According to Mark’s gospel, what was main issue dividing Jesus from the leaders of Israel?
In this week of our English class, we covered one of the 4 gospels in The New Testament. These 4 gospels were written based on the same message, but were written and explained differently between the 4 authors which were: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The one we covered for this week was the gospel of Mark. We covered it because the gospel of Mark was the first to be written and also the shortest in terms of explanation.
So, back to the topic according to Mark’s gospel, what was the main issue dividing Jesus from the leaders of Israel? The leaders at the time weren’t just jealous of Jesus, they were envious and very much feared him. The reason is because of the authority he carried with him and the things he did with that authority. They didn’t like how the tables have been turning ever since Jesus came into business. It started with the people turning away from the Pharisees and coming to Jesus instead. All the miracles that Jesus has presented in front of their eyes (and pharisees were there as well). They were the eyewitnesses themselves, but they still chose to backfire against him, saying that his power comes from evil. In my thinking how can you possibly do good deeds using evil as power? That doesn’t make sense 😅.
Jesus had the authority to heal the sick, diseased, and demon possessed people. He was able to do all of those things because he has the authority, because the authority was given to him to do them. The pharisees were really envious at this point and so they wanted him to be removed from society, as they saw him as a huge threat to the nation.
Now that I’ve explained what the issues were and how they started. Let me put out the main ones out here:
-Authority that, according to them, Jesus shouldn’t have
-Accusations of using evil power to good use, said against Jesus
-Law breaking on The Sabbath
-Most important of all!!! The pharisees loathed at the fact that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God.
All of these points and even more, but in my opinion they were they main ones. These strong facts and accusations were enough to make the pharisees get a call to action. They wanted to get rid of him as fast as possible before he turns many others away from the right ways of teaching (well according to them). Instead of being humble and accepting what they obviously can’t control or can’t have, they chose to act according to their flesh. They could care less that this new prophet gave people hope, they just wanted to do it their way. These thoughts gave them a reason to talk poorly of Jesus. Mark made it clear enough as to how each group handled their situations. How Jesus handles with his accusations and trickery said about him, as to the pharisees who handled their accusations to Jesus and the way Jesus silenced them afterwards.
Thanks for reading this essay! I hope y’all enjoyed reading it or got to learn something new from it. I’ll be posting more soon and have a great rest of your day!
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