Mark

Ransom

The Gospel of Mark is a documentary life of Jesus. It is the fastest moving of the four Gospels, a feature accentuated by Mark’s fondness for the word immediately, which appears approximately forty times. Mark’s implied purpose in writing is to record a selection of what Jesus did and said during his public years. Although Mark reports the events objectively, his selection of material shows that he was a believer in Christ who wanted his readers to follow Jesus as well. Even though Mark was not one of the twelve disciples, his Gospel is the most circumstantial of the four Gospels, excelling in vivid descriptions of characters and events. From early Christian times, the theory has been widely accepted that Mark learned these details directly from the apostle Peter. The key verse of the book is Mark 10:45—“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” With any unit in Mark’s Gospel, it is appropriate to ask what the passage tells us about Jesus and his mission. – ESV Study Bible