Peter’s eye-witness testimony

‘As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me’, Jesus said …’ Mark 1:17 (NIV)

The Gospel of Mark reads as Peter’s eyewitness account of Jesus’ ministry.

1 Peter 5:13 states that Mark is Peter’s ‘son’, implying that Mark was Peter’s long-term ministry assistant. It makes good sense to understand that around the time that Peter was executed (in the mid-AD60s), Mark wrote down the stories he had heard Peter recount many times when he visited churches.

Mark’s gospel is short. It is focused. It reads with a compelling narrative. Its ending is sudden and unexpected. It has been said that Mark was incapable of writing a boring sentence. (Almost every verse in Mark is included in Matthew’s Gospel, and most of Mark is used by Luke.)

It is quite possibly the first piece of literature about working-class people ever written.

The stories Mark records are deeply moving. Suppose you close the door of your room and read aloud the stories of Mark 5 dramatically, with pauses, you will encounter the overwhelming compassion and mercy of God in Jesus as you walk through and relive these astonishing stories that describe Jesus Christ, the Son of God, touching and healing and restoring broken and damaged men (Legion) and women (the woman in the crowd, and the dead young girl).

This series will give us the chance to encounter Jesus in the way that the apostle Peter encountered Jesus.