Category: The Gospel According To Mark

The Gospel According To Mark: As It Is Written In The Prophets

November 23rd, 2025

As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

(Mark 1:2 KJV, Bold Emphasis Added; Italics added)

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

(Malachi 3:1 KJV, Italics added)

Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

(Amos 3:7 KJV)

For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

(Malachi 3:6 KJV)

First, before we proceed, we must understand that The LORD (YHWH) does not change.

Second, we must understand that The Lord GOD (Adonai YHWH) has determined to do nothing until HE reveals what HE IS going to do through His servents, the prophets.

This is how YWHW IS. YHWH doesn’t do anything important concerning humanity until He has revealed it to His prophets; and His prophets speak out what YHWH has said unto them. This is how YHWH operates concerning His affairs with humanity.

Because of this, humanity has no excuse for not understanding what YHWH is doing or is about to do. Every individual person has the responsibility to hear, understand, and decide individually whether or not to believe and then act upon what the prophets of YWHW tell us.

Disciples of LORD Jesus must pay attention to His prophets and listen to them, and consider the words that they (the prophets) believe are from YHWH; just like disciples of LORD Jesus expect the people of the world to listen to and consider the words of prophecy we believe are the WORD of YWHW so that they may believe and act upon that WORD in order to receive salvation from the judgment of the world.

Consider:

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

(Revelation 19:10 KJV, Bold Emphasis Added)

When we give testimony of Jesus our LORD, our testimony IS the spirit of prophecy; of the same Spirit that operates through the prophets as gifts to the body of Christ Jesus to help us mature into the fullness of the image of our LORD Jesus Christ.

We must also consider how the testimony of Jesus Christ and prophecy concerning that testimony applies to us today, as we live our lives upon this earth. Understanding this is of the utmost importance as we proceed to look at the WORD Of GOD at any time.
The Gospel According To Mark: Jesus Christ, The Son Of GOD

November 17th, 2025

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

(Mark 1:1 KJV)

Jesus: Greek – (G2424) Iesous, Jesus; Hebrew – (H3091) Yehoshua, YHWH Saved

Christ: Greek – (G5547) Christos – (The) Anointed (One), the Messiah

Son: Greek – (G5207) uihos – son

GOD: Greek – (G2316) theos – deity, The Supreme Divinity (GOD)

The Good News of Yehoshua The Anointed One, The Son of GOD.

As we will see as we go forward, the tension between Jesus Christ and the religious leaders of His days walking the earth as a human being were two-fold:

1) Jesus of Nazareth (Jesus Christ) being The Messiah (The Christ)

2) Jesus of Nazareth (Jesus Christ) being The Son Of GOD

1) Jesus of Nazareth being The Messiah.

During the decades before Jesus was born a number of “messiahs” arose, claiming they could free the Jews from Roman rule. Every one of them was put down, with the Romans inflicting great retribution upon the participants. This even occurred at least once when Jesus was a young child, leaving thousands crucified from a town only a few miles from Nazareth.

The Jewish leaders of the day feared anyone attempting to be “Messiah”, lest they fail to drive out the Romans, would bring the Roman military machine to bear against themselves, and against Israel. You see, the Jews were expecting Messiah to come (especially the Essenes), but they were expecting either the same Messiah to come twice, or two different Messiahs to come; each for a different reason.

One Messiah was to be Messiah ben Joseph (Messiah, the son of Joseph), who would be a suffering Messiah sent to pay for the sins of Israel. The other was to be Messiah ben David (Messiah, the son of David), a victorious and militarily powerful Messiah who would free Israel of all her oppressors and restore the nation of Israel. This understanding sheds some light on John the Baptist, while he was in prison, sending his disciples to ask Jesus if He was The Messiah (that would come for both purposes), or if they were to expect another (a second Messiah to free them from their oppressors). Jesus did not behave as though He was there to drive out the Romans, though John the Baptist knew Jesus was Messiah.

The religious leaders of the day held a degree of power in Israel at that time, and were fearful that Jesus would become so popular that Rome would begin to see Jesus and His following as a threat to Roman rule and put them all down.

2) Jesus of Nazareth being The Son Of GOD.

The Law and The Prophets testified of The Son Of GOD, but Jesus came looking like a normal Hebrew/Israelite. Jesus grew up like a human being, faced all the temptations of a human being, endured all the frailties of living in a human body (eating, getting tired, sleeping, using “the bathroom” [however they did that then], sweating in the hot climate, physically being smelly from however many days at a time without a bath, etc.), resisting carnal desires, and everything people had to face at that time. He appeared no different than any other Israelite. The WORD Of GOD made flesh had set aside all His Power and all His Authority when He left heaven to become a flesh and bone human being as an infant. Jesus, The Son Of GOD, didn’t even perform a miracle until after He was immersed in Holy Spirit, after He was baptized (immersed in water) at the hands of John the Baptist.

To claim to be The Son Of GOD, was the same as saying He was equal to Almighty GOD (GOD The Father); and that He (Jesus) had the same Authority and Power available to Him at all times as Father GOD. The religious leaders of the day could not accept that someone who looked like a regular human being to them could possibly be The Son Of GOD; no matter how many miracles He performed.

Understand, that this also brings to the forefront that there are more than one Power in Heaven; thus, a Godhead (or as we refer to this today as The Holy Trinity). This Godhead/Trinity is presented throughout the Old and New Testaments; however, the religious leaders of that day could not accept the WORDs and Teachings of their own Law and Prophets when faced with a living and breathing human being claiming to be just that; Jesus seemed too similar to them for them to accept and believe this through their own human reasoning.

