Who was John Mark in the Bible?
John Mark appears only in passing scenes — a name in a list, a servant who walked away, a man asked for by letter at the end of Paul's life — yet those scattered mentions add up to one of the clearest accounts of failure and recovery in the New Testament. The question worth asking is how a man who abandoned the work ended up writing a Gospel.
Two Names, One Person
He is introduced with both a Jewish name and a Latin one, and only one of them survived in use.
C E StuartHis original name was John and he was surnamed, for a reason we do not know, by the Latin name Marcus, that is, Mark. The practice was not unusual; Simon, James, John, and Jude among the apostles each had a name given to them. Joseph, called Barsabas, was surnamed Justus (Acts 1:23). Joses was surnamed Barnabas by the apostles (4:36), and Saul of Tarsus bore the name Paul. He is introduced as "Mark" by Luke; and his Jewish name, "John," gradually dropped out of use; it does not appear after Acts 15:37; from then on he is mentioned only by his surname Mark.
Family and First Steps
His whole recorded life can be traced through a handful of references, and they begin at home in Jerusalem.
Morrish Bible DictionaryA disciple described as "John, whose surname was Mark," and as Barnabas' relative. When Peter was miraculously delivered from prison he went to the house of Mary, who was Mark's mother. Peter may have been the means of his conversion, for he calls him his "son" (1 Peter 5:13). He accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, but left them at Perga… Paul and Mark were afterwards reconciled; he was with Paul at Rome and was commended to the Colossians (Col. 4:10; Philemon 24). He was with Peter at Babylon, and when Paul was a prisoner at Rome a second time, he asked for Mark, saying he was useful for the ministry (2 Tim. 4:11).
Some have wondered whether Mark also puts himself, unnamed, into his own Gospel — but the writers are careful not to press it.
George C WillisSome have thought he was the "young man" with the cloth wrapped about his naked body who followed the Lord to the Garden. You remember when "the young men seized him… he left the linen cloth and ran away naked" (Mark 14:51-52). Only Mark tells us of this incident, but we have no certainty that it was he.
Why He Turned Back
At Perga, in the middle of the first missionary journey, Mark left and went home. One writer reads his departure as the pull of the familiar against the demands of the road.
J. N. DarbyAfter crossing the sea, John Mark leaves them. His link with Jerusalem was too strong for him, and the difficulties and dangers of the apostles' work too great for his faith. Barnabas was his uncle; Cyprus was Barnabas' home country. How many there are whose faith depends on circumstances! They go on steadily while those circumstances surround them; but when the path leads to simple dependence on the faithfulness of God, their steps at once begin to falter.
The Quarrel He Caused
Mark's name next appears at the centre of the split between Paul and Barnabas. Both men's motives are weighed, and Barnabas is judged the more compromised by the family tie.
William KellyPaul had not forgotten his earlier abandoning of the work, its hardships and its unpleasantness, its shame and the self-denial it demands, so he set his face against such a companion until grace had done a complete work of restoration in self-judgment and wholehearted devotion. Good a man as Barnabas was, and attached to his honoured companion, this proved too much for him, and he resented Paul's estimate as harsh and excessive… Barnabas should have remembered that his natural tie was not favourable to a righteous judgment on the point in dispute.
The Long Way Back
Years pass with no word of him. The silence itself is treated as part of the story, and so is the fact that it ended.
George C WillisTwenty years of wasted labour, as far as the record shows: wasted, apparently, through cowardice and unfaithfulness, with no record of repentance… He was a failing servant, and for that failure he seems to have been set aside. Perhaps he was in Babylon with Peter for part of this time, and who was better fitted than Peter to lead a failing servant back to the right path? He could remind Mark of his own terrible failure… It was only a matter of days before Peter was restored; it was many years with Mark, but there is a way back.
Paul's last letter names Mark again — and the contrast with another companion in the same chapter is deliberate.
Edward DennettLike Demas, he is mentioned three times; but what a difference! Mark is recovered, and the Spirit of God records it; Demas becomes a backslider, unfaithful to the testimony, and disappears from our view as such.
The Servant Who Wrote About the Servant
The final turn is the one no reader of Acts 13 would predict.
F. B. HoleHe first failed himself, and then became the occasion of further failure in others greater than himself. This was a sorry beginning to his story, but in the end he was so truly restored that he became useful to the Lord in the high work of writing the Gospel which presents the Lord Jesus as the perfect Servant of Jehovah, the true Prophet of the Lord.
Commentators differ on how much Peter stands behind that Gospel. Some point to early testimony that it was "dictated and accredited by Peter the apostle," and to the way Mark records Peter's denial in full detail while leaving out what would credit him (The Bible Treasury). Others hold that the tradition breaks down at the transfiguration, where Peter's own recollection matches Matthew rather than Mark (C E Stuart).
Summary
- Named — John was his Jewish name, Mark the Latin surname that stuck; after Acts 15 he is only ever "Mark."
- Nurtured — son of Mary, whose Jerusalem house sheltered the prayer meeting for Peter, cousin of Barnabas, and called "my son" by Peter.
- Failed — he left the work at Perga, and later Paul refused to take a man who had already deserted his post.
- Restored — after years of silence he reappears in Paul's letters as useful for ministry; recovery took long, but there was a way back.
- Used — the servant who quit was entrusted with writing the Gospel that shows Jesus as the perfect Servant.