Mark 3:1-19 ~ He went up on the mountain

Breakfast with Jesus, painted by James Tissot.

Mark 3:1-19

English Standard Version, David Cochran Audio

¹ Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. ² And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³ And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” ⁴ And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵ And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶ The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

⁷ Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea ⁸ and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. ⁹ And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, ¹⁰ for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. ¹¹ And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” ¹² And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.


¹³ And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. ¹⁴ And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach ¹⁵ and have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶ He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); ¹⁷ James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸ Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. ²⁰ Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat.

When John the Baptist began his ministry, he cried out for people to clear a straight path in their lives for the truth. He drew people into the wilderness and asked them to repent. You wouldn't think John the Baptist would have drawn a crowd. And yet John did. John's ministry was about personal repentance and improvement. John worried the Temple officials with his words of personal redemption. Church/Temple officials worried over redemption? It just doesn't sound right.

Here we have Mark 3 - Jesus has just begun His ministry, not even really leaving Capernaum - and acts of God are being seen. Israel has been recorded for looking for just these healings and these miracles and now officials want them to stop.

We've heard the Gospel all of our lives and it becomes routine - why - why would Temple of God officials ever be worried about redemption and acts of God?

It was a completing and a re-awakening of a message - God's love was proving again - God does not dwell in human buildings - but in the up-building of mankind.


1 Kings 8:27-30
“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! ²⁸ Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O LORD my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, ²⁹ that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. ³⁰ And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.

In the beginning of Jesus' ministry - it is like Genesis. God is about His creation.

Genesis 3:8
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day

Revelation 21:3
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God."

At the end of Jesus' earthly life ministry - it is like Revelation.

John 21
⁹ When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. ¹⁰ Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” ¹¹ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”

God was never about the up-building of anything man made, He was about the up-building of us.


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