Mark 3

Mark 3:1

L. The Servant Heals on the Sabbath (3:1-6) 3:1, 2 Another test case arose on the Sabbath. As Jesus entered the synagogue again, He met a man with a withered hand. This raised the question, Would Jesus heal him on the Sabbath? If He did, the Pharisees would have a case against Himor so they thought. Imagine their hypocrisy and insincerity. They couldn’t do anything to help this man, and they resented anyone who could. They sought some ground on which to condemn the Lord of life. If He healed on the Sabbath, they would rush in to the kill like a pack of wolves. 3:3, 4 The Lord told the man to step forward. The atmosphere was charged with expectancy. Then He said to the Pharisees, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? His question revealed the Pharisees’ wickedness. They thought it was wrong for Him to perform a miracle of healing on the Sabbath, but not wrong for them to plan His destruction on the Sabbath! 3:5 No wonder they didn’t answer! After an embarrassed silence, the Savior ordered the man to stretch out his hand. As he did so, full strength returned, the flesh filled out to normal size, and the wrinkles disappeared. 3:6 That was more than the Pharisees could take. They went out, contacted the Herodians, their traditional enemies, and plotted with them to destroy Jesus. It was still the Sabbath. Herod had brought about the death of John the Baptist. Perhaps his party would be equally successful in killing Jesus. This was the Pharisees’ hope.

Mark 3:7

M. Great Multitudes Throng the Servant (3:7-12) 3:7-10 Leaving the synagogue, Jesus withdrew to the Sea of Galilee. The sea in the Bible often symbolizes the Gentiles. Therefore His action may have depicted His turning from the Jews to the Gentiles. A great multitude gathered, not only from Galilee but from distant parts as well. The crowd was so great that Jesus asked for a small boat so that He could push off from shore to avoid being crushed by those who came for healing. 3:11, 12 When unclean spirits in the crowd cried out that He was the Son of God, He sternly warned them to stop saying this. As already noted, He would not receive the witness of evil spirits. He did not deny that He was the Son of God, but chose to control the time and manner of being revealed as such. Jesus had the power to heal, but His miracles were performed only on those who came for help. So it is with salvation. His power to save is sufficient for all, but efficient only for those who trust Him. We learn from the Savior’s ministry that need does not constitute a call. There was need everywhere. Jesus depended on instructions from God the Father as to where and when to serve. So must we.

Mark 3:13

III. THE SERVANT’S CALL AND TRAINING OF HIS DISCIPLES (3:13-8:38) A. Twelve Disciples Chosen (3:13-19) 3:13-18 Faced with the task of world evangelization, Jesus appointed twelve disciples. There was nothing wonderful about the men themselves; it was their connection with Jesus that made them great. They were young men. James E. Stewart has this splendid commentary on the youth of the disciples: Christianity began as a young people’s movement. … Unfortunately, it is a fact which Christian art and Christian preaching have too often obscured. But it is quite certain that the original disciple band was a young men’s group. It is not surprising then, that Christianity entered the world as a young people’s movement. Most of the apostles were probably still in their twenties when they went out after Jesus. . . Jesus himself, we should never forget, went out to his earthly ministry with the dew of [his] youth upon him (Psa_110:3 this psalm was applied to Jesus first by himself and then by the apostolic Church).

It was a true instinct that led the Christians of a later day, when they drew the likeness of their master on the walls of the Catacombs, to portray Him, not old and weary and broken with pain, but as a young shepherd out on the hills of the morning. The original version of Isaac Watts’ great hymn was true to fact: When I survey the wondrous cross Where the young Prince of Glory died. And no one has ever understood the heart of youth in its gaiety and gallantry and generosity and hope, its sudden loneliness and haunting dreams and hidden conflicts and strong temptations, no one has understood it nearly so well as Jesus. And no one ever realized more clearly than Jesus did that the adolescent years of life, when strange dormant thoughts are stirring and the whole world begins to unfold, are God’s best chance with the soul. … When we study the story of the first Twelve, it is a young men’s adventure we are studying. We see them following their leader out into the unknown, not knowing very clearly who he is or why they are doing it or where he is likely to lead them; but just magnetized by him, fascinated and gripped and held by something irresistible in the soul of him, laughed at by friends, plotted against by foes, with doubts sometimes growing clamorous in their own hearts, until they almost wished they were well out of the whole business; but still clinging to him, coming through the ruin of their hopes to a better loyalty and earning triumphantly at last the great name the Te Deum gives them, The glorious company of the apostles. It is worth watching them, for we too may catch the infection of their spirit and fall into step with Jesus. There was a threefold purpose behind the call of the twelve: (1) that they might be with Him; (2) that He might send them out to preach; and (3) that they might have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons. First there was to be a time of trainingpreparation in private before preaching in public. Here is a basic principle of service. We must spend time with Him before we move out as God’s representatives. Secondly, they were sent out to preach. Proclamation of the Word of God, their basic method of evangelism, must always be central. Nothing must be allowed to subordinate it. Finally, they were given supernatural power. Casting out demons would attest to men that God was speaking through the apostles. The Bible had not yet been completed. Miracles were the credentials of God’s messengers. Today men have access to the complete Word of God; they are responsible to believe it without the proof of miracles. 3:19 The name of Judas Iscariot stands out among the apostles. There is mystery connected with one chosen as an apostle turning out to be the betrayer of our Lord. One of the greatest heartaches in Christian service is to see one who was bright, earnest, and apparently devoted, later turning his back on the Savior and going back to the world which crucified Him. Eleven proved true to the Lord, and through them He turned the world upside down. They reproduced themselves in ever-widening circles of outreach, and in one sense, we today are the continuing fruit of their service. There is no way of telling how far-reaching our influence for Christ may be.

