The Sacred Page

In Mark 2:18-20 we find Jesus explaining to interlocutors why his disciples do not fast. He says: Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then... Sign in to see full entry.

In James 4:1-10, we find a leader of a christian community telling its divided members to be what they are supposed to be: a community loyal to the one God. The community is divided; there are conflicts within the group. The rather strong language in v.2 suggests that even violence may have been... Sign in to see full entry.

Mark 9:14-29 is a pronouncement story occassioned by an exorcism. Simply, a pronouncement story is a "story about the life of Jesus with a punch-line". The punch-line is delivered by Jesus himself. In this story, one finds it in v. 29 "This kind (of unclean spirit) no one can drive away except by... Sign in to see full entry.

The healing of the paralytic puts two things into focus: Jesus' relationship with God and Jesus' work in relationship with God's work of forgiving sins. The particularities of this healing miracle story comes out if we compare it with a simple healing story. In Mark 1:29-31 we find Jesus healing the... Sign in to see full entry.

The story about the healing of a blind man comes at the end of the section I call "The Necessity of Faith: Having Eyes to See and Ears to Hear." The healing has parallels with the one of the deaf-mute (Mark 7:31-37) that perhaps indicates an inclusion. There is another account of a blind man's... Sign in to see full entry.

Mark 3:31-8:26 leads to the Confession of Peter in Mark 8:27+ and to the sections where Jesus begins to speak about himself and his suffering and death as the Suffering Servant. The section beginning in Mark 3:31 therefore prepares for that section by insisting on the need for faith in understanding... Sign in to see full entry.

Mark 1:16-3:29 shows Jesus calling his disciples and showing them what his initial proclamation about the kingdom and the requirement of repentance and belief in the gospel means. Elements in this section (cf. diagram. Click it for a larger view ) are arranged in concentric parallelism with the... Sign in to see full entry.

Jesus is making his way back to Galilee throught the Decapolis and a deaf man with a speech defect (he is called a "mogilalos") is presented to him so that he could lay his hand on him. Jesus then takes the man aside and with a series of gestures that the narrator describes in detail, he heals the... Sign in to see full entry.

In telling the story of Solomon's fall, the sacred writer of 1 Kings 11:1ff uses a phrase "(they) turned away his heart", "his heart was turned away from the Lord". The idea behind the phrase is directional with a moral connotation: Solomon's heart was no longer faithful to the Lord. In the Bible,... Sign in to see full entry.

Current translations of Mark 7:19 fall into two groups. One group, represented by the KJV has Because it entereth not into his heart but into the belly and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats The other group, represented by the RSV has since it enters not his heart but his stomach and so... Sign in to see full entry.