Jesus Displays Grace in Gentile Country

JESUS DISPLAYS GRACE IN GENTILE COUNTRY

An Exposition of Mark 7:24-37

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: November 29, 2020

Series: Mark: Knowing and Following God’s Son

Note: Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

I love the Advent season during which we celebrate the fact that God's Son came. He came! If the Son of God had wanted to avoid contamination by an unclean world, He wouldn't have come at all. As we get into the end of Chapter 7 – Mark 7:24-37 – we have to understand that this passage builds off of what we've been learning the last couple weeks.

I concluded last Sunday’s sermon with the lesson that there were no external purity barriers in Jesus’ ministry. That's why he would touch a leper and heal him. That's why he would dine with tax collectors and sinners. That's why he would interact with all kinds of people who the uptight hyper-religious scribes and Pharisees thought were unclean. They wanted to stay away from certain people. But Jesus interacted with people freely. And Jesus had made the point in Mark 7:14-23 that there's nothing outside of us that, by going into us, defiles us. There's no unclean food, and therefore no human being is unclean on account of the food he eats. And by the application of the same logic, there is no unclean place and there is no unclean ethnicity, which means that Jesus felt very free to go anywhere and interact with anyone. That's exactly what we see happening in the rest of Chapter 7.

Before I read the passage, I want to call your attention to the fact that here in Mark 7:24-37 Jesus is ministering in Gentile territory. If you look at verse 24, he's in “the region of Tyre and Sidon”. Tyre – modern-day Lebanon; Sidon – modern-day Syria. Tyre and Sidon were part of this sea-faring civilization called Phoenicia, and Tyre and Sidon were city-states within that civilization. The area was in the Roman District of Syria, and thus we can understand why Mark describes this woman that we're going to meet as a Syrophoenician woman, a woman of Syria-Phoenicia.

Then if you go down to verse 31, Jesus is in “the region of the Decapolis”. This is also Gentile territory. This is in a different location, but it's to the south and east of the Sea of Galilee. The Decapolis is ‘the ten [deca] cities [polis].

And so, in both of these instances, Jesus is bringing grace outside of Israel into unclean Gentile territory. Don't miss the connection with what we learned last week. Jesus will go anywhere and interact with anyone, and wherever he goes he makes his grace shine brightly in that place. This is a wonderful thing to reflect on, on this First Sunday of Advent.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Now let me read God’s Word as it is given to us in Mark 7:24-37. Holy Scripture says:

²⁴ And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. ²⁵ But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. ²⁶ Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷ And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸ But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” ²⁹ And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰ And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

³¹ Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³² And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³ And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. ³⁴ And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶ And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷ And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” (Mark 7:24-37)

This is the Word of God, and it is for our good. Let’s pray:

Father, as we come to your Word this morning, we pray that here we would encounter the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that the beauty and truth of this passage would be communicated to our hearts by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Help us to hear, help us to see. In Jesus’ name, amen.

OVERVIEW

This passage really shows us a very concrete example of the Lord Jesus Christ extending mercy in Gentile territory, and doing so in response to faith. I would summarize verses 24-30 this way: a Gentile woman prevails upon the Lord to have mercy on her daughter. And then I would summarize verses 31-37 this way: the Lord Jesus Christ shows mercy to a disabled man in Gentile territory.

Both passages are very similar, but the emphasis in verses 24-30 is on the woman's faith, whereas the emphasis in verses 31-37 is on the Lord’s mercy.

A GENTILE WOMAN’S FAITH (v. 24-30)

No Rest in Gentile Country

So let's begin in verses 24-30. Jesus goes up “to the region of Tyre” and he is trying to keep a low profile (v. 24). You would also try to keep a low profile, if everyone was clamoring for your attention wherever you went. Jesus finds it hard to get a little retreat, a little rest, a little break in the action. But even here Jesus cannot remain hidden. In fact, if you go back to Chapter 3, we learned that some people “from around Tyre and Sidon” (Mark 3:8) were actually part of that large crowd that was following after Jesus and seeking his help. So Jesus was known in these parts.