Mark 3:20

B. The Unpardonable Sin (3:20-30) 3:20, 21 Jesus returned from the mountain where He had called His disciples to a Galilean home. Such a multitude gathered that He and His apostles were kept too busy to eat. Hearing of His activities, His own people felt that He was out of His mind, and sought to take Him away. Doubtless they were embarrassed by the zeal of this religious fanatic in the family. J. R. Miller comments: They could account for His unconquerable zeal only by concluding that He was insane. We hear much of the same kind of talk in modern days when some devoted follower of Christ utterly forgets self in love for his Master. People say, He must be insane! They think every man is crazy whose religion kindles into any sort of unusual fervour, or who grows more earnest than the average Christian in work for the Master. … That is a good sort of insanity. It is a sad pity that it is so rare. If there were more of it there would not be so many unsaved souls dying under the very shadow of our churches; it would not be so hard to get missionaries and money to send the gospel to the dark continents; there would not be so many empty pews in our churches; so many long pauses in our prayer-meetings; so few to teach in our Sunday schools. It would be a glorious thing if all Christians were beside themselves as the Master was, or as Paul was. It is a far worse insanity which in this world never gives a thought to any other world; which, moving continually among lost men, never pities them, nor thinks of their lost condition, nor puts forth any effort to save them. It is easier to keep a cool head and a colder heart, and to give ourselves no concern about perishing souls; but we are our brothers’ keepers, and no malfeasance in duty can be worse than that which pays no heed to their eternal salvation. It is always true that a man who is on fire for God seems deranged to his contemporaries. The more like Christ we are, the more we too will experience the sorrow of being misunderstood by relatives and friends. If we set out to make a fortune, men will cheer us. If we are fanatics for Jesus Christ, they will jeer us. 3:22 The scribes did not think He was insane. They accused Him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. The name Beelzebub means lord of dung flies or lord of filth. This was a serious, vile, and blasphemous charge! 3:23 First Jesus refuted it, then pronounced the doom of those who made it. If He were casting out demons by Beelzebub, then Satan would be working against himself, frustrating his own purposes. His aim is to control men through demons, not to free them from demons. 3:24-26 A kingdom, a house, or a person divided against himself cannot endure. Continued survival depends upon internal cooperation, not antagonism. 3:27 The scribes’ accusation was therefore preposterous. In fact, the Lord Jesus was doing the very opposite of what they said. His miracles signified the downfall of Satan rather than his prowess. That is what the Savior meant when He said, No one can enter a strong man’s house, and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.Satan is the strong man. The house is his dominion; he is the god of this age. His goods are the people over whom he holds sway. Jesus is the One who binds Satan and plunders his house. At Christ’s Second Advent, Satan will be bound and cast into the bottomless pit for one thousand years. The Savior’s casting out of demons during His ministry on earth was a forecast of His eventual complete binding of the devil. 3:28-30 In verses 28-30, the Lord pronounced the doom of the scribes who were guilty of the unpardonable sin. In accusing Jesus of casting out demons by demonic power, when it was actually by the power of the Holy Spirit that He did it, they in effect called the Holy Spirit a demon. This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. All kinds of sin can be forgiven, but this particular sin has no forgiveness. It is an eternal sin. Can people commit this sin today? Probably not. It was a sin committed when Jesus was on earth performing miracles. Since He is not physically on earth today, casting out demons, the same possibility of blaspheming the Holy Spirit does not exist. People who worry that they have committed the unpardonable sin have not done so. The very fact that they are concerned indicates that they are not guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Mark 3:31

C. The Servant’s True Mother and Brothers (3:31-35) Mary, the mother of Jesus, came with His brothers to talk with Him. The crowd prevented their getting to Him, so they sent word that they were waiting outside for Him. When the messenger told Him that His mother and His brothers wanted Him, He looked around and announced that His mother and brother was whoever does the will of God. Several lessons emerge from this for us:

1. First of all, the words of the Lord Jesus were a rebuke to mariolatry (the worship of Mary). He did not dishonor her as His natural mother, but He did say that spiritual relationships take precedence over natural ones. It was more to Mary’s credit to do the will of God than to be His mother.
2. Secondly, it disproves the dogma that Mary was a perpetual virgin. Jesus had brothers. He was Mary’s firstborn, but other sons and daughters were born to her afterward (see Mat_13:55; Mar_6:3; Joh_2:12; Joh_7:3, Joh_7:5, Joh_7:10; Act_1:14; 1Co_9:5; Gal_1:19 also Psa_69:8).
3. Jesus put God’s interests above natural ties. To His followers, He still says today: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple (Luk_14:26).
4. The passage reminds us that believers are bound by stronger cords to fellow-Christians than they are to blood-relations when those relatives are unsaved.
5. Finally, it emphasizes the importance Jesus places on doing the will of God. Do I meet the standard? Am I His mother or brother?