《Nisbet’s ChurchPulpit Commentary –Mark》(James Nisbet)
Commentator
With nearly 5,000 pages and 20 megabytes of text, this 12 volume set contains concise comments and sermon outlines, perfect for preaching, teaching, or just another perspective on a passage for any lay person.
James Nisbet compiled and edited the Church Pulpit Commentary. Over 100 authors wrote short essays, sermon outlines, and sermon illustrations for selected verses of the Bible. The authors include Handley Carr Glyn (H.C.G) Moule, F.D. Maurice, and many other bishops and pastors.
As with many commentaries of this nature, the New Testament contains substantially more comments than the Old Testament. This is not the famouse Pulpit Commentary. This is a different commentary. Not every verse includes a comment.
00 Introduction
Mark 1:1 What is the Gospel?
Mark 1:1 The Genesis of the Gospel
Mark 1:3 The Voice in the Wilderness
Mark 1:4 The Baptism of Repentance
Mark 1:9-11 Christ’s Baptism and its Results
Mark 1:12-13 Lenten Lessons
Mark 1:12-13 Christ and the Christian
Mark 1:13 The Ministry of Angels
Mark 1:14-15 The Coming of the Kingdom
Mark 1:15 The Old, Old Sermon
Mark 1:17 Conditions of Successful Service
Mark 1:21-22 The Voice of Authority
Mark 1:23 An Act of Power
Mark 1:30-31 A Domestic Drama
Mark 1:35 In a Solitary Place
Mark 1:41 Strength and Sympathy
Mark 1:43-45 Reserve in Religion
Mark 2:1 Christ in Us
Mark 2:3 Vicarious Faith
Mark 2:5 Forgiveness and a New Life
Mark 2:13 A Walk by the Sea
Mark 2:14 Christ’s Call
Mark 2:16 Consorting with Sinners
Mark 2:21-22 Things which Differ
Mark 2:27-28 A National Treasure
Mark 2:27-28 From the Days of Creation until Now
Mark 3:1 Faith and Unbelief Contrasted
Mark 3:5 The Anger of Christ
Mark 3:5 Judgment and Mercy
Mark 3:5 The Human Side of a Miracle
Mark 3:13 Calling and Election
Mark 3:13-15 The Christian Ministry
Mark 3:14 The Ministry of Preaching
Mark 3:17 ‘Boanerges’
Mark 3:27 The Conflict between Good and Evil
Mark 3:27 The Strong Man Armed
Mark 3:28-29 Sin against the Holy Ghost
Mark 3:34-35 Divine Relationships
Mark 3:34-35 Doing the Will of God
Mark 4:3-4 Wasted Seed
Mark 4:5 Lacking Depth
Mark 4:7 The Thorns of Prosperity
Mark 4:8 Good Soil yields Good Fruit
Mark 4:24-25 The Responsibility of the Pew
Mark 4:26-29 Natural Law in the Spiritual World
Mark 4:26-29 Attributes and Uses of the Divine Seed
Mark 4:26-29 What is your Growth?
Mark 4:30-31 Marks of the Church
Mark 4:30-31 The Kingdom of God
Mark 4:34 Alone with Christ
Mark 4:35-41 Christ in the Tempest
Mark 4:39 The Secret of a Quiet Mind
Mark 4:40-41 The Two Fears
Mark 5:2 From the Power of Satan unto God’
Mark 5:9 Satan’s Legions
Mark 5:19 The Christian in the Home
Mark 5:25-27 The Believing One and the Unbelieving Many
Mark 5:25-27 Imperfect Faith
Mark 5:34 Faith-Healing
Mark 5:36 Faith and Life
Mark 5:41 The Emancipation of Woman
Mark 5:43 Feeding upon Christ
Mark 6:2-3 The Supremacy of Christ
Mark 6:5 The Power of Unbelief
Mark 6:6 Jesus Marvelled
Mark 6:7-12 The Mission of the Twelve
Mark 6:16 The Power of a Good Life
Mark 6:18 The Witness of the Baptist
Mark 6:20 Where Herod Failed
Mark 6:26-27 One Sin
Mark 6:31 The Rest by the Way
Mark 6:39 Fed of God
Mark 6:48 Mysterious Passages of Life
Mark 6:56 Healed by a Touch
Mark 7:13 The Influence of Tradition
Mark 7:20; Mark 7:23 Evil from Within
Mark 7:24 The Epiphanies of the Ministry
Mark 7:28-29 Perseverance in Prayer
Mark 7:32-35 Hearing and Speech restored by Christ
Mark 7:32 The Use and Misuse of Speech
Mark 7:33 Aside from the Multitude
Mark 7:33 Taken Aside by Sickness
Mark 7:34 Why did Christ Sigh?
