Mark - Lesson 5

Lesson 5

Preparing Our Heart’s Soil

Mark 4:1–25

Son of Man, Son of God

Studies in Mark’s Gospel

LAST WEEK IN REVIEW

We read in Mark 3 of conflict, mountaintop experiences, and the redefining Jesus did during this time of His ministry.  Jesus began experiencing increasing conflict with the religious leaders as He addressed their hypocrisy.  Jesus was moved by their sin to anger, but also compassion and grief, as He is now by ours as well.  A shift took place at this time in the Galilean ministry, and although Jesus would continue to minister to the needs of the multitudes, He began to select out of His followers twelve men who couldn’t have been a more unusual bunch, yet turned their world upside down (or should we say right side up!), making an impact that history cannot and had best not ignore, no matter what skeptics and heretics want us to believe about church history and the Bible.  We discussed these men and their impact fairly extensively.  We left off studying a two-pronged attack on Jesus by the enemy on two fronts:  by the religious leaders, accusing Him of being empowered by Satan, and saddest of all by His own family members thinking He had lost His mind, and they came to “take custody of Him.”  Jesus closed off that section with what was our memory verse, that those who do the will of God out of an obedient heart are His mother and brothers, made part of the family of God.  Mark 4 records teachings Jesus gave later that same day[i] that are as alive to us today as they were in the time in which He lived. Let’s turn to that now and find out what it says for us today.