Reading the Bible is great, but reading it in everyday language, I believe, helps put it into perspective.
Even better is knowing the background of the writer and understanding why and to whom he was writing.
So these blogs, one for each of the New Testament Books hope to achieve just that by giving the background for each of the books of the New Testament as written in The Message.
MARK
Mark wastes no time in getting down to business — a single-sentence introduction, and not a digression to be found from beginning to end. An event has taken place that radically changes the way we look at and experience the world, and he can't wait to tell us about it. There's an air of breathless excitement in nearly every sentence he writes. The sooner we get the message, the better off we'll be, for the message is good, incredibly good: God is here, and he's on our side.
The bare announcement that God exists doesn't particularly qualify as news. Most people in most centuries have believed in the existence of God or gods. It may well be, in fact, that human beings in aggregate and through the centuries have given more attention and concern to divinity than to all their other concerns put together — food, housing, clothing, pleasure, work, family, whatever.
But that God is here right now, and on our side, actively seeking to help us in the way we most need help — this qualifies as news. For, common as belief in God is, there is also an enormous amount of guesswork and gossip surrounding the subject, which results in runaway superstition, anxiety, and exploitation.
So Mark, understandably, is in a hurry to tell us what happened in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus — the Event that reveals the truth of God to us, so that we can live in reality and not illusion. He doesn't want us to waste a minute of these precious lives of ours ignorant of this most practical of all matters - that God is passionate to save us.
All Scripture quotations are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
The Message isn't a translation. It's a loose paraphrase by someone who paraphrased the whole Bible. It's not a translation by a group of people who are experts in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. People need to have more respect for God's word and use an actual translation like the classic NIV.
It's thought that the Gospel of Mark was told from Peter's point of view. It's also thought that it was the first gospel written because over 90% of Mark is found in Matthew and/or Luke.
There's some controversy with the ending of Mark. As it says in wikipedia:
Mark 16 is the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins with the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome. There they encounter a young man dressed in white who announces the Resurrection of Jesus (16:1-6). The two oldest manuscripts of Mark 16 (from the 300s) then conclude with verse 8, which ends with the women fleeing from the empty tomb, and saying "nothing to anyone, because they were too frightened."[1]
Textual critics have identified two distinct alternative endings: the "Longer Ending" (vv. 9-20) and the "Shorter Ending" or "lost ending",[2] which appear together in six Greek manuscripts, and in dozens of Ethiopic copies. Modern versions of the New Testament generally include the Longer Ending.
There's a long article about the endings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16
It's worth reading by those who are interested.
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Mark 16
Mark 16 is the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins with the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome. There they encounter a young man dressed in white who announces the Resurrection of Jesus (16:1-6). The two oldest manuscripts of Mark 16 (from the 300s) then conclude with verse 8, which ends with the women fleeing from the empty tomb, and saying "nothing to anyone, because they were too frightened."Textual critics have identified two distinct alternative endings: the "Longer Ending" (vv.
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