(chapter 9 will follow in the next issue)
Observe the Text to understand the author’s meaning:
Read 8:1-9. This is the second feeding of the multitude. Here Jesus is in Gentile territory. What is Jesus’ motivation for doing the miracle?
What is the disciples response? Do they understand who Jesus is? What should their response have been after chapter 6 when Jesus fed 5000?
Who does the serving this time? Do you see Jesus trying to teach them by doing?
Why do you think Jesus sent the multitude away?
Do you think this narrative refers back to 7:5?
Do you think the multitude ate “with impure hands” because they were unable to wash them properly?
This is a “desolate place.” Do you see God providing manna in the wilderness as he did during the Exodus wilderness journey in the OT?
Read 8:10-13. Jesus briefly comes back to Dalmanutha which is in Galilee on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. Immediately the Pharisees come and begin questioning him. What do they want this time? What is Jesus’ answer?
Do you see this as a question from blindness and Jesus’ answer acknowledging their blindness rather than refusing to give them a sign? What signs has Jesus already given from heaven? What does this tell us about their “blindness?” Where does it come from?
Read 8:14-21. Who is rebuked in this passage? What is the disciples’ problem? How are they still “blind?” What should they have said to Jesus? How do the Pharisees and disciples differ in their blindness?
What leaven is Jesus talking about? What does Jesus mean when he says “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod?”
Read 8:22-26. Jesus heals a blind man in steps. At first the man sees men as trees. Only after Jesus touches him again does the man “see everything clearly.” Jesus has just told the disciples in vs 18 of the previous narrative that “having eyes, you do not see.” Mark is relating the physical to spiritual.
How did the man have to cooperate in his healing? Jesus never heals people who reject him. Remember 6:5 where he could do no healing in his hometown where he was rejected. We have to come willingly to Jesus–seeking his healing.
It is interesting that this healing, in stages, comes between the Pharisees in vs 11-13 who are looking for a sign, the disciples who understand some things but not all, and then the question in the next section “who am I?”
Read 8:27-38. Notice Caesarea Philippi is still in the very northern parts of Israel. Jesus stays near the Sea of Galilee and travels back and forth across the sea to the villages around that area.
What is the first question Jesus asks the disciples?
Apparently people believed in re-incarnation because everyone knew these men were dead. Are there logical reasons why people associate these three men with Jesus? Why?
Even though many people are following Jesus, they really are not sure who he is. There are many theories which exist. Then Jesus presses the disciples further and asks who THEY say he is. What does Peter say? “The Christ” means “The Messiah or the Anointed One.” What is Peter saying?
Do you see this as something of a climax of the book? The book began with “A messenger who prepares the way” and now, at last, a disciple confesses Jesus is the Christ. There must have been trumpets and fireworks in heaven that began at the sound of Peter’s confession.
Just as the trumpets in heaven and earth sound, Jesus warns them to tell no one–a damper on the celebration! Again, want to speculate on why Jesus warned them?
From all that the disciples have seen and heard–the healing, the miracles, the multitudes, the teaching, the fulfillment of prophecy–what would they have expected of the Messiah? Instead in vs 31 what does Jesus say lies ahead? Why was that such an offense?
What do you think Peter expected Jesus to do to the elders and scribes and chief priests?
This is the first of three times that Jesus tells the disciples what events will take place. What do you think was one of his reasons for telling them? What is Peter’s reaction in vs 32? What word in that verse clearly shows that Peter still does not understand? What do you think Peter said in his rebuke?
Peter tried to take Jesus aside, but the disciples are listening–maybe in their heart they felt the same way. So Jesus’ response is very public and as plain as his statement in vs 31-32. What is Jesus response?
The one who first confesses Christ, immediately denies him and is called Satan. Why does Christ call him Satan? Where does human wisdom, which contradicts Christ’s plain word, lead us? See Is 55:8 and Mark 4:19
Don’t we often respond the way Peter does? Scripture plainly tells us things about Christ but then we look around us and in our own wisdom we think know better. We humanly plan strategies and manipulate and reason in ways that contradict God’s plain word. We try to make Christ into our own image of what a redeemer should be and do.
vs 34-35 Can you explain the teaching in these verses in light of Jesus and Peter’s discussion just before it?
What is the reason according to Jesus that you loose your life?
vs 36-37 Can you explain these verses in light of the discussion between Peter and Jesus?
Who in the gospel of Mark are gaining the whole world, materially, and loosing their soul by denying Christ?
Can you relate this back to the seeds in chapter 4:14-19? How then does vs 38 relate to the discussion?
Interpret the Text
1. What is the text saying about who Jesus is? What is the meaning of Messiah? Is there anything outside of Jesus’ power and authority? Is the cross a surprise to Jesus? Or is he a willing sacrifice for our sins?
2. What is the response of the Pharisees to Jesus?
3. What is the response of the disciples? As human beings what do we want of the Messiah?
4. Do you ever feel “ashamed” of Jesus and his word when they disagree with the political correctness of our day? Was Peter ashamed of Jesus later on?
5. Do you see a difference between “evil” and “sin”? An example of “evil” occurs in vs 33 when people call Christ’s will or commands evil and the opposite of his command good. They turn God’s laws and words into the opposite. On the other hand, “sin” occurs when we recognize God’s laws as good but we do not do them–we miss the mark. In which case is there the possibility of repentance? Why is there no repentance when there is evil?
Bible Study Notes
(Compare these notes to your thoughts after you have looked at the passages and answered the questions yourself)
Mark 8:1-9. Once again we see Christ is able to supply our physical needs abundantly with little or no resources. He can feed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish or 4000 with 7 loaves and 1 fish or millions for 40 years with dew from heaven that he invents!
Mark 8:22-26. Throughout Mark, as people are physically healed, it is related to spiritual healing. Their spiritual blindness is related to physical blindness. Jesus’ healing opens their heart-eyes to see he is the Messiah. Jesus is showing that blindness drops away slowly. We, like the disciples, see a little but it takes Jesus touching us again and again before we see clearly. Paul says in 1 Cor 13, “now we see in a mirror dimly but then [we will see] face to face.”
Mark 8:27-38. An interesting aside–when the kingdom of Israel split into the northern kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam and the southern kingdom of Judah under Reheboam, King Jeroboam did not want the people in the north to go south into Judah to worship at the temple in Jerusalem, so he set up two worship centers for sacrifices and installed his own priests. The sites were at Dan in the very northern part of Israel and Bethel in the southern part of Israel. Dan, the old cultic worship site of Baal worship, became Caesarea Philippi. So, at a place where the question long existed, “who is the god you are worshiping?”, the question is now asked, “who do you say I am?” Jesus is theologically and geographically as far away from Jerusalem as he can get.
Calvin writes, “Jesus’ kingdom would be ushered in, not in great pomp, not with great riches, not with joyful applause of the world, but by a shameful death.”
Notice that Jesus is not talking about “crosses” of health or other problems unrelated to the gospel. Jesus is talking about crosses that come because of the Gospel. The disciples will be martyred because of their gospel witness just as many in the early church were martyred because they refused to renounce Jesus Christ.
But what are good works?
Only those which are done out of true faith, in accordance with the Law of God, and for his glory, and not those based on our own opinion or on the traditions of men.
Heidelberg Catechism 4.091
This study first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 2, No. 3 (May/Jun 1996).
