Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Jesus’ public ministry begins, even seems to be triggered by, John being removed from the scene by his arrest. The Greek word translated “arrest” (paradidomi) shows up later in Mark to refer to Jesus being handed over to the authorities during his Passion (Mark 9:31, “for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again’”; 10:33, “saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles”; 14:21, “For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born’”, 41, “He came a third time and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”).
• Jesus came to the Galilee from Jordan. However, it’s clear Jesus did not go to the Galilee to escape danger, since Herod Antipas, who arrested John, ruled Galilee and Perea.
• Jesus’ message in v. 14b-15 is a combination of John’s repentance preaching in v. 4, 7-8 and the proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel in v. 1. In early Christian preaching, repentance and belief are linked (Acts 11:17-18, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’ When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life’”; 20:21, “as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus”; Hebrews 6:1, “Therefore let us go on towards perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith towards God.”)
• Capernaum is a fishing village located along the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.
• There are similarities between Jesus calling the first disciples from their work as fishermen and the prophet Elijah calling Elisha from plowing his field (1 Kings 19:19-21, “So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was ploughing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ Then Elijah said to him, ‘Go back again; for what have I done to you?’ He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.”)
• There’s an interesting contrast of wealth and poverty in this lives of the fishermen. On one hand, the family of Zebedee had enough wealth to employ “hired hands” in the work of fishing, a rarity in the subsistence culture. On the other, the sons were still involved in the fishing process, thus leaving the family could put the welfare of the entire family at risk.
• In the Old Testament, fishing references were generally negative, talking about ensnaring people (ex. Jeremiah 16:16, “I am now sending for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they shall catch them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks, “ Ezekiel 29:4-5, “I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales. I will draw you up from your channels, with all the fish of your channels sticking to your scales. I will fling you into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your channels; you shall fall in the open field, and not be gathered and buried. To the animals of the earth and to the birds of the air I have given you as food”; Amos 4:2, “The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness: The time is surely coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fish-hooks”; Habakkuk 1:14-17, “You have made people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. The enemy brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his seine; for by them his portion is lavish, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy?”). In contrast to these negative portrayals, Jesus told the disciples a positive function of fishing for people. He took old imagery and remade it.
Works Sourced:
Perkins, Pheme. “The Gospel of Mark.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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