Son of Promise" being raised from the dead, this "thinking" was validated.
- c) Thus, a "parable" is a "placing of a known thing alongside of an unknown thing" so that the unknown can become known by way of the "comparison".
- b. The "puzzling" impact of the use of "parables" is rooted in the question of which of the "comparisons" are intended (is a comparison of the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean Sea supposed to include shorelines and dimensions?).
