Kindle Notes & Highlights
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October 28 - December 13, 2024
in only one instance in the NT does “yeast” carry a positive metaphorical sense (Matt 13:33//Luke 13:21). In its dozen remaining uses “yeast” connotes corruption, unholiness, and danger.
The one point at which the Pharisees and Antipas are united is in their opposition to Jesus.
Particularly in Mark, where there are more references to laying on of hands than in any other Gospel, all but one instance occur in the context of healings.
The two primary purposes of laying on of hands in the Old Covenant were to transfer either animals or persons from the profane to the sacred by consecrating them to God.
The healing of the blind man of Bethsaida is the only miracle in the Gospels that proceeds in stages rather than being instantly effected. Matthew and Luke omit this miracle, likely because it suggested that Jesus was unsuccessful on the first attempt.
The two-stage cure in the present miracle thus suggests a process of revelation—as much for the disciples, we suspect, as for the blind man at Bethsaida.
This story brings us to the continental divide of Mark’s narrative. By the gradual healing of the blind man, Jesus shows how the disciples, in particular, may come to faith. Like the blind man, the disciples, who “have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear” (8:18), can also be made to see and hear.
The authority that Jesus has demonstrated throughout Mark’s narrative does not allow him to be defined by something other than himself and his relationship with the Father.
The categories of John the Baptizer or Elijah or one of the prophets are no closer to the real Jesus than are the various “Jesus” figures of historical criticism or Enlightenment rationalism or feminism or Aryan and racist theories or the Jesus Seminar or the various sociological models in our day.
Only God and demons have recognized Jesus as Messiah in Mark so far. No human actor has yet declared Jesus to be Messiah.
Though entirely human,38 the Messiah would nevertheless be far greater than God’s earlier messengers to Israel, “powerful in word and deed before God and all the people” (Luke 24:19).
We cannot know exactly what prompted Peter to declare Jesus the Messiah, but Jesus will cut a different profile from the popular stereotype. Jesus will of course identify with some of the ideas associated with Messiah, such as liberation and peace, but he will eschew others, especially those associated with military power and rule. In declaring Jesus as the Christ, Peter has supplied the proper title, but he has the wrong understanding.
Jesus must now begin to teach the true meaning of Peter’s confession. For this, Peter and the disciples are quite unprepared.
When Jesus finally speaks to the issue of his identity and mission it is summed up in “The Son of Man must suffer many things.”
Never in Israel was it heard that the Messiah should suffer. There is of course the image of the suffering servant in Isaiah, but as noted in the excursus on Christ there is no evidence that the Servant of the Lord texts were ever associated with the Messiah.
When disciples play God rather than follow Jesus, they inevitably become satanic.
The word for “life” (Gk. psychē) can simply mean physical existence (e.g., Acts 27:37), but its more common and important sense is that of “personhood,” “being,” or “soul,”
Jesus assumes that authority himself, earnestly pronouncing, “‘I tell you the truth.’” Jesus’ use of Amēn as an introductory formula rather than as a concluding prayer response (as was customary in Judaism) is, in the words of Joachim Jeremias, “without any parallel in the whole of Jewish literature and the rest of the New Testament.”
In Peter’s confession Mark teaches how disciples should think about Jesus (8:33), and in the subsequent transfiguration narrative he allows them to behold his true nature.
Mark’s “six days” is most probably a chronological parallel with Moses’ six-day sojourn on Mt. Sinai (Exod 24:16), thus establishing the first of many points of contact with that seminal event in Israel’s history.63
“To transfigure,”
radical transformation.
never before do we find two precursors of the Messiah, nor do Moses and Elijah ever appear together as precursors of the end time.
Only once elsewhere in the NT (Rev 11:3-11) do the two appear together, but in a quite different context
It is more probable that Moses and Elijah appear in the transfiguration narrative as representatives of the prophetic tradition that, according to the belief of the early church, would anticipate Jesus. “All the prophets testify to [Jesus]” (Acts 10:43).
the Greek has Elijah appearing with Moses, which seems to imply a certain subordination of Elijah to Moses.
In only one passage do Elijah and Moses appear together before the Day of Yahweh. In Mal 4:4-6, Israel is commanded to remember the “instruction” (Heb. torah) of God’s servant Moses. Immediately following, Elijah is introduced as the prophet who turns the hearts of people to repentance on the Day of Yahweh. The appearance of Moses and Elijah in the transfiguration narrative likely recalls this passage and their prophetic roles as joint preparers of the final Prophet to come
Elijah and Moses, the greatest figures of the OT, have vanished; in relation to Jesus they have no permanent standing.
the question “‘Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?’” is a leading question, the intention of which is to suggest that Elijah’s return to restore all things should obviate the need of the Son of Man to go to the cross.
Is it not instructive that the only reference to Jesus’ earthly work in the Apostles’ Creed is “he suffered”?
whenever the disciples are separated from Jesus they fall into crises.
(grand mal) seizures,
The boy may indeed be epileptic, but the epilepsy is portrayed as a front or vehicle of a malevolent engineering force.
For the latter two Gospels the significance of the narrative is the miraculous, whereas for Mark the miraculous is penultimate to faith, and faith to discipleship. For Mark the significance of Jesus cannot be fully conveyed by what he does, but only by who he is.
A recurrent theme in this passage is the inadequacy of the disciples in ministry with Jesus. Service in fellowship with Christ is characterized by constant awareness of the inadequacy of the servant.
9:30 is the last reference to Galilee in Mark until after the passion and resurrection
Although Mark often refers to Jesus as a teacher, he seldom reports what Jesus taught.
Their preoccupation with rank and standing is in character with what we know of Judaism in general. Rabbinic writings frequently comment on the seating order in Paradise, for example, and argue that the just would sit nearer to the throne of God than even the angels.
their reticence when asked about it reveals at least a budding awareness of the incompatibility of their ambitions with the way of Jesus.
The idea of subservience to others is so central to the thought of Jesus that it was remembered and recorded in nearly every stratum of early Christianity.
At no point does the way of Jesus diverge more sharply from the way of the world than on the question of greatness.
In Judaism, children and women were largely auxiliary members of society whose connection to the social mainstream depended on men (either as fathers or husbands). Children, in particular, were thought of as “not having arrived.”
The child is not used, as is often supposed, as an example of humility, but as an example of the “little” and insignificant ones whom followers of Jesus are to receive.
Disciples are thus not to be like children, but to be like Jesus who embraces them.
It is Jesus, not the child, who here demonstrates what it means to be “the servant of all.”
Although Mark’s Gospel is shorter than Matthew’s and Luke’s, it is often the case that when the three Synoptics contain a common story Mark’s version is the fullest.
This is the only instance in Mark where John the apostle is mentioned alone.
there can be no neutrality with regard to the person of Jesus, the disciples must be tolerant of those who differ from them. Theologically speaking, the church should be unambiguous in its proclamation of Christ but tolerant of those who differ from it.
not only does v. 49 exist in several different forms in the manuscript tradition, but the variant readings suggest attempts at interpreting the puzzling statement that “‘Everything will be salted with fire.’”
Christians, similarly, are a preservative in society, apart from which society will become rotten. The above interpretations are generally valid, but they fall short of explaining either the presence or meaning of fire and salt at the conclusion of Mark 9.