Mark 7:34 The Sigh of Sympathy
Mark 7:34 The Sigh Interpreted
Mark 7:34 The Sympathies of Christ
Mark 7:34 ‘Ephphatha!’
Mark 7:34 Dumb because Deaf
Mark 7:34 The Two Ephphathas
Mark 7:37 The Testimony of the Multitude
Mark 7:37 Spiritual Service
Mark 8:2 Fullness of Grace and Goodness
Mark 8:2 ‘Man’s Extremity is God’s Opportunity’
Mark 8:2 The Compassionate Saviour
Mark 8:4 Bread in the Wilderness
Mark 8:4 The Bread of Life
Mark 8:5 Human Agency and God’s Work
Mark 8:6 The Divine Economy
Mark 8:9 ‘All Things come of Thee’
Mark 8:24 The Gradual Miracle
Mark 8:29 The Great Confession
Mark 8:29 Who is This?
Mark 8:33 The Great Rebuke
Mark 8:34 Christ’s Followers
Mark 8:34 Two Antagonists
Mark 8:36 Profit and Loss
Mark 8:36 The Importance of Life
Mark 8:37 The Value of a Soul
Mark 8:37 The Discipline of the Soul
Mark 9:2 Transfigured!
Mark 9:2 The Heavenly Vision
Mark 9:2 The Way to the Mount
Mark 9:5 An Impetuous Answer
Mark 9:7 Hear Him
Mark 9:8 Christ All in All
Mark 9:10 The Rising of the Dead
Mark 9:23 The Possibilities of Faith
Mark 9:24 Faith and Doubt
Mark 9:24 Modern Unbelief
Mark 9:29 The Lenten Fast
Mark 9:36-37 Christ in the Child
Mark 9:36-37 The Child in the Midst
Mark 9:41 ‘Whose I am’
Mark 9:41 Not your Own
Mark 9:50 Purity and Peace
Mark 10:13-16 Christ and the Children
Mark 10:13-16 Responsibility for Children
Mark 10:14 The Friend for Little Children
Mark 10:14 Child-Rescue
Mark 10:15 Modern Culture
Mark 10:21-22 The Lost Opportunity
Mark 10:22 Civilisation and Worship
Mark 10:23-26, r.v. The Church and Wealth
Mark 10:23-26, r.v. Christianity and Riches
Mark 10:23-26, r.v. The Love of Money
Mark 10:29Multum in Parvo
Mark 10:31 Bargaining in Religion
Mark 10:32 Fearers yet Followers
Mark 10:32-33 Christ’s Foreknowledge of Suffering
Mark 10:37 Excelsior!
Mark 10:38 The Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings
Mark 10:40 Position in Heaven
Mark 10:43-45, r.v. Christian Service
Mark 10:45 Divine Meekness
Mark 10:45 The Atonement
Mark 10:46-52 A Parable of Life
Mark 10:49 The Higher Life
Mark 10:50 Garments to be Cast Away
Mark 10:52 Opened Eyes
Mark 11:1-6 The Social Influence of Christ
Mark 11:3 ‘The Needs of God’
Mark 11:3 An Individual Appeal
Mark 11:9 Christ the Subject of Song
Mark 11:13-14 The Barren Fig Tree
Mark 11:15-16 In the Court of the Gentiles
Mark 11:22 Faith and Spiritual Life
Mark 11:24, r.v. Private Prayer
Mark 11:24, r.v. Faith and Prayer
Mark 11:24, r.v. Limit, Range, Warrant
Mark 11:33 In the Dark at Noontide
Mark 12:9 The Lost Vineyard
Mark 12:16-17 God and Cæsar
Mark 12:16-17 The World and Christ
Mark 12:24 The Sadducees Confuted
Mark 12:28 A Great Question Answered
Mark 12:28-31 The Double Commandment
Mark 12:29-31 The Link between the Two Commandments
Mark 12:30 The Discipline of the Soul
Mark 12:34 Not far from the Kingdom
Mark 12:34 Why was He Near?
Mark 12:44 A Great Gift
Mark 13:1-2, r.v. The Conventional and the Moral
Mark 13:4 When?
Mark 13:10 The Gospel and the Nations
Mark 13:34, r.v. The Absentee Householder
Mark 13:34, r.v. Work and its Privileges
Mark 13:34, r.v. The Call to Work
Mark 13:34, r.v. The Law of the House
Mark 13:35-36 The Master’s Coming
Mark 13:35-36 That Blessed Hope
Mark 13:37 Watching
Mark 14:3 Mary of Bethany’s Offering
Mark 14:4; Mark 14:6 Mary’s Act Judged
Mark 14:4 A Captious Question
Mark 14:6 An Opportune Work
Mark 14:8 Nothing too Small
Mark 14:8 The Gift and its Motive
Mark 14:10-11 Betrayed for Money
Mark 14:19 ‘Is it I?’
