Mark: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition
Overview
The New Beacon Bible Commentary is an engaging, indispensable reference tool that equips you to study and meditate on God’s Word. Written from the Wesleyan theological perspective, it offers insightful scholarship to help you unlock Scripture’s deeper truths and garner an awareness of the history, culture, and context attributed to each book studied. Readable, relevant, and academically thorough, it offers a new standard for understanding and interpreting the Bible in the twenty-first century.
Kent Brower offers insight into the intricacies of Mark. With verse-by-verse commentary, Brower considers the literary features, theological themes, and hermeneutical issues present in the text.
- Provides clear verse-by-verse explanations that offer a contemporary, Wesleyan-based understanding derived from the passage’s original language
- Contains comprehensive annotation divided into three sections:
- Background elements behind the text
- Verse-by-verse details and meanings
- Significance, relevance, intertextuality, and application
- Includes insight into theological issues, word meanings, archaeological connections, historical relevance, cultural customs, and more
- General Editor’s Preface
- Author’s Preface
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Commentary
- The Announcement of the Good News
- Announcing and Effecting the Good News
- Mission, Conflict, and Rejection
- From Mission to Misunderstanding
- Discipleship: Teaching on the Way
- Jesus in Jerusalem and the Temple
- The Passion Narrative
- The Empty Tomb
Top Highlights
“The lesson for holiness people of all ages is important: holiness is not preserved by cutting oneself off from the marginalized and the needy, but is demonstrated precisely in the contact with the unclean and the excluded. Thus, holiness is not a thing to be protected but a relationship to be shared in the mission of God. Are people transformed by contact with us, by touching us? To what extent do we sense the power of God at work in our contact with the unclean in our crowded lives?” (Page 160)
“Mark’s theological purpose is primarily to reveal the identity and meaning of Jesus as Messiah, Son of God. He does this by telling Jesus’ story as an overlay of the story of Israel that, in turn, gets its meaning from the revelation of God’s good purposes from the beginning (see Exod 19:1–6).” (Page 31)
“Jesus’ redefinition of holiness is an underlying motif throughout all the Gospels. This redefinition returns the conception of holiness to its source in the very being of God. The result is that holiness is no longer construed primarily as separation from neighbor but expressed as love of neighbor. For the Markan Jesus, holiness is contagious, outgoing, all-embracing, and transforming.” (Page 39)
“If the holiness of disciples is dependent upon their relationship with the source of holiness, in Mark it has a starting point in the call of the first disciples. This involves full commitment right from the start (1:20; 10:28): there is no partial discipleship in Mark (see 10:17–27). Full commitment does not require full understanding, however. Rather, discipleship is an open-ended journey (see 1:16–20; 16:8), full of surprises and challenges. Progression happens, but the disciples show time and again that this is not constant, even in the presence of Jesus, the master teacher and model.” (Page 37)
- Title: Mark: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition
- Author: Kent Brower
- Series: New Beacon Bible Commentary (NBBC)
- Publisher: Beacon Hill
- Publication Date: 2012
- Pages: 416
