Mark Chapters 3, 4 and a little 6 from Joyce Voysey

Jesus had multitudes coming to him when he withdrew to the sea.  How many Herodians and Pharisees were there in comparison with Jesus’ multitudes? Again, though he healed plagues, unclean spirits, etc. he urged them not to make him known
- the “Messianic Secret” again. He ordained twelve on a mountain.  This could signify “Lifted” thought again.  These twelve were sent forth to peach, heal, and cast out devils.  The twelve are listed, including Judas Iscariot.

 My bedtime reading at the moment includes all the laws Moses put down for the children of Israel! See Exodus. (I have been re-reading the Bible in the order suggested as correct chronologically by Bible scholar Ann Putcamp.) God had given him the Ten Commandments – now they were being expanded on (in a big way).  Was this a case of God giving the idea and Moses going off to put his own interpretation on it?  One thing I came to was the law that anyone working on the Sabbath would surely be put to death; hence the Pharisees’ questioning Jesus working at healing on the Sabbath.  (See Ex. 31:15 and above note.)  Note: Exodus spells Sabbath (which this computer insists on correcting) with a lowercase ‘s’.

Thinking on the word/idea of “seed” (e.g. Abraham being blessed that his “seed” will carry on forever), I have always thought of it as referring human generations.  This morning I realize that it can mean that the inspiration which comes to one man is carried on and added to by others.

Mark 3:20, 21. The clamouring of the multitude – Jesus’ friends and family began to worry about him, “He is beside himself,” they said. Was he shrinking from the touch of many minds?  I am reminded of Mary Baker Eddy’s experience of people wanting to be near her.  She shunned adulation of herself.  It seems that his brethren and his mother were protective of him, calling him; but Jesus put the family into perspective by proclaiming that those who do the will of God are his brothers, sisters, and mother.

Jesus tried to get the scribes to understand where he was coming from – certainly not through Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.

Mark 4 – Parable of sowing the seed.  It seems to me that we can find ourselves in each and every one of the types mentioned in this parable: seed falling by the wayside and fowls devouring it; on stony ground where there is no fertile soil to nourish it; among thorns which choke it; on good ground where it is fruitful.  Jesus explained the parable to his disciples.  Our work is to pray our way out of those negative unfruitful states into a fruitful one.

The people had to really work to figure our Jesus’ messages; even the disciples had to have the parables explained.

The stilling of the storm at sea: There was always another lesson for the disciples when they were ready to be witnesses to it.  How they must have “thought on these things” in their own careers as followers of Christ when he was no longer with them!  I guess this was also a healing; a healing of fear.

The healing of the demented Gadarene:  (The Jesus party always seems to have been crossing over the sea to the other side.) There is a paragraph in Science &Health by Mary Baker Eddy about this dear man; we note that the man “when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him.” He must have recognised the Christ and sensed that he could be healed thereby.  Perhaps he saw that the demons were not part of his real being. The S&H paragraph reads:

It is recorded that once Jesus asked the name of a disease, - a disease which moderns would call dementia.  The demon, or evil, replied that his name was Legion.  Thereupon Jesus cast out the evil, and the insane man was changed and straightway became whole.  The Scripture seems to import that Jesus caused the evil to be self-seen and so destroyed.                                              =    6^th recorded healing (+ many others healed)

 Healing the daughter of Jairus’s daughter, and ‘a certain woman’:  Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue and his daughter was dying, but Jesus was interrupted by the woman with “an issue of blood twelve years”.  She was healed by merely touching Jesus’ clothes.  Jesus said her faith had healed her.  In the meantime the daughter of Jairus had died.  Jesus took her by the hand and told her to rise. So many times we find that he took the patient by the hand and lifted them up – a great sense of compassion seems to be evident.

 Then we have the Messianic Secret again when he charged “that no man should know it.”

                                                                            =   7th & 8th recorded healings (+ many others healed)

Mark 6:  It was difficult for people in Jesus’ own country to comprehend that he was special.  They knew he was a carpenter; they knew his brothers and sisters.  There is some controversy about whether the brethren were children of Mary and Joseph. 

Christians of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox traditions, as well as some Anglicans and some followers of Lutheranism, reject the idea that Jesus had blood siblings, as their churches hold the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. Wikipedia

But Mark names the brothers: James, Joses, Juda, and Simon; the sisters are not named or numbered.  This same passage is also found in Matt. 13:55 (“Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?  And his sisters, are they not all with us?”). 

Elsewhere in the New Testament the only brother mentioned is James, e.g. several times in Acts and also in the epistles.  Paul says, “But other apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.” (Gal. 1:19)  If historical theory is correct, this James became head of the church at Jerusalem, and was martyred between A.D. 60 and 70; he was the author of the James epistle; he was an apostle. —