Mark 1:14 Commentary and Bible Study

We remember that five of the disciples had already encountered Christ prior to this. That is recorded in the Gospel of John at Christ’s baptism, when John identifies Christ: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’ Among those who were listening were some who would become Christ’s disciples and they were won to him – Andrew, Peter, John, Philip, and Nathanael (also called Bartholomew). They had all met the Lord, yet there is going to be another encounter for some of the same disciples in these verses.Now initially, Christ – not exclusively but largely – ministered in Judaea, and as John’s preaching waned, so Christ’s preaching and the crowds following him grew. He was not exclusively in Judaea, because there was the visit to Cana and the miracle of turning water into wine. Some of those early disciples were present at the wedding, so the record says. That was the first miracle of Christ, but it is not recorded in Mark. There was also another miracle in Cana, where a nobleman from Capernaum had gone to see Christ, to implore him to heal his son, and he healed him from a distance.When Mark records a miracle, it won’t actually be the first. There was the miracle also (at least we believe it was a miracle) of the first cleansing of the temple, when Christ with a small symbolic whip cleared all the money changers and the rogues out of the temple. Then too there were other miracles, because in John’s Gospel we are told that people in Jerusalem believed in his name when they saw the miracles (plural) which he did (John 2:22). Nicodemus also speaks of the miracles which Christ has done in Jerusalem (John 3:2). Christ then met the woman of Samaria and evangelised the region of Sychar and then, with the eclipse of John, the great crowds begin to switch to Christ and this is where Mark picks up the narrative. Mark – or rather Peter speaking through Mark – selects as his first miracle the healing of a demon-possessed man in the synagogue at Capernaum.‘Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.’ John is put in prison by Herod. In Mark’s Gospel, this is spoken of in retrospect in Mark 6:17-29.In Luke’s Gospel we read that at this very time he visited Nazareth. He read from Isaiah and the people of his home town of Nazareth, though they wondered at his teaching, repudiated him and even attempted to take his life. It was this which caused him to relocate his base to Capernaum, where Mark’s first miracle takes place.