Mark 3 Bible study: Whoever does the will of God

"He entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there whose hand was withered" (3:1). "They watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him" (3:2). Jesus tells the man, "Stand up" (3:3), and asks the watchers, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do harm? To save a life or to kill?" (3:4). "But they were silent" (3:4). Here is what almost everyone misses: Mark gives Jesus two feelings in one breath. He "looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts" (3:5) (tap anger, grieved, hardening). Then he says only, "Stretch out your hand" (3:5), "and his hand was restored as healthy as the other" (3:5) (tap restored). The next verse is the first time Mark tells of anyone planning against his life: "The Pharisees went out, and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him" (3:6). How Christians read the Sabbath command today is an honest question in chapter 2, as in Favor's chapters on Exodus 20 and Isaiah 58.

2 Samuel 3:10→leads toMark 3:24-25

The chapter opens on "a long war between Saul’s house and David’s house" (3:1). Then Saul's house turns against itself. Abner, who "made himself strong in Saul’s house" (3:6), falls out with Ishbosheth, the king he had made (2:8-9, 3:7-8), and swears "to transfer the kingdom from Saul’s house, and to set up David’s throne over Israel and over Judah" (3:10), and Ishbosheth "could not answer Abner another word, because he was afraid of him" (3:11). In Jesus' words: "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand" (Mark 3:24-25). No New Testament passage cites 2 Samuel 3, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some hear in Jesus' words a truth this chapter shows: a royal house turned against itself, and its captain setting out to carry the kingdom to David (3:10, 3:12). Others read Jesus' words in their own setting: he is answering the scribes who said, "By the prince of the demons he casts out the demons" (Mark 3:22), and asks, "How can Satan cast out Satan?" (Mark 3:23); he speaks of Satan's kingdom, not of Saul's house.

θέλημαthelemasay THEL-ay-mah

Thayer: "what one wishes or has determined shall be done". Strong's: "a determination (properly, the thing)". "For whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, and mother" (3:35). This is the only time Mark has the word (counted in the Byzantine text the WEB translates). Matthew gives the saying as "For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matthew 12:50), and has the word in the prayer Jesus teaches: "Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).