Skip to Navigation | Skip to Content

Events

Home > Events > Past > 2008 >

Preaching the Gospel of Mark to a Restless Culture
Thursday, October 9, 2008

We Twittered from this conference; here's what we wrote. (Start at the bottom.)

all for today! audio and video are coming soon; bookmark www.calvin.edu/worship/even... and check back. 12:15 PM Oct 9th from web
Scott Hoezee concluding: "fair to say our churches will be hearing a lot of Mark sermons coming up" 10:49 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "hopeless...but not so" 10:48 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Mk 5 = "encyclopedia of hopeless cases" 10:47 AM Oct 9th from web
Q - common thread in Mark 5 (from worship this morning) and healing of hem'g woman? new world emerging? 10:47 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: true promise: things of death and destruction in this world--will there be any of it in next? No, not even a little bit: none 10:44 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "anyone who goes and drinks a bottle of kerosene in the name of Jesus is making an eschatological mistake" 10:43 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: re:snake-handling:combat between two worlds; in new world, threat of death and harm has been overcome(but we're still in this world yet) 10:42 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: scribes later got anxious and added post-resurrex appearances, missed the importance of "re-reading" the whole book 10:41 AM Oct 9th from web
Q about Mk 16:9-20 10:40 AM Oct 9th from web
on to Q&A 10:40 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: disciples idle throughout this story -- like the blind man, they see partially at first, fully only later 10:38 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: very "tactile" story ... which is a body blow against abstract notion of ministry" we often have 10:35 AM Oct 9th from web
TL:"blind man represents a kind of Markan discipleship" 10:34 AM Oct 9th from web
why two-part healing of the blind man? 10:34 AM Oct 9th from web
on to mark 8 10:32 AM Oct 9th from web
(v34 - shepherd reference) 10:31 AM Oct 9th from web
and to Psalm 23 -- he makes me lie down in green pastures 10:30 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: allusion to Isaiah - the desert will blossom when the Messiah comes 10:30 AM Oct 9th from web
v39 -- 'green grass' in the 'desert'! 10:30 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: in chapter 6:30ff, a "literary speed bump" 10:27 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: old baptismal rite: renounce Satan before baptism, come out of baptismal poll on other side 10:26 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "In Mark repent is not 'feel sorry for your sins'; repentance is, There's a collision of kingdoms ... change your citizenship" 10:25 AM Oct 9th from web
v35 "while he was still speaking" news of death -- proclamation of new kingdom simultaneous, in combat with, old world 10:24 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: sandwiching of the healing of the woman changes the Jairus story -- not just a religious leader doing a favor for a well-off man 10:21 AM Oct 9th from web
at Mk 5:21 ... 10:17 AM Oct 9th from web
sounds disjointed to us, but older technique 10:17 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "Mark is more into the folk technique of narrative chaining" 10:16 AM Oct 9th from web
"sandwich technique" (discussing this after lunch) -- "narrative chaining" 10:16 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "Jesus both fulfills our expectations of greatness AND subverts our understanding of how that greatness is accomplished" 10:15 AM Oct 9th from web
third seed parable - v.30: 10:14 AM Oct 9th from web
v.26 - our call is to be obedient, not to try to measure the growth of the seeds we plant 10:08 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: with re-reading frame, we see the resurrection as the "bumper crop" of this seed 10:06 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "We are no longer entitled to look at any soil and say, 'That is not worth our time'" 10:05 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Jesus says to disciples, how will you understand the rest of the parables if you don't understand this one? "This is the master parable" 10:03 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "extravagance" of the sower 9:59 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "no reasonable farmer in the history of the world has ever sown seed the way the sower does in this parable" 9:59 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Jesus sitting in the boat on the sea: sitting=position of authority, teaching; sea=chaos; his authority trumps the chaos 9:58 AM Oct 9th from web
on to Mark 4:1 - parable of the Sower 9:57 AM Oct 9th from web
