Chapter # 7 Paragraph # 2 Study # 1
June 14, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(316)
1901 ASV
7:24 And from thence he arose, and went away into the borders of Tyre [and Sidon]. And he entered into a house, and would have no man know it; and he could not be hid.
7:25 But straightway a woman, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of him, came and fell down at his feet.
7:26 Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race. And she besought him that he would cast forth the demon out of her daughter.
7:27 And he said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs.
7:28 But she answered and saith unto him, Yea, Lord; even the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.
7:29 And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the demon is gone out of thy daughter.
7:30 And she went away unto her house, and found the child laid upon the bed, and the demon gone out.
- I. The Place Of This Paragraph In Its Larger Context.
- A. The over-all content and structure of the subsection of 6:7-8:52.
- 1. Introduction
- 2. 6:14-29 --- Leaven of Herod --------- 7:1-23 --- leaven of Pharisees (from 8:15).
Inverted Pattern
- 3. 6:30-44 --- Feeding of 5,000 ------- 7:24-30 --- power story (exorcism)
- 4. 6:45-52 --- "astonished" ------------ 7:31-37 --- "astonished"
- 5. 6:53-56 --- power story (healings)------------- 8:1-9 --- Feeding of 4,000
- B. The place of this subsection in the larger context of the first section in Mark's Gospel.
- 1. Introduction
- 2. 1:21-35 ---- Mark's Focus Upon The Evidence For Jesus' Identity As "The Mighty One".
- 3. 2:1-3:6 ---- Mark's Focus Upon The Responses Of Those Subject To The Evidence.
- 4. 3:7-12 ----- Mark's Pivot From Evidence To Response.
- 5. 3:13-35 --- Mark's Record Of The Responses.
- 6. 4:1-6:6 ---- Mark's Presentation Of The Mystery Of The Kingdom And Its Requirement: Faith.
- 7. 6:7-8:26 -- Mark's Presentation Of A Major Danger To The Disciples.
- II. The Details Of This Paragraph.
- A. The first word, "From there..." (ekeithen).
- 1. Mark's geographical references, given by the use of this word.
- a. His first use is found in 6:1 where the "there" (in "from there") is Capernaum in respect to the restoration of Jairus' 12-year-old daughter.
- 1) Mark's focus at this point is upon "keep believing" (5:36).
- 2) The people were "completely astounded".
- 3) Jesus gave them "strict orders" that "no one should know about" the restoration.
- 4) He gave them instruction that the girl should be given something to eat.
- 5) "From there" He went to Nazareth and was rejected, and "He wondered at their unbelief".
- b. His second and third uses are found in 6:10 and 6:11 (for emphasis) where the issue is the "sent forth disciples" and their response to any place to which they go and find the people resistant to their message: when they "go from there", they are to shake the dust off of their feet as a witness against them.
- 1) This is Jesus' instruction to the disciples as Mark winds up the section where he has focused upon the disciples' time with Jesus according to 3:14.
- 2) The focus is upon the potential of "rejection". In other Gospel records, there is instruction regarding both "acceptance" and "rejection": Mark does not say anything about what to do if the message is accepted.
- 3) The issue is stark: if the message of Jesus, communicated by His disciples, is resisted by the hearers, they will be judged accordingly when the "testimony against them" is given by those disciples in the day of judgment.
- c. His fourth use is the first word in our current text where the setting was Jesus' insistence that the crowd buy into His "truth" that the problem with men is the condition of strong antagonism to Truth that is in their hearts. The setting is connected (rather loosely) to Jesus' ministry in Gennesaret where a great host of diseased people were healed when they touched His garments as He passed along on His way through villages, cities, countryside, and market places. This is not unlike Jesus' dealings with the great host of demons in the man of the Gerasenes. The Mighty One is expanding His reputation as the Mighty One.
- 1) Man's problems are not external to him.
- 2) The basis for God's rejection of him is the corruption of his heart and all of its fruit as will be established by testimony in the great day of final "rejection by God".
- d. His final use is found in 10:1, which has, as its prior context, Jesus' very strong words about what happens when men reject Him in the light of the inevitable coming of the final day of judgment.
- 1) With this use, Mark comes "full circle" because it is "Capernaum" (9:33) from which He departs (as in 6:1).
- 2) Additionally, the "judgment for rejection" is a major part of this setting, as in 6:10-11.
- 3) And the immediate focus of the words is upon the presence of the crowd and His teaching "according to His custom".
- e. All things considered, Mark uses this first word in our new paragraph to bring the issue of "being held accountable" into focus. If we have been given the opportunity to hear of our condition before God and resist that truth, there will be no escape in the great Day of the Judgment of the Creator (Mighty One). This is demonstrated by the exorcism of yet another demon.
- B. Mark's use of "got up" (anistemi).
- 1. This is the fifth of seventeen uses of this word in Mark's record. The meaning ranges from "getting to one's feet from a sitting position" to "rising from the dead" (the most powerful exercise of "might" known to man).
- 2. In this current text, the word is used in conjunction with "region" (opion) in the phrase "into the regions (plural; mistranslated as a singular by the NASB) of Tyre".
- a. The reference to "region" is first used in 5:17 where the Gerasenes implore Jesus to leave their "region" because thousands of their hogs perished.
- b. That reference is followed by only three more in Mark (7:24, 31, and 10:1).
- c. The word "region" refers to instances where Jesus left the typical "Jewish" regions (Judea and Galilee).
- 3. The word "Jesus" is inserted into the text at this point by the translators of the NASB for clarity as to "who" it was that "got up"; an insertion not warranted by any significant textual tradition and not found in the Authorized Version, and totally unnecessary. This, for some, is an extremely "minor" issue among men (too ignorant to subscribe to Jesus' "jot and tittle" theology), but reveals how careless men have been for centuries in regard to the attitude we should take toward the Scriptures. By contrast, the Jewish scribes would actually destroy hours of labor on copies of the Word of God if they made any kind of "mistake" in their copying.
- a. This is an extremely prevalent attitude during this "Age of Grace" where men enjoy the pleasures of "Grace" without recognizing their arrogance.
- b. Though the Jewish alternative smacks of their overweening terror of God's intense scrutiny of all actions of human beings, it does have this result: the Old Testament transmission of the text, being extremely accurate, is not even close to the carelessness of the transmission of the New Testament text.
- 4. Tyre [the inclusion of Sidon at this point is not established by the textual traditions].
- a. Mark refers to "Tyre" in three of his texts (3:8; 7:24 and 31). Tyre was a city of Phoenicia, outside the boundaries of Jewish geography.
- b. This movement by Jesus into the regions of Tyre is the beginning of a large circle of ministry by Jesus that went from Tyre, through Sidon, to the region of Decapolis. It is Mark's expansion of Jesus' activities as The Mighty One and the spread of His reputation.
- 1) Mark is making it very plain that there will be no excuse on the Day of Wrath for those who reject the testimony.
- 2) The horrors of "Death" in the setting of the infinity of Time lurk in the background.
- C. Mark's Record of Jesus' Desire And His Inability To See It Fulfilled.
- 1. Jesus' desire was that no one should "know" He was in the house which He had entered.
- 2. Jesus' inability to see that desire fulfilled was emphatic by the use of "ouk" coupled to the use of "dunamai".
- 3. This is a direct statement of Mark's "lurking reality"; no one will be able to say, "I never heard of Him".
- a. This inability to make that claim is adamantly declared by Paul in Romans 10:18.
- b. There will be no recourse for "rejectors" on That Day.