Notes on Mark 4 - by Mike Flynn (Vicar)
Mark 4:1-34
Parables
In chapter 4 we finally start to get some of the details of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God. Based on their interpretation of the prophets, the conservatives of his day expected a political kingdom, backed by military muscle. Based on their interpretation of the same prophets the radicals of Jesus' day expected the Kingdom to undermine the social order rather than reinforce it. For justice 'to flow in the streets' and bring an egalitarian Kingdom of equality. It both cases, the Kingdom would be unavoidable.
But when Jesus starts talking about the Kingdom he says it is like a seed. It is like life. Delicate, frail, optional, inevitable, tough, unstoppable. The Kingdom begins now not with a military junta or the recreation of the universe but with a seed.
Q: In the parable of the seeds what is it that determines whether or not the Kingdom grows in our lives?
In verses 24 & 25 Jesus notes that we need to work at understanding his teaching, the more effort we put in, the more we will get out of it and the more fruit we bear the greater will be our reward.
In the parable of the seeds Jesus describes four types of lives: hardened lives, shallow lives, conflicted lives and good lives.
Hardened lives
The seed is the news that God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. That Jesus is where we can know and meet with God. He is the Kingdom of God walking amongst us. (1:15).
Q: Why won't some even entertain this idea for a moment?
Q: Is the hardened life religious or secular in our context? In Jesus' time?
Shallow lives
The truth about God is received and it starts to produce life but it does not go deeply into the character of the person who is experimenting with Christianity.
Q: Why is it that some persist as Christians in terrible circumstances and others give up easily and early?
Q: What does a deeper life look like?
Conflicted lives
Here the growth remains, there is an ongoing interest and commitment to Christianity but there is no reproductive fruit because the plant it choked by a busy life.
Q: How do the competing priorities Jesus lists here threaten to choke our spiritual lives?
Good lives
This life hears the word and does it - that is, it receives the truth about God in Christ, is changed by it and produces fertile fruit. It is not only a living commitment to Christ it is a fertile commitment.
Q: What is the fruit?
Q: What does it mean for us that we are not for ourselves alone, that we are meant to produce fruit for the sake of others, that God has a bigger purpose for us than us?
Q: If the parable of the lamp on a stand means our fruitfulness is not to be hidden (21-23) what do the parables of the growing seed (26-29) and the Mustard seed (30-33) teach us about the Kingdom in us individually and as a church?