Thus, Mark’s record of The Good News of Jesus Christ, The Son Of GOD is filled with action and power and miracles showing his gentile Roman audience the Divinity of Jesus of Nazareth; and showing all throughout time who would eventually (unbeknownst to Mark) read his writings, inspired by the testimony of Peter and led by Holy Spirit.
The Gospel According To Mark: The Beginning Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ

November 9th, 2025

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

(Mark 1:1 KJV)

“The beginning” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ here is referring to the beginning of Mark’s accout, likely taken mostly from testimony given to Mark from Simon Peter.

The “Gospel of Jesus Christ” is the “Good News of Jesus Christ”. It seems many like to major on the bad news, with very strong emphasis on hell and damnation. True, all the people of the world who have come to the point of accountability before The LORD GOD are indeed going to hell, and eventually, the Lake of Fire, unless they believe upon the Name of the only Begotten Son Of GOD, the LORD Jesus Christ.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

(John 3:16-18 KJV)

The world is already condemned; LORD Jesus came so that whosoever would believe upon Him would be saved from that condemnation.

The Good News is that Jesus Christ, the Son of GOD, came to save us from condemnation, to redeem us from sin and redeem us from the Curse Of The Law Of Sin And Death (and all its consequences).

The Good News of Jesus Christ (Messiah; The Anointed One), The Son of GOD.

We must understand, this is Mark’s telling of what is likely Simon Peter’s account of The Good News of Jesus The Anointed One, The Son Of GOD. We must make this point sink in to our minds, into our hearts, into our spirits. THIS IS GOOD NEWS!

And this GOOD NEWS is available to EVERYONE!
The Gospel According To Mark

November 2nd, 2025

The Gospel According To Mark.

The Gospel is The Good Message (euaggelion; G2098), or The Good News or The Glad Tidings (euaggelizo; G2097).

According to Mark. This is The Good Message, or The Good News (Glad Tidings) by the account of Mark, told by Holy Spirit through the person and personality of Mark.

Here is some background on Mark by Chuck Smith’s C-2000 Through The Bible Commentary:

Mark was a young man when Jesus was crucified, perhaps about twelve years old. So, the gospel that he writes is considered to be the understanding that he received from listening to Peter relate the stories of Jesus Christ. Peter does call Mark his son; that would be son in the faith. And Mark was a companion of Peter through much of Peter’s ministry, and thus, heard Peter relate these stories of Jesus Christ. And so in his gospel, you have pretty much Peter’s account as written by Mark of Jesus.

There is only one part of Mark’s gospel that he probably wrote from personal experience. It’s a little insertion in the gospel of Mark that you do not find in the other gospels, and it is concerning the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And Mark’s gospel tells us that there was a young boy there about twelve years old. And one of the soldiers grabbed him, but he wriggled out of his coat and left his coat in the soldier’s hand and ran home. And that is believed to be Mark’s personal account of his own experience as a little twelve-year-old boy. He happened to be there in the garden with Jesus and his disciples that night that Jesus was betrayed.

Mark’s mother’s name was Mary. She was a wealthy woman. She lived in Jerusalem and her home was a gathering place for the church. When Peter was imprisoned by Herod, the church had met in her home for that prayer meeting. And so when Peter was released by the action of the angel and came to the house and knocked on the door, and the young maiden came and saw it was Peter, and was so excited she didn’t even open the door, but ran back in and told the people, “Peter’s here.” And they said, “Ah, you’ve seen a ghost.” That was the home of Mark. His mother’s name was Mary, a wealthy woman who lived in Jerusalem. Her home was the gathering place for the early church.

Her brother’s name was Barnabas, and he was the companion of Paul on the first missionary journey. Mark also went with them on that first missionary journey, but Mark left them. And we don’t know why he left. There is speculation that Mark was afraid to go on into the more hostile areas of Asia, but that is only speculation. We do not know why Mark left Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey. But Paul evidently was offended by his leaving, so that when Barnabas and Paul were getting ready to leave on their second missionary journey and Barnabas wanted to take his nephew Mark along, Paul objected strenuously because of the fact that he had left the first time. And from this, the contention between Paul and Barnabas became so great that Barnabas took Mark and went off himself to the island of Cypress. And Paul took Silas and headed on out to Asia. However, this breach between Paul and Mark did not last long, for Paul makes mention of Mark being in Rome with him and ministering to his needs.

It was probably while Mark was in Rome with Paul that he wrote this gospel. It is one of the earliest gospels written, and thought to be written some time before the year sixty-three. It is thought to be written by Mark for the Romans, as he was there with Paul in Rome. Inasmuch as whenever he deals with any of the Jewish customs, he takes the time to explain it, which would not be necessary if he were writing to the Jews. But it is thought that he wrote this gospel for the Romans. Mark is brief in his style. He doesn’t go into a lot of details, but he just briefly relates the stories and he covers, therefore, a lot of territory.

So we see that Mark was about 12, and was likely present, when Jesus was taken to be crucified. Mark’s mother Mary was wealthy and used her house for meetings of the Early Church. Barnabas, of Barnabas and Paul, was Mark’s uncle. And Mark was a companion of Peter during much of Peter’s ministry; which is likely where the bulk of Mark’s account of The Good News came from. It also appears that Mark was in Rome ministering to Paul in prison when Mark wrote this account of The Good News, and that this account was likely written to the audience of the Romans (a Gentile audience not familiar with Jewish ways).

Category: The Gospel According To Mark

The Gospel According To Mark: As It Is Written In The Prophets

The Gospel According To Mark: Jesus Christ, The Son Of GOD

The Gospel According To Mark: The Beginning Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ

The Gospel According To Mark