Mark 3:13–35
13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15 and have authority to cast out demons. 16 He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot,1 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
20 Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. 21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”
22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of 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 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
31 And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers2 are outside, seeking you.” 33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
1 Greek kananaios, meaning zealot 2 Other manuscripts add and your sisters
Section Overview
Jesus marks a second phase in his relationship with a core group of disciples. He singles them out as a defined group in order that they might come under his particular tutelage and become, eventually, the key guarantors of the credible witness to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection (cf. Acts 1:8). For the time being, the twelve need to be with Jesus and prepared to proclaim the message and exorcise demons, thus following his example in action and speech (Mark 3:13–19). The eternal foundations for the worldwide messianic people of God are thus laid.
Opposition arises both from his natural family (3:20–21, 31–35) and the religious leadership of Israel (3:22–30). This affords Jesus the opportunity to declare who belongs to the new and eternal family of God (3:33–35).
Section Outline
II.B. Climax in Galilee (3:13–6:6)
1. Appointment of the Twelve, Accusations, and the Family of God (3:13–35)
a. Appointment of the Twelve (3:13–19)
(1) Appointment of the Twelve Disciples and Apostles (3:13–15)
(2) The Names of the Disciples (3:16–19)
b. The Natural Family Maligns Jesus (3:20–21)
c. Jesus Is Accused of Being Demon Possessed (3:22–30)
(1) Jesus’ Defense (3:22–27)
(2) The Unforgivable Sin against the Holy Spirit (3:28–30)
d. Opposition from Jesus’ Natural Family; the True Family of God (3:31–35)
Response
Jesus marks a second phase in discipling his followers by calling a specific group of twelve disciples to constitute the core of his following. Later, Mark tells his readers that many women likewise faithfully follow Jesus (cf. comments on 15:40–16:8). The Twelve are to be with Jesus (Mark 3:14), to help spread and teach the message, and to exorcise demons. They are thus to follow his example in action and speech (3:13–19). Jesus thereby lays key foundations that characterize the worldwide messianic people of God: to be with Jesus and to pursue his purposes in his strength.
The expansive enlargement of Jesus’ range of power and authority reaches into the deeper regions of the radical call to discipleship. Jesus’ teaching and conduct also incites increasing opposition with the intent to kill him and leads to false accusations, for example, of being demon-possessed, of breaking the law of Moses, of being out of his mind. Supreme in all of this is the will of God, expressed and articulated in and through Jesus, the teacher, healer, and exorcist, particularly regarding the natural family, fasting, keeping the Sabbath. The first disciples participate in unique and unrepeated aspects of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Among these unique aspects are, for example, going out in pairs through the Judean and Galilean villages and specific instructions for items to be taken on the journey. However, all disciples are called to be with Jesus, now mediated through the promised gift and presence of the Holy Spirit, and to live, work, and witness in the world as Christlike followers who rely on him for everything.
While unique features can be listed of the original twelve disciples, it is clear that following Jesus, and thus the triune God, for modern disciples has much to do with communion with him through the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8; 10:44–48; Rom. 8: 9–11). In this relationship, they are being shaped into Christlikeness (cf. Mark 8:34; Matt. 11:28–30) and pursue his stated worldwide mission to bring the rule of God through preaching his atoning forgiveness and his call to obedience toward a temple of “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5). Since the exalted Jesus, together with the eternal Father and Holy Spirit, still lives today in the unseen world (Acts 3:21), still speaks through his apostolically conveyed Word (i.e., Scripture), and still works through the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33), such individual and communal shaping is realistic even today.
Surprisingly, Jesus emphasizes the primacy of the family of God over the natural family without demanding the severing of any relationship with members of the natural family. Completely severing family relationships for the sake of exclusive devotion to God is a mark of a cult or sectarian movement, not of Jesus’ kingdom. According to Jesus, the natural family should neither be the focal and decisive point of life nor be rejected as unimportant or irrelevant. Rather, the dynamic tension must be held between the will of God expressed in particular ways through the family of God and care for the natural, believing or unbelieving family, as Jesus did in his own life. Jesus thus never instructs his disciples to cut off relationship with their natural families. He does, however, challenge his followers to put his authoritative call above all loyalties to the natural family, be they themselves followers of Christ or not. This calls for a circumspect evaluation of various acquired loyalties toward the natural family. Each follower needs to gain wisdom in heeding the call to honor parents while obeying Jesus’ call above all else.
