As anyone who reads the footnotes to this blog can see, rarely have I struggled and researched a text as diligently as Mark 16:9-20. This is a hard text and controversial in the history of the Church. I could have avoided it in this series on the Great Commission as it appears in the Gospels and in Acts, but I did not want to do this. I think it has something to teach us. Before I begin, I want to repeat a point made in the sermon: The Bible is the Word of God and can be relied upon to teach us about God and about how we should live and worship. God bless. Chris 

Today, we are in the third blog taken from a sermon series concerning the Great Commission as it appears in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts. Cindy began the Preaching series with a sermon called, “Breathe,” taken from John 20, where Jesus breathes on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit, and says: “As the Father has sent me so I send you” (John 20:21). Last week, I preached a sermon from Matthew 28:16-20, where we find the Great Commission in its most common form:

“Therefore, go into all the world making disciples from all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you, even to the ends of the age (Matthew 28:16-20).

Last week, we focused on 2016 as a year in which, like the disciples after the resurrection, we are waiting for what God has for us in the future. We also talked about the importance of worship, discipleship training, and service to others as we wait.

Today, we are talking about healing and wholeness. Let’s face it, we can’t move in to a new, better future unless we change; and to change, we need to experience the power of God.  Scripture promises that, as we go into the future, we will experience the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the lives of others. God promises to be with us, empower us, and protect us on the journey of discipleship and disciple making.

The Great Commission and a Prayer.

Bible Scholar John MacArthur preached through every verse in Holy Scripture. He saved today’s lesson for last, because of its difficulty! [i] If you open your Bible to Mark 16:9 – 20 will probably find it set apart from the rest of the gospel. You may also find a note that says something like, “These verses are not found in the most ancient manuscripts.” Many pastors never teach on this text. When we decided to do a series on the Great Commission, I might have skipped these verses from Mark; however, as I thought about the verses and read them, I felt there was a message for us to hear. Therefore, hear the word of God as it comes to us this morning from Mark 16:9-20:

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it. Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.  He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it (Mark 16:9-20).

Prayer: Lord God of Scripture, who sent us your Son, Jesus, the Word of God in human form, as we think about this ending of Mark, especially today, please let all that is said and heard be according you to your will. In Jesus name, Amen.

Understanding a Hard Text.

Mark is almost certainly the oldest of our Gospels. [ii] It may even be a translation or transcription of the teachings of St. Peter by John Mark. Much of Mark is incorporated almost verbatim in Matthew and Luke. After Matthew and Luke were written, because of their superior literary qualities, many people preferred them to Mark. [iii] Therefore, Mark fell into disuse. This was before anything like our modern Bible existed. There were various books and letters being passed around in scrolls and codexes. As a result, it is possible that the original ending of Mark was lost. It’s also possible that the ending of Mark was originally just as it ends in Mark 16:8, with the women trembling in fear, astonished by what they had seen, but afraid to tell the apostles. Finally, it is possible that, after Peter was martyred, Mark had to flee and never completed his manuscript. No one knows.

Although Mark 16:9-20 is found in the King James Version and in most older translations, these verses are not found in most of the oldest Greek manuscripts. [iv] This allows me to talk a little bit about the Bible and how it was put together. The earliest Western translation of the Bible is a Roman Catholic translation made by Jerome about the year 382 A.D. Western translations of the Bible from Jerome until modern times were based on this text. Jerome’s text, as revised over the years, is often called the “Received Text.” [v] That text included Mark 16:9-20, although Eusebius (265-340 A.D.) and other ancient writers had their misgivings about its inclusion in the Bible.

When King James of England had the Bible translated into English, the Received Text was the basis for his translation. In modern times, however, many older Greek texts of the Bible have been found. Neither Jerome nor other older translations had access to these texts. Today, most translations, including the NIV and NRSV, are based on the corrected text. In particular, there are two codexes dating from between the year 325 to 350 A.D. called the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus that do not contain the long ending of Mark. Therefore, today, most translations are based upon a corrected text that does not include Mark 16:9-20 except in footnotes or with qualification. [vi]

In all probability, at some point after Mark was written in the first century A.D., an early transcriber felt the book needed a more complete ending. If you go through Mark 16:9-20 verse by verse what you find is that Mark 9:16-20 summarizes Mary Magdalene telling the apostles of the resurrection, Jesus’s appearance on the walk to Emmaus, his later appearance to the disciples, and his giving of the Great Commission. All of these are found somewhere in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most of what the author has done is to simply summarize what is found elsewhere in Scripture.

