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:
• While Jesus’ ministry started in v. 14 with him “proclaiming the good news of God,” Mark’s description of his ministry is much more focused on the power of his words and his actions, then on any explanation of the content of his words. This story starts with Jesus entering the synagogue and the crowd being “astonished at his teaching” but there is no explanation of what his teaching was other than it was “with authority.”
• This scene sets up what will be an on-going conflict in the Gospel between Jesus and the religious leaders. Here Jesus entered into a synagogue, where he “taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes, who certainly would have understood themselves to be people with the authority to teach.
• The exorcism, which is accomplished by nothing more than Jesus speaking, is proof of the authority of Jesus’ word.
• A reoccurring motif in Mark’s Gospel is demons being more theologically perceptive than the disciples. Here the demon correctly names and identifies Jesus (“I know who you are, the Holy One of God”) well before anyone else does. Jesus responded by silencing the demon, building the theme of no one else knowing who Jesus is.
Works Sourced:
Perkins, Pheme. “The Gospel of Mark.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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