Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 1 Study # 3
June 22, 2021
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(236)
1901 ASV
6:1 And he went out from thence; and he cometh into his own country; and his disciples follow him.
6:2 And when the sabbath was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, Whence hath this man these things? and, What is the wisdom that is given unto this man, and [what mean] such mighty works wrought by his hands?
6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended in him.
6:4 And Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages teaching.
- I. The Big Picture.
- II. The Details.
- A. "And He went away from there and He is coming into His 'fatherland'...".
- 1. The Aorist, "He went away" is immediately followed by a Present, "...He is coming...".
- a. The "from thence" ties this paragraph to the preceding record of both the resuscitation of the "little daughter of the ruler of the synagogue" and the "daughter" whose twelve year flow of blood was healed.
- b. The verb translated "went out" is very common in Mark, being used in 37 texts of his record, and is also found in 210 texts of the New Testament. It has at least this significance: in 1:38 Jesus says "...that I may preach...for that is what I came [the word under consideration] for". Jesus' "preaching" is linked to 3:14 where it is revealed that He intends to "send The Twelve forth to "preach". His "purpose" (from 1:38) is going to become His disciples' "purpose" and does in 6:7.
- 1) It is significant that Jesus trained "twelve" out of all who "believed" to be His representatives.
- 2) It needs to be understood that the "Church" which Christ set out to "build" (Matthew 16:18) has a particular character in which each individual is given a task and ability so that the whole can be "built up" (Ephesians 4:12 and 4:16) according to His "purpose" (Romans 8:28). Under the thesis of this character, the members of The Church do not all have the same task and function (as is popularly proclaimed so that we are all "tasked" to be "like" some particular one the proclaimer uses to call us all to the same function). The universal goal is that revealed in the Ephesian text above; the particular function is the Lord's own business (1 Corinthians 12:11). We need to be done with calling all to be "soul winners", or "missionaries", or "prayer warriors", or ... (whatever the "caller" particularly "likes"). Instead, we need to call all men to purity of conscience and commitment to Colossians 3:23: "whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men".
- c. The verb translated "He is coming" is another Present Tense in historical narrative where the Aorist Tense is typically used because the record is "past history". Mark used this particular verb in 83 texts out of 599 texts of the entire New Testament. It is a very commonly used word. Its use in the Present Tense in historical narrative signals "focused attention as though one was seeing (in his mind) the events being recorded as though he was actually there, watching the events as they were happening.
- 2. The use of the word translated "country" (ASV) is altered by the NASB to "hometown". The word is notable for the paucity of its use in the New Testament (only in 8 texts).
- a. The word is derived from the Greek word for "father" so that it was coined to identify the "land" where the "father" resided.
- b. Seven of the eight uses in the New Testament are found in parallel passages where the same issues are being addressed. The eighth use is in Hebrews 11:14 where it is used to indicate that those who have embraced The Faith made it plain that they were looking for such a thing in the scenario of Eternity. The contrast is obvious: in Time's "fatherland"/"country"/"hometown", the "prophet" has no honor; but, in Eternity's "fatherland"/"country"/"hometown", there is "glory (for the spirit), honor (for the soul), and immortality (for the body)" (Romans 2:7) which are summarized as the experience of "Eternal Life" in that verse and, as the elements of Eternal Life", refers to the very essence of "the Promise which He promised us" (1 John 2:25).
- c. At issue in this record is that not only did Jesus find no "honor"/"Life" in His earthly time's "fatherland"/"country"/"hometown", neither did the inhabitants thereof who maintained their unbelief.
- d. At issue here is the question, not only of why Jesus decided to make this journey, but why Mark chose to insert it into his record. This is the question of patrida autou (Jesus' "father's" habitual place of "life").
- 1) Mark's use of this particular phrase in Greek is deliberate because Jesus' use of this phrase is deliberate.
- 2) The word is inescapably "patristic"; i.e., "focused upon genealogical descent issues" that are rooted in those issues as they are bounded by the "father" in question. In this case the "father" is Joseph, the husband of the mother of Jesus. According to the record of Matthew 1:16, "Joseph" was the son of "Jacob" who was the son of "Mattan".
- a) The fact that Jesus' "father" was a son of a "Jacob" is an interesting parallel to the record of Genesis regarding the "Joseph", son of "Jacob", who was sent by God to Egypt in order to save many people alive. The parallelism may actually be a bit more significant in that "Mattan", the father of the "Jacob" in Matthew's record, is a man whose name, according to at least one lexicon, means "gift", a concept not far removed from "Isaac" as God's "gift" to Abraham to set up a well-recognized reality that has its roots in "Isaac" as "the son of the promise" as the foundation of Paul's theological development of "son of the promise" as the "meaning" of salvation by grace through promise and not by works through fleshly efforts in Romans 9:8-9.
- b) Jesus deliberately addressed His "rejection" as a matter of being a "son" of a deliberate Old Testament pattern in which "Joseph" is in Egypt to fulfill God's salvation plan and "Joseph" is a resident of Nazareth, though a direct heir of the Davidic throne, to fulfill God's plan of salvation by placing Jesus in an "out of the way" place so that He could grow to manhood without the threats of His opponents who are settled in Jerusalem to try to take His kingdom away from Him (Herod's murder of the boys in Bethlehem being a direct effort by the Great Red Dragon to kill God's "Christ").
- c) The themes are biblical.
- B. "...and His disciples are following Him".
- 1. These are characterized as "disciples", a term applied to many, on occasion, and to The Twelve on occasion.
- 2. There is no clear identification in this text/context to let us know whether Mark meant The Twelve, or whether there were many.
- 3. The "point" is that all "disciples" need to understand that "unbelief" is unacceptable to God.