GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
MARK 1:27
On Teaching
Formal teaching is demanding work. Teachers invest hours learning their subjects and preparing lessons through which they hope to convey the subject to the student. The reward comes, however, in the eyes of students when they grasp the idea. A flash of comprehension brings a teacher great pleasure.
St. Mark wrote about Jesus’ teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum where a man with an unclean spirit interrupted his lesson. No writer made a record of Jesus’ lesson, for everyone’s attention focused on the interrupter. Jesus, however, ordered the unclean spirit to leave, and after wracking the man, it left. “And they were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’” (1:27)
It is likely that people gathered on the Sabbath to hear another scribal lesson based on a word or phrase of the Torah, how that word changed through time, and how it impacted the people in the audience. On this day, however, they heard from someone who likely had been teaching throughout the city; otherwise, the ruler of the synagogue would not have known of him or invited him to give the lesson. The audience was amazed that he taught with authority, not as an exegetical scribe. Then he ordered the unclean spirit who interrupted his lesson to depart, and it did. The audience was amazed by what they heard and saw. This was astonishing and new—a new teaching, a new authority, and a new command over an unclean spirit. Only Mark used this word for “amazed” in the New Testament, and it conveys the connotation of surprise almost to the point of terror or awe.
It is easy to imagine that eyes were opened wide in the synagogue that Sabbath as they grasped that something new, something amazing, something wonderful was in their midst.
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