Month: October 2025

What is your most basic need? Food? Shelter? Someone to care for you? The paralyzed man might have spoken of the ability to move, to walk. But after his encounter with Jesus he would have told you of an even deeper need which had been met.

Trust the power of Jesus. Listen to the Word. The news of Jesus healing the leper kept him out in lonely places for a time, but Mark has slowed his pace of narrative slightly. There is a pause of a few days before Jesus reenters Capernaum. But now he goes into a house and begins to speak the word to the people. He is preaching or teaching, but the language reflects the expression in the Old Testament, “the word of the Lord came to….” Only this time, Jesus is not merely a conduit for the word, he is the One speaking. As we saw last week in Mark 1:38, Jesus focused on his preaching ministry as the heart of his messianic work at this point in his public ministry. The word, not miracles, take center stage. Perhaps we overlook that emphasis as we read Mark 2:1–12, as our attention jumps to Jesus’ interaction with the paralyzed man. Jesus is preaching. Crowds fill the room and likely cluster around the house. Present are local scribes, teachers of the law.

Continue reading “Your Sins Are Forgiven!”

Mark has told us that Jesus had started preaching in Galilee. He has summoned his first disciples. But what does his public ministry look like? In Mark 1:21–28 we are given a snapshot of what Jesus does on a Sabbath day. In showing you Jesus’ activity, Mark wants you to understand who he is.

Hear the voice of authority in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom. Mark has already summarized the message of Jesus in verses 14–15. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom is near at hand. The good news of the kingdom includes a call to repent. The preaching of Jesus left no room for neutrality. You must repent from sin. You must trust in him. On a particular Sabbath day, apparently the one after calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John, Jesus goes into the synagogue in Capernaum. Or, rather, they went to Capernaum (verse 21, and they came out in verse 29). This is not Jesus alone, but he and his disciples. He is the active one, however. Jesus, the God-man, the Messiah, joins regularly in worship. He not only joins, he teaches.

Continue reading “The Voice of Authority — Even over Evil Spirits”

As Mark 1:14–20 records the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, Mark is focusing on the heart of Jesus’ work and pointing you to the appropriate way to respond.

The kingdom of God has come to you. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom is at hand. The time is fulfilled. The time is God’s appointed moment. The public preaching of Jesus announces the fulfillment, the last time. The term has overtones of judgment, parallel to “the day of the Lord” in the Old Testament. God himself prepared the time. He sent his Son in the fullness of time, Galatians 4:4. The redemptive work of the Son happens in time, Ephesians 1:10. The expression looks back over the entire Old Testament: the promise in Eden, the covenant with Abraham, the Exodus from Egypt and other deliverances, the intercessory work of the priests (including the whole sacrificial system), the prophets, proclaiming the day of the Lord, the kings—David and others, implementing the kingdom—though frequently very imperfectly. Now the time is fulfilled. It has come. The kingdom is a reality.

Continue reading “The Kingdom Is Near — Follow the King!”