The hardest part of the text has to do with the so-called, “signs and wonders,” especially the handling of serpents and drinking of poison. Many of you know that at the end of Acts, Paul is bitten by a snake and protected by God from the consequences of its poison (Acts 28:1-6). I believe this is the incident being referred to in the handling of serpents. In addition, in the early church, there were stories of Christians drinking poison without harm. [vii] These stories, which date from an early period, are the source of the comment about drinking poison. At this point, I want to conclude by saying that these verses are not telling us what Christians should do or experience in the future as much as they are telling us what in fact Christians experienced in the early church: the protection of God in difficult circumstances.

In summary, we have at the end of Mark is a description of the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, his commission to go into all the world, and an assurance that, if we are faithful to Christ, we will experience the power of the Holy Spirit and God’s protection along the way.

Finally, whenever I teach on a hard text like this, I think it’s important to assure our congregation and readers that these kinds of issues do not impair the authority of Scripture in our lives or church. [viii] The Bible cannot be read without reading any passage in the context of all of the passages that deal with the same subject matter. You have seen how this text is more or less a restatement of teachings found elsewhere in Scripture, or in one case, in early Christian literature. The Bible is without error in all that it teaches us about faith and about how we should believe. [ix] Minor textual problems, and that’s all they are, do not impact our assurance the by the Holy Spirit we know that God is a God of love, that God sent his son to die for our sins, that we have a way of reconnecting with God by the power of the cross, and about the power of the Holy Spirit we can live a new life. The Bible continues to be our inspired guide for faith and for living.

Learning from a Hard Text.

What can we learn from this hard passage of Scripture? This text is not a direction for disciples to handle snakes or drink poison as some sects have done. It is a promise that those who spread the gospel will be protected and their testimony will be confirmed by the power of God. As such, it is an encouragement for the church in every age to experience the power of the Gospel and the protection of God by bolding proclaiming and living out the promise of the resurrection in the power of the Spirit. What this passage asks of us can be summarized as follows:

1. Believers should proclaim the Good News of the risen Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God into the world accompanied by a call to repentance and new life.
2. Signs of the truth of our message and protection will accompany our faithfulness to the Great Commission from evil.

We know from Acts that the early church experienced the presence and the power of God in the lives of Christians and in the life of the Church (See, Acts 2:42-48). I have been a pastor long enough to have seen the power of God to heal people, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Some of you have experienced the ability of God to perform miracles in your own lives. Perhaps more importantly, we have seen the power of God to protect our church, our families and our friends.

Are the Signs and Wonders Today?

On Wednesday evenings, we have a Bible study that examines the text of the next week’s sermon. This past Wednesday night, I told the group the following story: when I was a relatively new pastor in Brownsville, Tennessee, morning I received a call to go to the local hospital. One of my members, an elderly lady in her late 90s, was dying. Her family lived in Dyersburg. They been notified, but it would be sometime before they arrived in the hospital. The staff wanted me to come and pray for her, because they did not think she would live long enough to see her children and grandchildren.

I went over to the hospital and sat for a while, I think until the family came. Before I left, I said a simple prayer thanking God for her life and asking that God would heal her. I happened to know that her goal was to live to be 100 years old, and I ask God to hear that desire of this elderly lady. Then, I went back to the office. That evening, on my way home, I decided to go to the hospital to see if she was still alive because no one had contacted me to tell me that she had died. When I walked in the room, she was sitting up in bed talking to the family. She lived another few months and died just a few days short of her 100th birthday. I can think of a lot of explanations for why this lady recovered, and I imagine antibiotics had something to do with it, however, I believed then and believe now that God answered this prayer. It was a sign to me and to her family of the goodness and love of God.

What is Next?

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to our staff, Bible studies, disciple groups, and leadership groups about our hopes and dreams for the year 2016. Each time, I’ve expressed my hope that at the end of 2016 every member of Advent, our visitors, and others will sense that the Holy Spirit is present among us in a new and special way. It would be a wonderful thing if at the end of this year we can all look back and see healings in our minds, our spirits, our emotions, and even our bodies. It would be a wonderful thing if we all could all look back on 2016 as a year during which we made contact in a new and special way with the living God.

