I am preparing to teach the Gospel of Mark again. I have taught that particular book of the Bible more than any other, and I will confess I am very nervous. I used to teach the book frequently, in as many as 6 (or more) different classes every week. I never used notes in those days. Why would I? I was constantly teaching the book. The biggest challenge was not remembering what I needed to say in each passage but trying to remember where each group was in the book on any given week. But I have been away from the book for awhile, not as a reader, but as a teacher. I still read the book often, but I haven’t taught through the book in quite awhile. I taught it on Wednesday nights soon after my arrival in Arizona, and I taught through the book at a community Bible study from March 2016-February 2017. The recordings of those classes are still online. But I don’t think I have taught through the entire book since. I went back to listen to the first lesson of that last series, and I winced through much of it--and not only because my southern accent was so strong and I constantly used the word “right” as an audible pause. I knew my thinking on the book had continued to mature since the period of near constant teaching from 2004-2017. I am sure going through the book again will reveal more places than I know now where my thinking has changed and, I hope, improved. But before beginning this new series, it might be helpful to briefly reflect on what has changed.
The Gospel of Mark has not changed at all since I last taught the book, but I have. I hope those changes are mostly for the better. I hope they are the result of spiritual growth in grace and greater knowledge, understanding, and sensitivity to the Word of God. Time will tell. But certain differences are immediately apparent.
First, my understanding of Reformed theology has continued to mature. It was largely through teaching Mark and other books of the Bible that God crushed my confidence in my own good works and opened my eyes to justification by grace. I continued to teach Mark long after I became Reformed in my thinking, and I became a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church during that last teaching series. But I continue to learn and grow in my appreciation of how a Reformed understanding of creation, covenant, redemption, and renewal permeates every page of Scripture. I hope I will continue to grow in this awareness. If I ever think I have seen all there is to see in that regard, I can be sure my growth has stagnated and that I am a fool.
Second, I have spent a lot more time reading, studying, and seeking to understand the Greek language since those early years of teaching Mark. I often consulted the Greek text of Mark in my earlier attempts to teach the book, but I am much better acquainted with the Greek of Mark’s Gospel than I was even three years ago, and I think (hope) my competence with the language has improved and allows me greater access to the Gospel in its original language this time through than any prior survey.
Third, I have learned far more about textual criticism than I knew when last I taught Mark. I had taken classes on textual criticism in seminary and was certainly conversant with the textual issues relating to Mark’s Gospel during my earlier surveys, but my understanding of the data involved in certain debates has vastly increased, leading to different conclusions about some of the textual variants. That will be more apparent as I work through passages that are contested by some scholars.
Fourth, it is a minor point, but I am nervous because for the first time I will begin teaching Mark to an empty room for the sake of recording. Much of my teaching in Mark over thirteen years of intense exposition relied in part upon the energy, eagerness, and inquiries of the students I had with me. Some of those students would later accompany me to other classes and hear me work through the same portions of the book multiple times, yet they claimed there was always something more they had not seen or some additional insight that became clear in a later gathering that had not been apparent before. The proper response to this concern is to remind myself that it has always been the truth of Mark’s Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit that invested any teaching of it with power. Nevertheless, like the father in Mark 9, I cry out: “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!”
Fifth, I have much less appreciation for modern critical scholarship today than I ever have before. This is not to say I have not continued to read and profit from scholars, both evangelical and not, but time has increased my caution and frustration with much that goes by the name of biblical “scholarship” today. Moreover, I am less awed by the input of these experts, and though I hope I am humble enough to still sit at their feet to listen and learn, I do so with more skepticism and reserve than in previous years. At the same time, I have found more value in classic and traditional works of exegetical, homiletical, and devotional content than at any earlier point in my ministry. Perhaps I was too wise to give them much credit before, but thankfully I have become foolish enough to do so.
Sixth and finally, I have spent the last four years preaching through the Gospel of John, and that is certain to inform and further shape how I read Mark’s Gospel. Even though I had both taught and preached through John in previous years, I have a much deeper awareness and appreciation for the presentation of Christ’s life in that account and its relationship to Mark (and the other Synoptic writers) than ever before. The more we read and study the Scriptures, or any portion of them, such as the Gospels, the better able we are to perceive, understand, and appreciate the nuance, style, and profundity of those texts.
So as I prepare to embark on another survey of Mark’s Gospel, I am nervous. Nervous that I will forget and neglect to propound rich and salient points I never would have overlooked before. Nervous that I will too easily retread the same ground and fail to critically re-examine and reverently expound passages that ought to bring new delight and insight every time we return to them. Nervous, as I always am at the beginning of a new expository series, that I will be unequal to the task, that the teaching will disappoint, that I will fail to adequately expose, expound, and exalt the wonders of the God who has made himself known in the works of creation, providence, revelation, and redemption. Indeed, I am nervous on this last point every time I turn to chapter one of a new book in order to teach it, because I know for certain that I am unequal to the task, that my work will be inadequate, and that my best efforts cannot do other than fail to properly magnify the God of our salvation. But ministers are called to teach, despite our insurmountable shortcomings, so with a heart simultaneously full of both fear and faith, I will dare to begin.
--JME (March 2020)
