The Gospel According to Mark: Jesus the Suffering ServantSample

Jesus was an amazing teacher. How many other teachers do you know who attract crowds whenever they speak? And it wasn’t because he had breathtaking media effects or dramatic entrance music or stunning visual aids.

It was simply because he taught with authority, power, clarity, and purpose.

In this chapter, Mark gives us four of Jesus’ parables (a certain kind of story or teaching illustration — see more about that in Extra Info below). All four feature unspectacular images and undramatic storylines. What could be more simple and straightforward than farmers, fields, weeds, mustard seeds, lamps, baskets, and beds? There’s not a single Big Thing in these stories — no breathtaking acts of prowess, no dragons, no cosmic superheroes, no super-human powers. Just small and simple things.

But they illustrate and explain supernatural and miraculous things, which is interesting because after telling these four small and simple stories, Jesus went and did something utterly miraculous and superhuman and cosmic: he told the wind and waves what to do, and they obeyed.

Jesus is Lord of both the small and simple and of the cosmic and colossal.

Focused Reflection

verses 3-20 (Jesus tells a parable)

• Talk about all the actions, descriptions, explanations, meanings, and significance of each different group of seeds. How are these true today?

1. on footpath
2. on shallow rocky soil
3. among thorns
4. on good soil

• What can you do to be like the healthy seeds?

General Reflection

• What do you learn about Jesus from this passage?
• What do you learn about following Jesus from this passage?

Extra Info

• A parable​ is a specific kind of teaching story that reveals truth to those who are ready and willing to listen. Parables illustrate a truth that is simple to understand but difficult to accept because it disrupts human ideas of how things should be.
• God's people were waiting for him to establish a new kingdom​ on earth. They expected it would look and function like an earthly kingdom. Jesus set the record straight.