Demonstrations of Authority - Mark Chapter 2

This post is part of an 20-day series of the book of Mark. Mark’s gospel often refers to Jesus as Master & Servant and reveals Jesus’s actions and how he meets our spiritual and physical needs. Jesus is revealed as shining the light on the heart of God, demonstrating many promises of the Old Testament in his actions.

Each of Jesus’s actions and teachings embody the character of God, as already revealed in the Old Testament. As Hebrews 1:3 says, ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’ Each session opens with a biblical promise, reading the passage, and then some observation and interpretation questions follow. The sessions end with personal application questions. After looking at four chapters, there is than a look at passages from the Old Testament which address similar topics and the accompanying questions consider how Jesus reveals the Father. Please feel free to share an application response or comment on the study itself in the section below.

Day 2 – Chapter 2

Promise: For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. -Psalm 103:11-12

Do you remember how dirty or unworthy you felt when you saw your sin before God? Perhaps you still consider yourself unworthy. But here we have the promise that whatever we have done, whatever happened in the past, has been separated from us. It has been removed from our account and we are now clean. We are pure and can now approach God because he loves us. He loves those who fear him. That word ‘fear’ isn’t a synonym for ‘afraid’ or ‘scared’, but denotes instead the sense that we remain in awe of him. This fearing is the sense of understanding how holy he is, how powerful he is, how truly awesome he is for extending his grace to us and forgiving us. This fear is not another thing on the list of what we must bring to our relationship with God, but rather it is how we approach him: with reverence, humility, awe, trembling in the knowledge of how great he is. It is knowing that nothing I do will ever merit his attention, but he chose to not only create me, pay attention to me, but also to love me. What characteristics of God cause you to fear him?

Read Chapter 2.

The teachers of the law were often grumbling about Jesus’s actions and teachings. Who would represent this group today?

Consider the groups of people who were with Jesus in the following parts of the chapter and what their responses were to him at each step.

Teaching (v 2)

Forgiving the paralyzed man (v 6-7)

Healing the paralyzed man (v 12)

Eating with sinners (V 16)

Fasting (v 18)

Picking grain on the Sabbath (v 25)

Which is easier to say: you are forgiven, or you are healed (v 9)?

How does the sign of healing demonstrate the authority of Jesus to forgive sins (v 10)?

Verses 15-17 paint the picture of Jesus having dinner, sharing a meal with ‘sinners’. What does sharing a meal or a cup of coffee with others mean to you? What does this indicate of Jesus?

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees are often unfavorable toward Jesus, yet they were those who studied the law daily. In verse 25, how do you think Jesus’s answer was received by them?

How does this teaching of the Sabbath help define your definition of the day of rest?

Application: Should Christians ‘eat with sinners’ as Jesus did? Do you? Explain your answer.