Mark

By N. T. Wright and Lin Johnson

With a scholar's mind and a pastor's heart, Tom Wright walks you through Mark in this guide designed especially with everyday readers in mind. Perfect for group use or daily personal reflection, this study uses the popular inductive method combined with Wright's thoughtful insights to bring contemporary application of Scripture to life. This guide by Tom Wright can be used on its own or alongside his New Testament for Everyone commentary on Mark. It is designed to help you understand Scripture in fresh ways under the guidance of one of the world's leading New Testament scholars. Thoughtful questions, prayer suggestions, and useful background and cultural information all guide you or a group more deeply into God's Word. Discover how you can participate more fully in God's kingdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IVP Bible Studies
• Release date: Dec 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9780830869121

N. T. Wright

N. T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and one of the world’s leading Bible scholars. He serves as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews as well as Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. He has been featured on ABC News, Dateline, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air. Wright is the award-winning author of many books, including Paul: A Biography, Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, The Day the Revolution Began, Simply Jesus, After You Believe, and Scripture and the Authority of God.

Book preview

Illustration

THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS

Mark 1:1-45

You are sound asleep and dreaming, when suddenly the door bursts open and a bright light shines full in your face. A voice, breaking in on your dream-world, shouts, Wake up! Get up! You’ll be late! And without more ado, the speaker splashes your face with cold water to make the point. Time to stop dreaming and face the most important day of your life.

That’s what the opening of Mark’s Gospel is like. Mark begins with John the Baptist’s ministry, which was like throwing cold water on the surprised Jewish world. Many had been looking for a sign from God, but they hadn’t expected it to look like this. Many had wanted a Messiah to lead them against the Romans, but they weren’t anticipating a prophet telling them to repent.

OPEN

If someone woke you up and told you that the president or the prime minister or a prince was on his or her way to visit you, how would you respond?

STUDY

1. Read Mark 1:1-13. John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin on his mother’s side, born a few months before Jesus. His ministry was to get people ready for the greatest moment in Jewish history, in world history: Jesus’ ministry and then death and resurrection.

How does John seek to prepare the people for Jesus’ coming (vv. 1-8)?

2. The main thing Mark gets us to do in this opening passage is to sense the shock of the new thing God was doing. If you’re sick and unable to sleep much, sometimes the night seems to go on forever. But then, just when you’re dozing a bit, suddenly the alarm clock goes off; it really is morning. That’s the mood here.

In what ways are we asleep today in our churches, our communities and our personal lives?

3. To begin his public ministry, Jesus goes to John to be baptized in the Jordan River. What is significant about what happens after his baptism (vv. 9-13)?

4. The whole Christian gospel could be summed up in this point: that when the living God looks at every believing Christian, he says to us what he said to Jesus on that day. He sees us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Jesus Christ. It sometimes seems impossible, especially to people who have never had this kind of support from their earthly parents, but it’s true: God looks at us and says, You are my dear, dear child; I’m delighted with you.

What would it mean to you to hear God say that to you?

5. When Jesus is sent out into the desert, he is acting out the great drama of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, spending forty days in the wilderness instead of forty years.

Jesus receives affirmation through God’s voice from heaven and understands the ultimate reality that God reveals. How would this prepare him for being in the desert forty days where the satan tested him and he "was with the wild