my new friend Mark

Just started my “interpretive journey” through Mark 2:13-17 today, by trying to uncover the historical-cultural context of the book.  It’s the first step in what the journey girls and I have been learning this summer in our hermeneutics Bible study.  (Hermeneutics, by the way, is simply how to read and interpret the Bible.)  This week we’re supposed to each be studying this passage in Mark on our own, using what we’ve learned so far in class, and then we’ll get together Thursday night to put it all together and learn from one another.  Because Bible study is incomplete without community.

Anyways, here it is Tuesday, and I’m just now at the first part of the first step – researching the book’s author, its first audience, their circumstances, and why the book was written.  Which brings me to my new friend Mark.  John Mark actually, but we’re so tight I just call him Mark.

I’m no NT scholar, and I’ve only assigned one week to journey through all four steps of the interpretive journey for this passage… but it gives me a great deal of comfort to know that these guys were human.

Trying to get to know my Jesus-following, Gospel-writing friend, Mark, I find his name in Acts 15, verses 36-40.  Here Paul (the famous one who wrote most of the New Testament), plans a journey back through the towns of his first missionary journey and says to his traveling buddy Barnabas, “No.  He can’t go.  I’m not taking Mark with us and you can’t make me.”  (I’m paraphrasing.)

Verse 39 says, “They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company.”  All because my friend Mark, when he was with them earlier, bailed.  He totally deserted them right in the middle of their missionary journey.  Acts mentions it in 13:13 with absolutely no details or explanation, so we’re left to wonder why our friend Mark decided to go home early.  All we know (from chapter 15) is that Paul was not the least bit happy about his departure.

He might have been a wimp.  He might have cried for his momma, like I cried every night the first time I took a group of kids to church camp. (True story.  But I waited til they were asleep! :)  He might have had such a personality conflict with Paul that he could not stand another minute of his leadership.   (Sometimes when I read Paul I think I would have had quite a personality conflict with him, too.)  He may have even questioned Paul’s character, his leadership skills, or even his discernment of God’s will.   He may have been deeply disappointed in the unexpected change of leadership that happened from his friend, Barnabas, to Paul.   When he “signed up,” he may have been under the assumption that Barnabas was the leader.  He may have even disagreed with the manner in which Paul assumed leadership.  He may have been told by God in a dream not to go where Paul was going.  Who knows?? We don’t, because we’re not told why.  But regardless, these two men of God did not see eye-to-eye.  And my friend Mark finally said, “Forget it.  I’m outta here.”  And headed back to Jerusalem.

Here’s what strikes me:

If there was a “right” and a “wrong” in this conflict between Paul and Mark, it in no way affected God’s ability to or His choice to use each man in the most powerful way a man has ever been used – the human hand holding the pen for the Spirit of God to write His love letter to the world.

Did you hear me?  If one of these guys was “right” and one was “wrong,” it didn’t even matter… God used them both!  I think I too quickly forget that God’s use of me has absolutely nothing to do with me… that His work is His… and that He’s picked broken people from the very stinkin beginning.  He’s picked broken people from the very stinkin beginning.

           

So, I’m really getting  to like my new friend Mark.  Looks like most of the good news book he wrote was actually the sermons of Peter.  I love that.  I love it that God used a broken man like Peter to preach powerfully His truth, and that He used a broken man like Mark to write down what he learned and share it with the world.  What are you reading this week in the Word?  Get to know the human author the Holy Spirit used.  He chose to write His perfect Word using real people; He certainly didn’t have to!  I believe it honors the way He chose to write His love letter to us when we study the background of the human author, the first audience, and their world.   You may even, like me, make a new friend.