Grace Community Church Sunday School
Mark: The Case for Jesus the Son of God
Introduction
Author
None of the four gospels identify their authors. There are clues within them, and
even the name of the recipient in Luke’s case, but we rely on the early, consistent
testimony of the Church to identify the authors of the Gospels.
The Second Gospel was written by John Mark, pieces of whose story are given in Acts, 1 Peter, and 2 Timothy.
Church Father Papias quotes a tradition that dates to the final decades of the first century, right after the time
Mark would have been written (ca. AD 65-70). The Second Gospel was consistently titled either euangelion
kata Markon (“the Gospel according to Mark”) or abbreviated to kata Markon (“according to Mark”), even in
the first century.
A second-century work titled The Anti-Marcionite Prologue has this humorous description:
Mark related, who was called ‘Stumpfinger’ because for the size of the rest of his body he had fingers that were too
short. He was the interpreter of Peter. After Peter’s death the same man wrote this gospel in the regions of Italy (qtd. in
Stein, KL 561).
If you were trying to get someone to read your book, how would you ‘market’ it?
Robert Stein goes on to explain, “The negative comment about Mark’s ‘stumpfingers’ has every appearance of
being a historically reliable tradition. It is most unlikely that secondary tradition would demean Mark by such a
description. Rather, it is more likely that it would have sought to extol the Gospel writer by adding something
like ‘who was called “Beautiful Hands,’ for with them he would write ‘the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God’ ” (ibid.).
If you think about the so-called “lost” Gospels, they’re always named after significant people in the early
Church: apostles, usually. If you’re trying to get your writings distribution among the larger Church community,
telling them that it’s the Gospel according to Frank or Billy isn’t going to gain any traction. You’re going to
play up your document as much as possible, not call it the preaching of Ole Snaggletooth.
We know a bit about this John Mark, and his story is not a pretty one, but it is a good one. In Acts 13:2-3, the
Holy Spirit designates Paul and Barnabas to be missionaries, and in 13:5, “John” is their “assistant.” John Mark
accompanies them on their first missionary journey, but he left them in Pamphylia and did not continue on the
rest of the journey.
Then, in Acts 15, Paul desires to go back through to the churches they planted to encourage them and check up
on them. Barnabas wants to take John Mark again (15:37), but Paul adamantly refused. “There was such a sharp
disagreement that they parted company, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed off to Cyprus. Then Paul
chose Silas and departed, after being commended to the grace of the Lord by the brothers” (15:39-40).
Somehow, Mark came under the discipleship of Peter in Rome, and Mark matured as a believer and a minister.
Peter calls Mark “my son” (1 Peter 5:13), indicating the love and closeness of their relationship as believers.
This is not the same Mark that put his hand to the plow and looked back. In fact, the consistent testimony of the
early church is that the Second Gospel is Mark’s faithful representation of Peter’s preaching:
Mark became Peter’s interpreter [ἑρμηνευτής, hermēneutēs] and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not,
indeed, in order, of the things said or done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him,
but later on, as I said, followed Peter, who used to give teaching as necessity demanded but not making, as it
were, an arrangement of the Lord’s oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as
he remembered them. For to one thing he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to
make no false statements in them. (Eccl. Hist. 3.39.15) (Papias, qtd. in Eusebius, qtd. in Stein KL 530-534).
Then in 2 Timothy—what is believed to be Paul’s last letter prior to his murder at the hands of Nero—Paul
makes this tremendously encouraging statement: “Only Luke is with me. Bring Mark with you, for he is useful
to me in the ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11 HCSB, emphasis added).
What ways can we learn and be encouraged from John Mark’s spiritual journey?
Audience
Mark contains more translations and explanations of Jewish/Aramaic phrases and customs than the other
Gospels, so it seems clear that his audience was a Greek-speaking, Gentile one. They would be largely
unfamiliar with the Aramaic phrases (e.g., Talitha koum in chapter 5) and customs, thus needing translation or
explanation.
The audience is also clearly a Christian community familiar with the broader Christian traditions and truths. In
fact, two sons of Simon of Cyrene, who carried Jesus’ cross to Golgotha, were members of the church in Rome
to whom Mark wrote (see 15:21).
Occasion
These believers were living under the regime of Nero, who had ordered the execution of both Peter and Paul.
The letter was most likely written in the late AD 60s, when persecution local to Rome was raging after the
Great Fire had destroyed so much of the city and the Christians were blamed for it.
R. C. Sproul describes what they were enduring:
Word swept through the city that the destruction had been caused by those antisocial, antireligious
fanatics who bore the name of Jesus Christ. So Nero sent his military out to round up every Christian he
could find. When he arrested the Christians, he clothed them in the skins of wild animals; then, in a
public display of cruelty, he let feral dogs loose against them. Thinking they were assaulting wild
animals, the dogs attacked the Christians garbed in skins and killed them. Other Christians Nero dipped
in pitch or tar and ignited their bodies, using them to illuminate his private gardens. If that was not
enough, other Christians were brought into the Colosseum and fed to the lions for entertainment. (2)
If this was your situation and someone was writing to you and your church, what would you want them
to say to you? What would you want them to give you?
Mark includes an interesting detail in his Gospel account that no other Gospel does: when Jesus goes into the
wilderness to be tempted, he adds that Jesus was “with the wild animals.” As Sproul goes on to say, “This
gospel reminded them of their salvation in Christ, taught them about the suffering that Jesus Himself
experienced, and even revealed that Jesus was driven into the wilderness and was under the threat of wild
beasts” (ibid.).
Mark writes to these Christians to reinforce to them that this Jesus whose name they bear is the very Son of God
Himself. Their sufferings are worth it, because He is worth it. In fact, He understands as only One who has
endured it Himself could. He knows what it is to feel isolated, abandoned, left to the mercy of wild animals.
For us, this means that Stumpfinger’s Gospel is immediately and powerfully relevant to us. We need Mark’s
Gospel for the same reason that his original Roman readers did: we need to know that Jesus is the Son of God
and therefore worthy. As Samuel Rutherford says, “It were a well-spent journey, though sev’n deaths lay
between” (“The Sands of Time Are Sinking”). The Roman church needed to be reminded and reinforced in that
truth, and so do we.
References
Sproul; R.C. (2013-03-19). Mark: 2 (Saint Andrew's Expositional Commentary). Reformation Trust Publishing.
Kindle Edition.
Stein, Robert H. (2008-11-01). Mark (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament). Baker Publishing
Group. Kindle Edition.