I have been a pastor of Advent for over sixteen years. That’s a long time. It’s long enough to know people pretty well. It’s long enough to know something about their struggles, hopes, and dreams. It’s long enough to know about secret sorrows and unspoken sins. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all could arrive at December 31, 2016, or the Christmas Eve service a few days earlier, and look back on this year as the year in which we overcame some problems that had been plaguing us for a long time? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could sense that our families were more whole, our neighborhoods more stable, our community more hopeful, our lives more permeated by the love of God?

I would like to repeat for all of us what I have said often recently: What I would really like to see and pray to see in our church is a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 2016. Experiencing the power of the Spirit is more important right now than any program we could begin or any ministry or mission we could undertake. We don’t need new programs; we need  new outpouring of the Spirit of Christ.

Amen.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

Endnotes:

[i] John McArthur, “The Fitting End to Mark’s Gospel: Mark 16:9-20” (June 5, 2011). You can find this sermon or teaching moment on the Internet. It is well worth listening to whether you agree with McArthur or not. I frequently do not, but he is a great Bible student and teacher. He makes a very impressive defense of Scripture though he does not believe Mark 16:9-20 is in the original text.

[ii] The Gospel of Mark has an interesting history. For many years, most people thought that Matthew was the oldest of the gospels. Then, scholars noticed that vast amounts of Mark were included in Matthew and Luke. Therefore, they concluded Mark must be a primary source for Matthew and Luke. There are other reasons to believe this is true, one of which is that Matthew and Luke appear to edit Mark to clean up tis grammar and often simplify, leaving out details they felt unnecessary to their Gospel presentation. The Greek of Matthew and Luke is much better than the Greek of Mark. In the history of the church, Matthew and Luke have been more often used and often the preferred gospels over Mark, which meant that Mark was not used as often, and may have fallen into disuse once Matthew and Luke were available. Nevertheless, Mark is important because it is most probably the oldest Gospel, and seems to have been John Mark’s transcripts of the teachings of the Apostle Peter. Papias, an early church father (70-163 AD), reports that John Mark wrote the gospel from Peter’s teaching and preaching. This might explain its relatively simple Greek: A fisherman from the Galilee may not ever have learned to speak or write Greek in a classical style, even after many years living in the Gentile world. William Barclay, “The Gospel of Mark” in The Daily Bible Study Series Rev. Ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1975), 1-9, 369-371. The Greek of Mark may be the Greek of a Jewish fisherman who was never completely fluent in Greek.

[iii] Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the so-called, “Synoptic” (or “See Together” Gospels). They are similar and portray the story of Jesus as a journey from his birth to death in Jerusalem. John is very different and relies on a different literary structure. Because much of Mark is repeated in Matthew and Luke, it is not surprising that they eclipsed Mark once they were written.

[iv] The undisputed portion of Mark ends with these words: “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (Mark 18:8). This verse is followed by two different endings, which are not found in the most ancient manuscripts. Mark 16:9-20 is one. The shorter ending reads, “But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.” There are basically three possible reasons for the way Mark ends (Mark 16:8). First, the original ending may have been lost as the Gospel was used less often and copied less often in the early church. Second, Peter may have died, and/or Mark been forced to stop writing after verse 8, so that the Gospel never had another ending. There is no way to know which of these is true. Finally, it is possible that Mark deliberately ended his Gospel with the women fearful and silent. Having described the resurrection and the instruction of the angels to go and tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, he may have simply stopped. There is no way to know; however, I do not find the last explanation convincing. What is known is that the current ending, which occurs in the Latin Text and in the Authorized Version in English (King James), is not in the most ancient manuscripts. Neither the Codex Sinaiticus (circa 350 AD) nor the Codex Vaticanus (circa 325 AD) contain the disputed ending. Without going into too much detail, Mark 16:9-20 are also in a different style and voice and omit words and stylistic preferences that characterize all the rest of Mark. It also contains words and phrases not common in the rest of Mark. It seems to reintroduce Mary Magdalene, as if we have not already heard of her part in the story in 16:1. William Hendrickson, Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Hendrickson, 1975), 682-693.

[v] Received Text” or Textus Receptus” is the name given to Greek New Testament texts from which the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale and the King James Version were made. Desiderius Erasmus, who we know as “Erasmus,” a Renaissance scholar, created a then new Greek New Testament text in 1516. It was based on the Latin Vulgate and then current Greek texts. It is not precisely the same as the texts primarily used today, though it was the text from which the New King James Version was created. It is my view that the differences among various texts are incidental and do not in any way impact any core Christian belief or practice. I could as easily serve a church that used the New King James Version as one using the New International Version or other modern translation.

