W. Robert Godfrey (0:00)

What a wonderful way to talk about the Gospel. The Gospel is a story not that traps us, but liberates us, frees us. That's what we're hoping to find as we go through the Gospel of Mark, that great story that saves us and liberates us and leads us to faith.

Nathan W. Bingham (0:24)

The Gospel of Mark. Although it's a short gospel, it's unique in many ways. So even if you're familiar with the words of Mark, it's a gospel we should return to again and again. Welcome to the Monday edition of Renewing youg Mind and I'm glad you're joining us as we premiere a brand new teaching series on Mark's Gospel titled Following Jesus. This week only you can gain Lifetime digital access to this 20 message series along with its study guide. Plus, we'll send you a Renewing your Mind notebook to aid you as you take sermon notes or as you take notes while you listen every day to Renewing youg Mind. Give your donation@renewingyourmind.org and go deeper in the Gospel of Mark. W. Robert Godfrey, the chairman of Ligonier Ministries, is our featured teacher this week. And here he is as we begin a journey through this fast paced gospel.

W. Robert Godfrey (1:25)

Welcome to the beginning of our study of the Gospel of Mark. I suppose I should begin with a confession. When I was younger I had trouble with the Gospels. They were not my favorite part of the Bible and I think the reason for that was I couldn't feel how they held together. It seemed like just one thing after another and they were good things one after another. But I guess I have an excessively orderly mind. I want to know why is this story being told the way it's being told? Why does one thing follow another? And with the Gospels, a lot of the time I just felt I don't get it. You read an epistle, you can tell how Paul is developing his argument. You read history in the Old Testament and you can see why things are being told in the order and in the way they're being told. For a long time I felt about the Gospels. I didn't get that feeling. Now you could see how the Gospels moved. You know, they started early in Jesus ministry, or maybe even before Jesus ministry, and they moved through his ministry and they moved to the end of his ministry. So in that sense there was a chronological motion in the Gospels. But why a lot of the elements were put quite where they were put seemed elusive to me and annoying. All right, there I said it. I've gotten over it. But I would think of the end of John's Gospel, where John says, if I told you all that Jesus did, it would take books and books to fill the world. But why did he tell us what he told us? How did he decide what he left out and what he put in? And why did the Lord give us four Gospels? So I always had these questions, and in coming to study Mark's Gospel, I felt I made a breakthrough for me. And the breakthrough comes in terms of the word, yes, you have to submit to it. Chiasm. I think I finally found the organization of Mark's Gospel through chiasms. Now, some of you have heard me often enough that you know what a chiasm is, but some of you may not. A chiasm is an ancient literary form followed in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the Greek Bible and of course, in much other ancient literature outside the Bible. And it's simply a way of organizing material that I think helped ancient people remember. May not initially strike us as all that memorable or helpful, but it helped ancient people. And I have what I see as the first chiasm in Mark's Gospel here on the board. To give you an idea of it, I've often said that a chiasm is like a step pyramid, except here the step pyramid is upside down. So I'm not being a very helpful teacher that way. But a chiasm has a beginning. It moves up to a center, then moves down to the end. The beginning and the end correspond in some way as each step corresponds in some way. And you can see that visually here that Mark's Gospel in the first section begins with a gospel and ends with a gospel. It moves on to talk about preaching and also has a section on preaching near the end. Wilderness. Wilderness. And in the center, Jesus, baptism. And what this did for me is begin to answer the question, not only what is Mark teaching in his gospel, but it helps us see how he's teaching in his gospel. And it helps us somewhat see why he talks about things in the order and way in which he does so. It really gives us insight into the structure of the gospel that I think will be illuminating. I think it'll be helpful. It will not give us discoveries that no one has ever heard of before. So don't worry. I'm a little crazy, but I'm not that crazy. So we're not going to discover, you know, the date of Christ's return this way. We're not going to discover doctrinal truths that have never been affirmed before. The what of the gospel remains what we've always known is in the gospel. The truth of the gospel will remain absolutely the same. But this approach gives us a different angle on it. When I undertook to teach this series, one of my concerns was some people will say the Gospel of Mark. I already know that. I've studied through the Gospel of Mark. I've read the Gospel of Mark a lot of times. What's the point of doing the Gospel of Mark all over again? Come on, did you think that way? Were you tempted to think that? I think this is going to make the Gospel of Mark fresh for us and help us see aspects of it angles on it that we've never seen before. So I hope you'll go along with me on this journey, that you'll be patient as we talk about structure, because I think it really will be helpful and illuminating. Now, what's Mark's gospel like apart from structure? We need to say the traditional things at the beginning. We know first of all that Mark is the briefest gospel. It's only 60% of Luke's gospel. Luke has the longest gospel. And so 60%, you know, Mark's only slightly more than half the length of Luke. So it's brief. He tells his stories most of the time more briefly than the other gospels. As we go along, we'll see it isn't