September 23, 2015 (Wednesday)
We will continue our study of the Gospel of Mark this evening at Bethel Baptist Church, Ingleside. Last Wednesday we spent much time with our prayer concerns, so I just read the verses we had planned to study (Mark 1:1-8) and we will study the verses this evening.
As you know, there are four gospels in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All four are about Jesus, but each approaches the Savior in a unique way. For 
Matthew, Jesus is the promised King. Luke tells us about a Jesus who is a great humanitarian who cannot ignore the needs of people. John presents Jesus as the God-man. Mark, as we noted in last Wednesday’s blog, describes Jesus as a man of action. All four views of Jesus are accurate. Jesus cannot be locked up in a prescribed box. When we try to do that, he breaks out and you can find him wherever there are needy, hurting people, proclaiming the love of the Father to one and all.
The Four Gospels work together to provide a complete testimony of Jesus, a beautiful portrait of the God-Man. Although the Gospels differ slightly in theme, the central Subject is the same. All present Jesus as the One who died to save sinners. All record His resurrection. Whether the writers presented Jesus as the King, the Servant, the Son of Man, or the Son of God, they had the common goal–that people believe in Him (gotquestions.org).
We should not be surprised that each gospel writer saw Jesus through his own eyes. We do the same today. How else can we explain the multitude of denominations, theologies, and individual churches that are all so unique and very different from one another? Yet all worship the very same Jesus. They just see him through different eyes. We cannot escape our upbringing, which has shaped our thinking and created our biases. Not one person, no matter how hard he/she tries, can be completely objective when contemplating the person of Christ. Our theme–no matter how hard we try to think otherwise–seems to be, “what Jesus is to me.”
With all that in mind, we approach the gospel of Mark with reverence. We have much to learn. How frustrating it is to know that I cannot live long enough to know it all. But I keep on learning. We all do.