Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 1 Study # 8
July 27, 2021
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis:   The Father's response to the dishonor heaped upon His Son was to refuse Him permission to do any significant work of power among them.

Introduction:   We have been considering Mark 6:1-6 as Mark's presentation of God's "non-negotiable": faith. We have seen that there is no excuse for "unbelief". Mark reveals the inglorious illegitimacy of the "Nazarenes'" unbelief in the stark terms of their "stupidity" of turning the very "proof" of Jesus' identity (thirty years of sinless perfection lived out on a daily basis (10,957 days of living proof)) into their very reason for rejecting Him. We have also seen that the root of the rejection was "jealousy" and its attendant "competition" for "glory" from men, not God.

This evening we are going to look into Mark's record of Jesus' "inability" to do any significant act of power in the confines of Nazareth.

• I. Mark's "And He Was NOT Able...".
  • A. The "And" links the concepts of the "dishonor" heaped upon God's mouthpieces and God's reaction.
  • B. The "He was NOT able" is more of a statement about the Father than it was about the Son.
    • 1. Mark's words emphasize Jesus' "impotency" by using the strongest single-word way Greeks stated a negative ... "NOT" and combining it with the strongest single-word way Greeks referred to "ability".
      • a. "Iscus" is the Greek's word for "ability arising out of basic assets".
      • b. "Kratos" is the Greek's word for "ability arising out of skillful application of assets".
      • c. "Dunamis" is the Greek's word for "ability to accomplish the goal through 'Iscus' and 'Kratos'".
      • d. The verb "edunato" is in the imperfect tense, indicative mood, meaning "an on-going action is the past tense": Jesus was continually being "unable".
    • 2. This "inability" was NOT a statement of something in Jesus that contradicted John's "The Coming Mighty One" thesis.
      • a. In John 5:19-23 Jesus explained the root of His "inability": the Father's refusal to permit Him to use His "Iscus"/"Kratos" combination of "ability producing elements" to do any kind of "significant accomplishment".
      • b. Thus, His "could NOT" was a "relational-restriction" imposed upon the Son by the Father (much like Jesus' claim to be able to call more than twelve legions of angels to rescue Him ((Matthew 26:53)) by appeal to the Father).
      • c. In Mark 6:13 the record is that the disciples were "healing many sick people", using the same two words of our current verse that describe Jesus' "healing a few sick people".
        • 1) This has consistently been one of Mark's two prongs of evidence of Jesus' "Mighty Power" and the use in 6:13 reinforces this.
        • 2) But, in the case of Mark's denial of Jesus' ability to do any mighty work in Nazareth, it does not quite rise to that level (being limited to "a few" and the need to "lay hands on" them).
• II. Jesus' "Wonder" At The Unbelief.
  • A. The verb translated "He wondered" at their unbelief is used by Mark in a gamut of meaning running from "a shocking reaction to something amazing" (5:20) to "a mild surprise at a small expectation being unmet" (15:5 and 15:44).
  • B. Certainly Jesus was not "shocked" by their unbelief (He had lived among them for 10,957 days).
  • C. However, Mark does say that He was disappointed by the vehemence of their irrationality.

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This is article #246.
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