Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark

1. Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark Fall 2013 Series

2. If you touch an unclean thing or person, you become unclean. • Jesus touches (invites to be a disciple, eats and drinks with, and enters the home of an unclean person) an unclean thing, and it becomes clean.

3. Levi – a tax collector (traitor to his people, collaborator with Rome, the enemy, wealthy) becomes a disciple • And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” • And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

4. “Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” • 19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. • 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

5. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. • 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”

6. “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” • One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. • And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” • David entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” • 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

7. They watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. • And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” • But they were silent. • And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

8. The Growing Crowd--from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. • He had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. • 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

9. He went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. • He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) • That they might be with him • That he might send them out to preachand have authority to cast out demons. • Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

10. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

11. The Attacks on Jesus, his person and his ministry • “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” The religious leaders’ attack • When his family heard that crowds were so large and that he had no time to eat, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

12. Jesus’ responses • No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. • “Who are my mother and my brothers?” • The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit • They were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” • Calling the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit • Attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to an unclean spirit