Mark 9:16 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 9:16

Comments

Christ asks the scribes what they are questioning the disciple about; he challenges them but their answer is not recorded. Before they can answer someone in the crowd intervenes. The man didn’t exactly interrupt. He realises in a way that he is responsible for this situation. He has presented his son to the disciples and they have failed to cure him, and anyway he wants his son healed. It is a terrible situation. Mark moves swiftly through the narrative. ‘I have brought unto thee my son.’ This had been his intention, but finding Christ not present the father had asked the disciples to help. He calls Christ ‘Master’ and his form of address is significant: master, teacher; he didn't call him Lord. He obviously thought he was a man with great powers given by God, perhaps a prophet. He had no doubt heard others say, he was the Messiah, but he didn't take that term on his lips or an equivalent term. He said, Master. He is respectful but he places him no higher. The Gospel of Luke uses the term ‘master’ too in the parallel record. The exception is the Gospel of Matthew that says that the man said, ‘Lord.’ But it is fairly clear that in the Gospel of Matthew, the parallel record of this event which is extremely short; he is using the word ‘Lord’ in hindsight, looking back at the account. Matthew doesn't distinguish at all between the terms that the men used, because his is a truncated and general account. We can probably take it from the fact that we have ‘master’ in Mark and Luke – longer accounts, more precise accounts – that this was actually what the man said: ‘Master, I have brought unto thee my son.’ Luke tells us it was his only son. ‘Which hath a dumb spirit;And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth’, and then afterwards, he ‘pineth away’ – he subsides into total listlessness, and won’t eat. So the father brought the youth. He is obviously more than a child now. He is described as a child in all three records and yet the man subsequently says, ‘He has been like this since childhood.’ So he is not an adult, but neither is he strictly a child, though he has that description. So how old was he? About fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen would seem likely.

Application

The demon took him; he foamed, gnashed his teeth and then collapsed. Before conversion, we are not demon possessed but we are in the grip of the tempter. This event is not an exact picture of the unconverted state, but it is a sketch; there are many parallels. The demon possessed are constrained to do as the demon wishes. As unconverted people, we do as we are tempted; we sin willingly, but inevitably. We follow the fashions; we want to run our own lives. This case is a picture of anyone the devil controls. He was made to act against his own interests; he was thrown into the fire. That too is true of the unconverted. You constantly acting against your own interest to destroy yourself eternally, but that is not how we see it. Instead of finding meaning, purpose, we are unstable. We don’t have any principle of life driving us. We don’t have profound moral principles to guide us. We see ourselves as only here to enjoy the present moment. This boy was cut off from the world, and could not communicate; nor can we communicate with God. Also notice he was beyond the help of ordinary people, and similarly even top doctors cannot help in matters of the soul.

Questions

Matthew's Gospel uses an interesting word. He calls him ‘a lunatic’, which translates the Greek which means something like moonstruck, but it doesn't necessarily mean that ‘lunatic’ is the correct term to use, because this moonstruck term can be used quite generally. In Matthew's Gospel it is used as part of a precise description of an epileptic. So the lunatic word takes on the epileptic symptoms and sense. When Matthew calls him a moonstruck boy, he means that in very general terms. It's the term be uses for an epileptic boy. And those are certainly the symptoms described in Mark's Gospel.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Mark 9:16 Commentary and Bible Study