A follower of Christ will concentrate on the question of the will of God (Mark 3:35). God’s will can be discerned by absorbing the counsel of God revealed in Scripture, by means of prayer, growth in humility, and careful conversation with other followers of Christ. In this process he or she will find the right path for lovingly pursuing the natural family. In abusive family or church relationships, it is important to seek counsel of wise and older followers of Christ to discern what is healthy or unhealthy in a given relationship. In unhealthy circumstances, clear boundaries toward abusive members of the family, church, or society must be drawn.
Following Jesus, the eternal Son of God, may lead to sharp accusations. As stated above, his natural family initially opposes him strongly (Mark 3:20–21, 31–35), as do the spiritual leaders of Israel (3:22–30). Both his natural family (at this early stage) and his opponents seek their own interests. They resist the purposes of God expressed by Jesus. According to the Qur’an, anyone who confesses that Jesus is the eternal Son of God may be misunderstood as saying that the eternal God procreated a son with Mary. Such a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the Christian confession may then be viewed in the Qur’an as blasphemy. Thus careful explanation is necessary in order to communicate the precise nature of the eternal sonship of Jesus. He is the eternal Son of God who was born as a human being through the Holy Spirit’s fertilization of Mary.
Finally, condemning the work of the Holy Spirit forfeits the very means—through the conviction of sins, for example—by which the eternally valid and efficient sacrifice of Christ for all sins is communicated to everyone who comes to faith (John 16:8). The follower of Jesus welcomes the convicting and exhorting work of the Holy Spirit.
Greek kananaios, meaning zealot
Other manuscripts add and your sisters
3:13–15 From time to time Mark does not mention certain acts of Jesus—he simply assumes them. Here, e.g., the reader notices that Jesus has, in the meantime, called additional disciples to follow him. Now he calls all them on a “mountain.” A mountain can serve as a place of prayer (6:46; cf. Matt. 14:23; Luke 9:28; John 6:15), decision (Luke 6:12–13), instruction (Matt. 5:1; John 6:3), healing (Matt. 15:29–30), and revelation (Mark 9:2, 9; 13:3–4; Matt. 28:16; Acts 1:8, 12; cf. Ex. 19:3–6).
Jesus chooses and “appoints” (Gk. poieō; “I make”) disciples for a particular task (cf. 3:16). Note that poieō in the sense of “appointing to a task” is used also in the LXX and elsewhere in the NT. He chooses “twelve” disciples (e.g., 3:16; 4:10; 14:10, 17, 20, 43) from a larger group of followers. Jesus “called to him those whom he desired” (3:13). They have a particular twofold task:
(1) Above all they are to “be with him.” To be in fellowship with Jesus reinforces the call to discipleship (cf. 1:17, 20; 2:14; 3:13), whereby the disciples are being shaped into credible and holistic witnesses (14:33; contrast with 5:18).
(2) “He might send them out” (cf. 1:17; 6:7, 30; 9:37). The Twelve are unique and irreplaceable apostles in that they are particular eyewitnesses of Jesus’ entire public ministry. Only in a secondary sense does this word also hint at the early Christian sense of the term apostle as one who is commissioned or deputized for a particular task.
In contemporary documents outside the NT the term apostle (Gk. apostolos; Heb. shaliakh), can, in various contexts, refer to a shipping invoice, a military campaign, a document for travel, or a commissioned political delegation. Before the time of Koine Greek the extant usage is rare, but it can at times be documented in the sense of a delegation. A small number of Greek OT occurrences of apostolos render the Hebrew term shaliakh (“messenger”). The Jewish historian Josephus employs the term in the sense of a delegation of commissioned emissaries. In Luke-Acts, the word nearly always refers to the Twelve (see also Gal. 1:17), narrowly defining an apostle as one who had been with Jesus from the time of the baptism of John the Baptist until the death and resurrection of Jesus (cf. Acts 1:15, 22–26). It is therefore important to take note of the careful remarks concerning the respective apostolic offices of Paul and of James, the brother of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:5, 7; Gal. 1:19). In Luke-Acts, only two exceptions to this narrow definition of the term apostle are found (Acts 14:4, 14), where the term is used for Barnabas (and Paul). This may already anticipate the subsequent usage among the church fathers, where an apostolos is simply one commissioned by a given church to evangelize or to plant a new church.
