Mark 1:29-34

This is a brief (and admittedly unpolished) response to Mark 1:29-34 and the gospel commentaries of Dr. Emerson Powery from True to Our Native Land and the commentary included in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible from Abingdon. I wrote this for my New Testament and Exigetical Methods class , but I liked what I had encountered in the text and decided to post it here.

Mark 1:29-34

It is interesting to note not one but multiple instances of women existing in extraordinary ways in the Markan gospel. Each has significant impact on the ministry of Jesus, but few are named by the author. Again we have to note the context in which the book was written. Even though the author may have been able to see the importance of these women (which is obvious considering their inclusion), they are still mired by the cultural view of women thus leading to the ambiguity of their naming.

The story I focused on is one that has never really had significance to me before now: the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law. The story in Mark 1:29-31 to me is one of the more minor passages within the gospel though it does speak for liberation in scripture. It is interesting to me that the author of Mark follows through with a concept that is consistent throughout this gospel: that of women as ministers.

As Dr. Powery reveals in TONL (also discussed in NISB) to those of us who are not Greek scholars, the author of Mark only uses the term diakoneo in relation to the Son of Man, angels, and women. This was particularly shocking to me coming from a Southern Baptist background. Here in Mark we have the author characterizing women as deacons and ministers! In light of this idea, I wonder if the women Jesus encountered in his journey really became the grassroots followers of his ministry. We obviously have more examples of women serving in this capacity in Mark (i.e. the woman who anointed Jesus and Mary Magdalene). I find it comforting to my own theology of liberation to find instances of women being such important components to Jesus’ ministry in scripture (while still struggling with other passages like Mark 7:24-30).

This passage continues on to the healing of many people and casting out demons in verses 32 through 34. It is interesting that neither the NISB commentary nor TONL discuss this mass-healing passage in much detail. In fact, Dr. Powery skips right over it and moves into the following verses about Jesus praying in the morning. NISB simply describes it as a “summary of many healings performed by Jesus” (p 1807). The significance of this double omission is a bit cloudy to me, though perhaps neither commentator discusses the silencing of the demons here because the passage preceding this one deals with the same concept (Mark 1:25,26).