Significance Of Miracles In Gospel Of Mark

[Elvisa Schimke]

Atfirst I thought Jesus means his caution from v. 15 (which otherwise remains unexplained), but the word still seems to refer to something they should have understood a while ago. While searching online, I found an interpretation that he meant the fact that he can conjure food - but what is here to misunderstand? The disciples saw Jesus do that, so it's obvious he was capable of that. And what does the number of baskets with bread have to do with that?

At that point in the earthly ministry of Jesus, His disciples' understanding was deficient in several areas. In this case, they lacked understanding of the sufficiency of Christ and His establishment of the New Covenant which superseded the law of Moses. To understand this we must examine the meaning of Jesus's leaven warning and the meaning behind His feeding miracles.

12 Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. (Lk 12:1)

Jesus reserved His most harsh criticisms against the sin of hypocrisy (See Matt Ch 23). The Pharisees were very entrenched in the law of Moses. Although they outwardly appeared close to God, their hearts were far from Him.

Matt 23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others.

Jesus questioned his disciples understanding of His feeding miracle in vs 17-21 of Mk 8. Notices His questions in regards to their ability to see and hear. These questions target an essential point in regards to the ministry of Jesus: His miracles were not an end to themselves.

Throughout the gospels, Jesus gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Those miracles were done to show deeper spiritual meaning; that is, having a perception of understanding the Kingdom of God. Typically the meaning of a particular miracle is usually within the immediate context of the narrative. For instance, the raising of Lazarus happened during His teaching of the power of the Spirit to call both the spiritually and physically dead to life. In the text you sighted, Jesus had just feed a multitude of followers with plenty of food remaining. I do not believe there's any significance in the number of remaining full baskets. The real significance is in what the feeding miracle signified.

The feeding of the four thousand signified the giving of His own body to be beaten and broken during His Humiliation and Crucifixion. The theme of partaking of the body and blood of Christ (the Eucharist), is found throughout the gospels. Jesus Himself breaks the bread and prays. He gives the broken pieces to His disciples to feed the hungry crowd, a perfect picture of the Cross and New Testament.

What the disciples did not understand was the aim of the miracles of Christ. The miracles always pointed towards a greater reality. It was the intent of Jesus to sway his followers from the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The Pharisees taught that the Law of Moses brought one in union with God. Jesus taught that forgiveness from God involved eating His flesh and drinking His blood (Jn 6:53). At the heart of the feeding of the four thousand is a wonderful lesson. That the outward appearance of the few loaves and fishes proved to be more than sufficient to the hungry when in the hands of the Master. Thus, a man of seemingly low stature and means did indeed hold the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, it was through the giving of Himself.

The numbers in the two feeding miracles are very important to notice (See Bargil Pixner, With Jesus Through Galilee According to the Fifth Gospel). Pixner calls "the Land" the fifth gospel because where events took place speak loudly in the story.

Mark keeps repeating the numbers in both feeding stories. To the point where you begin to think, "now why does he keep telling us this?" Any time a biblical author (OT and NT) is repeating something we need to pay attention to that.

Feeding of 4000 - takes place in the Decapolis (Mk 7:31). The pagan side of the lake (East and Southeast corner). There is a pagan city - one of the Decapolis cities - called Hippos or Susita on that side of the lake. The religious Jews would avoid the pagan cities.

There is an ongoing process for the disciples that is unveiling who Jesus is. At first, they don't understand. They can't "see" or "hear" - their sensory organs are not perceptive. Even the process that Jesus heals this blind man is a progression. His sight is not fully restored immediately but then sees clearly.

Religious Jews considered the Decapolis an unclean place. The disciples just saw Jesus feed the 4000 and they didn't get any of the bread. Why? Is it possible that they would not eat bread that was "defiled" by being in the Decapolis or was eaten by pagans?

That is, Jesus is contrasting the work of God with the corruption of Man. The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees is their teaching (Matt 16:5, 12). Both groups were supremely legalistic as opposed to Jesus' teaching of free grace. In the spiritual world, the more we try to accomplish in our strength (the leaven or teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees), the less we achieve. But the more we depend on divine aid, the more God does for us as perfectly illustrated by the two incidents of the loaves feeding the crowds.

Jesus talks about yeast as a reference to potential - this is not the only time he talks about yeast in this way. But the disciples are focused on a lack of actual food, just as they were before these two occasions when Jesus fed thousands with only a handful of loaves.

The question cannot be answered by working up from the text, exegesis, or what the site wrongly calls hermeneutics, borne out by the definitions that all modern scholars give to those words. Exegesis is an interpretational method using grammar to determine how different words in a sentence relate to each other. For example, according to the rules of Greek grammar, what does the word "this" refer to in Ephesians 2:8? Grace or faith?

Hermeneutics is the study of different interpretational methods, including exegesis. Different situations call for different hermeneutical methods. For example, a standard approach is to use allegory to interpret poetical passages. A very useful study is the examination of how Jewish scholars interpret Biblical passages using different hermeneutical methods called PARDES. We find Paul used this method in finding the explanation for why Israel found herself having two covenants in her midst by comparing it with the situation of Abraham having both a slave and a son in his family.

The answer to the question will come from interpreting the passage by using the method of studying what the writer was teaching his students and what the lesson means today. For example Paul tells women to cover their hair. Today it means that women believers should not dress like loose women. To confirm that this is the PRINCIPLE that was taught, we need to find other passages that teach the same lesson.

Matthew 6:24No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth (material things). 25For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

In other words, He was hinting that the signs were not the means by which God people were to live, working for bread that perishes, but they were given to build up the faith of Israel, courage to destroy Canaanites, worldy living, another version of Egypt. Similarly, after seeing that God would take care of the essentials ( Matthew 6:32) the disciples should by now not be worrying about those things, not be materialistic, like the Pharisees, because God had taught them like He had taught Israel, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God ( the words being to come out of Egypt, mammon, serving self interest, worldly ways, fight it, destroy it, because only then will we really live). Which, by the way, is also the lesson, the principle, taught for today.

According to tradition, the author, Mark is not an apostle himself. Not one ofthe original disciples, but rather the follower of one of them. Traditionally,he's supposed to be the disciple of Peter .... We don't know exactly where thisMark was or where he actually wrote. However, tradition places him at Rome,but one more tradition also has him located at Alexandria, and it may be thecase that the story that we call Mark's gospel, which supposedly derived fromPeter, is also an example of this passing on of an oral tradition. It owes itshistory to Mark, whether Mark is the person who actually wrote it down or not.

Mark's is the first of the written gospels. It's really the one thatestablishes... the life of Jesus as a story form. It develops a narrative fromhis early career, through ...the main points of his life and culminat[es] inhis death. And, as such, it sets the pattern for all the later gospeltraditions. We know that both Matthew and Luke used Mark, as a source in theircomposition and it's also probable that even John knew something of Mark intradition. So, Mark is really the one that sets the stage for all the laterChristian gospel writings.

Mark retells the story of Jesus. He starts by taking a number of elements ofearlier oral tradition. Mark seems to have a knowledge of at least one andmaybe two or three different collections of miracle stories as a source. Heweaves these together with other stories about Jesus, about teachings, abouttravels, about other things and makes those a part of his understanding of howJesus' life worked and what it was intended to do. But, in the final analysis,Mark's gospel is really about the death of Jesus. It's a passion narrativewith an extended introduction, some people would say. Mark tells the story bythinking about the death and letting all the events that lead up to that deathmove toward it and through it. So, it's the death of Jesus that's the guidingprinciple to Mark's gospel, not the life....

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