A Gentile Woman Hears and Comes

In verses 25-26 we meet a woman – a Gentile woman, “a Syrophoenician by birth”, a mother whose little daughter was afflicted by a demon. From the perspective of a proud Jewish man, this woman and her daughter had a number of strikes against them. First, they were Gentiles. Second, they were females. And in the case of the little daughter, she was indwelt by a demon. So, these are outsiders, marginalized, and unclean from the perspective of proud Jewish men.[1]

We would do well to sympathize with this woman. I mean, when a baby is born – even though we know that babies are conceived and born in sin, and we are not surprised when they begin to act out their sinful nature – nevertheless, a newborn baby represents a certain innocence in terms of experience and conscious choice. There is an innocence, and there are great prospects of hope for what this new life might mean and might become in the world. And of all the great tragedies that can afflict a child and thereby afflict a parent's heart, one of the tragedies near the top of the list would be for that child to get caught up in evil. Although we don't know the backstory of this little girl, she obviously got caught up in evil big time – to the point that she was actually indwelt, afflicted, and tormented by a demon. And the mother's heart just breaks.

But with that painful predicament in the background, we get this beautiful picture of faith unfolding in verses 25-28. Verse 25 indicates that this woman had heard about Jesus – she had heard what he could do, and what he had done in healing diseases and casting out demons. So she “heard of him” and then she “came and fell down at his feet”. This woman came to Jesus in a posture of humility, submission, faith, and desperation. Then in verse 26 “she begged him [Jesus] to cast the demon out of her daughter.”

A Surprising Word from the Lord

Now at this point there's a little surprise in the account. We're not expecting Jesus to say what he says. And when some people read verse 27, they are troubled by what Jesus says. Here's this desperate, non-Jewish, marginalized woman asking for help. We know that the Lord has a tender heart for such people. And yet, what does the Lord say? “And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”” (v. 27)

Let’s seek to understand verse 27 at face value. The idea is: Let the children – let God's children, that is, the Israelites, be fed first. Why? Because it is not right to take the children's bread – the bread that belongs rightly and properly to the Israelites by virtue of God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – it's not right to take the bread that belongs to them and throw it to the dogs, to the Gentiles, to someone such as yourself, a Syrophoenician Gentile woman.

When people hear this statement, they might be troubled by it. My dad told me that some years ago, he sat in a Sunday worship service – it was not the church that he regularly attended – and the preacher was preaching this passage. And the preacher said, “I guess Jesus had a bad day.”

Now I would say that that particular preacher was having a bad day! His suggestion that Jesus was having a bad day is not a good way to handle this passage. But do you know what? Taking a little time to think through this apparently difficult verse is really a good exercise for us. So let’s consider some bad ways of handling a verse like verse 27.

Some people might say, “I wonder if Scripture is right when it tells us what Jesus said in verse 27. Maybe Scripture got this one wrong.” Now that's a very bad solution – because if the Word of God is the perfect standard, then it must be utterly reliable. If there is one error, then there might be 10 or 20 or 400 errors. The standard is either the perfect standard, or it isn't. Scripture never gets it wrong.

Another bad solution would be to say, “Well, maybe Jesus got it wrong. Maybe he was having a bad day.” That’s also a very bad solution. Jesus is the Son of God, the Holy One, who always abided in fellowship with his Father and whose words and deeds were always the fruit of his perfect fellowship with and dependence upon his Father. He never erred.

So even if you don't understand what he meant or why he said this, stay humble! It is okay to read a passage and say, “I don't get this.” That's okay! Maintain an attitude of humility before the Lord. Say, “God is righteous. Jesus is righteous. He never gets it wrong. If I don't understand it, or if it troubles me, the problem is on my side, not his side.” Always keep an attitude of humility before the Lord.

And let me share one other little tidbit of wisdom here: Jesus is not looking for slick marketing agents who are trying to run interference for him. Jesus is not ashamed of anything that he said. And he tells us later in the Gospel of Mark that we should not be ashamed of any of his words (Mark 8:38). So let’s be clear: we're not his marketing agents! We’re not attempting to manage his public image! Instead, we're simply trying to understand and echo what he said and what he meant.

