Finishing the Race – Strong! (8)

 

“Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings, and also Barnabas’s cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him)” (Colossians 4:10).

 

“Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers” (Philemon 23 – 24).

 

“Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service” (2 Timothy 4:11).

 

We began this series with Demas. In Colossians 4 and in Philemon, he is a fellow worker with Paul. Then in 2 Timothy 4:10 we read, “For Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me.” Demas started strong, but he did not finish well; he went from honor to dishonor. Yet, we have another story in these passages. Do we see it? We have the story of a man who did not begin very well, but who finished strong, of a man who went from dishonor to honor in Jesus Christ. His name is Mark.

 

In Acts 13:5 we see that Barnabas and Paul had John Mark with them as their helper on their first missionary journey (in Acts 12:12, 25 and 15:37 note that he is termed “John, called Mark”). After their time in Cyprus we are told, “Now Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia; but John left them and returned to Jerusalem” (Acts 13:13).

 

After Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch (Acts 14:26 – 28), and after they made their important trip to Jerusalem and returned again to Antioch (Acts 15:1 – 35), they decided to revisit the young churches they had planted. However, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them, but Paul would have none of it.

 

“But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord” (Acts 15:38 – 40).

 

Mark left Paul early in Paul’s apostolic ministry, yet he would become a partner in the Gospel with Paul; indeed, Mark would come to write the Gospel bearing his name. Peter will call Mark “my son” in 1 Peter 5:13, so we see that Mark had a significant ministry, laboring alongside Barnabas, Paul, Peter, and many others. Mark may not have started very well, but he certainly finished strong.

 

Let’s recall that Colossians and Philemon were written in prison, and that Mark was with Paul when Paul wrote those letters. Being identified with Paul at that time carried with it the possibility of also being imprisoned, which in turn carried with it the possibility of torture and execution. Mark did not abandon Paul in this time of extreme danger.

 

Let’s also consider that Paul was in his final imprisonment when he wrote 2 Timothy, facing execution, and that when he instructs Timothy to bring Mark with him that he writes in the confidence that Mark will come and not avoid the danger. What a reversal from those early days recorded in Acts 13!

 

O dear friends, we can all experience redemptive reversals. Those of us who started strong but have veered off the path of faithfulness to Jesus and our brethren can return to be a blessing to others. Mark must have witnessed many miraculous things, as well as persecution, because of living in Jerusalem among disciples – see for example Acts 12:1–17. He lived through the great persecution described in Acts 8:1, and he likely knew both Stephen and James who were martyred in Jerusalem.

 

By living in Jerusalem, Mark knew about pressure; he knew there was a price to pay for following Jesus. Perhaps he should have known that going with Paul and Barnabas was going to be challenging, maybe he should have expected hardship. Was he prepared for the confrontation with the false prophet Elymas on Cyprus? What was happening inside Mark when he and his companions were before the proconsul Sergius Paulus, facing Elymas? Did he anticipate being arrested? Torture? Execution by the Roman official? Did he think that he would never see his mother in Jerusalem again? Was he relived when they finally left Cyprus? Was Mark yearning for a place of safety?

 

Well, we don’t really know the answer to all these things, but we can put ourselves in Mark’s place and ponder the possibilities, for we share a common humanity with him.

 

What do we see in Barnabas through all this? What can we learn from him? What can we learn from Paul?

 

We’ll continue to explore these questions in our next post in the series…the Lord willing.