08/03/2020- Day 071 – Mark 1-2 – A Summary of the book of Mark ahead.
We will be reading, reflecting and praying over the book of Mark for eight consecutive Mondays ending on Day 120. In our reading today, we have a very brief mention of Jesus’ 40 day temptation in the desert – only Ch 1: vs 12-13. I start with this as a way of noting that I still hope to have a group discussion over the recent movie: “XL: Temptation of Christ” produced by Douglas Vail sometime in the September to October timeframe. You can watch this movie for $.99 as I did on the following link:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7697348/
I highly recommend Timothy Keller’s book: “King’s Cross – The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus. I have the audio cd version running 8 hours, it is essentially a commentary of the book of Mark. Note: This book was later retitled as “Jesus the King – the Story of the World in the Life of Jesus” so you may want to search for it on that title. This book is no doubt in one of the top five books I have read in my lifetime. Largely through commutes over the years, I would guess that I have listened to it or read it four times – cover to cover.
Now, I am going to share with you a summarization of the book of Mark from my Halley’s Bible Handbook:
Jesus the Wonderful
“The special emphasis of Mark is the Superhuman Power of Jesus, demonstrating His Deity by His Miracles. Omits most of Jesus’ Discourses. Narrates things Jesus Did rather than things Jesus said. Seems to have had Gentile readers in mind.
From the beginning, and by unbroked tradition, this Gospel has been regarded as the work of Mark, containing, substantially, the Story of Jesus as told by Peter.
John Mark was son of a Mary, whose home in Jerusalem was a meeting place for the disciples of Jesus (Acts 12:12). Being a cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10), he may have been a Levite (Acts 4:36) It has been surmised that he was the young man who fled naked on the night of Jesus arrest (Mark 14: 51-52). The language of 1 Peter 5:13 may mean that he was a convert of Peter’s…..
Early Christian tradition has it that Mark was , in the main, a companion of Peter. He was with Peter in “Babylon” when Peter wrote his First Epistle (1 Peter 5:13). Mark’s Gospel is thought to have been written and pulished in Rome between A.D. 60 and 70.