Jesus Tests the Woman’s Faith

Now there are a couple different ways of understanding what Jesus meant in verse 27 – and I’m going to share one of these ways with you. I think that what I'm about to tell you is on the right track, namely, that Jesus is testing the woman’s faith. Let’s ponder this for a few moments.

Sometimes we have a very unimaginative reading of words – and we just focus on the words themselves and we don't try to step back to appreciate and understand what the speaker is trying to do with his words. For example, suppose I were to take my children out to our driveway with a couple pieces of chalk, and I drew a line, and then I walked maybe three or four feet and drew another line. And suppose I told them, “I don't think you can jump from one line to the next.” What do I mean? Well, if you just focus on my words, you might conclude that I have the mental belief that my children can’t jump from the first line to the second line. But maybe I am actually trying to do something with my words. Maybe I actually believe they can do it, and yet you wouldn't accuse me of lying when I said, “I don't think you can jump from one line to the next.” Instead what I would be doing with these words is challenging them to see what is in their heart and their mind – to see if they will rise to the occasion and make the attempt to jump the great span. Always keep in mind what the speaker is doing with the words that he speaks, because I think will help us understand what is going on here.

Jesus sets before the woman the truth of the matter, namely that God's plan to redeem the world comes through Israel first. This is a well-attested truth, even in the New Testament – that the gospel goes forth to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (i.e., the Gentile or non-Jew). God chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and he made his covenant promises with them, and he promised that through them he would bring blessing and salvation and restoration to the whole world. Remember that promise in Genesis 12 – that all the families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham and through God's covenant with the nation Israel. So Jesus is saying, in the form of a parable – in the form of a metaphorical saying – he is saying that the children of Israel, the rightful heirs of God's promises, should be fed first. It wouldn't be right to take that which rightly belongs to Israel and give it to the Gentiles.

Now sometimes the Israelites did refer to the Gentiles as dogs. Sometimes it was derogatory, as in ‘those Gentile dogs’ or ‘those unclean wild dogs’. That is unlikely the sense here, because Jesus uses a form of the word which essentially means ‘little dogs’ or ‘puppy dogs’ or ‘puppies’.[2] The picture is of a house. And you have Dad and Mom and children and you have pets, including pet dogs. That's the picture: the parents, the children, and the puppies.[3] From the perspective of the parents, who should get fed first?

In setting forth this metaphor, Jesus is testing the woman's faith. Will she pass the test? Yes indeed! Look at verse 28: “But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.”” This is a remarkable statement. She doesn't complain or bemoan the fact that in the parable she has been likened to a puppy dog. She didn't live in our politically correct age (and I despise political correctness!) or at least she herself wasn’t concerned with political correctness – and so she didn't ‘know’ that she ‘should’ be offended by the statement. She was humble before the Lord. The Lord is the Lord. In fact, he is the King of Israel. He is the heir to David's throne. And there is a special blessing that he has for Israel and understood that way, she knew that she was an outsider. But this woman claims for herself the promise of God. Isn’t this beautiful? In fact, she doesn't say to Jesus that she would like him to take what belongs to the children and give it to her. She doesn't say that. Instead, she basically says: Look, go ahead and feed the children. I just want to be under the table and let the crumbs fall down and that will satisfy me. Do you see her faith? She believed that the food given to Israel was so abundant that some of it would fall down the table as crumbs onto the floor, and those crumbs would be enough to satisfy her and nourish her and strengthen her and heal her daughter.

Now if you look at the food in terms of physical food, then the crumbs will seem like a small thing. But when you understand that the true food being given is actually grace – infinite grace, massive mercy, unlimited power to do good – this changes our understanding of the crumbs. What are the crumbs of infinite mercy? What are the crumbs of massive grace? What are the crumbs of infinite power to do good? These crumbs themselves are a super-abundance of mercy and grace. Being full of faith, the woman claims for herself the promises of God and lays hold of his plentiful grace. The woman’s faith passed the test!

