Mark 6:1-6  A prophet in His hometown.  Can you imagine the astonishment when the listeners on the Sabbath heard Jesus teaching in the Synagogue?  They had watched him grow up from being a baby, and He was the carpenter, they knew that He had no formal education.  He had not sat under the teaching of the local religious leaders to be mentored by them.  Yet here Jesus was teaching with authority.  They knew his life, for thirty years or so, they thought they knew Him intimately.  They knew Him so intimately that they knew that He was not Joseph’s son.  I found this interesting note regarding these verses:

“Despite His impressive words and deeds, He was too ordinary for them. The derogatory question, Isn’t this the carpenter? implied, “He is a common laborer like the rest of us.” All His immediate family—mother, brothers, and sisters—were known to the townspeople, and they were ordinary people. The phrase Mary’s Son was also derogatory since a man was not described as his mother’s son in Jewish usage even if she was a widow, except by insult (cf. Jud. 11:1–2; John 8:41; 9:29). Their words, calculated insults, also suggested they knew there was something unusual about Jesus’ birth.

“His brothers and sisters (cf. Mark 3:31–35) were most likely children of Joseph and Mary born after Jesus’ birth rather than Joseph’s children by a previous marriage or Jesus’ cousins. James became a leader in the early church at Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15:13–21), and authored the Epistle of James (James 1:1). Judas was probably Jude, author of the Epistle of Jude (Jude 1). Nothing more is known of Joses and Simon or His sisters. Perhaps Joseph was not mentioned because he was already dead.

“Thus since the townspeople could not explain Jesus, they took offense (from skandalizomai, “to be caused to stumble, to be repelled”; cf. comments on Mark 14:27) at Him, finding no reason to believe He was God’s Anointed One.”^[1]

Grassmick pointed out that Yeshua was spoken of in a derogatory manner. This is not the last time that this will happen. In this passage His family was used to discredit Him and turn Him from being a great prophet to becoming a simple carpenter. Today, the discredit is issued using the siblings in a different manner. When you count up the people, Yeshua came from a family of seven or more children. Yet there are some denominations that declare that Mary only had one child, Jesus. They claim that the other children are “cousins”.

This is so incredibly important that I am going to step outside of the study for a moment to focus on the origins of this teaching:

This teaching is rooted in paganism. Mary is being replaced by this scenario pagan gods.  The Madonna and child statues that are popular today date all the way back to Babylon. These depict Semiramis and the baby Tammuz. Through time she changed her name as she morphed through various religions. However, she did keep the title “Queen of Heaven”. This goddess through the ages only had one child. She had other names that you may be familiar with: Isis, Ishtar and the Greek Diana. Ishtar is where we get the word Easter from. What is significant to our discussion is that she only had one child. When the early church decided to blend paganism with Christianity, they blended the mother of earth (Cybele) with Mary. She was also blended with Diana. This drew converts from two camps of paganism. The common element in all of her personalities through the ages was the association with sun worship.

One blog that I ran across did an excellent job in summarizing the names of the different mother and child combinations:

“”Semiramis and Horus/Tammuz were worshipped as “Madonna and child.” And as the generations passed, they were worshipped under other names in different countries and languages. Many of these are recognizable – such as -Fortuna and Jupiter in Rome; Aphrodite and Adonis in Greece and Ashtoreth/Astarte and Molech/Baal in Canaan.“–Syncretismas!by Martin G. Collins Forerunner, December 1995

“The ancient Germans worshipped the virgin HERTHA with the child in the arms of his mother. The Scandinavians called her DISA pictured with her child. In Egypt, the mother and her child wereworshiped as ISIS with the infant OSIRIS or HORUS seated on his mother’s lap.In India, the mother and child were called DEVAKI and KRISHNA, and also ISI and ISWARA as they are worshiped to this day.In Asia, they were known as CYBELE and DEOIUS; in pagan Rome, as FORTUNA and JUPITER-PUER, or the boy JUPITER; in Greece, as CERES, the great mother with babe at her breast, or as IRENE,the goddess of peace, with the boy PLUTUS in her arms. Even in Tibet, China, and Japan, Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the Roman counterpart of MADONNA and child. SHING MOO, the holy mother in China was portrayed with a child in her armsand a glory (halo – nimbus) around her.”[2]

