A Journey Through the Bible: Mark 2 and 3

Mark 2:17—“When Jesus heard it, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’" Perhaps one of the most difficult thing for many of us to do is to get outside our circle of comfort and reach out to those who are “sinners,” those whose cultural or financial situation doesn’t appeal much to us. The church of Christ in America is largely a white, middle-class organization; part of this is understandable, because we all tend to gravitate towards those whom we are most comfortable with; our friends are white, middle class thus they tend to be the people we go to church with. It will be challenging for us to do what the Lord did here—reach out to those who are truly lost, and not just more white, middle-class people. The spiritually sick are those who need our help, regardless of race, economic condition, or social background. God is color and culture blind, and we need to be so as well.

Mark 3:11-12—“And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, ‘You are the Son of God.’ But He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known.” Why would Jesus not want the demons—and others—to announce who He is or what He had done? He tells more than one individual “that they should tell no one” (Mark 7:36). One would think Jesus would want knowledge of Him broadcast as far and wide as possible. A couple of reasons can be suggested as to why He asks many people—and demons—to be silent concerning Him. One, the more that His works were announced, the more people He would attract. In one sense, that would be good, of course, but if the crowds became too large and unruly, this would hinder His mobility and keep Him from preaching everywhere He needed to go. A second reason revolves around the total ignorance people had of His mission. Nearly all the Jews expected the Messiah to come as an all-conquering king, defeat the Romans, and re-establish Israel as a great power. That is not what He came to do. He certainly wanted people to believe and know that He was the Son of God, but only on His terms. If a strong political movement arose because of a misunderstanding of Who He truly was, then this could create social disturbances, bring the Romans into play, and definitely interfere with what He was trying to accomplish. Demons, of course, might deliberately spread erroneous ideas about Him. Ignorance, then, was the underlying cause for His demand for silence. Once people understood more about Him, then obviously He wanted the gospel preached to every creature in the world (Mark 16:15).