Mark 14:22-24 The Holy Communion
Mark 14:32; Mark 14:34 In Gethsemane
Mark 14:36 Harmony of Will
Mark 14:37 Spiritual Sleep
Mark 14:37 Sleepest Thou
Mark 14:37 Wakefulness
Mark 14:37 Under the Olives
Mark 14:38 Christ’s Exhortation
Mark 14:38 Words from Gethsemane
Mark 14:46 Betrayed and Forsaken
Mark 14:63-64 ‘I Am’
Mark 14:72 St. Peter’s Fall
Mark 15:15 Pilate’s Sin
Mark 15:15-19 Christ’s Humiliation
Mark 15:22-23 The Mortification of Bodily Desires
Mark 15:31 The Lessons of Failure
Mark 15:31 The Mistake of those that Passed by
Mark 15:34 The Word from the Cross
Mark 15:39 A Confession of Faith
Mark 15:39 The Union of the Divine with the Human
Mark 15:37-38 The Rent Veil
Mark 16:3 The Stone at the Door
Mark 16:3 Imaginary Difficulties
Mark 16:6 The Invisibility of the Resurrection
Mark 16:6 Easter Lessons
Mark 16:7 Why ‘Into Galilee’?
Mark 16:9 The First Appearance of the Risen Lord
Mark 16:15 ‘Into all the World’
Mark 16:19 Ascended into Heaven
Mark 16:19 Rejoice!
Mark 16:19 The Purposes of the Ascension
Mark 16:19 The Significance of the Ascension
Mark 16:19 The Blessings of the Ascension
Mark 16:19 Results of the Ascension
Mark 16:20 Christ in the World
Mark 16:20 Christ’s Co-operation
Mark 16:20 Preparation and Effect
01 Chapter 1
Verse 1
WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’
Mark 1:1
As God the Father gave His Son to be the Saviour of the world, so He also appointed faithful witnesses to teach men the salvation procured for them by Christ. Mark here gives a summary of what he intends to write. He says, in effect, that he is going to expound the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which was begun in the manner the ancient prophets had predicted, and the progress of which corresponded in all points with what they foretold concerning it.
I. Define the term ‘Gospel.’—The word signifies glad tidings. The subject-matter of these tidings must be sought for in the writings of the Apostles. St. Paul (Romans 1:16) calls this Gospel ‘the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.’ Perhaps the fullest and clearest definition of the Gospel is contained in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 : ‘All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ,’ etc. John in like manner describes the Gospel as being the testimony concerning Jesus Christ of those who had seen, handled Him, etc. (1 John 1:1). The Gospel announces that God has fulfilled all the promises made to the Fathers by His Son Jesus Christ, Who became a man, undertook our cause, atoned for our sins by His death, conquered death by His resurrection, reconciles us to God, and consecrates us to His service by the obedience of faith. The Gospel, indeed, includes everything bearing upon our salvation.
II. Wherein does the preaching of the Gospel consist?—Look at the express teaching of Christ Himself, Who before His ascension said (Luke 24:46-47) ‘Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer.’ This definition of Gospel preaching contains—
(a) A record of facts, including both the Passion, and the Resurrection. It was with a view to these that the whole mystery of the Incarnation took place.
(b) The practical bearing of these facts, including Repentance and Remission of sins. He was exalted that He might give repentance and remission of sins (Acts 5:31). These are preached in His name.
III. What is the end or design of Gospel preaching?—The obedience of faith (Romans 1:16; 2 Corinthians 10:5). By faith we acknowledge Christ as our only Saviour, and such a confession of Him produces obedience to Him. In this are comprehended all the duties which He requires of us, and indeed all true religion; our whole life is to be framed according to the rule prescribed by Christ in the Gospel. Mark calls Christ expressly the Son of God. He is speaking of Him as the source of salvation, and by calling Him the Son of God shows that He is so not as a man simply, but as co-eternal and co-essential with the Father. He places this at the very beginning of his Gospel, in order to show that Christ is able to save us, inasmuch as all things were made by Him.
