Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 1 Study # 8
July 27, 2021
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(246)
1901 ASV
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. Mark's Record Of The Consequences Of The Dishonor Nazareth Heaped Upon Jesus.
- A. He wrote of Jesus' "inability" to do a "mighty thing".
- 1. He wrote that Jesus "could not" (dunamai).
- a. This "inability" is emphatic; Mark uses "ouk", a very strong negative.
- b. He also couples the strong negative with the greatest word for "ability".
- 1) This was not a matter of "iscus" (inherent strength), nor of "kratos" (organizational wisdom) [these He had in abundance].
- 2) This was a matter of "permission" from the One from Whom He received His "work orders" (John 5:19-23; the same word "dunamai" is used in the same concept/context of those who illegitimately refused to "honor" the Son).
- c. "There".
- 1) Specifically Nazareth, a place which had a great obligation upon it because of the great honor bestowed upon it by God of having His Son dwell among them for 30 years.
- 2) There always exists an incumbent responsibility upon those who receive grace from God to respond with gratitude to God in a form of "reciprocity" (in this case, "I honored you, so why have you dishonored Me?").
- 3) The horrific "dishonor" is met by God with His form of "dishonor": everywhere Jesus went He did "works of significant power" without regard for the gross failures of those upon whom His works of power fell, except in His "patris". The magnitude of their "dishonor" is revealed by the Father's refusal to allow the Son to do "any" work of significant power "of any kind". This reality is one highlighted by Ezra's prayer recorded in Ezra 9.
- d. Make (Do) any kind of "significant accomplishment" (dunamis).
- e. Except, having laid hands upon a few sickly ones, He healed.
- 1) It is interesting that Mark, having used "healing" of "sick" people as a major aspect of His argument for Jesus' identity as "The Coming Mighty One", and continuing to use this same "healing" by His disciples to cement His identity, remarks upon the real insignificance of such "healing" by excluding it from the category of "significant works of power".
- a) The two words, "sick" and "healed", are both used in 6:13 as an argument for Jesus' identity made manifest by His disciples being able to do the same kinds of things He did.
- b) Yet in this text/context he "dishonors" "healing of the sick" by making it "no kind of significant accomplishment".
- 2) This is a kind of testament to the actual reluctance of the Father and the Son to visit the full measure of what is deserved upon men who richly deserve "wrath".
- 4. Is recorded in terms of Jesus' "wonder" on account of their absence of faith (apistia).
- a. Mark used the term "wonder" in four places in his record (5:20; 6:6; 15:5; and 15:44).
- b. His meaning seems to run from a significant level of amazement to a mild "jolt" at an unusual phenomenon (something out of the norm).
