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Mark The People's Bible Commentary - A Difficult Visit to Nazareth
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - A Difficult Visit to Nazareth
by BRF - Dick France
A Difficult Visit to Nazareth Nazareth was a small, rather insignificant village tucked away in the hills between the lake of Galilee and the Mediterranean, and away from the main centres of population. It was Jesus’ home (1:9, 24), but for the whole of his public activity so far…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Dead and Buried
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Dead and Buried
by BRF - Dick France
DEAD & BURIED The sabbath The Jewish day began and ended at sunset. So the evening of that Friday would be the beginning of the sabbath. The desire to bury the body of Jesus before the sabbath began was partly due to the convention that it was not proper for the body to remain pu…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Betrayal & Arrest
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Betrayal & Arrest
by BRF - Dick France
Betrayal and Arrest The arrest of Jesus is carried out by an armed ‘crowd’, not specifically described as either soldiers or police, but sent out with the authority of ‘the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders’. Mark has used this full listing of the component groups of the…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - He Is Not There
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - He Is Not There
by BRF - Dick France
“He is Not Here” All four Gospels tell about the finding of the empty tomb early on Sunday morning. The details do not all agree—how many women? which women? the stone already gone or an angel rolling it back? How many angels and where were they? and just what did they say? But t…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Enter Pontius Pilate
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Enter Pontius Pilate
by BRF - Dick France
ENTER PONTIUS PILATE It was one thing for a Jewish court to decide on the death penalty, but quite another to implement it. Under the direct Roman rule which had now been imposed in Judea the right to pronounce the death penalty was reserved to the Roman governor alone. So to ach…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Trouble Ahead
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - Trouble Ahead
by BRF - Dick France
A DEMONSTRATION in the TEMPLE Mark has carefully interwoven two themes here, as the scene shifts repeatedly between the temple and a fig tree on the Bethany road, thus: Verse 11, temple; verses 12–14, fig tree; verses 15–19, temple; verses 20–25, fig tree; verse 27, temple (which…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - The Secret is Unveiled
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - The Secret is Unveiled
by BRF - Dick France
The SECRET is UNVEILED ‘Are you the Messiah?’ The high priest’s question is not so much a change of subject as it may seem. To claim, as Jesus is alleged to have claimed, the right to replace the temple was, in effect, to claim to be the Messiah, since the Messiah was expected to…
Mark The People's Commentary - ‘BLASPHEMY against the HOLY SPIRIT’
Mark The People's Commentary - ‘BLASPHEMY against the HOLY SPIRIT’
by BRF - Dick France
‘BLASPHEMY against the HOLY SPIRIT’ For Satan or against him? In verses 23–27 Jesus offers what might be called a ‘common-sense’ reply. The scribes’ accusation does not make sense. Why should Satan want Jesus to drive out his own demonic forces. That would be to divide and weaken…
JOHN: The people's bible commentary - ACCUSED before PILATE
JOHN: The people's bible commentary - ACCUSED before PILATE
by BRF - Richard A. Burridge
ACCUSED before PILATE It is ‘now early in the morning’, proi, the end of the last watch from 03.00 to 06.00 a.m. which has been spent at Caiaphas’ house. We are not told what happened there. At daybreak Jesus is taken from Caiaphas’ house to the Roman headquarters. After the osci…
Mark The People's bible commentary - Alone on the Cross
Mark The People's bible commentary - Alone on the Cross
by BRF - Dick France
Alone on the Cross If to overhear Jesus praying in Gethsemane was to tread on holy ground, surely here we venture into the Holy of Holies, as we hear the only words of Jesus on the cross which Mark has recorded. Indeed, these are the only words of Jesus in this Gospel after his e…
Mark The Peoples' Bible Commentary - Another Blind Man
Mark The Peoples' Bible Commentary - Another Blind Man
by BRF - Dick France
Another Blind Man Act 2, which began with the healing of a blind man (8:22–26) now comes to its close with another. The treatment of the disciples’ spiritual blindness which has been such a prominent feature of the intervening chapters will now give way to the rapidly unfolding e…
Mark The Peoples' Bible Commentary - An Inappropriate Request
Mark The Peoples' Bible Commentary - An Inappropriate Request
by BRF - Dick France
An Inappropriate Request The two ‘Sons of Thunder’ (3:17) have appeared from time to time along with Peter as the small group with whom alone Jesus has shared and will share some of his most private moments (1:29; 5:37; 9:2; 14:33). The three of them with Andrew were the first di…
John THE PEOPLE’S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Jesus Prays for the Church
John THE PEOPLE’S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Jesus Prays for the Church
by BRF - Richard A. Burridge
Jesus Prays for the Church ‘Jesus has prayed to return to the glory he shared with God his Father before the creation (17:1–5). He has also prayed for his disciples whom he will leave behind in the world, although they are not of the world; the key to this balancing act is found …
John The People's Commentary - House Cleaning
John The People's Commentary - House Cleaning
by BRF - Richard A. Burridge
House Cleaning Many signs in this gospel are followed by a debate to explain the sign’s purpose—as the story of the feeding of the five thousand leads into the discourse about Jesus as the Bread of Life (see on chapter 6 below). However, the first of Jesus’ signs, the changing of…
MARK THE PEOPLE’S BIBLE COMMENTARY - KEEPING on the MOVE