Mark 2 Bible study: Through the roof

Mark 2 is built around four objections, and each one asks why. Some of the scribes reason in their hearts, "Why does this man speak blasphemies like that?" (2:7). The scribes and the Pharisees ask his disciples, "Why is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?" (2:16). People come and ask Jesus, "Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?" (2:18). The Pharisees say, "Behold, why do they do that which is not lawful on the Sabbath day?" (2:24). Here is what almost everyone misses: none of Jesus's answers is only a rule. He says "that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (2:10). He says why he came: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (2:17). He speaks of a bridegroom: "Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them?" (2:19). And he ends, "Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath" (2:28). A few verses into the next chapter, this part of the book closes: "The Pharisees went out, and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him" (3:6).

Exodus 16:29→leads toMark 2:27

The Sabbath comes to Israel as a gift: "because the LORD has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days" (16:29), and "the people rested on the seventh day" (16:30). When the Pharisees asked why his disciples did "that which is not lawful on the Sabbath day" (Mark 2:24), Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27), and "Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:28). Jesus doesn't name Exodus 16, so this link is a reading: some hear in his words the Sabbath given for his people's good, as it is here; others read them as his answer about the Sabbath law in general.

ἀφίημιaphiemisay af-EE-ay-mee

Strong's: "to send forth, in various applications", given in English as "forgive, forsake, lay aside, leave" and more. Thayer gives one of its senses as "to let go, give up, a debt, by not demanding it". It is the verb of "Son, your sins are forgiven you" (2:5), of the scribes' "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (2:7), of 2:9, and of "authority on earth to forgive sins" (2:10). One chapter earlier it is the verb of the fishermen who "left their nets" (1:18) and "left their father" (1:20). John preached "the baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins" (1:4), and Strong's gives that forgiveness, aphesis, as "from G863", this verb. Mark's Greek has it 37 times, counted in the Byzantine text the WEB translates.