The Time Has Come: The Outer Limits (Mark 1:35-45)

On May 7, at River Corner Church, Pastor Jeff McLain reflected through Mark 1:35-45 in his message "The Outer Limits," as he continued our Sunday Morning series The Time Has Come, a study through the book of Mark.
 
Mark's narrative on the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus starts with Jesus declaring that it was time to change our way of living and to live into the way that the presence, goodness and good news of God (the Kingdom of God) had come tangibly into the present (Mark 1:15). In each of the stories told by Mark, after that proclamation of Jesus, we witness Jesus demonstrating how God's Kingdom was making a difference in their day.

The difference that God's Kingdom makes is more than just getting to go to heaven when we die. Through Jesus' inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth, God's eternal heaven is now bringing glimpses of God's future restoration into today. In the ministry of Jesus, Mark shows us that Jesus was bringing about God's liberation and healing to demonstrate how God's Kingdom makes a difference today. 

Throughout this series, we see what it means to repent and believe that God's transformative hope of heaven is still bringing God's liberation and healing into the present. The time has come to see what it means for us that God's transformative Kingdom longs to work in, with and through us to not only make a difference in eternity but also today.

River Corner Church is a growing church community of everyday people who gather to worship God, follow Jesus, and journey through life together. We gather on Sunday mornings, at 10:00 AM, at 524 River Corner Road in Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Learn more about our growing church community online through our website (www.rivercornerchurch.com) or our Facebook (www.facebook.com/RiverCornerChurch).

We invite you to gather with us on Sunday mornings at 10:00 AM.

You are welcome to come as you are, just be you. As a community of everyday people, we want to be a people who live and love like Jesus in the places we live, work, and play.

If you have a question about something you heard in this message, or you want to learn more about our growing church community, visit us online at www.rivercornerchurch.com.

Transcript

Jeff McLain

River Corner Church

The Time Has Come

May 6, 2023

The Outer Limits (Mark 1:40-45)

Throughout the 1960’s, a Television show by the name of the Outer Limits came on television with this eerie statement, “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – The Outer Limits!”[1]

Do not attempt to adjust the picture. Too often we accept an image given to us from society, from teachers, that may not be helpful. In the way the Outer Limits tried to stretch our mind about what was fiction and possible, this morning we will try and allow the scriptures to expand our view of Jesus.

There is importance to fixing an image at times.
Photo that never stays straight.
Image of book/movie
We live in a world of deep fakes sometimes we can get sold a fake photo as a real one. We end up believing a fake one.

For the past few weeks, we have been in our spring and summer series, The Time Has Come. This series follows the themes, teaching moments, and truths that arise throughout Mark’s telling of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In the first week, we looked at who Mark is and what we know about him, and where his stories on the life and ministry of Jesus come from. We glimpsed the life of Mark and his ministry at Peter’s side, then Luke’s side, and then at the side of Paul and Barabbas. Mark is the shortest gospel, and it is the only to identify itself as a gospel. As we saw over the last few weeks, Mark’s collection of good news stories, uniquely focuses on both the humanity and actions of Jesus.[2] In his focus on the humanity and actions of Jesus, Mark gives us a beautiful look at Jesus and how Jesus illustrates God’s humanity, heart, and character.[3]

In each interaction with Jesus that we see in Mark’s collection of stories, everyone who experiences an act of God’s deliverance, healing, liberation, restoration, and compassion also gets a foretaste of heaven, of God’s future restoration. In each story of Jesus’ acts of deliverance, healing, liberation, restoration, and compassion we also see how God’s rule and reign has made a difference in the present, today, in the here and now. Mark starts his gospel on the life and ministry of Jesus by declaring that Jesus started his ministry declaring that “The Time has come [and that] The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”[4] In this short description of Jesus’ message, we not only see Jesus’ vision and mission, and inherently our mission and vision as Jesus followers, but we also see the purpose of each of the stories Mark has for his readers. In each story, as Jesus interacts with God’s creation, Jesus is declaring the time has come, it’s time to repent and believe the good news. Therefore, in each story, Jesus is committed to creatively bringing about God’s deliverance, healing, liberation, restoration, and compassion in the here and now, in a way that gives us a hope of what is to come. The act of repentance involves changing who we are as we grow closer to Jesus, but it also involves becoming aware of where God is at work in our midst.