The problem for the early promoters of the blending of goddesses with Mary was the fact that she had other children who were not gods.[3] The important point in this discussion was that these goddesses only had one child. In order for the merging to work, they had to deny the other children and raise Mary to a goddess standard. This is the reason for the doctrine of the birth of Mary as the “immaculate conception”. The Catholics through the ages have taught that she was born without original sin. In other words, she was sinless. This raised her from being a normal person to becoming like God. This is also one of the reasons that she is prayed to by so many. She also receives worship from her followers…

I do not want to start slamming the Catholic church. They were saddled with this doctrine before they officially became the Roman Catholic church. It is unfortunate that when the early doctrines were hammered out that they did not correct this. It has however, influenced many Christian churches who broke away from Catholicism. Most deny the full package but still cling to some of the ideas promoted by this fallacy. This discussion could be expanded to include many other aspects of blending of the pagan gods with Christianity, but for the sake of brevity, we are going to return to the passage now.

Returning to Mark 6:1-6

Why couldn’t Jesus do a miracle there?  Of course, healing the sick was miracles, but nothing that required great faith.  It is probably because the faith that was displayed was from the sick, and not from the body as a whole.  It seems that the body of this synagogue were hostile toward the Him. It is possible that many considered Him to be an illegitimate child, and therefore tainted. This comes up in the scriptures when the Pharisees were trying to nail Jesus for his questionable birth (John 8:19; John 8:39-41). The discussion gets heated through that passage.

Yeshua stated that a prophet is without honor in his own home. This idea is promoted in several places in the gospels. Jeremiah wrote about this dilemma when he complained about the things his family was saying (Jer 14:6). Teaching was not taking place with that crowd. Yeshua left them with something to think about though. He healed some of the sick people.

Mark 6:7-13 The twelve are sent out. They were sent to preach repentance…what were the people to repent of? This is the key to this passage.

Jesus sent them out in pairs to preach a message. We will look at that message from the best of my understanding in the following discussion. First though, let’s look briefly at the dynamics of the mission. The disciples were sent out in pairs, they were instructed to travel lightly. They were instructed to go as they were without extra clothes or money. All they were to carry was a walking stick.

The disciples were sent out in the same manner as the Old Testament prophets who traveled such as Elijah and Elisha. They were also sent out in the same manner that John the Baptist traveled when he preached his message to prepare people for the return of the Messiah. Their specific instructions carried heavy weight. They were instructed to stay in only one house until they left town. If the town rejected them, they were to shake the dust of the town off their feet. This symbolized rejection of God’s instructions and a testimony against that town (Neh 5:13). This symbol carried grave meaning.

One of the things that has fascinated me in this passage is that all the disciples were sent. That included Judas Iscariot. Think about that for a moment. Judas was teaching, casting out demons and healing the sick. Then later he will deliver Jesus to be slaughtered.

The mission of the twelve is one of the tactics that Yeshua used in His ministry. Herod may have been focusing his effort on finding Jesus by following the healing trend that was taking place. This dispersion of the twelve may have been used to throw him off the path. Later we will see the same thing take place when the seventy are sent out on a similar mission (Luke 10:1-22). I have often wondered if these two mission trips were utilized to throw Herod off the path by dispersing the miraculous signs from the centralized point.

We learn in a few short verses that Herod believed John the Baptist had risen from the dead because of the preaching and the miraculous powers (Mark 6:14). John taught repentance in the form of returning to Torah. John’s ministry was one of turning back from deviating from God’s instructions (Mal 3:1-7). He came as a refiner’s fire which revealed the failure of people to follow God’s instructions (Torah) and to return to it. Yeshua sent the disciples out with the same message. Repentance from the Jewish mindset was to turn back to Torah from any deviant path.

I have heard many Christian preachers say that repentance is a “U-turn”, although this preaches good, it is a pretty bad illustration. Repentance is not a U-turn, it is a redirection. One way that this can be explained is that you are traveling to a destination and get off the path. When you become aware that you have gotten off the direct path, you redirect your route to reach the desired destination. This is not a full U-turn but rather a redirection. Few who know God will completely turn their back on Him. They may walk away from Him as the central focus of their lives.