Therefore, in verse 29, Jesus said to the woman, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” Then verse 30 adds: “And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.” In response to faith, Jesus brought grace to a Gentile woman and to her daughter, in a Gentile land.

THE LORD’S MERCY TO A DISABLED MAN (v. 31-37)

Now let's go forward to the second section in verses 31-37. Jesus goes from Tyre, north to Sidon, and then comes back to the southeast, down the Sea of Galilee, and ends up in the Decapolis (v. 31).

Do you remember the last time Jesus was in the Decapolis region? That was in Chapter 5, where he met the demoniac. And do you remember what happened there in Chapter 5? They were begging Jesus to leave and get out of their region (Mark 5:1-20, especially v. 17). But Jesus told that demon-possessed man whom he had healed, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” (Mark 5:19) Thus the healed man “[proclaimed] in the Decapolis” (Mark 5:20) the wonderful things that Jesus had done for him. And perhaps –  just perhaps – that man's ministry had softened the hearts of the people and had made the Decapolis ready to receive their King. Because now ­– not necessarily the exact same group of people that were begging him to leave in Chapter 5 – but nevertheless, now some folks from the Decapolis bring to Jesus a disabled man a man who cannot hear and who has a speech impediment. They bring this disabled man to Jesus and they begged Jesus to touch him, to bless him, to minister to this man (Mark 7:32).

Whereas the passage about the Syrophoenician woman focused on the woman's faith, this healing of the deaf man focuses on Jesus’ activity – His power and grace. Notice what Jesus does in verse 33: He takes the man “aside from the crowd privately”. Now I'm reading between the lines a little bit, but just consider the fact that if you can't hear and you have a speech impediment, then you are accustomed to being apart from the action, apart from the conversation, apart from the dialogue. All these other people are always talking and conversing and making plans and sharing ideas and responding, but you can't hear and you can't speak very well. In other words, you’re used to being on the outside of the action.

But now this deaf and muted man is the focus of Jesus’ action. It is Jesus and the deaf man, one-on-one. And what does Jesus do? Remember the guy can't hear, so does Jesus say a lot of things to him? No. But the man can see and he can feel. And so, what does the Lord do? Jesus takes his own fingers and puts his fingers into the man's ears – a very physical action (v. 33). And then Jesus spits. We're not certain what Jesus did with the spit, but presumably he spit on his own hands and then reached in and touched the speech impaired man's tongue – again, a very physical action (v. 33).

Just think about this: the Lord of glory knit together in the womb every child who was ever been conceived, and now the Lord of glory – in physical form with physical hands and a physical mouth – is about to rework this man. He's about to restore and recreate and heal this broken man. It's a beautiful picture.

Then verse 34 begins: “And looking up to heaven”. Jesus never acted alone. He always acted in dependence upon the Father – and here's a very tangible picture of that. He's in front of this deaf man, he's touched him, he's ready to heal him,  and he's looking up – and God is no doubt smiling down.

Then Jesus sighs (v. 34). It's as if he's entering very physically and gutturally into the brokenness and yet also the healing potentiality of the situation – indeed the healing that he's about to enact. And then Jesus speaks one word: “Ephphatha”, which means “Be opened.” (v. 34) And the man is healed: “And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly” (v. 35). He spoke rightly. He spoke properly and clearly. All of a sudden, the sounds that were in the air, he could hear and understand, and he could articulate his own thoughts. Just pause on this for just a moment and appreciate the marvel of Jesus’ grace:

“O for a thousand tongues to sing

My great Redeemer’s praise,

The glories of my God and King,

The triumphs of his grace.”

“Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb,

Your loosened tongues employ;

Ye blind, behold your Savior come;

And leap, ye lame for joy.”[4]

And so it is that Jesus brought grace to a disabled man in Gentile territory.

