The Gospel of Mark: An Introduction
Mark, Week 1
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1)
Why Mark?
The Gospel of Mark has always been my favorite among the canonical Gospels. While working on my dissertation about the Gospel of Mark, we studied different sections of it at St. Dunstan’s, but I have never taught the entire book from start to finish.
So here we are.
Mark is shorter than Matthew or Luke, but it is no lightweight. Mark’s Gospel is fast-paced, vivid, rough around the edges, and theologically profound. Unlike Matthew and Luke, there are no birth narratives or infancy stories. Unlike John, there are no long christological speeches. Mark begins with John the Baptist and moves immediately to the baptism and wilderness testing of Jesus.
The keyword for Mark’s Gospel is immediately. Mark uses the Greek word euthus over forty times, which is more than all the other New Testament writers combined. The effect is breathless: Jesus is baptized and immediately driven into the wilderness. He calls his disciples, and immediately they leave their nets. Miracles follow one upon another with little pause.
“Mark’s Gospel is urgent, mysterious, and apocalyptic.”
That urgency is not just stylistic. For Mark, there is a deep eschatological urgency. He writes as if time is short, the kingdom of God is breaking in, and discipleship cannot be delayed. The Gospel presses us not only to watch Jesus’ ministry but to feel the intensity of the call to follow him here and now.
Mark’s Style: Urgency and Mystery
When you open the Gospel of Matthew, it feels like The Lord of the Rings: there is a genealogy, a backstory, a birth narrative, and a slow buildup. When you open Mark, it feels more like Star Wars: A New Hope. There’s a short crawl screen with some information you need to know, but then you are dropped straight into the action. There is no time for an elaborate backstory. The kingdom of God is at hand—pay attention!
But Mark’s Gospel is not only urgent; it is mysterious. Scholars call this the “Messianic Secret.” Again and again, Jesus heals or reveals his glory, only to command silence: “See that you say nothing to anyone” (Mark 1:44). On the Mount of Transfiguration, when the disciples glimpse his divine radiance, Jesus warns them not to tell anyone until after the resurrection (Mark 9:9).
This is a strange feature. John’s Gospel has Jesus openly declaring, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Why does the Markan Jesus veil his identity? There are many possible reasons, but the most convincing is that the Messianic Secret fits with the apocalyptic nature of Mark’s Gospel. Jesus’ identity is veiled and hidden, and Mark wants to agitate the reader, to unsettle us, and to force us to look more deeply.
“Mark wants to agitate his readers, to press us beyond the surface, to see with new eyes.”
The Messianic Secret is actually a theological strategy. Mark gives us clues that only later come into focus. He hides revelation in plain sight so that we must learn to see what others miss.
Old Testament Allusions: Isaiah and Malachi
Mark’s Gospel begins with a problem. He writes:
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
The difficulty is that the first half of this quotation is not from Isaiah. It is from Malachi 3:1, with echoes of Exodus 23:20. Only the second half—“The voice of one crying in the wilderness…”—is from Isaiah 40:3.
Did Mark make a mistake? Scribes thought so. Some manuscripts “correct” Mark to say “As it is written in the prophets” instead of “in Isaiah the prophet.” That makes the quotation accurate, but it’s the less likely reading.
The best explanation is that Mark is deliberately weaving texts together but intentionally obscuring that he has done so. Mark wants us to understand the ministry of Jesus within the context of the Isaianic announcement of the New Exodus. Still, given how the story will go, Malachi 3 is needed as well. Like the Messianic Secret, the truth is hidden in plain sight. By combining Malachi and Isaiah, Mark sets the agenda for his Gospel.
Isaiah proclaims the New Exodus: God will rend the heavens and come down, leading his people home. The New Exodus is underway. YHWH is returning to Zion.
Malachi warns that the Lord will suddenly come to his temple, bringing judgment.
Both are fulfilled in Jesus. His journey to Jerusalem to suffer and die is the return of YHWH to Zion and the launch of the New Exodus. He is also the Lord who comes to the temple—not to affirm it, but to judge it.
“The heavens are torn open at Jesus’ baptism, and the temple curtain is torn at his death. In Jesus, hidden reality is unveiled.”
From the very first verses, Mark signals that his Gospel is about revelation and disruption, fulfillment and judgment, the tearing open of heaven and the tearing down of false hopes.
Apocalyptic Vision
This leads directly into one of Mark’s most important theological themes: apocalyptic.
Today, when we hear “apocalypse,” we think of end-of-the-world destruction. But in biblical terms, apocalypse means unveiling. Reality is hidden behind a curtain, and God must pull it back for us to see.
That is what Mark does. At Jesus’ baptism, the heavens are torn open (schizomai in Greek). At Jesus’ death, the temple curtain is torn with the same word. The Gospel begins and ends with a violent rending of the barrier between heaven and earth.
Mark is telling us: here in Jesus, the true reality of God’s reign is unveiled. But it comes where we least expect it—in weakness, suffering, and death.
Who Wrote the Gospel?
The Gospel itself never tells us. It does not begin, “I, Mark, write these things.” Every time we call it “The Gospel of Mark,” we are relying on the Church’s tradition. But there is good reason to take that tradition seriously.
Papias, writing around 120 CE, says:
“Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatever he remembered of the things said and done by the Lord.”