There are many examples of this through the Old Testament. For example: Asa made great reforms by removing pagan symbols from the land. He loved the Lord deeply and sought to follow Him. In short, he redirected his kingdom to turn to Torah (1 Ki 15:9-14). However, even though he redirected, he still did not do away with the high places.  He repented his kingdom from blending paganism with Judaism. The negative mark against him was he allowed the high places to remain. In this example, even though he repented, he was still slightly off the mark.

The teaching that Yeshua did was radical. It was not radically different; it was radically simple. Yeshua taught Torah as it was written in the scriptures. This was much different than the oral torah that was being taught in that day. When He sent the disciples out, they were teaching the simple truth from the scriptures. The teaching of the disciples was to return to Torah. It was to return to the instructions of God.

Look at the evidence of the return to the instructions of God. These men were moving in the miraculous. This gives us a new focus on the miraculous. Why? It is commonly thought that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were dispersed at Pentecost (Shavuot); and they were. According to this passage, casting out demons and healing preceded the dispersion of the gifts of the Spirit. These gifts were utilized by the disciples prior to Pentecost. Think about that.

Deuteronomy 28 is one of the hidden gems in the Bible. It is a gem because it is in plain sight and clearly not understood by Jews or Christians. According to this chapter, a return to Torah has many benefits. Deviation from Torah has many judgments that accompany it… Yeshua sent the disciples out to teach people to return to Torah, or the original instructions of God. He also gave them spiritual authority over demons. The evidence of the truth they taught was validated by healing the sick.

Let’s look at the method of healing that the disciples used for a moment. They anointed people with oil. I realize that we are looking at minute pieces of information in this passage, bear with me.

Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah. If you were to transliterate the word Messiah into English from the Greek it is Christos. If you translate the title Christos into English, it is literally “the anointed one”. Messiah is not a name; it is a title. Names are transliterated, such as the name Jesus has been transliterated four times through languages from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. That is why you often see me write with the name of Yeshua instead of the transliterated name: Jesus. Titles are not transliterated; they are translated as closely as possible to the original language. Messiah is the best translation for Christos since it carries the Hebrew meaning of “the anointed one”. Yeshua is the anointed one that has been expected through the ages.

When the disciples anointed people with oil it was with a new perspective. Yeshua, the anointed one, sent the disciples out to anoint others. He gave them the authority to anoint people by His authority for healing. This is where the power of anointing oil is found. When they anointed a sick person, they covered him with the symbolic nature of the Messiah. We can also do this today.

The name Yeshua means “Salvation”. That name means simply to “release from bondage”. When the disciples anointed people in the name of Yeshua, the oil represented the nature of the Messiah. His name carried the authority to release them from bondage. People were healed.

The result of returning to Torah according to Deuteronomy 28 is a return to favor with God (specifically Dt 28:1-12). Returning to the instructions of God brings the side effect of healing among other things. Therefore; if we change our preaching to teaching God’s instructions as they are written in the Bible, then people will be healthier. We will also see miraculous healings in our churches… It’s worth a thought.

He sends us out as His disciples also.  Our message then should be His message. He came to bring people back to the pure teaching of the Word of God. He removed the rabbinical teaching and simply taught Torah. He taught the simple instructions of God. We are to teach the same thing. When we draw believers to repent, we should be redirecting them to focus upon Yeshua the Messiah and the instructions that are found through the entirety of the Bible. When Jews and Christians learn Torah, they will be set free (John 8:31-36). By the way, an unbeliever is not brought to repentance, he is brought to the truth. Repentance is only for believers. An unbeliever cannot repent since they were not on the true path to start with. Asking unbelievers to repent is a display of biblical ignorance.

Remember, Jesus taught Torah exclusively. His message was completely drawn from Torah. The only thing that Jesus taught in the New Testament that is not found in the Old Testament is the extra mile (Mat 5:41). The extra mile is only found in one verse in the New Testament. It is not in the three synoptic Gospels or in John… Jesus taught Torah, if we discount the extra mile; He taught Torah 99.9% of the time. I challenge you to find anything else that Jesus taught that is not found in the Old Testament.