It is important to note that this call of the Twelve is reported in each of the four Gospels, that these Twelve learn from Jesus in particular ways, and that Jesus commissions exactly these to bear witness to him following his death and resurrection.
As emissaries who depend upon Jesus, they are to do and to embody what Jesus does and teaches them. They are called (1) to “preach” the word, especially of the rule of God (cf. 1:14, 39; 6:12; Luke 9:2) and (2) to “cast out demons” (cf. 1:34, 39). Mark 6:13 adds that they also went out to heal. The close parallel between Jesus’ actions and those of his disciples paves the way for understanding the essence of discipleship, with or without the gift of exorcism and healing: as Jesus is humbled in atoning suffering and vindicated by resurrection, so his followers will be humbled in suffering and vindicated in God’s way and time. While there is thus a similar pattern between Jesus and his disciples, the uniqueness of Jesus’ suffering lies in the fact that he atones for the sins of “many” (10:45), while his disciples suffer as a means of witness and purification.
Their present call will be put into action in 6:7–12, 30. Above all, Jesus proclaims the rule of God to descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel (see, however, 7:27). The “twelve” might thus serve, in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, as symbolic representatives of these tribes before they are sent out into the entire world (13:9–13).
3:16–18 The inner group of Jesus’ three disciples (cf. comments on 1:29–31; 5:37; 9:2; 9:38–40; 10:35; 10:41; 13:3; 14:32–36) is mentioned in the opening statement. Each of the three disciples is mentioned by his newly given name (cf. 2 Kings 24:17; Dan. 1:7): Simon (Mark 1:16) is called “Peter” (“rock”; Matt. 16:18; John 1:42; 1 Cor. 15:5); James and his younger brother John (Matt. 17:1; Mark 1:19) are called “Boanerges” (“sons of thunder”; e.g., 1:29; 5:37; and often). John was originally a follower of John the Baptist (presumably being the other disciple in John 1:35). Among the disciples are three pairs of brothers: Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, and James the son of Alphaeus and Levi/Matthew (cf. Matt. 9:9; Mark 2:14; 3:18; Luke 5:27).
Andrew, who is not part of the inner circle, is mentioned first (Mark 3:18; cf. 13:3) among the remaining nine disciples. Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Philip were originally all from Bethsaida (John 1:44) before settling in Capernaum (Mark 1:29). The fishermen and sons of Zebedee, James and John, were probably business partners with the boat-owners and brothers Peter and Andrew. This becomes likely when considering Luke 5:3–10. Luke calls them both metochois (“partners”; Luke 5:7) and koinōnoi (“companions” or “partners”; Luke 5:10). The other Simon’s epithet, Zealot, does not necessarily imply that he was part of a group seeking political liberation by force; it can simply convey that he was zealous.
3:19 The final person mentioned among Jesus’ disciples is “Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him” (cf. Mark 14:10–11, 18, 20–21, 41–44). Together with the other eleven, Judas is chosen to be with Jesus, to serve as one of the Twelve, to preach, to heal, and to exorcise. He is loved by Jesus and warned by him (John 6:64, 70). Judas, for his part, does not trust Jesus (John 6:64). His unbelieving heart is hardened despite the presence of the merciful master (John 6:70).
The motif of being handed over (“betrayed”; Gk. paradidōmi) runs through Mark’s account. John the Baptist is handed over (“arrested”; cf. comment on 1:14–15). Jesus is handed over by God into the hands of evil men (Mark 9:31; 10:33; 15:1). Judas, the religious rulers, and Pilate hand him over, ultimately to death (14:10–11, 18, 21, 41–42, 44; 15:10, 15). Jesus predicts that his followers will likewise be handed over to religious and political tribunals as well as antagonistic family members (13:9–13). The Hebrew verb natan (= “I give”) is at times rendered in the LXX with a form of paradidōmi: In the case of Job 2:6, Job is handed over by God to Satan. In the case of Zechariah 11:6; Jeremiah 38:3; Ezekiel 25:4, God punishingly hands over various peoples (including his own) into the hands of their respective enemies (cf. also 1 Kings 14:16).
3:20 Jesus comes home to Capernaum, where he resides with Peter and Andrew (cf. comment on 1:21–22 for discussion of Capernaum). The scene of great throngs is reminiscent of 2:1–2.