IV. The method and scope of Christ’s life, teaching, and work.—Mark says it began and was carried on as the prophets had foretold. His purpose by this remark seems to have been to meet the objections of those who affirm that the doctrine of Christ was a novelty and an innovation. Novelties in religion have among all nations been strongly objected to, and Satan has taken advantage of this fact to prejudice men’s minds against the Gospel. Mark accordingly makes at once the announcement that the Gospel narrative agrees in all points with the ancient prophets. The way of salvation propounded in the Gospel is the most ancient of all doctrines, for it is contained in the first promise (Genesis 3:15), which is expanded and developed in all subsequent promises made by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Illustrations
(1) ‘As long as the twelve were still at Jerusalem, they were in themselves abiding witnesses to the facts which they announced; and if we may believe the accordant traditions of the early Church, it was not till they were scattered, and their work of preaching well-nigh finished, that the first authoritative record of the Gospel was composed. Thus Mark is said to have written down the substance of St. Peter’s public preaching. “Luke,” in like manner, “committed to a book the Gospel which Paul used to proclaim”; and though this rests upon a later authority, Matthew, when he was about to go to a fresh field of labour, left his Gospel to supply the place of the oral teaching in Palestine. The Gospel of John belongs to a yet later period, and is wholly separated from the cycle of oral narratives.’
(2) ‘In Mark we have not so much as in Matthew, the point of convergence of the prophetic rays in the Messiah, the son of Abraham and David. Not so much as in Luke, the fairest of the children of men, Priest and Victim, the Teacher of grace and forgiveness. Not so much as in John, the Eternal Word made flesh, floating in a robe of heavenly light. It is the Gospel whose emblem is the Lion, whose Hero is full of Divine love and Divine strength. It is the Gospel which was addressed to the Romans, to free them from the misery of scepticism, from the grinding dominion of superhuman force unguided by a loving will. Here, brief as it is, we have, in its essential germs, all the theology of the Church. Had every other part of the New Testament perished, Christianity might have been developed from this.’
(3) ‘The words, “the Son of God,” conveyed far more to Jewish minds than they do to ours. They were nothing less than an assertion of our Lord’s divinity. They were a declaration that Jesus was Himself very God, and “equal with God” (John 5:18). There is a beautiful fitness in placing this truth in the very beginning of a Gospel. The divinity of Christ is the citadel and keep of Christianity. Here lies the infinite value of the satisfaction He made upon the cross.’
(4) ‘Mark has the special gift of terse brevity, and of graphic painting in wonderful combination. While on every occasion he compresses the discourses, works, and history into the simplest possible kernel, he on the other hand, unfolds the scenes more clearly than Matthew does, who excels in the discourses. Not only do single incidents become in his hands complete pictures, but even when he is very brief, he often gives, with one pencil stroke, something new and peculiarly his own.’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE GENESIS OF THE GOSPEL
I. Christ’s incarnation was a great beginning for humanity.—What birth is to a man, our Lord’s Incarnation was to the human race. Humanity then commenced a fresh lease of life—passed from infancy into manhood. It was the birthday of immortal hope. This was a moral evolution, an epoch in human development. Jesus Christ Himself is our Gospel. ‘God was in Christ’; this is the marrow of the ‘good news.’ Had not the Son of God become a Son of man, the sons of men had ne’er become the sons of God.
II. This beginning had its hidden roots in the past.—To the narrow horizon of our vision, it seems an event altogether new. Yet it was the natural outcome of the past. It was but another step in the unfolding of God’s eternal purpose. All the history of the past was culminating in the birth of Jesus Christ. Sinai foreshadowed Calvary. We can begin a new chapter in life; nevertheless, we cannot suddenly break with the past. Some thread of continuity, perhaps concealed, will bind the two parts.
III. This new creation is both like and unlike the old.—It is like, in that it opens with a voice. Attention is challenged for the message, not for the man: it is a Voice. The man is a cipher; the doctrine everything. It is unlike in the fiat uttered. In creation it was, ‘Be done!’ Now it is, ‘Prepare!’ Still that voice resounds ‘Prepare!’ To enjoy larger discoveries of God, Prepare! To receive richer donations of blessing, Prepare! For life’s tremendous responsibility, Prepare! For the heavenly scene and service, Prepare!
IV. Beginnings are often attended with pain.—The desert-life of John, with its ascetic austerities, was painful. The beginning of the Gospel was struggle, battle, upheaval, overthrow. The birth of the new means the death of the old.
V. The Gospel of Christ is a beginning without an end.—In the kingdom of Messiah, the prophecy becomes fact. ‘Thy sun shall no more go down.’ Where shall the reign of this Gospel end? In man’s reconciliation with God? in regeneration of character? in sonship? in elevation to heavenly seats? These are but successive steps in exaltation. ‘We shall be like Him!’ The Gospel is power—infinite power. Is there no limit to man’s development? None. By virtue of Christ’s Gospel, we are always beginning.
Verse 3
THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness.’