Mark 6:14-29 Josephus records some of the horrendous acts of the Herod’s. These men were self-serving and respected no one else. They slaughtered anyone who threatened their throne, even if it was family. John condemned Herod for marrying Herodias. She was the wife of Herod’s brother. The story is laced with corruption. Herod made an agreement with Herodias, his brother’s wife, for marriage. She then divorced his brother so she could marry him. He also divorced his wife while he was away on a trip to Rome. To complicate matters further, Herodias was his niece. The capstone of the story comes with the following of John the Baptist. Here is Josephus’ thoughts on the influence of John:

2. (116) Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; (117) for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. (118) Now, when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it should be too late. (119) Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure against him. ^[4]

Herodias hated John because he preached against the marriage. This all came to a head in this story. Herod had John executed to satisfy his wife. Unwittingly, when this took place, he caused the Jewish people to stand against him. The preaching of John was important before his death. Note above that Herod was afraid that John was going to lead a rebellion. Hence, the reason John was imprisoned. So, even though the blame is laid on Herodias, it was a mutual decision to be rid of John the Baptist. The story of Salome’s dance gives the setting for the execution of John. It also gave Herod a way to execute John without bringing blame on himself. He executed John to “save his honor”.

Now you can see Herod’s concern when the disciples were on their mission trip. Herod was hearing that the preaching of John the Baptist was going forth and it was augmented with miraculous events. Herod was concerned that John had indeed risen from the dead and was back to haunt him. Herod put down a possible rebellion by executing John. His was concerned because the people were saying that John had risen.

The thing that fed the idea in the people was the destruction of Herod’s army. His previous wife’s father went to war against Herod for the way that his daughter was treated. Areta’s army decimated Herod’s army.[5] This was seen by the people as divine judgment for the execution of John and fed the idea that John had risen.

There has been a lot read into this story to explain why Salome’s dance was so persuasive. The dance was probably a work of art. It was only a vehicle which Herod used to promote his own desires. I have seen many read into the dance to try to figure out why Herod was so moved by it. It’s almost as if Herod was a saint who was corrupted by his daughter’s dance. The truth is that Herod was no saint. Instead, this fit perfectly into his plans to get rid of John.

This is also an example of how people seek to have the scriptures stand alone without the context of the times or the context of the rest of scriptures. When we are not aware of the historical background of Herod, we are left with a few motivating factors for the decision. Herod is seen as a father who is influenced by his daughter against his will. When history shows that Herod sowed his own seeds and was reaping havoc for the marriages that he was involved in. John was seen by him as a possible leader of a rebellion. Yet, he was not comfortable with executing John since he was a holy man. Salome gave him an excuse and he ran with it.

Mark 30-32 The apostles return from their trip. The story of John is completed and we return to the events that were taking place. The apostles return with great news. They reported to Yeshua what they had done and taught. After their report, Yeshua felt it was time for everyone to take a rest. However, the need of the masses outweighed their plans.

Mark 6:33-44  Feeding of the 5000.  Remember context rules. One of the simple ways to interpret scriptures is to look at the context of the scripture. Context rules out 99.9 percent of all error. If a scripture is taken in context according to the contextual meaning, there is very little chance of error.

According to context, Yeshua was challenged by those in his hometown wo did not believe that He was a prophet (Mk 6:1-6). This was followed by commissioning the twelve as missionaries. These were sent out with new power that went beyond anything that any of them had ever experienced (Mk 6:7-13). The next event after this was the reaction of Herod to the ministry. He believed that John had risen from the dead (Mk 6:14-32). All three of these events hinged on the truth that Yeshua was more than a man. He was at the minimum a prophet who was able to empower twelve men to perform many miracles. But, in this passage we will find that he was more than a prophet. The miracles that He performs in the following passages echo the attributes of God from the Old Testament.

There are many passages in the Old Testament that describe the Jewish people as a people without a shepherd (Jer 50:6-7). Shepherds are charged with an incredible responsibility. Failure to shepherd the sheep carries heavy judgment (Ez 34:4-10). Yeshua as the anointed one, the Messiah, came to His flock as a shepherd over them. Yeshua taught them many things.

The attribute of God that was present in Torah was the ability to provide food for His people. There were five thousand men fed, along with their families in this story. The real number of people is not important. Feeding the people is what was important. In the Old Testament God took the people to the desert and supplied them with manna for food. He also supplied meat in the form of quail. When Yeshua fed the five thousand, He was demonstrating that He was able to create food from nothing. He created bread and fish. Then had the leftovers gathered up. There were twelve baskets of food for the twelve disciples.

