Messianic Checkpoint: The Gospel of Mark (with Jeff Cavins) -2025
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What is the purpose of the Gospel of Mark?
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is time for our second messianic checkpoint, and it is with the gospel of the Lord. of Mark last messianic checkpoint, or the first one we had went to the gospel of St. John, which was the longest gospel. Now we are going down to Mark. I don't know, down to Mark is the best way to say it. We're going to Mark, which is the shortest of all four gospels. And again, joining us so grateful as always is Jeff Cavins, who's going to give us an intro to this second messianic checkpoint to this gospel of St. Mark. So Jeff, thank you so much for being here and welcome.
Well, it's a privilege to join you on this journey, and it's beautiful how people can go through the Bible and then every once in a while jump forward a little bit to see the fruit of what this whole story is about. And with four Gospels, each one of them has a little bit different emphasis, and together you get a full look at Jesus. But we don't just blend them together because each one of them is unique.
Why is the Gospel of Mark considered unique?
They are. And it's one of the reasons why I love the fact that how we're doing this in this Bible in a year is we had all of John at once, maybe I think a little over a week, seven or eight days. And then we have all of Mark now, a number of a month and a half later. And I think that there's something really powerful about that, that over the course of these next, I think it's eight days, we're going to go through the gospel of Mark and be able to hear his voice in a unique way, which is different than John's voice and different than Matthew and Luke's. And so, yeah, the gospel of Mark is remarkably unique. In fact, we have a missionary here who last year she said, oh, gosh, I just I don't I don't like the gospel of Mark. I mean, it's just it's so it's too brief. It's too like staccato. It's too and kind of downplayed it. And and then. I handed her a commentary that is put out by, I think it's some kind of publication. It's a Catholic commentary on sacred scripture.
And she said, oh my gosh, Gospel Mark is my favorite gospel from now on. Because it just, like you are about to say, the uniqueness of Mark's gospel not only makes it different, it makes it remarkable. I mean, there's some things that are just fascinating that Mark highlights that aren't necessarily in the other gospels in the same way.
Right. It's true. And in fact, the early church didn't pay as much attention to Mark, I think because of the brevity of the gospel. But I think the first actual commentaries that were written on it were not even until the 8th century. But in recent times, lots of scholarship is being done on the gospel of Mark. So this gospel, while short, is really packed with some uniqueness that gives us a glimpse of Jesus and the work that he is doing. I guess I would start off by saying that a lot of scholars believe that Mark was a real source for Matthew and Luke. You see about 90% of the stories that are shared there. In fact, It's an important point to make again, and that is that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic gospels. And by that, synoptic means to see with the one eye, with one vision, and that some even believe that there was another source that they were using called Q, and that gets into the weeds as far as theology goes.
Right.
But it is shorter. St. Augustine said that the Gospel of Mark was an abbreviated version of Matthew. That's what he thought it was. It was kind of like an expanded Cliff Notes, if you will.
Right, yeah. Just like, hey, if you want to get the bullet points, here's Mark's Gospel.
Right. And the author, most people believe, is John Mark, and he is not so well known in the New Testament, and some people believe that he was a relative of Barnabas. And there's another interesting thing about Mark that scholars bring out, and then we'll get into some of the unique things of the Gospel.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the purpose of the Gospel of Mark?
0:04–1:17
2
Why is the Gospel of Mark considered unique?
1:17–8:52
3
What are the key themes in the Gospel of Mark?
8:52–11:19
4
What is the significance of the identity of Jesus in Mark?
11:19–14:36
5
How does the concept of the messianic secret appear in Mark?
14:36–21:24
6
What makes Mark's Gospel distinct from the other Gospels?
21:24–25:48