so the glorification comes in the midst of -- even through -- the tragedy, not after it 9:57 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Jesus shows forgiveness in the midst of the violence being done to him (even before the crucifixion) -- not just after the fact 9:55 AM Oct 9th from web
on Mark 3:1-6 9:53 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Mark's pace of action is very quick until Passion Week, and then it slows and, as one scholar says, "becomes like a death watch" 9:47 AM Oct 9th from web
back from lunch -- dessert was pie from the Grand Traverse Pie Company -- wow! 9:41 AM Oct 9th from web
breaking for lunch -- we've been "fed" already but looking forward to being physically refreshed 8:52 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: before, they wondered how to integrate their belief in Jesus into their Judaism; now it's how to hang onto their Judaism in their Xt'y 8:51 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "I think Mark is written to a group of Jewish Christians who have just been kicked out or walked out of the synagogue" 8:50 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "we are in the business now of rebuilding people's scriptural competence"--takes more than purely "episodic" approach of the lectionary 8:49 AM Oct 9th from web
Q about Syro-Phoenician woman -- TL: rabbinical tradition of wise rabbis being taught by children and women -- those of no social status 8:47 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "Two cheers for the lectionary" 8:46 AM Oct 9th from web
Q&A beginning now 8:41 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "In baptism we are given a story, but the world tries to give us a different story" 8:41 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Jesus goes to pray in the wilderness -- not a place of peace and quiet retreat, but turmoil 8:34 AM Oct 9th from web
looking at specific passages now -- Mark 1:35 8:34 AM Oct 9th from web
heavens ripped open; blind "son of Timaeus" -- title of Plato treatise -- receives sight 8:24 AM Oct 9th from web
re:ending-- in Mark, no post-resurrex appearances -- but with re-read, all appearances of Christ are now post-resurrex appearances 8:14 AM Oct 9th from web
(and then only partial, misunderstood) 8:07 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: you know the truth in the first verse -- no one else (except demons) 8 chapters says this until chapter 8 8:06 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: a sense in which the whole play of Hamlet is an exegesis of the first line ('who goes there?') -- same with Mark 8:05 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: this is true in the very first verse 8:05 AM Oct 9th from web
i.e. must go back and read again to discover the foreshadowing elements 8:02 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: several ways of framing book as a whole -- first take: the 're-reading' take 8:02 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Mark presents Jesus "in the thick of combat" 8:01 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "for some Christians, Mark is the most powerful gospel of all." 8:01 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Updike, asked his favorite gospel, said 'Luke, I love the stories' but added Mark is "least prone to wishful thinking" 7:59 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: "Don't try to assess what is going on here until you've gotten to the end of it." 7:58 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: Mark "subverts easy access to God: you don't exactly know what is going on" 7:58 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: some worship today "makes God too darn accessible" 7:56 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: movie quote from Diner: "ever get the feeling there's something going on that we don't understand" -- that's the book of Mark 7:53 AM Oct 9th from web
some scholars see turbulence of storm in Mark 4 as metaphor for persecution; disciples--and Mark's audience--asks, Jesus, do you care? 7:48 AM Oct 9th from web
audience of Mark: community that is being persecuted -- maybe Rome 7:47 AM Oct 9th from web
Church of St. Mark: shabbiest building, poorest congregation 7:46 AM Oct 9th from web
TL: imagine four churches on four corners of the same intersection: Church of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John 7:44 AM Oct 9th from web
session 1 beginning now: 'Tearing the Heavens Apart: the Big Ideas in Mark’s Gospel' 7:41 AM Oct 9th from web
Tom Long is Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, author of "The Witness of Preaching" et al 7:40 AM Oct 9th from web
more info at tinyurl.com/4b4uxk. We'll be posting key statements and quotable quotes here all day. 7:38 AM Oct 9th from web
at the Fall Preaching conference with Thomas G. Long hosted by CEP -- www.cepreaching.org 7:32 AM Oct 9th from web

Back to top