Mark

Covers Matthew 4 · Mark 1 · Luke 4 · Genesis 3 · Genesis 8 · Ecclesiastes 7 · Genesis 2 · Galatians 6 · Psalm 104 · John 1 · Philippians 2 · Hebrews 2 · Hebrews 5

Following his baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan for forty days. This account, with varying degrees of…

Covers Mark 1

Why three odd-seeming features of Mark 1 were necessary to launch Jesus' ministry — His baptism as a prophetic anointing like Israel's kings, the wilderness temptation as proof of His fitness, and His secrecy as protecting the hidden mystery that the Messiah and Suffering Servant are one.

Covers Mark 1

Pushing back on the common reading of the disciples' call in Mark 1 as blind faith — John's gospel shows they already knew Jesus, so their response rested on evidence and experience, and treating it as a model of instant, all-in obedience adds false barriers to the gospel.

Covers Mark 2

Reframing the Pharisees' obsession with the law — not as a works-based scheme for personal salvation, but as a corporate effort to keep Israel faithful and avoid a second exile, set against the Sabbath grain dispute.

Covers Leviticus 22 · Mark 3

The privilege and weight of bearing God's name — the daily cost of cleanliness rules for priests in Leviticus 22, Jesus' anger at Pharisees who misrepresent God in Mark 3, and how Christians, given even greater access, carry that responsibility today.

Covers Mark 4

The parable of the sower is about more than a non-believer's response to the gospel — since Jesus says the seed is the word, it describes how every Christian receives it, drifting between hardened path, rocky soil, thorns, and fruitful ground.

Covers Leviticus 24 · Mark 5

Whether the blasphemer's identity as a half-Egyptian Danite foreshadows Dan's long slide into idolatry and its absence from Revelation 7 — and how the bleeding woman of Mark 5, perpetually unclean and isolated, meets in Jesus the one who cannot be defiled but makes others clean.

Covers Mark 5

Why the people of the Gerasenes begged Jesus to leave after he freed the demon-possessed man — fear of what his power might demand — and how the same fear keeps people from letting Jesus too deep into their lives today.

Covers Leviticus 26 · Mark 7

How the curses of Leviticus 26 drove the Pharisees to fence the law with extra rules, yet in guarding against exile they neglected the justice, mercy, and faithfulness of Leviticus 25 — a warning to churches that both affirm sin and condemn people in the name of love or fidelity.

Covers Mark 8

Finding encouragement in how ordinary and faithless the disciples often were — forgetting the feeding of the 5000 even as they fretted over bread — proof that God uses messy, fickle people who keep placing their hearts in his hands.

Covers Mark 9

The desperate father's cry, I believe; help my unbelief, as a window into the gap between intellectual faith and the trust required to actually obey — and how God strengthens faith by helping us take the step anyway.

Covers Amos 8 · Mark 10

Reading Amos 8 and Mark 10 together to show God's heart — Israel keeping the Sabbath while itching to exploit the poor, set against the rich young ruler whom Jesus, looking at him, loved — and how God cares far more about the heart than about religious observance.

Covers Mark 10

Two scenes from Mark 10 — Jesus engaging the rich young ruler's heart with love rather than the technicalities He used to confront the self-justifying Pharisees, and blind Bartimaeus crying out all the louder when told to be silent, a rebuke to being shamed into silence about the faith.

Covers Mark 11

Using the Jewish leaders confronting Jesus over his authority, a reflection on whether Christians can be wrong about secondary theology — and the humility needed to let God surprise us beyond our expectations.

Covers Mark 12

The parable of the vineyard tenants is deliberately absurd — because killing the heir to claim the inheritance mirrors the folly of the Jewish leaders rejecting Jesus, acting as though their expectations, not God, decide who the Messiah is.

Covers Micah 1-2 · Mark 14

Micah 1-2 shows God judging Israel not for ritual lapses but for the powerful exploiting the poor — and Mark 14 captures the leaders condemning Jesus before any testimony, rejecting him for the implications of his claims rather than the evidence.

Covers Numbers 6 · Mark 14

The Nazirite vow in Numbers 6 lists wine and grape juice as distinct Hebrew words, undercutting the claim that biblical wine was unfermented — paired with Mark 14, where Peter only failed because, unlike the others, he was bold enough to be there.

Covers Numbers 7 · Mark 15

The deliberately slow dedication of the tabernacle in Numbers 7 inaugurates the sacrificial system that Mark 15 fulfills — the torn temple curtain marking not sacred space defiled but God's Spirit now free to make every believing heart sacred space.

Covers Mark 16

Why the longer ending of Mark (16:9-20) is likely not original — favoring the view that the abrupt ending mirrors Chronicles, while weighing Mike Winger's idea that the gap was left for eyewitness testimony to fill.