Now once again Jesus wants a low profile. He doesn't want unhelpful publicity. He doesn't want people to think he's primarily a miracle worker who has come just to make life better right now. For Jesus has much larger purpose in mind, which will be revealed in due course. But for now “Jesus charged them to tell no one.” (v. 36) Don't talk about this. Don't tell anyone. But of course, you know how that goes – it rarely works out. Jesus seeks a low profile, but the opposite happens and people can't stop talking about Him: “But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.” (v. 36)

The passage concludes with a word of praise in verse 37: “And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well.”” Hitherto Jesus has cleansed a leper, healed the diseased, raised a dead girl, forgiven a paralytic. And now: “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

FIVE LESSONS FROM MARK 7:24-37

I want to share five lessons from this passage for us and for our walk with the Lord. Some of these lessons are shorter than others, but they are all worth reflecting on.

Lesson One: Thank God for His Great Mercy

Here's the first lesson: thank God that he extends mercy to the outsiders and to the marginalized. We always see that happening throughout the four gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Jesus ministers to everybody, but he has a special heart for those who are really suffering – for the outcasts. And as we go about our ministry in this broken world, and while we offer God's mercy to everyone, we should not be surprised when it is the outsiders and the marginalized who are responding. Because we know that it is regularly the case that God has chosen the weak, the lowly, the nobodies, and the despised in order to shame the corrupt value system of this world (see 1 Corinthians 1:27-29). And do not be surprised when the outsider to whom Jesus shows mercy is you.

Lesson Two: Ask Jesus to be Merciful to Your Loved Ones

Here’s the second lesson: demonstrate your faith in Jesus by beseeching him to be merciful to your family and friends. Do you see a pattern here? In Mark 2, friends bring their paralytic friend to Jesus (Mark 2:3). In Mark 5, Jairus implores Jesus to come and heal his daughter (Mark 5:22-23). And when we get to Mark 9, we're going to meet a father who brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus and to Jesus's disciples (Mark 9:17-18). And here in Mark 7, it is the mother who appeals to Jesus for her daughter (Mark 7:25-30); and it is a group of friends who bring their deaf friend to Jesus (Mark 7:32). Don't miss the pattern. Yes, we must come to Jesus trusting him for ourselves, but we should also come to Jesus trusting him, beseeching him, and asking him to show grace to our needy family members, our needy friends, and our needy neighbors. Bring your friends to Jesus. Ask Jesus to do good in their lives. And tell them about the Savior.

Lesson Three: Basic Christianity is Trusting Jesus

Here’s the third lesson: remember that basic Christianity is trusting Jesus. I want you to think about what's going on in Mark Chapters 6-7. There's a huge lesson for us. Don't miss it.

Jesus goes to Nazareth at the beginning of Chapter 6. This is his hometown, and they reject him (Mark 6:1-6). In Chapter 7, we meet the scribes and the Pharisees – these religious bigwigs, these smart guys. And what does Jesus tell us? Their hearts are far from God (Mark 7:6). Further, the disciples – who really were part of God's kingdom – nevertheless show themselves to be dull and slow to understand (e.g., Mark 6:51-52, Mark 7:17-18). By contrast, this Syrophoenician woman – who didn't have all the advantages of the disciples, or of the scribes and the Pharisees, or of the folks in Nazareth – she got the heart of the matter! She heard, she came, she fell down, and she trusted Jesus.

In fact, I read something very interesting from one of the commentators on this passage. James Edwards made the very interesting observation that this Syrophoenician woman is the first woman in the gospel of Mark who is said to have actually understood and correctly applied a parable of Jesus.[5] The outsiders don't get the parables (Mark 4:10-12). And the disciples, who should get the parables, don't get them – which is why they're so often asking Jesus to explain to them the meaning of the parables. But the Syrophoenician woman doesn't do that. She doesn't say, ‘Explain to me this parable about the children and the bread and the dogs.’ She gets it. And she answers Jesus in terms of the parable – in other words, Jesus had spoken to her about children and bread and dogs, and she answers in terms of children and crumbs and dogs.[6] She understands. And most importantly, she trusts Jesus.