always true that it's briefer. Sometimes he's longer. And of course, in a brief Gospel, if you have a deliberate longer telling of a story, we should notice that, right? Because he's making a real point by slowing down and telling the story at greater length. But in general, it's certainly true that Mark is the shortest gospel. And in most of the stories he tells, he's briefer than the other gospels. For example, about the beginning of Jesus ministry, which is basically what we're looking at here. In this first section, Mark has 15 verses about the beginning of Jesus ministry. Matthew has 82 verses about the beginning of Jesus ministry. And Luke has 182 verses about the beginning of Jesus ministry. So you get a sense of really how much Mark has consolidated or focused in a laser like way on what he wants to tell us. Especially at the beginning of the gospel. Mark loves to use the word immediately. And immediately Jesus went here and immediately Jesus went there. He wants to establish a sense that this story he's telling is moving right along, is moving quickly. And he draws us with him then from event to events in this sense of rapid movement. And so it gives a definite tempo to the story. And the temptation then is to think Since Mark is moving rapidly through this story. Maybe he's moving carelessly through this story. When you and I tell a story with a purpose of being rapid. I think often we just kind of hop from this to that. And maybe don't plan as well as we might if we're going more slowly. But that, of course, is not the case with Mark. His speed doesn't mean he's being careless. In fact, what impresses me as we go through the gospel. Is how very careful he's been. He's very deliberate, very thoughtful, very intentional and carefully planned in all that he is doing. And so while we want to go with him, as he's being kind of speedy. We may want to slow down at points and think, what's he doing? What's he really saying? What's he want us to get out of that? Another way that his style is impressive is the vivid quality of his writing. Even though he's brief, he adds certain details that we don't find in other gospels. Obviously, they're brief details because they haven't made the gospel super long. But when Jesus is being tempted in the wilderness. Which is over here on our outline. The recording of the temptation in Mark is very brief. But he adds the little detail that in the wilderness there were wild animals. He's the only gospel writer that says that. It makes the experience of the wilderness pretty vivid all of a sudden when we think in those terms. So he adds those little details. When in the next section we see Jesus calling his first followers. We are told that they left their father with the hired servants and followed him. Well, that little detail, hired servants, is unique to Mark. So there are these vivid elements that intensify the picture. Even though the picture is most of the time being rather briefly told. Another element is that his writing is kind of abrupt. It'll just start and just stop. And sometimes we'll be surprised. That's not where I would have started it. That's not where I would have fit. Why is he doing that? And we'll kind of look at that as we go along. Think of the way the gospel begins. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It's not even a whole sentence. It just is a kind of abrupt beginning. And it will cause us, as we'll see in a moment. To slow down and ask, why does he start that way? What does he mean us to take away from that? When we get to the end of the gospel. We'll be shocked at the abruptness with which he ends his gospel. We're not going to talk about that now. I'm afraid you might not come back. But it's a very abrupt ending. Why does he end abruptly? What does he want to teach us by doing that? So there's an abruptness that will arrest us and cause us to think. There's also in Mark an elusiveness. He's alluding to other things as he goes along. He's not being explicit about it. He's wanting us to be meditative enough in our reading to stop and think. Now wait a minute. That makes me think of X or of. Yeah, for example, in the very beginning of Mark he says verse two, Mark one as it is written in the prophet Isaiah. And then most of our Bibles have a quotation. It's indented to show us he's quoting. And what do you think he's doing? I bet you think he's quoting the prophet Isaiah. But the first quotation, the first part of the quotation is not from the prophet Isaiah, is from Malachi. Malachi 3 1. Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way. Well the liberals used to have great fun with this. You see, Mark doesn't know what he's doing. He's attributing a verse that's in Malachi to Isaiah. Well, I think the liberals just don't understand the way Mark writes. I think Mark is sort of asking as he goes along, so how well do you know your Old Testament? I'm going to go on to quote Isaiah, but I'm first quoting Malachi. Did you notice I'm alluding to Malachi. I'm quoting Isaiah later, but I'm doing both of them. So how smart are you? Do you know that? Are you following along? Are you paying attention? Or in the next section that we look at we'll read about Simon Peters mother in law being sick with a fever. You remember that? And immediately there's that word they told him about her. This is Mark 1:30. And he came up and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Well what's that describing? Well it's describing she was in bed sick and he came and he healed her. See, I told you there wouldn't be anything shockingly new in this study. But it's also elusive over and over again in Mark's Gospel we'll see people being raised up by Jesus. Well what should you think about when you read that? Well, he raises them up to heal them. But it's also what I like to call a mini resurrection. He's already illustrating that he's the Lord of life. He's already illustrating that he can raise the sick and the dead. And so Mark wants us to think about these things as we go along. He's alluding to