Throughout this series, I have also invited you to commit to reading through Mark in your times of personal reflection and meditation. As we read through Mark together, individually, and communally, I would love to hear what is standing out to you from the stories of Jesus’ life and ministry in Mark’s account. As we read Mark both individually and communally, I trust that we will find meaningful ways that God is longing to bring about God’s deliverance, healing, liberation, restoration, and compassion in our lives, in our community, and through our lives as we carry on Jesus’ work of declaring that the time has come.

This morning we will be focusing on the story in Mark 1:40-45.

READ

What stands out to you, encourages you, challenges you, or brings question?

Three weeks ago, we saw Jesus bring deliverance in the synagogue by liberating a man who was possessed with an evil Spirit. Two weeks ago, we saw Jesus bring healing to Peter’s mother-in-law, liberating her from the disease that had held her imprisoned in a sick state. After Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, the scriptures say the good news spread and the whole town came to their house. This week we see the story of Jesus bringing restoration to a man who has lived with a skin disease, and Jesus liberated him from the loneliness he would have experienced from his isolating skin condition.  

However, before we unpack this story of a man with leprosy, it is important that we look at what happens between Jesus healing the town at Peter’s house and this story. Mark tells us that the morning of the next day (after healing the town), before sunrise, Jesus went out alone to pray.[5] So, in-between this story and the mother-in-law story, Jesus has pulled out of the busyness to realign his heart and sense of call. Jesus prioritizes it at the start of his day, and Jesus models the importance of spending time with the father, even when life is busy and there is stuff that needs done.  The disciples begin to look for Jesus while he is in his time of prayer and reflection, and when they find him, Peter tells him “Everyone is looking for you.”[6] Mark tells us that Jesus’ response is not really an answer to what Peter tells him, rather Jesus says, “Let’s go somewhere else, to the small towns that are nearby. I have to spread the Good News in them also. This is why I have come.”[7] Take note about three things from this small interaction. (1) If we don’t pull back to reflect and pray, we may stay in busy with the things that long to keep us busy, but these good things may not be God things. Jesus may have stayed busy with the town, but instead he prioritized rest, reflection, and prayer. (2) If we aren’t praying and reflecting, we may live more into the expectations of others than the expectations of God. Peter comes to Jesus occupied with the concerns of others. Jesus doesn’t live into those expectations that Peter or the crowds have for him. Because he has spent time with God the Father, Jesus knows that he is to do something that doesn’t make sense, he is to move on to the next town. (3) Our confidence is developed in our moments in prayer and reflection, and our confidence may appear illogical to those around us. As I read this story, I am sure that the common sense for Peter was, complete the work you started in Capernaum. The crowds wanted Jesus to keep on with the teaching and ministry he was doing in their midst. However, Jesus hears God the Father calling him elsewhere. I have felt called in times that it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps you are too. You know the judgement others might look at you with. Being in step with the Spirit will at times look illogical to those around us. That is okay, our confidence must come from God, not the viewpoints of others.

Pull back and pray. Even with life is busy. Pray and reflect, so that you live into God things and not just good things. Make sure your confidence is in God’s desires for your life because God may call you to illogical actions in the eyes of others.

Back to our story of this man with Leprosy. For most of the Greco-Roman world, Leprosy was a feared disease.[8]In fact, in the Palestinian region, this unsightly disease of the skin led to the suffering individual or individuals, being quarantined from the rest of society. Many of us got a taste of quarantine and isolation in the coronavirus pandemic. However, even that isolation doesn’t fair well with what was experienced by Leprosy sufferers, who suffered away from their family, society, friends, and any sense of a normal life. Scholars remark, “Leprosy cut its victims off from members of their own family. It also cut them off from the community of faith. Unclean people could not enter the temple or synagogue to worship or offer sacrifices.”[9] That means that quarantine also made them feel cut off from God. Who are those feeling cut off from God today? Though the First Testament did prescribe quarantine in Leviticus 13, the Bible did not give reason for why some people suffering from Leprosy.[10] As humans often do, they tried to give a reason why people suffered from this skin disease, and sadly many Jewish teachers blamed the disease on the sin or wrong things that were done by the person suffering from Leprosy.[11] In fact, they often gave the sin or trespass of slander as a reason someone who suffer from Leprosy.[12]  

