The Story Of John Mark

-March 12, 2023-

Good morning, happy Lord’s Day,

“And when they arrived in Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their assistant” (Acts 13:5).

“Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).

John Mark was a very young man in the days of Jesus and after His resurrection. He got off to a very inauspicious start. Many scholars believe that he wrote of himself in his fleeing naked for fear of his life. Mark 14:51-52 says, “Now a certain young man followed Him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And the young men laid hold of him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.” Before we come down on him heavily, we must recognize our own frailty, weakness, sins, and mistakes. The previous verse 50 said of the disciples, “They all forsook Him and fled.

The next time we read of John Mark, he and mother Mary hosted the gathering of believers for a prayer meeting as the saints prayed for Peter’s release from prison and deliverance from impending death. By this time he served the Lord with Barnabas and Paul who took him as their assistant on their missionary journey. Things were going well for him until he suddenly left Barnabas and Paul and the ministry of the gospel to go back home to Jerusalem. Some have speculated he was home sick, others that circumstances got too dangerous for him.

His departure greatly affected Barnabas and Paul. When Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them again, Paul refused. This led to the split up of one of the greatest evangelical teams in the history of the early church. Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas and went on to be a great team themselves. I’m sure John Mark felt really bad, but God used his failure as a future springboard to success and blessing.

His story has a happy ending. Paul in his later years calls for him to come and help in the work of the Lord. In 2 Timothy 4:11, Paul says to Timothy, “Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry.” What a comeback story! What a blessing!

John Mark’s story is our story: dotted with failure and success, ups and downs, mistakes, sins, and restorations. God is the God of second chances. It was true of Peter also who denied the Lord Jesus three times. Jesus dealt with him, forgave him, and mightily used Him for preaching the gospel and shepherding the saints. He and Mark both wrote books in the NT, in fact, Peter calibrated on the Gospel of Mark. Peter wrote 1 Peter and 2 Peter.

Let us take courage and know that God can use us even after we have failed. It makes us more humble and empathetic toward others. All the glory goes to the Lord not to us. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels (or jars of clay), that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”

Have a blessed Lord’s Day living for Jesus and serving Him. Stay safe and healthy.

Failure is never final if we don’t give up,

Dean