This is more or less a transcript from a Facebook Live video that I provided to my church yesterday morning. I hope you find it to be an encouragement during trying times. Bold formatting indicates main points and Scriptural quotations from the ESV. — Imagine being pressed from all sides in life, find yourself in… Read More »
A few passages about Mark (or John; cf. Acts 12:12, 25; 15:37) teach us a lesson about failure in ministry and then serving again thereafter. As a young man, Mark’s home was used by the church for prayer and possibly worship (Acts 12:12). With a home large enough for a church gathering, complete with at least… Read More »
“18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Mark 4:18–19 ESV). While this passage describes why some unbelievers never believe, it… Read More »
“And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked” (Mark 14:51–52). Who is the naked man in Mark 14:51–52, and why did Mark include this interesting episode in his Gospel? Similar to how the apostle… Read More »
The Passion Week refers to the final six days of Jesus’ life before His resurrection, His one full day in the tomb, and the day of resurrection. It is called the Passion Week because the word passion comes from the Greek word pasxō, which means “to suffer.”1 Sunday: Day of Celebration Matt 21:1–11, 14–17; Mark… Read More »
When Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31), was He somehow saying that the Bible would be preserved? In context, Jesus’ words in Mark 13:31 were verifying that all that would happen in Mark 13:3–30 would actually come to pass. Even if the universe were… Read More »
I realize that not everyone shares my conviction of a premillennial and pretribulational understanding of what will take place in the future. I do, as does my church, and we have been working through the Olivet Discourse in Mark 13. For any curious readers, I would encourage being a Berean and looking up the verses… Read More »
Mark 13:11 promises that followers of Jesus will be given words by the Spirit to speak when they stand before civil and religious authorities in the context of persecution. Below is but a brief theological explanation as to why this promise is not for us today but for those in the Tribulation, a time of… Read More »
The parallel passages described together below are Matthew 24–25, Mark 13:1–37, and Luke 21:5–36. Matthew adds a number of parables to the section that are not recorded in Mark or Luke, and Luke gives a number of details that are not recorded in Matthew or Mark. Matthew 24:1–3; Mark 13:1–4; Luke 21:5–7 The disciples pointed… Read More »
From Mark itself and no cross-references, here are my own notes in breaking apart and understanding Mark 13 as a whole. Jesus foretold the destruction of the temple (Mark 13:1–2), provoking two questions by four of the disciples about the timing of the final judgment: “when will these things be, and what will be the… Read More »