Christ in Mark’s *Gospel
An EasyEnglish Bible Commentary (1200 word vocabulary) on the Gospel of Mark
Keith Simons
This commentary has been through Advanced Checking.
The word list explains words with a *star by them.
Last part: The *angel’s message
A note about Mark 16:9-20
Bible students do not think that Mark 16:8 is the end of Mark’s book. But the two best old copies of the book stop there. It is clear that the last page of the book became separate. And some people did not know what the end of the book should be.
Mark 16:9-20 may be Mark’s words. But today most Bible students think that someone else wrote it. But it may not matter who wrote it. That is because its report agrees with the reports of Matthew, Luke and John. And it agrees with the other parts of Mark’s book. All these books say that Jesus became alive again. They agree about the things that he told his *disciples. And they agree about the things that happened after that.
If Mark did not write Mark 16:9-20, he wrote something like it. He had already written that Jesus became alive again after his death (Mark 8:31; Mark 9:9; Mark 10:34 and Mark 14:28). Mark had written that Jesus is the Christ (Mark 1:1; Mark 8:29). And Mark had written that Jesus is the son of God (Mark 1:11; Mark 9:8). Also, Mark had written that the *disciples must tell God’s good news to people everywhere (Mark 4:22; Mark 10:29-30; Mark 13:10 and Mark 14:9). All these things are also in Mark 16:9-20.
Mark 16:9-20 includes another important idea that is also in Mark 16:1-8. Here is that idea. Even after Jesus was alive again, the *disciples still did not believe. The book repeats that idea often (Mark 16:8; Mark 16:11; Mark 16:13 and Mark 16:14). The writer clearly thought that this was a very important fact.
So the writer of Mark 16:9-20 did not only want to tell people that Jesus is alive. He also wanted them to know that they must believe God. And that is also something that Mark writes often (Mark 1:15; Mark 2:5; Mark 5:34; Mark 8:12; Mark 9:23-24 and Mark 11:23-24).
Next part: Mary from Magdala
Index to this book: Index
© 2010, Wycliffe Associates (UK)
This publication is in EasyEnglish (1200 word vocabulary).
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