This study guide is meant to accompany the Seventh-day Adventist Sabbath School lesson for the 3rd Quarter of 2024. The format of this guide follows a similar pattern for each week’s lesson: an introduction to the topic, a short discussion on several verses or a bullet list of concepts for a passage, followed by questions in bold type. Please read through the Biblical passages, and then prayerfully consider the bolded questions. Perhaps you’ll find better questions that should be asked, and answered!
The study this quarter is the Gospel book of Mark. Though little can be known about the author from the text itself, if the author is John Mark as early church tradition contends, then several pieces of information can be fit together from the rest of the New Testament. Our study this quarter will address some of these aspects of authorship, and how they play a role in the composition of this meaningful addition to the Christian scriptures and story of Jesus.
Although this is the shortest of the four gospels in the protestant Bible, each story it tells is usually longer than the other gospels. Jesus in Mark is a powerful wonder-working, miracle-making, demon-exorcizing teacher, and is in fact, the very Son of God. The story is told in a high-impact way, led from passage to passage (pericope to pericope) by frequent use of the word immediately: “Immediately He called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat…” (Mark 1:20).
The ending of Mark contains some textual challenges, but however we accept (or not) the last section of Mark in our modern Bibles (16:9-20), we’re still left with a desire to make sure the story of Jesus is told again and again. The Son of God still has power to change lives, cast out demons, calm storms in our lives, feed the hungry, and give good news—the Gospel of the Kingdom!—to those in need of hope.
This high-impact but short-duration story of Jesus is intended for people who are not Jews, who did not have experience with Hebrew or Aramaic language, or background in the Old Testament scriptures or Israelite law and later Rabbinic interpretations and oral tradition. For that reason, it resonates with many people today reading the story of Jesus for the first time.
The author of this Sabbath School quarterly is Dr. Tom Shepherd, a godly man, a devout student of scripture, my PhD academic advisor, and friend. His own doctoral dissertation, available through Andrews University Dissertation Series of publications, explores the various “sandwich stories” in Mark’s gospel. I’m honored to contribute this study guide in concert with Dr. Shepherd’s years of experience in this powerful narrative about the life of Jesus.
May the God who gave John the Revelation illumine your study by His Spirit as the consummation of Christ’s atoning work draws near!
Brant Berglin
June 16, 2024