[vi] Modern translations are based upon the Nestle Aland corrected Greek translation, Novum Testamentum Graece. The Nestle-Aland text is also the standard for academic work in New Testament studies. This text is periodically updated, and translators normally use the most current update of the corrected text. It is important to note that both conservative and liberal scholars support the Nestle Aland text. It is also important to note that there are scholars who defend the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in translations. As I mention above, in my view this academic dispute is immaterial for Christian faith and morals. Finally, it is important to note that it is conservative scholars that place the most impetus in revising the Greek text, since the belief in the literal inerrancy of Scripture is always phrased, “in the original autograph,” in other words, “As originally written in the first Greek text.” Thus, the search for text most like the original is basic to this theory of the authority of Scripture.

[vii] There are old stories in non-Biblical literature alleging that John and others were forced to drink poison, but not harmed. Eusebius recounts that “[Papias] also mentions another miracle relating to Justus, surnamed Barsabas, how he swallowed a deadly poison, and received no harm, on account of the grace of the Lord.” James E. Snapp, Jr. “The Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20” (Unpublished, 2007) found at www.textexcavation.com/snapp/PDF/snappmark.pdf (January 21, 2016) says, “Something similar is related in the career of Moses (Exodus 15:23-25) and in the career of Elisha (Second Kings 4:38-41) which may be significant since, just as Elisha succeeded Elijah who ascended, the believers succeed Jesus who ascended. An overlapping idea is also present in Numbers 5:16-28. But the closest parallel is in the story about Justus (who is mentioned in Acts as taking part in events in the first half of the first century) which was related by Papias.”

[viii] In looking at passages like Mark 16:9-20 believers have an opportunity to think more deeply about what we mean by the “Authority of Scripture.” When the Authorized Version was created, we did not have access to the number of manuscripts of the New Testament we possess today. As archeology began to uncover ancient copies of the Bible, what is called “Lower Textual Criticism” began to develop. The idea was to examine the various texts available and discern the best possible translation from them. Both conservative and liberal scholars practice Lower Textual Criticism. As indicated, the oldest manuscripts do not contain Mark 16:9-20 schweizer-apotheke.de. Therefore, in most modern translations, they are either omitted or placed in brackets. As such, most Biblical scholars to not regard them as authoritative as is the remainder of Mark. As seen above, however, these verses are not contrary to the teachings of Scripture and in fact draw upon Scripture for their teachings. The Gospel of Christ, the reality of the resurrection of Christ, and the commission of the church to share the Gospel, as well as the promise of presence and protection along the way are all contained in these verses. There is nothing contrary to the teachings of Scripture contained in them, provided they are properly understood in the context of the remainder of the Biblical witness. As with many things, it is best not to concentrate on details, but on the great themes of God’s wisdom and love for the world, the salvation offered by Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit in thinking about hard passages. Scripture is designed to teach us about the nature of God, of humans, and about how we humans ought to behave. Mark 16:9-20 contains nothing contrary to the call to share God’s love with the world in the power of the Spirit and expect God’s presence and protection along the way. While it would be a mistake to base any crucial teaching or activity of the church on Mark 16:9-20, such as mandating the drinking of poison or handling of snakes, it can be used to confirm what we already believe based upon the testimony of Scripture as a whole, such as teaching the power of the Gospel and the protection of God’s people.

[ix] The official statement of the faith of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, to which our congregation belongs, upholds the Westminster Confession of Faith, which reads in part: “The whole purpose of God about everything pertaining to his own glory and to man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either explicitly stated in the Bible or may be deduced as inevitably and logically following from it. Nothing is at any time to be added to the Bible, either from new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we do recognize that the inward illumination of the Spirit of God is necessary for a saving understanding of the things which are revealed in the word.” The Westminster Confession goes on to teach: “The meanings of all the passages in the Bible are not equally obvious, nor is any individual passage equally clear to everyone.15 However, everything which we have to know, believe, and observe in order to be saved is so clearly presented and revealed somewhere in the Bible that the uneducated as well as the educated can sufficiently understand it by the proper use of the ordinary means of grace.” What we have done today is to see how God has worked and how to properly understand a difficult text. To properly understand Holy Scripture, we must allow the Holy Spirit to illumine our understanding, reading the text in context with other relevant passages of Scripture. This is especially true of hard texts. See, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Governing Documents: Constitution: Volume 2: Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms in Modern English (Livonia, MI: Evangelical Presbyterian Church, 2014), Chapter 1: Holy Scripture.