This is the earliest witness we have to the authorship of the Gospel. According to Papias, Mark was not an apostle but a companion of Peter, writing down Peter’s preaching.
That makes sense of several features:
Peter is prominent throughout Mark’s Gospel. He is the first disciple mentioned and the last named.
The Gospel preserves vivid, seemingly incidental details—green grass, Aramaic phrases—that suggest eyewitness testimony.
Peter is portrayed with unflinching honesty: bold but often failing. If Peter were inventing the story, this is not how he would have written it about himself.
Some skeptics have suggested that the Church made up the attribution to Mark. But if you were going to invent an author, you would choose someone more important: Peter, John, or another apostle. Why choose John Mark, a minor figure mentioned only in passing in Acts?
“Every time we call it the ‘Gospel of Mark,’ we are trusting the tradition of the Church.”
Moreover, the early Church never ascribed Mark’s Gospel to anyone else. There is no manuscript calling it “The Gospel according to Barnabas” or “The Gospel of Aquila.” The unanimity of the tradition strongly suggests the authenticity of the tradition.
Context and Date
If Mark wrote down Peter’s memories, where and when did he do so? The earliest tradition places him in Rome. The internal evidence fits:
Mark explains Jewish customs to his readers, suggesting they are Gentiles.
He translates Aramaic phrases into Greek.
He uses Latin loanwords like “centurion.”
This points to a Roman audience, predominantly Gentile, unfamiliar with Jewish tradition.
As for the date, most scholars suggest 65–70 CE. The reasons are both historical and internal:
In 64 CE, Rome burned and Nero blamed the Christians, unleashing severe persecution.
In 66 CE, the Jewish revolt began in Judea, leading to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.
The only extended discourse in Mark is chapter 13, where Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple.
Was Mark writing before or after that destruction? Opinions differ. Some argue that the vividness of Jesus’ prophecy suggests it had already happened. Others counter that Mark records the prediction precisely because it had not yet occurred, and Christians needed to be prepared.
Either way, the context is the same: Christians were facing suffering and persecution. Mark’s Gospel speaks directly into that crisis: “Take up your cross and follow me.”
Structural Markers
Mark’s Gospel is not haphazard. Its structure is deliberate and theologically charged. Three markers stand out.
1. The Son of God
The opening line announces: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
But no human character repeats that confession until the very end. Demons recognize Jesus. The Father’s voice declares it at the baptism and Transfiguration. But no person within the story calls Jesus “Son of God” until the Roman centurion at the cross: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).
In Mark, it is not at the resurrection but at the crucifixion that the centurion declares: ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’
That is astonishing. Jesus’ sonship is not revealed in glory or triumph, but in his suffering and death. For Mark’s Roman audience, the irony would have been profound: the instrument of Rome’s shame, the cross, becomes the moment of true recognition.
2. The Way of the Lord
The second marker is the theme of “the way.” Isaiah’s prophecy—“Prepare the way of the Lord”—frames a section of Mark’s Gospel. Beginning in chapter 8, the word “way” recurs constantly: Jesus is “on the way” to Jerusalem, suffering, and death.
That journey is bracketed by two healings of blind men (8:22; 10:46). The point is clear: to follow Jesus on the way, we need eyes to see. And what we come to see is truly shocking: the way of the Lord is in fact the way of the cross.
“The way of the Lord is the way of the cross.”
3. The Lord who Comes Quickly to His House
If one half of the opening quotation in Mark’s Gospel defines a unique section of the book, we should suspect the same for the other half of the opening quotation. In fulfillment of Malachi 3, when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, he goes to the temple. But instead of affirming it, he judges it, fulfilling Malachi’s warning that the Lord will come suddenly to his temple—and who can endure the day of his coming? Chapter 11 has Jesus entering the city and temple, disputing with religious leaders in chs. 11-12, and then pronouncing the temple’s judgment in ch. 13. All of this is informed by Malachi 3:1.
The structure of Mark is not random. It is shaped by Scripture, framed by prophecy, and centered on the cross.
A Neglected Gospel
For centuries, Mark was overlooked. The Church Fathers believed Matthew was written first, so they thought Mark was simply a condensed adaptation. Augustine famously called him the “abbreviator” of Matthew. Why study Mark if you already had the fuller Gospel?
But modern scholarship has rediscovered Mark’s brilliance. Far from being an abridgment, Mark is theologically subtle, narratively sophisticated, and profoundly apocalyptic.
“Mark is not sloppy; he is subtle. He is not careless; he is apocalyptic.”
He is unveiling a mystery. He is training us to see what others miss. He is showing us that the crucified Messiah is not a contradiction but the most profound revelation of God.
Conclusion: Seeing with New Eyes
Mark’s Gospel begins with a voice crying in the wilderness and ends with the announcement of an empty tomb. In between, it unveils a Messiah who comes not in triumph but in suffering, not in conquest but in crucifixion.
It is urgent, mysterious, and apocalyptic. It rends the heavens and tears the veil. It asks us to look at the crucified one and say with unveiled eyes: “Truly this man was the Son of God.”
“For Mark, the crucified Messiah is the true revelation of God.”
This is the invitation of Mark: not only to learn about Jesus, but to follow him on the way, with eyes opened, hearts unveiled, and lives transformed.
Next Steps
In the coming weeks, we will continue our study of the Gospel of Mark. I hope you’ll join us!