truths that are beyond the simple immediate truth. The simple immediate truth is true. It's important. It's the primary thing we ought to see. But I think Mark is teaching us other things as well and wants us to see that as we go along. So Mark is speedy but careful, thoughtful. And that's why I think these structures and these chiasms are so important to notice as we go along. Now, these chiasms are all my idea. And I went to a New Testament professor at our seminary and I said, tell me what you think of this. I'm not asking you to say you think I'm right or that you agree with me. I would just like you to tell me if you think I'm absolutely crazy, because I really don't want to be crazy. And he looked at. He said, this doesn't look crazy. So that's the best encouragement I've gotten so far. So this is my crazy idea, and I think it'll be helpful. I think it's pretty convincing. But you should know it's just me. So if you don't like it, it's okay. You're not disagreeing with anybody important. So here we have the beginning. And I believe that Mark's Gospel is itself a chiasm as a whole and that it really is divided into nine sections. Now, you know that our Bibles as we have them, the chapter divisions and the verse divisions, are a very late addition. The chapter divisions and the verse divisions were added centuries after the Bible books were written to help us be able to find things. If I wanted you to turn to Mark two one, you could do that very easily in your Bibles, right? But if you had Mark on some kind of a scroll, I'd have to say to you, make two turns in the scroll and you'll be at about where I want you to read. And people realized that was an awkward way of trying to help people find things in the Bible. So they added chapter divisions and verse divisions, but there's nothing divine about that. It's helpful, but sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes they make a chapter division right in the middle of a story that shouldn't be separated at all. I've sometimes told people in our church, read through a book of the Bible, sometimes from the middle of one chapter to the middle of another chapter. You'll Get a whole different angle on how it's put together. So what I'm really suggesting to you is we probably should have divided Mark into nine chapters, but I'm going to call them sections so we don't get all confused. And these nine sections then are also a chiasm. So the first section about foundations has relationship to the last section, which is about the future and the resurrection. And this chiasm, this chiastic structure, has a center. And we'll talk about that when we get there. But the center is about faith. And so it's not surprising that what Mark is after is faith. Faith in Jesus, faith in those following Jesus. And when we begin to look at the gospel this way, one of the things we'll discover as we go along is the great struggle to find faith amongst the disciples of Jesus. Because what the gospel really says is the disciples never quite get it. Now, why would you write a whole gospel about people who never quite get it? Well, you might do that to encourage people who are struggling to get it. If it took the original disciples a while to get it, then maybe we shouldn't be discouraged if it takes us a while to get it, or if it takes people we know a while to get it. This is a great call to faith, with the recognition that the call to faith is not always easy. It's not always a call easy to hear or easy to understand or easy to fulfill. And so I hope this will be a great encouragement to us as we go along and see the disciples struggling in ways that will help us see how we can make progress and we can move along. The gospel was probably written in the 50s or very early 60s. Most scholars think this is the first gospel written. It's written 20 to 30 years after the ascension of Jesus. Now, that's not a super long time at all, but it is time past. It's probably written for the Christian churches, which means Mark has in mind as he sits down to write, that he's writing to people who are already believers, who have already heard the story of Jesus, who have already heard through preaching the gospel of Jesus. And he's writing to help them. He's writing to encourage them. He's writing to flesh out the story for them. Because, you know, who knows how thorough the preachers have been, who knows how much of the story the preachers have known? And so he's trying to provide a resource that will be encouraging. But he doesn't have to assume that they know nothing as he's writing. And that's why he can be elusive. He's writing to people who've already heard, who've already believed, and he's writing to help them, but not writing just to initiate them to something they don't know anything about at all. And that I think will be influencing the way we can and should read the story. As I had been working on this, I heard a television interview with a woman who, as far as I know, is a secular reporter and has been interested in mental illness and treatments at work and treatments that don't work. And, and she had written a study that some people found helpful. And she had one sentence in her interview that really struck me. She said, and now she's talking about mental illness. I'm taking her sentence and applying it something altogether different. But she said there are stories that save us and stories that trap us. And relative to mental illness, she was suggesting, you know, if the psychiatrist tells you you're crazy, of course they never do that. But if the psychiatrist tells you you're a victim and your story traps you, she said, it's unlikely you'll ever get out of that trap. But there are stories that save us and deliver us from the traps that have held us. And I thought, what a wonderful way to talk about the Gospel. The Gospel is a story not that traps us, but saves us, liberates us, frees us. And that's what we're hoping to find as we go through the Gospel of Mark, that great story that saves us and liberates us and leads us to faith.