Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
And welcome back to ‘The Gospel of Mark’!
If you missed the first three chapters of Mark, start right at the beginning with Chapter 1 or click on ‘the gospel of mark’ tag below to check out the blog posts you’ve missed in this new segment on my blog. These are summaries on each chapter in the gospel of Mark. We carry on with Chapter 4 today.
Last time, Jesus healed a man with a shrivelled man in front of everyone in the synagogue. He also appoints his twelves disciples as well as rebuking the teachers of the law when they say he’s a prince of demons driving out demons. Jesus also says that everyone is his ‘mother, his brothers and sisters’.
Let’s find out what Jesus does in Chapter 4 of Mark’s Gospel. Enjoy!
The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 4
Chapter 4 begins with Jesus sharing the parable of the sower. He began to teach by the lake and the crowd that gathered around him was so large. Jesus got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake to talk to people whilst they sat on the shore. He taught the people many things in the use of parables.
The parable of the sower is about a farmer who went out to sow his seed. As he scattered the seed, some fell along the path and birds came to eat it up. Some seed fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. The seeds sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. Later on, the sun rose up.
The plants were scorched and withered without any roots. Other seeds fell among thorns, growing up and choking the plants. Some seed fell on good soil and it grew up to produce crop, multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times. Jesus then said “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
Later on, Jesus was asked by his twelve disciples and others around him about the meaning of the parables. Jesus told his disciples that the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to them, but that everything else is said in parables to those who aren’t his disciples and are yet to believe in him.
Jesus asked his disciples if they understood the parable of the sower and how they would understand any parable given to them. He shares the meaning of the parable to his disciples, saying that people are seed on the path when the word is sown but that Satan comes and takes this away.
He then says some hear the word and are filled with joy but it lasts for a short time, like the seeds sown on rocky places. Some also hear the word but the cares of the world get in the way, like the seeds sown on thorns. But some hear the word, accept this and produce crop like seed on good soil.
Jesus then shares about a lamp on a stand. He asks the disciples, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand?” Jesus tells them whatever is hidden must be brought out into the open. He repeats to them, “If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.”
Jesus also tells his twelve disciples to consider carefully what they hear. With the measure they use, it will be measured to them and even more. He tells them that whoever has will be given more and whoever does not have will have what they had taken away from them. This has a deeper meaning.
Jesus then gives the parable of the growing seed to his disciples. He shares with them what the kingdom of God is like. He tells them a man scatters seed on the ground and that the seed sprouts and grows night and day, when he’s asleep or gets up. This man does not know how the seed sprouts.
And all by itself, the soil produces grain from the seed. First the stalk comes up; then the head and then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, the man puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come. As you have probably realised, there are a lot of seeds in Jesus’ parables so far. 😀
Jesus tells another parable to his disciples about the mustard seed. 😀 He asks his disciples, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it?” Jesus of course describes the kingdom of God as like a mustard seed, saying this is the smallest of all seeds on earth.
Yet when the seed is planted, it becomes the largest of all garden plants. Jesus tells his disciples that with a mustard plant, it has such big branches that birds can perch in its shade. Jesus spoke the word to his disciples through these parables and he explained to them alone when they didn’t understand.
This chapter ends with Jesus calming the storm. Later that day in the evening, Jesus said for him and his disciples to go over to the other side of the lake. They left the crowd behind when they went in the boat. Soon, a storm came and waters broke over the boat with Jesus and his disciples on board.
Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the stern. The disciples woke Jesus up, asking him if he didn’t care that they were about to drown. Jesus then got up and calmed the storm, rebuking the wind and saying to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” At this, the wind and the waves obeyed and died down. All was calm.
Jesus then asked his disciples why they were afraid and whether they had no faith in them. Jesus’ disciples became terrified at this, as they asked each other who Jesus was. They were astonished as the wind and the waves obeyed him. Here is another demonstration regarding Jesus as the Son of God.
That’s it for Chapter 4 of Mark’s Gospel. Stay tuned next week for Chapter 5.
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim. 🙂
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