Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 6 Study # 1
December 17, 2019
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: Mark's focus upon "His mother" is subtle, but in direct harmony with his over-all thesis that those who are caught up in the longing for "respect" are incapable of being disciples of Jesus (
John 5:44).
Introduction: As we begin our study of this last paragraph in Mark 3, we need to be sure that we understand Mark's intention within both the paragraph and the larger context. In respect to the larger context, it is clear that Mark is recording three distinct "responses" people give to the identity and message of Jesus. Those three are "acceptance", "hard-hearted rejection", and "luke-warm rejection". It is also clear that Mark deliberately divided the third of these responses into two parts with the second of these responses inserted into the divided record. In respect to the intent for the paragraph itself, it is clear that Jesus deliberately rejected that "second, interrupted" response and denied any "familial" connection to His flesh-connected family.
- I. A Probable Reason For the Linguistic Form (Begin, Change, Return).
- A. This same Form is used again in Mark 5:22-43.
- B. For Mark's purpose to be understood, we must see what he does with the "problem" of being dominated by the longing for "status" in the eyes of men.
- 1. Herod is presented with this "problem" and the outcome is the murder of John the Baptizer.
- 2. The leadership of Judea is presented with this "problem" and the outcome is the murder of Jesus.
- 3. Peter is presented with this "problem" and the outcome is a triple denial of any association with Jesus.
- C. For Mark's purpose in this "response section" to be understood, we must realize that there is a difference between "hard" opposition to Jesus Who deserves and obtains "great popularity" and "soft" opposition to Jesus Who is, ultimately, to be rejected and tortured and killed.
- D. Thus, it is my conclusion that the "message" of this paragraph is that those who are "soft" in their rejection of Jesus are in grave danger of moving from "soft" to "hard".
- 1. There are only two actual possibilities of "response": "acceptance" or "rejection".
- 2. But, "soft rejection" is a universal problem of mankind so that there must be a kind of "interim" wherein "soft" rejection is addressed and the issue is pressed so that one either moves into "hard" rejection or backs away from "rejection" altogether.
- a. This "interim" is a "setting for the opportunity to have time to settle the question of ultimate objectives".
- b. Mark's purpose in his "Gospel" is to present Jesus as the One to whom men must turn if they wish to be delivered from their most basic sin-orientation.
- II. Mark's Focus Upon "His mother".
- A. This "focus" is high-lighted by the "number" of the verb used in the opening verse.
- 1. The verb itself means "to come on the present scene" (thus it is translated by many as "arrived").
- 2. This meaning points back to 3:20-21 where "those who were supposed to be 'alongside' of' Him" set out to go to where He was so that they might "take Him under their power".
- 3. But, the greater weight of the textual variations involved in this verb pushes us to recognize that the verb is "singular", not "plural" as the Textus Receptus and the Authorized Version have it.
- B. This "focus" is also high-lighted by Mark's choice to leave "His mother" unnamed at this point.
- C. The point of this "focus" is revealed by Mark's references to "mother" in the light of an "instigator" of the behavior of those around her.
- 1. There are only two other texts/contexts where a person who is a "mother" is presented as an "instigator": chapters six and ten.
- 2. In chapter six, it is the "mother" of the girl who danced before Herod and his major supporters who gets John beheaded.
- 3. In chapter ten, "mothers" are among those whose "relational attachments" might dissuade a person from pursuing the will of God.
- D. There is an interesting parallel to this idea in Matthew 20:20 where an interesting tidbit is added to what Mark recorded in 10:35 and following: it was actually the "mother" of James and John who "instigated the request for the positions of highest glory in the kingdom and voiced it to Jesus".
- E. When we put what we know about "the mother of Jesus" together, it is not hard to see that she had a "history" of rejection by many around her to which she responded in a destructive way.
- 1. There was a "reason" for this "mother" to set out to "bring Jesus to heel" (3:21).
- 2. That "reason" was of the poorest "quality": it was totally "unreasonable".
- III. Conclusions.
- A. This "point" by Mark, if accepted, would keep any reasonable person from going down the destructive path of "Roman" Marianism (Note John 16:26-27).
- B. Also, Mark's own experience may well be behind this "point": Mark's "departure from the work" may well have been because of his own domineering mother.