According to the CDC, you cannot get leprosy rom casual contact with a person. This means if you shake their hands or hug them, you are not likely to get leprosy.[13] However, if you have “prolonged, close contact with someone with untreated leprosy over many months” you may very well also get the disease.[14] Despite that it was forbidden to touch a leper.[15] To be fair, The Greek term is lepra, is used for a variety of skin conditions wider than true leprosy.[16]That means we aren’t 100% sure what this man had. Despite that, healthy people found skin diseases – under the category of leprosy - disgusting and impossible to look at, and because of the narrative they believed about its cause and contagiousness, they steered clear of anyone suffering from leprosy. They believed to encounter a leper would have meant you would catch some of their uncleanness.[17] Sadly, without someone to help care for your leprosy, without medicine and treatment, undiagnosed leprosy can begin to cripple the hands, feet, and nerves. If it is let go past that point, it then begins to lead to deformities, especially in the face.[18]

If a leper entered in your general area, they were to announce themselves and their disease, or that they were unclean. If someone approached them on the road, they were required to call out, Unclean! Unclean! at the top of their voices so that no one would have contact with them accidentally (Lev 13:45).[19]. In this story, the leper approaches Jesus with great humility, throwing himself down in a posture of begging and worship. The leper employs the way to approach God for prayer, and he does so with boldness and with a confident faith of who Jesus is and what Jesus is able to do.[20]In our moments of prayer, we must be like the leper in this story, approaching God humbly, in prayer, boldly, and with the confidence of faith. From the start, the leper admits that Jesus had the right to refuse his ask but has the confidence that healing him was very much in the capacity of what Jesus was able to do. The leper has a hope, but he is willing to be okay with whatever God has for him. I am not sure I always model that level of faith, do you?

Mark’s storytelling tells us that Jesus felt compassion for this individual. Compassion is a sense of our innersfeeling the pain and hurt of someone else. Compassion is our heart going out and feeling the sharpness of what they are going through. It is part sorrow, but it is also an act of empathy. That sense of compassion, sorrow and empathy caused Jesus to do something scandalous – he reached out and he touched the leper. The word for touch means to hold on, grasp, or attach to.[21] In this way, we get an image of Jesus reaching out in love, holding on to someone in love, touching someone who had been void of touch most likely for a long time. To the leper’s ask, Jesus replies that he is willing to heal him, and then just declares the man clean. That is the image I believe Mark wants us to get of Jesus. It is a loving image we get when reading stories of Jesus, but we fail to remember when we view unlovable aspects of ourselves or when we encounter others that may seem unlovable or hard to look at.

In this story, Mark once again gives us a beautiful look at Jesus and how Jesus illustrates God’s humanity, heart, and character.[22] In this interaction with Jesus, we see that Jesus longs to bring God’s deliverance, healing, liberation, restoration, and compassion to an individual, and that individual also gets a foretaste of heaven, of God’s future restoration. The leper experiences restoration to the abundance and health of life, and is liberated to a new transformed life, no longer held back by the loneliness and isolation, the pain and deformity. Immediately all of it just went away and was no more. His healing is a glimpse of what is yet to come.

As Kevin shared with us last week, Jesus is what God looks like. The humanity, heart, and character of God is illuminated in and through Jesus in this story. That mean’s God is full of compassion for God’s creation, a longing to tangibly hold us, and to heal us. To embrace us, despite our ugliness or problems and pour out healing on us. 

We also see the fullness of God’s restoration. There is no question about the effectiveness of this healing. It is immediate. Yet, Jesus tells the Leper to not tell anyone about this. Instead, he is to follow the law and show himself to the priest. The priest was the one who can declare or affirmed that he has been healed. In Levitical Law, found in Leviticus 14, after someone has been declared clean that individual was to perform certain sacrifices to celebrate their healing.[23]Additionally, by referring the man to the Old Testament, Jesus not only gives authority to the scriptures, but he also does nothing that will violate the law, or offend the religious leaders.[24]

There is no doubt that this sort of healing would create a big following for Jesus. In an era before medicine, in a time of great poverty, there were many sicknesses and people suffering.[25] In this time, people were willing to pursue attempts at healing through confession, magical incantations, through diet changes, through folk cures, and through hot springs in Galilee.[26] People are once again trying many solutions to what ails them. Jesus doesn’t utilize any of those routes to heal this man. Instead, he just shows compassion. Biblical Commentor William Barclay remarks, “Here we see compassion, power and wisdom all at work together.”[27] Today, we have Quakers and Anabaptists that act out of compassion, we have Charismatic and Pentecostals that act out of the power of the Holy Spirit, and we have Presbyterians and Baptists that act out of the wisdom of the scriptures. Yet, I believe we still have not seen compassion, power, and wisdom at work together – in the way that it was in Jesus’ life. We need his compassion, we need his power of the Holy Spirit, and we need to the scriptural wisdom. Even more we need all those things working in synergy together.

