The Gospel of Mark

Jesus Christ lived a very full, if short, life. He did and accomplished more in his thirty years than many men do in twice that. The gospels each tell their versions of his life. Of the four, I found the gospel of Mark to be the most interesting. I enjoy the style of writing in this gospel more than the others. I feel it gives a better summary of the events in Christ’s life. Whereas the other gospels tend to get bogged down with parables or spend too much time on specific events, the gospel of Mark moves along at a good pace and adequately gets the message across.

A majority of Mark deals with Christ’s travels throughout the area around the Sea of Galilee and the various miracles he performed during that time. Most of these involved healing those with leprosy or other plagues, exorcising demons, or curing the blind/deaf/dumb. The stories of Christ feeding thousands with but a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish are also told, as is the story of Jesus walking on water. All of the miracles are described well, without getting too wordy. The style of writing also makes them believable.

Only a handful of Christ’s parables are included in Mark. One speaks of how “the sower soweth the word.” In this parable, Jesus speaks of himself as a sower and compares spreading the Word of God to planting seeds (the Word being the seeds). He also compares people to the different types of ground you can plant seeds in. At the end of the parable, Christ says that any man who spreads the seed also spreads the kingdom of God, and any man that withholds the seed shall see the kingdom of God withheld from him (Mark 4:24-26). This is a beautifully written passage. Without coming out and saying, it, Christ makes it apparent that it’s not enough to merely worship; one must also go out and preach to the unsaved and try to help them see the light.

Another parable tells of the rich young man who asks Christ how he may attain the kingdom of God. Christ asks if he as followed the Ten Commandments, and the young man says he has. Then Christ tells him that he has to give all his possessions to the poor because he will have no need of such things in Heaven. This saddens the young man because he has many possessions. After the young man left, Christ told his disciples that it is difficult for the rich to get into Heaven because they put too much faith