3:21 Jesus’ natural family, that is, his mother and siblings, is convinced for a long time that “he is out of his mind.” In this context the meaning is to be “out of one’s senses,” or “mad.” The family draws this conclusion based on all that has happened (cf. John 7:5; 10:20). In addition to his opponents (cf. Mark 3:22, 30), Jesus thus also has to cope with members of his natural family (cf. 13:12). Despite the fact that they seek to “seize him” (Gk. krateō, “I arrest, apprehend, grasp”; a rather forceful term), he will never cut off his relationship with his mother and siblings (cf. Acts 1:14). To the contrary, he always retains contact, even when the relationships are strained. Nevertheless, he will steadily follow the call of God above all else (cf. Mark 3:31–35; Luke 2:49).
3:22 Important “scribes . . . from Jerusalem” have now arrived, perhaps as an official delegation, to seek to accuse Jesus. They concede his undisputed powers but are bent on labeling them as satanic (Matt. 10:25). It is uncertain to what “Beelzebul” exactly refers. However, it is clear that the opponents of Jesus refer to some powerful demon in the service of Satan (Mark 3:23), the fallen and chief angel of demonic darkness and lies (2 Cor. 11:14; Rev. 12:9). In their minds, this will only reinforce the necessity to remove him.
3:23–27 Jesus now makes use of two climactically ordered illustrations. In Mark they are called “parables.” He employs these illustrations in order to render false their accusation. Jesus argues that if he worked through evil powers, the satanic domain of power could not stand, since it would be internally divided (Mark 3:23–26; cf. Matt. 12:26). Jesus must be working through a power superior to Satan. Only in this way is he able to challenge (or “enter [the] . . . house” of) the power sphere of Satan. In Jesus’ works, Satan must have been bound by a greater power (cf. Isa. 49:24–25; 53:12), namely, that of the kingdom of God (Mark 3:27) as demonstrated by Jesus (Luke 10:18; 11:20; 17:22).
Jesus implies here what he states explicitly elsewhere: as rightful owner of the world, his coming directly challenges the illegitimate power and claims of Satan and his demons over the fallen world. Jesus has come to reclaim what is rightfully his, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The power of the fallen angel Satan will not prevail over the rule and kingdom of God (Matt. 16:18–19; Col. 1:13).
3:28–30 The opponents’ accusation that Jesus has an “unclean spirit” by which he expels evil spirits is, therefore (see Mark 3:23–27), the unforgivable “eternal sin” of “blasphem[ing] against the Holy Spirit” (cf. v. 30). Verse 28 emphasizes the liberating truth that, in the light of the eternally valid substitutionary atonement of Jesus, “all sins,” including various “blasphemies,” “will be forgiven” (cf. 10:45). If Jesus’ words and deeds (cf. 1:10; 3:30; Isa. 5:20), which are worked by the divine “Holy Spirit,” are, however, labeled in an ongoing way as satanic (Mark 3:22), this denies the Holy Spirit’s unique testimony to Jesus. This would thus block the application of Jesus’ atoning salvation to a human being (vv. 29–30; cf. Matt. 12:32). Such a person will thereby be “guilty,” that is, held liable (cf. Mark 14:64), “of an eternal sin” since there is no further path to forgiveness. This kind of blasphemy must be distinguished from grieving (Isa. 63:10; Eph. 4:30) or quenching (1 Thess. 5:19) the Holy Spirit in a disciple’s life, or from any other form of blasphemy.
3:31–35 While Jesus teaches (cf. comment on 1:21–22), his “mother,” Mary, and his “brothers,” James, Joses, Judas, and Simon (cf. 6:3), are “call[ing]” (“summoning”) him; they presumably now try to “seize” him, as was announced in 3:21 (compare vv. 31–32 with v. 21). As stated above, Jesus never severs his difficult and challenging relationship with his natural family (e.g., 7:9–13). Nevertheless, he upholds the primacy of God’s messianic people (Ex. 32:25–29; Deut. 33:8–9) as the core family of God (Mark 3:33–34) over the natural family. This is why he states, “Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother” (contrast with 6:3).
Jesus constantly restores human beings to the original creation intent, in which loyalty to God’s will and presence stand above the natural family and also the disciplines of fasting and Sabbath keeping. Tellingly, both Jesus’ mother and his brothers will be among the members of the early church (Acts 1:14).