I chose to read the book of Mark for the reading assignment. I found that after reading this book, my perspective on the definition of the gospel has changed. My old definition was: “I believe that the gospel is the good news of God and Jesus, written in the Bible”. I now see that the gospel is much more than this. The book of Mark is riddled with stories of Jesus performing miracles such as healing the sick, feeding thousands of people with few loaves of bread, correcting the disabled, and so much more. He also outright went against the highest, most pious religious upholders of the law, the Pharisees. I am not 100% certain but I believe that would have been a very bold move for someone to do that during that time period. It is truly amazing to read about all the good works Jesus had done for his people. Furthermore, a story that resonated with me greatly was The healing of a boy with a spirit, from Mark chapter 9. The portion of the story that I liked was verse 24, which says, “Immediately the father of the child cried out,[h] “I believe; help my unbelief!”’.
I interpreted this to mean that even though our doubts, and when we wrestle in our faith, Jesus can still help us by answering our calls to him. I also found it interesting how Jesus articulated this specific instance of casting out spirits could have only been done via prayer. I think I would like to talk more about that in class. What makes that instance of casting out demons in his name any different from the other times his disciples were doing that? Lastly, I think a perfect definition of what the Gospel is comes from the ending of Mark, where Jesus tells his disciples to go about the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. Since Gospel and good news seem to be interchangeable, I would say that the gospel is this: Anyone who undoubtedly believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ will be saved, and anyone who does not will be condemned.
Furthermore, those who believe will be able to cast out demons, speak in new tongues, pick up snakes in their hands, drink harmful liquids without pain, they will be able to lay their hands on the sick, and they will be healed. These are very bold claims by Jesus and I would also like to discuss these more. For example, if we drank poison, would we not feel pain? I know this seems like a silly question but I would like to delve into it more.
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