The second demonstration of His Godly ability was to control the wind and the water: Mark 6:45-52.  Mark gives the shortest version of all the Gospels.  Matthew records the same incident and tells about Peter walking on the water (Mat 14:22-32). Could be that Peter was dictating the story to Mark and chose to leave out this detail? John states that Jesus walked three to four miles on the water to reach the disciples (John 6:15-21).  He also adds that they immediately reached the other side after Yeshua had entered the boat. Matthew puts in one significant detail that puts the cap on the idea that Yeshua was showing them that He is God. He stated that the disciples worshipped Jesus (Matt 14:33). This is very significant. John also adds that Jesus sent the disciples away because the people were intending to make Him King by force. Removing the disciples from the picture with this in view was an easy way to disperse the crowd that had gathered. Now that we have summarized the story from three Gospels, let’s look at the reason for worship.

The disciples were Jews. Jewish people understood the Old Testament stories. You can see from this story that there were tremendous things that took place. Jesus overruled the laws of nature so that He could calm the sea and stop the storm dead still in its tracks. Has this ever happened before in scripture?

Think with me for a moment, Moses extended his staff over the sea and God in response to this parted the waters (Exodus 14:16). Shortly afterwards, the Egyptians tried to transverse the same path and were drowned as the waters returned to their original place (Exodus 14:27). Notice that Moses did not cause the water to split, he was acting on a command of God.

Joshua instructed the priests to carry the Ark of the Lord into the flood waters of the Jordan river. It was at flood stage at the time. When it split, water stood up like a mountain to allow Israel to pass over (Joshua 3). Joshua clearly stated that the Lord would split the waters, this was verified by the Lord’s command (Joshua 3:7-13).

Elijah was instructed by the Lord to cross the Jordan, he struck it with his mantle and the waters split so that he and Elisha crossed over on dry ground (2 Kings 2). Elisha called on the name of the Lord and crossed back over the Jordan splitting the water again.

There are four recorded events in the scriptures where water was controlled by splitting it. There was not a single time that anyone walked on top of water.

What does this demonstrate to us? Jesus did not call on the Lord. He did not extend a rod, place the Ark of the Covenant in the water or strike the water with a mantle. Jesus spoke to the water and commanded it to be still. The significance of this was not lost on the disciples. Only God has the ability to control water. Jesus made a clear point that he was more than a mere prophet. Jesus was and is God.

Mark 6:53-56  Healing as a verification of Yeshua being the Messiah.  The people recognized Jesus and brought to Him people to be healed.  We covered the tzit-tzit in a previous discussion. These are the tassels that hang from the four corners of a garment (Num 15:38-39; Deut 22:12). The significance of these tassels was that they represented living your life according to Torah. Yeshua was the living Torah that had come on the earth (John 1:14). Everyone who touched the tzit-tzit were healed (Mk 6:56). There are many, many prophesies that state that when the Messiah comes that He will deliver people from their illnesses. He will heal them. This addendum to this section proves on three counts that Yeshua is the promised Messiah and is certainly God.

Here is another element that those with healing ministries can put into practice. I encourage you to put into practice wearing a tallit when praying for healing. The four corners of the Tallit have tzit-tzit hanging from them. It is not a magic garment. The presence of the tassels is a reminder that when we pray for healing, we are praying according to the instructions found in the Word of God. Yeshua, the living word is the one who set the example. He demonstrated the power of the instructions of God. I have seen many miracles take place by the hand of God. There have been several times where I was praying for a sick person and have taken my tallit off to cover the sick person with it. Try this out and email me with your results. Tallit’s are readily available through many sources. Amazon has them for under twenty dollars.

^[1] John D. Grassmick, “Mark,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 126–127.

[2] https://wakeupcallpage.tumblr.com/post/31355632800/semiramis-isis-queen-of-heavenmother-of-god, accessed May 28, 2019.

[3] I recall reading in Ancient Near Eastern Literature many years ago that Semiramis had other gods as children, but was unable to find the document. If you know of this please make a comment.

^[4] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged , Antiquities 18.116-119 (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 484.

[5] Ibid. 18.113