Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 1 Study # 1
June 8, 2021
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
(231)
Thesis: This last paragraph in this subsection of Mark's record winds up his focus upon Jesus' preparation of The Twelve with a particular focus upon God's non-negotiable by way of contrast.
Introduction: Those who were responsible for the verse, paragraph, and chapter divisions that exist in our Bibles made two errors in their task. First, they separated the "final story" of the subsection of Mark's record from the preceding material as if there was a major change of subject. Second, they divided
6:6 from
6:7 at the wrong place. Mark's focus for
6:6 was to establish the impact of "unbelief" as a contrast to the impact of "faith". The last part of
6:6 that has to do with Jesus going around to the villages belongs with
6:7 as an expression of the fulfillment of Jesus as to "purpose" (
1:38) and as a transition from Jesus' fulfillment of this "purpose" to His commission to The Twelve to carry on this "purpose". This is a small "point", but it is a part of Mark's attempt to give us a legitimate picture of Jesus and His method for accomplishing His "purpose".
This focus upon "purpose" is "ground zero" in a large part of Paul's presentation of the theology of the Gospels as we see from Romans 8:28: all things are "worked together unto good" for those who are "called according to purpose". Thus, Mark's record falls into this issue of "purpose" in a way that makes it imperative for us to seek to understand his "purposes" in the way he puts his material together.
Therefore, as we look into this paragraph at the end of an entire subsection of Mark's record, we will be looking for his "purpose" as well as how he seeks to accomplish it.
- I. The Bigger Picture.
- A. Though I have tried to make this point many times, I will repeat myself, briefly, to reassert it.
- 1. According to 3:13-15, Jesus intended to train The Twelve in a way that would enable them to be sent out to preach and to cast out demons.
- 2. According to 6:7, Jesus summoned The Twelve and began to send them out and to give them authority over unclean spirits.
- 3. This makes the material between Mark's record of Jesus' "intent" and His actual action to fulfill this "intent" a subsection in his record: it is "about" giving The Twelve the "content of doctrine" that would enable them to both preach with understanding and to cast out demons with power.
- B. This subsection dovetails into 1:38 as it reveals that Jesus intended to fulfill His "purpose" for being sent both by doing the work and by training The Twelve to carry that purpose forward after His accomplishment of His part of the "purpose".
- 1. This makes the material that exists in this record after the stilling of the storm and the exorcism of "Legion" critical to the training of The Twelve.
- a. The doctrinal issue involved is raised at the end of the stilling of the storm by the disciples' question, "Who is This?"
- b. The second doctrinal issue involved in the following material is raised by a two-fold presentation of the efficacy of "faith" in Jesus Who has the power to still the storm and command the legion of demons.
- 2. At this point, the "training of The Twelve" moves from the presentation to the disciples to a participation by the disciples in the form of two persons who are moved by their need in life to act by reason of "faith" that is in Jesus: this is the participation stage.
- 3 The "point" is that God has a non-negotiable that determines the level of participation of men in the "Life" of God: "faith".
- a. For clarity, we need to make this point: men are not to "act upon their faith"; they are to "believe" so that they are moved to act.
- b. Acting "upon one's faith" puts the monkey on the back of the individual and twists the nature of "faith".
- 1) By definition, the action that occurs when "faith" exists is "God-action", not "man-action".
- 2) Also by definition, "faith" does not exist when the "believer" is unmoved by God to act ("faith" that is mere profession is often called "faith" but it is "unbelief"; God is outside that picture: but, "faith" that exists is always attended by the God Who made the Truth evident with conviction and that will, of itself, move the "believer" to behavior that is in harmony with God).
- II. The Beginning Of The Details.
- A. The departure from the setting that included the house of the ruler of the synagogue is typical historical narrative: Jesus went out from there (past tense verb characteristic of "historical" narrative).
- 1. This "going out" is, again, much like the situation in chapter one where He alludes to the fact that His "goings out" are to fulfill the reason He was "sent".
- 2. The "there" from which He went out is deliberate in its intention to keep the raising of the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue in the front of our minds: He left from the place of His greatest demonstration to date of the answer to the question, "Who is This?"
- B. The verb tense immediately switches to the present in order to make his action the focal point: He is coming into His "homeland".
- 1. Watch Jesus moving from the raising of the daughter of the ruler toward His "homeland".
- a. The word translated "homeland" is identified in this paragraph as the place where the synagogue of His youth resided [Nazareth, but not so called at this point].
- b. Jesus is going into the place where He lived throughout His life to the point of His leaving to go to John to be baptized by him (1:9).
- c. Up to this point in the record, the phenomenal things that occurred at His baptism were not front and center in the minds of His life-associates in His "homeland".
- 2. This "moving into His homeland" is associated with 1:38 by the use of the same verb and with 1:7 by the use of the same verb: thus, making Jesus the Coming One (1:7) as the Sent One for the purpose of accomplishing the divine purpose of His Life (1:38).
- C. The reason for the tense shift is shown by the comment that His disciples "are following Him".
- 1. Clearly, then, something highly significant is about to happen that the disciples need to see and understand.
- 2. In the bigger picture, the thing necessary to see and understand is the non-negotiable of God presented in terms of "contrast": this makes it the non-negotiable.
