Mark 1:14-22

Mark 1:14-15 : The Message of the Good News

After John is imprisoned, Jesus reaches out to people saying “Repent and believe in the good news”.
What he brings to people is
1) good news
a. good news of truth
b. good news of hope
c. good news of peace
d. good news of promise
e. good news of immortality
f. good news of salvation
2) importance of repentance
3) importance of belief

Mark 1:16-20 : Jesus chooses his friends

He did not chose his disciples from aristocrats , nor from scholars , nor from the wealthy. He chose humble fishermen. These verses tell about 4 people becoming his followers. Simon , his brother Andrew are the first to be called. Then James and his brother John are the next. When Jesus called they were busy with their daily work. What is to be noticed is that Jesus just said “Follow me” and they just left whatever they were doing and followed him. There was no kind of justification/explanation about the good news or his preaching. He just said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”. The call of God is like falling in love. You forget reason, you have only faith – blind faith; nothing more.

Mark 1:21-22 : Jesus begins his campaign

They went to Capernaum and on the Sabbath, he went to the synagogue and began to teach. They were very astonished to hear him teach since they way he taught and what he taught was different from what the scholars taught.
The question is how could Jesus just go to the synagogue and teach? What was a synagogue? Weren’t there people to manage?
A synagogue is a place of teaching, a place where Jews gather to listen to learned men talking about Torah, especially about the Pentateuch (the first 5 books by Moses). It was not a Temple. A temple is a place of worship and sacrifice and there was only one temple whereas there were many synagogues. As the law says there was one synagogue for every 10 Jewish families. A synagogue had people to manage but the structure was that anybody who had a message could talk. Jesus was a man with a message.
The people were used to being taught the laws and rules from the scriptures and hence were surprised to hear something different from Jesus.