So, I don't know where you're at this morning. Maybe you're young and still trying to figure it out. Maybe you're old and trying to un-figure out all the bad things that you've learned along the way. Maybe you think that if you would just read the Bible, and pray more and give more and show up more and do more things, then God would smile on you. But that's not the gospel. Do you want God the Father to smile on you? Then trust his Son, period.

Lesson Four: Ask Jesus to Open Your Spiritual Ears

Here’s the fourth lesson: ask Jesus to touch and open your ears – your spiritual ears, of course.

There's a fascinating parallel in these two accounts between the Syrophoenician woman and the deaf man. What did the woman do at the beginning of the passage? She heard! And at the end of her interaction with Jesus, what does Jesus say? “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter” (italics added). In other words, Jesus was impressed by what she said. She heard, she understood, she had faith in Jesus, and out of that faith she spoke and spoke well. But do you know what? That sort of thing wasn't working so well for the deaf, speech-impaired man. He couldn't hear and he couldn't speak well. So what does Jesus do? He heals the man: he opens his ears so that he can hear, and he heals his tongue so that he can speak well. And what Jesus did for that man physically, we all need Jesus to do for us and keep doing for us spiritually, that we may grow in the Lord (for example, see Ephesians 1:15-21).

Lesson Five: Rejoice that the Savior Has Come

Here’s the fifth lesson: rejoice that the Savior has come. There's something really important going on when Mark tells us, at the end of verse 37, that Jesus “makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” Because sooner or later you're going to discover that this refers back to a beautiful passage in Isaiah 35. There, as the prophet looks forward to a day when God will come and make all things new and when the Messiah will bring his salvation to our broken world, we read this: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35:5-6)

The lame man shall leap – that happens in Mark 2:1-12. The blind shall see – that happens in Mark 8:22-26 and Mark 10:46-52. The deaf shall hear and the mute shall sing – that happens in Mark 7:31-37.

The Isaiah 35 passage continues:

“For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.” (Isaiah 35:6-7)

Brothers and sisters, Jesus brings his abundant grace and salvation to our broken and desolate and sinful world. And here in Mark 7 we get a tangible picture that the days of promise, the days of promised salvation, are now coming to pass and coming into this world through the life and the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, who ultimately would lay down his life and rise again for our salvation. So rejoice that the Savior has come. Rejoice that his infinite provision is more than enough, crumbs and all, for anyone who has need and anyone who trusts him.

A FINAL WORD

When the Lord Jesus Christ was rejected at Nazareth, we are told that “he marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:6). But when this Syrophoenician woman entrusted herself to him, do you know what Jesus said over in Matthew 15, which describes the same account we read in Mark 7. Matthew tells us that Jesus said to the woman, “O woman, great is your faith!” (Matthew 15:28) Jesus marveled at her faith. May he also have reason to marvel at ours as we trust him.

Let me pray.

Father, I pray that a passage like this would not be quickly forgotten, but that it would help us to live in the riches of your grace, to live in the bounty of your salvation. I pray that you would take away any narrow vision in our hearts and minds of what the Lord might do, but that we would have a big vision of your grace sweeping and transforming the world one sinner at a time. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

I invite you to stand to receive the benediction. Building off of the other two verses I sang earlier, hear this:

“My gracious master and my God,

Assist me to proclaim,

To spread through all the earth abroad,

The honors of Thy name.”[7]

Go forth with loosened tongues. Amen.

ENDNOTES

[1] Of course, this perspective held by proud Jewish men is inconsistent with biblical principles, as Jesus’ ministry makes clear.    

[2] See James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002: p. 220. Also see James W. Voelz, Mark 1:1–8:26 (Concordia Commentary). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2013: p. 478-479.

[3] See James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002: p. 221.

[4] From the hymn “O for a Thousand Tongues” by Charles Wesley.

[5] See James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002: p. 221.

[6] See James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002: p. 221-222.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark (The New International Commentary on the New Testament). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974.

Eckhard J. Schnabel, Mark (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries Vol. 2). Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

James W. Voelz, Mark 1:1–8:26 (Concordia Commentary). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2013.

Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.