Mark
CHAPTER 3
Healing a withered hand
And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there who had a withered hand. 2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day- so that they would have an excuse to accuse him. 3 And he said to the man that had the withered hand: Come here. 4 And he said to them: Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do evil? To save a life, or to kill? But they remained quiet. 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 And the Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel against him with the Herodians, how they might destroy him.
Establishing a core group of disciples
7 And Jesus with his disciples withdrew to the sea; and a great crowd from Galilee and from Judea followed, 8 and from Jerusalem and from Idumaea and on the other side of the Jordan and about Tyre and Sidon, a great crowd, hearing what great things he did, came to him. 9 And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, in case they crushed him. 10 For he had healed many; so much so that as many as had illnesses pressed upon him that they might touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried, saying: You are the Son of God! 12 And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.
13 And he went up into the mountain and called to himself whomever he would; and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach, 15 and to have authority to cast out demons. 16 And Simon he surnamed Peter. 17 And James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James he surnamed Boanerges, which means, sons of thunder. 18 And Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus and Simon the Cananaean, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. And then he went home.
20 And the crowd gathered again, so many people that they could not so much as eat bread. 21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying: He is out of his mind.
False allegations from the scribes
22 And the scribes that came down from Jerusalem said: He has Beelzebub, and by the prince of the demons he casts out the demons. 23 And he called them to him, and said to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a family be divided against itself, that family will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end.
27 But no one can enter into the home of a strong man and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his home.
28 Truly I say to you: All the sins of the sons of men shall be forgiven and their blasphemies with which they shall blaspheme. 29 But whoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is never forgiven but is guilty of an eternal sin. 30 He said this because they had said: He has an unclean spirit.
31 And then came his mother and his brothers and standing outside, they sent a message to him, calling him. 32 And a crowd was sitting about him, and they said to him: Look, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you. 33 And he answered them, saying: Who is my mother and my brothers? 34 And looking round on them that sat round about him, he said: Behold my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother.
Commentary
3:2 Jesus appears to have intentionally sought controversy over the Sabbath issue. On some things (e.g. the popular belief in demons) He didn’t challenge His audience; but on issues of legalism, He did.
3:10 The desire to touch Jesus and His desire to touch people comes out frequently in the Gospels. People believed that through touching a holy man, they would receive blessing; rather like Catholics and Orthodox travel far to touch relics. Jesus went along with this, but always emphasized that it was faith in Him, and His Father’s power, which were responsible for the miracle, and not the touching in itself.
3:13 He alone went up into the mountain and then sent word to His followers to come to Him. They had to make quite some effort to come to Him. He thus filtered out those who really wanted to come to Him from those who were merely inquisitive. He does the same with people today.
3:26 If Satan… Satan as a personal sinful being doesn’t exist [see notes at the end], but Jesus reasoned with them within the frames of their beliefs, even if those beliefs were wrong. He met people where they were, as He does today.
3:33 This must’ve been so painful for Mary to hear. This is one of a number of conflict points between Jesus and Mary during His ministry. It seems she had a mid-life crisis of faith, but returned to full belief after His resurrection. Mary wasn’t the sinless superhuman which some believe she was.
