This week's study is on the parables in Mark 4. The Gospel of Mark has the fewest parables of any of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). For many years scholars have argued over the meaning and interpretation of Jesus’ parables: How to interpret what they mean, why Jesus used them, what kind of lessons they were intended to reveal, and how literally they were to be taken, or whether they were purely allegory, and so forth. Obviously we are not going to solve all these issues in this week’s lesson. Instead, we are going to look at them and, by God’s grace, come away with an understanding of the points Jesus made through these parables.

Mark 2:1–3:6 contains five stories that illustrate Jesus’ teaching in contrast to the teaching of the religious leaders. The stories are in a specific pattern in which each successive story links to the one before via a topical parallel. The final story circles around and reconnects with the first one. Each one of these stories illustrates aspects of who Jesus is, as exemplified by the statements in Mark 2:10, 17, 20, 28. The lessons for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday will delve deeper into the meaning of these accounts and Christ’s statements in them.

Mark 3:20–35 is the subject for study on Wednesday and Thursday. What we will see, too, is an example of a technique the Gospel writer uses that is called “sandwich stories.”

Each Gospel introduces the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in a particular way. Matthew presents Jesus as calling disciples and then preaching the Sermon on the Mount. Luke tells the story of Jesus’ inaugural sermon on a Sabbath in the synagogue in Nazareth. John recounts the calling of some of the early disciples and the wedding at Cana, where Jesus performs His first sign. The Gospel of Mark recounts the calling of four disciples and describes a Sabbath in Capernaum and what followed.

This “Sabbath with Jesus” at the beginning of Mark gives the reader a sense of who Jesus is. In the entire section for this week’s lesson, there are very few of His words recorded: a brief call to discipleship, a command to a demon, a plan to visit other locations, and the healing of a leper with instructions to show himself before a priest to be clean. The emphasis is on action, particularly healing people.

Who wrote the Gospel of Mark, and why was it written? No Gospel lists the name of the author. The one that comes the closest is John, with reference to the beloved disciple (see John 21:20, 24). However, from early times, each of the canonical Gospels has been associated with either an apostle (Matthew, John) or with a companion of an apostle. For example, the Gospel of Luke is linked with Paul (see Col. 4:14, 2 Tim. 4:11, Philem. 1:24). The Gospel of Mark is linked with Peter (see 1 Pet. 5:13). Though the author of Mark never gives his name in the text, early church tradition indicates that the author of the Gospel of Mark was John Mark, a sometime traveling companion of Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:2, 5) and later an associate of Peter (1 Pet. 5:13). The first step this week will be to learn about Mark as reported in Scripture, to see his early failure and eventual recovery.

We can face the future with hope. Although challenging times are coming, whatever suffering we must go through, whatever hardships we must endure, whatever sorrows we experience, if we have hope a better day is coming, we can live life today with purpose and joy. Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during 1933–1945, one of the most difficult periods of U.S. history. He was paralyzed by polio and unable to walk unaided. He once wrote, “We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction, that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.” Albert Einstein, one of the world’s most brilliant men, wrote, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” Alfred Lord Tennyson, a popular English poet during Queen Victoria’s reign, once wrote, “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘It will be happier.’ ”

Suppose you had a daughter driving home from college for summer vacation. As you wait for her to arrive, you anxiously monitor the weather reports. You become worried as the weather rapidly deteriorates. Storm clouds loom on the horizon. Winds blow fiercely. The heavens open and rain pours down. Trees are blown over. Soon the main road home is impassable. Then you hear from one of your neighbors that it is possible to get through on a secondary road. Cars can navigate around some downed tree limbs. Although communication is difficult, you are able to get a text message to your daughter, carefully detailing how she can get home safely. More than anything else, Jesus wants to take us through the storms of life and get us home.

There is a relatively new medical device called a biochip or VeriChip, about the size of a grain of rice, that can be implanted in a patient. The biochip contains information about the patient’s medical history, which can then be obtained by passing an external scanner across the area where the biochip or VeriChip has been inserted. Some Christians see this as part of a conspiracy to enforce the mark of the beast. For others, the mark of the beast has to do with the bar codes on cans of food, or it is a mysterious number on dollar bills that supposedly adds up to 666. For some it has to do with the Masonic order, the Illuminati, black U.N. helicopters, or the United Nations.

Decades ago, stories surfaced about near death experiences (NDEs), in which people who died and were then revived gave incredible accounts of what they had seen and heard while “dead.” Millions now believe that these accounts are evidence that the dead are not really dead. This foundational belief of spiritualism is one of Satan’s most widespread and effective deceptions.