Take note, even though Jesus told him to tell no one, Mark doesn’t tell us if he even went to the priest, what we do know is that Mark writes, “Instead, he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.”[28]This man had experienced God’s restoration, and he was freed up to now be a witness and proclaimer of God’s liberation to others. This man’s testimony, his story was so strong, Mark writes that it caused the people came to Jesus in such large crowds that he could no longer enter a town to stay, instead Jesus had to camp out in the wilderness and places outside the city. That is an incredible witness to the power of Jesus. Does our testimony match the reach and passion of this person?

            For me, the point I want us to take away from this passage, is the image of Jesus. We have two main characters in this story. We have the man who is untouchable, well aware of his state, and though he wants to be healed and clean, he is humble enough to trust Jesus to do it, only if he is willing to do it.[29] In contrast, we have a compassionate Jesus, who does not shrink back from a man with a bad and ugly disease, but rather lays his hands on him.[30] There is an instantaneous and holistic healing and cleansing.[31] In a world of antibiotics, sterile hospitals, and modern remedies we lose sign of how radical this story is. In a world where we can roll up our windows and lock the doors as we drive through undesirable parts of the city, we lose sight of how radical this embrace was.  In a world where we can block or unfollow someone on social media that gets on our nerves, we forget how to engage the presence of the undesirable like Jesus did. Perhaps we could equate this example of Jesus to us embracing someone in the throes of AIDS, or MRSA, COVID or the Plague; or to embracing someone who is halfway between a sexual identity crisis. 

            Illogically Jesus walks out of a town that was hungry for him and encounters a man that he should have logically ignored. Jesus runs counter to all-natural human thought.[32]

            There are many thoughts to why Jesus told him not to tell anyone. Perhaps Jesus didn’t want people to follow him in hopes of just material benefits.[33] Perhaps Jesus was concerned about people following him with wrong motives.[34]Maybe he wanted to move in humility, and to subversively bring about the Kingdom of God without fanfare. Perhaps Jesus didn’t want to be tempted with large crowds and stages, like many leaders are today.

I have a working theory, that when Jesus’ rode into the Palm Fanfare of Jerusalem, that was his planned time to fully announce himself as King. Up to that point, we see Jesus telling people not to tell what he has done, we see demons declaring that it was not yet the appointed time. It was then we see Jesus as king fully rejected by the crowds that also welcomed him. Yet here in this story, it is not yet time, and Jesus knows he still has work to do in-between now and then, and he doesn’t want unneeded obstacles to what God was doing. Though, we do see in this story, that even when in the best of motives, the lack of obedience to what Jesus is asking of us, may lead to a hindering of his work in our life.[35]Perhaps this is why Jesus warned him to not tell. Jesus didn’t want obstacles yet. Take note that even this man’s good intentions to talk about Jesus, seemingly also caused obstacles in the way of Jesus’ ministry.[36] In our times of prayer and reflection, it is important for us to consider what we might be doing, even those things we are doing with good intention, because this story shows that there is a possibility that good-intentioned-thing might still be getting in the way and hindering what Jesus longs to do in us, with us, and through us.

In this story, Jesus never announces he is Messiah. He never seems to point out who he is. At the same time, no voice from heaven comes down and declares him Son of God. Rather, in this story we learn how to approach God with our problems, and we also learn how God views us. Mark gives us the image that we should have Jesus. Mark gives us a beautiful look at Jesus and how Jesus illustrates God’s humanity, heart, and character.[37] It’s an image we should take away from this passage. There are times that I need to fix my picture of Jesus. Do you ever see Jesus wrongly? Is this compassionate image of Jesus what has informed your image of God when you know you have done wrong? Or when you see someone who does wrong? Is this the image of God that you see when someone gets on your nerves? This is the image of God Mark wants us to get.

1.     Jesus knows where he needs to be, because he has prioritized his time of prayer and reflection. We must do more than throw prayers at the ceiling, we must listen. Jesus declares that his followers will hear his voice as sheep hear a shepherd.[38]

2.     Jesus does not walk out on those breaking the norms or laws. This leper had no right to speak to him, approach him, but Jesus attracts the broken. Note, people don’t have to act right to find Jesus. If that was true, none of us would have hope.

