Chapter # 7 Paragraph # 2 Study # 2
June 21, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: That Jesus departed from Galilee to go to Tyre but was unable to escape notice even there indicates that Mark's thesis is this: it is important to understand that "accountability" is rooted in "awareness".
Introduction: In our last study we considered Mark's use of the adverb, "from there", so that we might see that he used that particular word in contexts of "accountability". The most obvious uses are found in
Mark 6:10-11 where
the issue is Jesus' instruction to His disciples regarding how they were to establish a "witness against" all who reject His message of "repentance unto forgiveness". His instruction was to shake off the dust of their feet in the sight of the rejectors so that they might know that they have failed in such a high offense that they will not "get away with it" when "The Day Of Witness Against" arrives. This thesis is an element in Mark's major "point" in his Gospel record that there is a significant danger to men, and particularly to His disciples, that subverting man's identity from "creature" (whose approval is to come from God
alone,
first, and
foremost) to "god" (whose approval rests upon the attitude of men toward them as "mighty ones" who ought to be admired). There is a day coming when every man will be judged according to whether his/her behavior was dominated by the desire to please God or to be admired by men.
Now, in this study, we are going to look further into this thesis of inescapable accountability. There are two major issues in Mark's words in 7:24. The first is Jesus' departure from Galilee to go into the regions of Tyre, and the second is His inability to escape the notice of the residents of those regions. What do these two issues signify to us?
- I. First, The Departure.
- A. Mark's first issue of "departure" is "the purpose of Jesus".
- 1. The statement that Jesus "got up" in order to depart is our first hint regarding significance.
- a. The participle translated "got up" literally means "having arisen".
- b. This participle is used by Mark in 17 texts, of which ours is the fifth.
- c. In terms of basic meaning, the word signifies three things.
- 1) First, that Jesus is to be pictured as either sitting, or reclining, and then "arising".
- 2) Second, every time someone in Mark's record "got up", that person changed what was happening so that "what was happening" was going to cease being the case.
- a) In this context, "what was happening" was Jesus' emphatic teaching that men's problems with God do not arise from their outer issues, but from their perverse hearts.
- b) This emphatic teaching was being done in Gennesaret where Jesus had indiscriminately healed a great host of afflicted people in the part of the land of the Jews where the physical blessings of God were most obvious.
- c) That Jesus "got up" from that setting means that He had delivered what He had to say to those people whose major characteristic was the apathetic abuse of God's generosity.
- d) Jesus was, by His emphatic message, "shaking the dust of His feet off", having made them "aware" that they were going to be held accountable in The Great Day Of Witness.
- 3) Third, that we as readers are to "anticipate" the end of "what was happening" so that something "new" was about to happen.
- 2. The declaration by Mark that Jesus' main action, preceded by His "having arisen", was that He "departed".
- a. This "departure" was from the regions of Galilee, and from Gennesaret in particular, to do something different.
- b. This "departure" was into the regions of Tyre.
- 1) Tyre was a Phoenician city, outside of the land of the Jews.
- 2) It was first mentioned by Mark in 3:8 where he told us that Jesus' reputation had spread into the vicinities of Tyre and Sidon.
- 3) Thus, what Jesus "departed to do", in our current text, was to move beyond the boundaries of the "favored nation" so that if any of them wanted to hear more from Him, they would have to leave their homes and follow Him into the lands of the Gentiles.
- c. This "departure" is characterized as being an attempt by Jesus to escape the throngs of misguided people whose abuse of the grace of God meant terrible consequences to come.
- B. All of Mark's words to this point are "words of purpose".
- 1. No one "arises" without some "purpose for ceasing what he/she is doing.
- 2. At issue is Jesus' "purpose" in departing into the regions of Tyre.
- 3. That "purpose" had multiple parts.
- a. First was the desire of Jesus to get away from those of the "perverse hearts".
- b. Second was the intention of Jesus to fulfill His commission as given in 1:35 and context.
- 1) His early morning prayer was to find out what His next moves were to be (John 5:19-20).
- 2) His rejection of the disciples' fixation upon His popularity in Capernaum because He had a greater commission from God became an early indication of the grave danger facing all men, but particularly believers.
- c. Third, is Paul's declaration of Romans 8:28 that all believers have a purpose from God that is at the root of His calling.
- II. Then The Desire To Escape Notice.
- A. Mark tells us that Jesus entered into a house in order to attempt to hide from the people.
- B. Mark tells us that Jesus, "The Mighty One", could not escape notice.
- 1. This declaration is in the strongest terms available to Mark (ouk edunethe lathein).
- 2. This seems to be contradiction of Jesus' main identity in Mark (The Mighty One).
- 3. But it actually signifies just how great is the principle of "accountability".
- a. This principle exalted above Jesus' "inability" signifies the inevitability of God's judgment of men.
- b. It also signifies that such inevitability is rooted in the fact that Jesus was "known" by all in some form or fashion.
- 1) Clearly, those in the land of the Jews were most aware, and, thus, most accountable.
- 2) But, the move into the regions of Tyre is a statement that even the Gentiles were "aware".
- C. No one has an excuse.
