Mark 1:1

§ 15. MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST, Mark 1:1-8 .

1. The beginning of the gospel This phrase is equivalent to the liturgical phrase, “Here beginneth” the Gospel of Jesus. And hence it forms a sort of title to the book; or, at least, is a formula used to indicate that the complete work from the beginning, and not a fragment, is in hand.

Jesus Mark not only commences in the very midst of the Gospel events, but introduces the names of Jesus and of John as familiar to his readers.

The impression produced is, that he undertakes to make a record and memorial of facts known in the general to his immediate readers. Son of God Though Mark gives no account of the miraculous birth of Jesus, which is so largely furnished by Matthew, yet the very title Son of God implies that he knew and recognized the truth of that great fact. From this and many more such instances, we infer that each evangelist selects for his Gospel a comparatively small number of facts from the abundance of his knowledge. The omission of a fact by an evangelist does not prove his unacquaintance with it.

Mark omits the account of the birth of John the Baptist; of the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus; of the Magi; of the shepherds, the murder of the infants, and the flight into Egypt; together with all account of the pedigree, parentage, and childhood of Jesus. He gives few discourses of Jesus, and states no doctrine of himself. What he does give is a brief and rapid narration of the actions and official life of our Saviour.