MARK 3:1-19

MARK 3:1-19

MARK 3:1-5 - The Pharisees watched Him with jealous eyes to see if He would exercise His healing power on the Sabbath, secretly hoping He would do so in order that they might be able to accuse Him of violating the tradition of the elders. Such is the heart of man, even though outwardly pious and religious, when a stranger to the grace of God! Knowing their hypocrisy He looked round about upon them with anger. It was holy indignation because of their pretense to honor God and their indifference to the needs of men. The hardness of their hearts grieved the tender spirit of Jesus. 

MARK 3:6-12 - Manifesting utter lack of conscience toward God and yet, withal, so punctilious concerning the observance of their traditions and their false conceptions of the will of God in regard to the observance of the weekly Sabbath, the Pharisees, stern champions of orthodoxy that they were, entered into collaboration with the Herodians, the worldly and corrupt politicians of their day, as to how they might lay hold of Jesus and put Him out of the way. Thus did extremes, meet then, as often since, in men of entirely opposite views, agreeing together in the rejection of Christ and consulting mutually as to how He might be destroyed. Such is the inevitable evil and opposition to God of the natural heart!

Many sick ones were in that throng, and after finishing His discourse Jesus healed all who came. So great was their faith in His healing power that they stretched forth eager hands, believing that to touch even His garments would bring the deliverance for which they longed. None were disappointed. Even those possessed with demons were freed from their bondage, the evil spirits proclaiming the truth of His Deity, “Thou art the Son of God.”

   MARK 3:13-19 - “He ordained twelve, that He might send them forth to preach” (ver. 14). It is not men who choose or appoint themselves to be servants of Christ. He chooses and ordains His own (John 15:16). Every one of the twelve apostles were what we might call “hand-picked men” (even Judas), being the special objects of divine interest.

“Power to heal … and to cast out devils” (demons). Helpless in themselves, the twelve were empowered by the Lord to do mighty works in order to accredit the message they were to carry to Israel. 

  The name of Simon, whom He surnamed Peter, stands alone in verse 16. He was in some respects the prince of the apostles. His warm, energetic nature and fervency of spirit fitted him in a special way for leadership after he was endued with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. His ministry, as we know, was to the Jews particularly; although it was he who also opened the door of faith to the Gentiles by proclaiming the gospel in the house of Cornelius. Jesus surnamed him “a Stone.” 

  Next in order are “James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and He surnamed them Boanerges.” When Jesus gave a new name to anyone, it indicated some characteristic He saw in him or which He was to produce in him in days to come. “Boanerges” is interpreted for us as “sons of thunder.” These young men were evidently of an electric disposition, easily stirred to quick judgments, and likely to be committed readily to decisive action. James was the first of the twelve to seal his testimony with his blood. John, evidently the youngest of the entire group, outlived them all, and after almost incredible suffering, died a natural death at Ephesus in the last decade of the first century of the Christian era. 

  Andrew was the brother of Peter, and it was he who led the latter to Christ, as we are told in John 1:40–42. The names of Philip and Bartholomew (also called Nathanael) are linked together. They were friends before they met Jesus, and it was Philip who introduced the other to the Saviour. Matthew, also known as Levi, had been a tax-collector in the Roman custom-house at Capernaum, but left all to follow Jesus. Of Thomas’ earlier life we know nothing. He is chiefly remembered for his outspoken declaration of his doubt as to identity of the One whom the rest declared to be the risen Christ, but whom he confessed and worshipped as his Lord and God when Jesus appeared a week later. James and Thaddaeus (or Judas, not Iscariot) were brothers, sons of Alphaeus, and apparently cousins of Jesus after the flesh. Simon the Canaanite, elsewhere distinguished as the Zealot, had belonged to a radically subversive party of Jewish patriots working secretly, and at times overtly, for the deliverance of Palestine from the Roman yoke. 

   The last of the list is Judas Iscariot (the man of Kerioth) who was to be doomed to eternal infamy. He seems to have been the “gentleman” of the twelve, a man of culture, appointed to be the Treasurer of the little company; therefore, one who was trusted by the rest as deserving special recognition, but who proved to be unreal and hypocritical from the very beginning. Of him Jesus said later, “One of you is a devil.”