Mark 9:30 Commentary and Bible Study

There is a point between may be six and ten months before he went to Calvary, when Christ focussed on the disciples. We get just a number of insights into how he went about it: how he dealt with that inner circle; how he enriched them spiritually, challenged their hearts, convicted them of their faults and their sins and encouraged them forwards. So we are right in the inner circle with half of the record here and it is a wonderful passage and there are challenges for every one of us.From this point of his ministry onwards for several months the Lord Jesus wanted to keep (as we say today) a low profile. Though there were some public events, yet he wanted to focus his attention on the disciples. So he didn’t want his presence to be known as he went through certain regions. We can imagine that they by-passed certain towns and villages in order that the disciples – and of course others who travelled with them, quite a band of disciples apart from the twelve – so that such a group, travelling together, should not be noticed and his instruction to the inner circle should not be hindered.We are looking in on a teaching session just for the twelve, the future apostles, and what a privilege it is to do so. There is an old debate concerning how much we are actually told in a passage like this. Certainly, we are told literally of words that Christ used to his disciple, and they are accurately conveyed to us, but we are not necessarily told everything. The discourses may have been quite long. There may have been much more detail than we see. But we are given the essential message, the essential principles of all that the Lord taught them, at least. And there are some very significant matters in what follows.