3.     Jesus does not walk out on the broken. In this story Jesus models compassion to those in desperation on a spiritual search and search for healing. He says, “I am wiling.” Jesus extends that same invitation to us, to those of us that are weary, he invites us in.[39] Note, people don’t have to clean up to find Jesus. If that was true, none of us would have hope

4.     Jesus responds to humility. It is a life of humility that you can speak into. Far too often we come in a “we know,” self-righteous attitude of truth, rather then humility.

5.     Jesus embraces the unembraceable. To Jesus, this man wasn’t weird, someone to judge, someone to see as different. He was not unclean. His identity was that he was a creation of God.

6.     Jesus shows a life lived well of compassion, power, and wisdom all at work together. Jesus loves through compassion, heals through power, and directs authority to the scriptures for as a way of wisdom for this individual. Which one or ones of these three characteristics of Jesus ministry is missing from your life, what would it mean to step out in faith in one of those areas?

7.     Jesus lives a life that declares the Time Has Come, Repent and Believe. His message has a tangible sense of God and what difference God makes.

In this story, Jesus is proving that he alone has the authority to expel evil spirits from people and to heal people from diseases, both in public and in private.[40] Throughout Mark so far, we have seen that he alone has the authority over the seen and unseen world. For the gospel authors, this proves Jesus was Messiah and that narrative follows him through the whole gospel of Mark.

Through the very visible and audible departure of the evil spirit from the afflicted man in the synagogue, to the instant healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, to the healing of many in the crowds, to the now compassionate restoration of this man with a serious skin disease that approached – all these stories demonstrate the reality of the “present coming of the kingdom of God.”[41] We once again see that Jesus is declaring through acts of deliverance, healing, liberation, restoration, and compassion - how God’s rule and reign has made a difference in the present, today, in the here and now. And yet, that is not just the work of Jesus. 

Paul tells us what this means for us, in 2 Corinthians 5. Paul writes to followers of Jesus as he says, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view…All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. (1/2) And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2/2)”[42] This means we no longer get to look at anyone from the norms, comforts, rules, or regards of this world. We see them as Jesus sees them - compassionately. This is a tall order. Paul tells them, basically they are to do what Jesus did. Even more, we are to live so Jesus can make his appeal through us. We are to be an ambassador of Jesus’ ministry to bring reconciliation or restoration into the moment. What is Jesus’ appeal? What Mark tells us it is, to declare the time has come and repent and believe the good news. We make the appeal, the repenting and believing is on them, not us. We move in compassion and compassion does not rebuke and judgement. Jesus is more compassionate than we like to realize.

This idea that Jesus is more compassionate than we realize is found throughout all of scripture. In John 3:17, Jesus says about himself, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."[43] Later, in John 8:15, Jesus says "You judge by human standards, I pass judgement on no one."[44] Jesus sends the 12, the 72, and all followers of Jesus out to walk in his authority, his authority that is over all of heaven and earth, seen and unseen, and he commands us to “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”[45] Jesus is modeling what ministry should look like for us too – compassion, power, and wisdom.

Picture story

[1] See: https://dallaslibrary2.org/blogs/bookedSolid/2018/05/there-is-nothing-wrong-with-your-television-set/
[2] William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark, The New Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2001), 8.
[3] See: https://www.gotquestions.org/Gospel-of-Mark.html
[4] Mark 1:13-15 (New International Version).
[5] Mark 1:35 (New International Version).
[6] Mark 1:36 (God’s Word Translation).
[7] Mark 1:38 (God’s Word Translation).
[8] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[9] Ronald J. Kernaghan, Mark, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 52.
[10] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[11] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[12] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[13] See: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/
[14] See: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/
[15] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[16] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2017), 62.
[17] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[18] See: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/
[19] Ronald J. Kernaghan, Mark, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 52.
[20] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[21] See: https://godrules.net/library/strongs2b/gre680.htm
[22] See: https://www.gotquestions.org/Gospel-of-Mark.html
[23] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[24] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[25] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[26] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 1:40–45.
[27] William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark, The New Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2001), 51–52.
[28] Mark 1:40-45 (New International Version).
[29] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[30] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[31] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[32] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[33] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[34] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[35] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[36] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 118–120.
[37] See: https://www.gotquestions.org/Gospel-of-Mark.html
[38] John 10:27-28
[39] Matthew 11:28-30.
[40] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2017), 63–64.
[41] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2017), 63–64.
[42] 2 Corinthians 5:8-20
[43] John 3:17 (New International Version).
[44] John 8:15 (New International Version).
[45] Matthew 10:8 (New International Version).