In our English Bible Mark is the second “book”.  If you read through Nahum with us you might remember we talked about the “good news” about Jesus.  The New Testament was written in Greek and there is a word used about 100 times which is transtaled “gospel”.  The word is “euggelion” and means “good message” or “good news”.  Of course the particular “good news” is about how Jesus has dealt with our sins (disobedience and rebellion toward God, see 1 Corinthians 15:1-11).  The first four “books” of the New Testament are called “gospels” because they tell the story of Jesus’ life on earth.  Mark is one of these “gospels”.

Throughout Church history Mark has had a rough ride as one of the gospels.  Early on it was kind of ignored, then for a while it was considered the best gospel, some even think that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark.  Then some critical scholars began to doubt it again.  Although from the early days it has been surrounded by controversy it has been considered a part of the Bible from very early in church history

The author of the book does not identify himself but the best and earliest traditions say it was written by John Mark, or just Mark.  He was the son of a rich Jerusalem family.  We do not know about his father but his mother, Mary, was an early believer with a large house where the first church in Jerusalem would meet (Acts 12:12).  Some even think that their house may have been the house with the large upper room where the last supper took place and that Mark was the young man in Mark 14 who followed Jesus and the disciples to the Mount of Olives then ran away naked when the authorities tried to seize him along with the disciples.

Mark’s uncle was also an early convert to Christ.  His name was Barnabas.  It was this Barnabas who helped another famous convert to Christ find his part in the early church, a guy by the name of Saul who we know as Paul.  Paul was a very zealous Jew who was a persecutor of the church.  He ran around the Jewish world looking for Jewish converts to Christianity in order to kill them.  But Jesus got a hold of him and revolutionized his life.  He went from being a persecutor of Christians to being one of the greatest evangelists (a person who goes around telling the good news about Jesus) of all time.  Not only that he was given the assignment of bringing the good news of Jesus to the non-Jewish or Gentile world.  Barnabas helped him get started in this task and introduced him to the believers in Jerusalem.

Paul made three journeys into the eastern portion of the Roman Empire to establish churches among the people there.  The first journey was from A.D 46-48.  On that trip he traveled with Barnabas and John Mark.  As the journey progressed Barnabas allowed Paul to take the leadership role.  Eventually Mark left the group, perhaps because they were taking the gospel more and more to Gentiles rather than Jews, perhaps because he did not care for the fact that Paul was taking over from his Uncle Barnabas, or perhaps for some other reason.   From 49 to 52 A.D. Paul took a second journey around the Mediterranean world. He asked Barnabas to join.  Barnabas wanted to take Mark along again but Paul was unwilling to let him go.  At that point Paul and Barnabas went their own ways, Paul with Silas on his second journey and Barnabas with Mark to Cyprus.

Mark disappears from the Biblical record for about ten years.  Paul took a third missionary journey lasting from A.D. 53-58.  In 58 he was arrested in Jerusalem.  He spent 2 years in jail there before being sent to Rome for trial.  He was under house arrest in Rome from 60-63.  During that time Paul wrote the letters to the Colossians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, and to Philemon.  In two of these he mentions Mark as a fellow laborer in Rome.  Evidently Paul and Mark’s differences were healed.   It is believed that it was at this time, A.D. 62, that Mark wrote his gospel in Rome for the Roman church.  It is generally believed that Mark wrote with the aid of his other great mentor, Peter, who may have been in Rome at the time.

Mark seems to be written to the Roman mind.  The humanity and divinity of Jesus are both major themes of the gospel.  Marks gospel “moves”, a feature that would have been impressive to the Romans.  Also Mark describes the customs and geography of Palestine (the area around Jerusalem) to his audience as if they might have been unfamiliar with the customs and area of Judea.

62 AD was also a time of trouble for believers in Jesus in the capital of Rome, trouble which would only increase when Nero became emperor in 63-64 AD.  The quick action and strange ending of Mark may have been particularly encouraging to Christians suffering trouble.

Finally one last evidence that Mark was writing to the Gentile believers in Rome is that he gives some Latin translations for Greek and Aramaic terms.  Although Mark was not one of the original Apostles he certainly had a great deal of exposure to them.  Sitting in the house of his mother listening to Peter night after night teaching the early church, on the first missionary journey with Paul, on another missionary journey with his uncle Barnabas, the encourager.  Tradition is that the greatest source for his gospel was Peter.  But certainly he was a young man with a mission of his own from God and as Peter once said,

“no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:21).