Who wrote the book of Mark? Who was the author of Mark?

THE WRITER of this Gospel was that "John, whose surname was Mark," (Acts 15:37), who failed in his service when with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, and who afterwards became a bone of contention between them. He first failed himself, and then became the occasion of further failure with others greater than himself. This was a sorry beginning to his story, but eventually he was so truly restored that he became serviceable to the Lord in the exalted work of writing the Gospel which presents the Lord Jesus as the perfect Servant of Jehovah, the true Prophet of the Lord.

The penman of this Gospel is, personally, as I may say, in company with his Gospel. It is Mark, or Mark-John, whom Paul and Barnabas had "to their minister;" and of whom Paul, on another occasion, said, "He is profitable unto me for the ministry." And as the apostle John was a fit penman to tell us of Him Who lay in the Father's bosom, because he himself lay in the Lord's bosom, so we may observe here a like fitness in the penman to the subject.

Only one man in the New Testament bears the name of Mark. Since the 2nd century the Gospel according to Mark has been attributed to him. This Mark who was properly called John (and 'surnamed' Mark) was the son of a certain Mary who owned a house in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12). This is the house where Peter went to when he was freed from prison. John Mark was also a nephew (or cousin) of Barnabas, who at times was a companion of the Apostle Paul (Col. 4:10). Paul and Barnabas took John Mark with them as a servant during their first mission journey (Acts 12:25; 13:5). But Mark, probably still a young man, departed from them in Perga and returned to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13). When Barnabas wanted to take his relative with him for the second journey, Paul did not want to take him. This caused a separation (Acts 15:37-39). Only about 12 years later Mark's name reappears in the letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Col. 4:10; Philemon 24). We find him now in Rome - with the arrested Paul. In the Second Epistle to Timothy, shortly before his death, Paul asks Timothy to bring Mark with him who now was a useful servant (2 Tim. 4:11). Mark is also mentioned in 1 Peter 5:13. Here Peter calls him his son. This is probably to indicate the close spiritual relationship with Mark.

It was not only Paul who was very close to Mark but also Peter. According to very old traditions Mark is supposed to have written his gospel based on sermons and communications which Peter gave in Rome for the believers there. Up to the very day this thesis is partially based on the usage of divers Latin words, the habit to explain Jewish terms, the rare references to Old Testament passages and the poignant and lively style. To rightly divide this gospel, however, it is not necessary to know these traditions. Instead, the profound occupation with the contents and structure of this Bible book - inspired by the Holy Spirit - is essential.

— John Mark.

1895 28 There was some controversy lately over a document purporting to be the "Gospel according to St. Peter." I do not know of any tangible evidence whatever of its authenticity. The real Gospel of Peter is that which stands in our bibles entitled "Mark": at least that view was generally accepted in the primitive church on the authority of such men as John the Presbyter (recorded by Papias), Irenaeus and others, who regarded the Gospel by Mark as having been dictated and accredited by Peter the apostle, which fact gave it its (external) claim to be regarded as inspired scripture. Apart from the historical evidences of this is the fact that where anything discreditable to Peter is referred to, as in the case of his denial of Christ, the particulars of his failures are given by Mark, with much detail and no excuse: but anything creditable to Peter is passed over, as for instance, in John it is said that Peter drew his sword in Gethsemane, in defence of his master and smote with it one of the attacking party. This (though perhaps little to the credit of Peter's discretion and spiritual perception) was certainly an evidence of courage and devotion in such a time of general dismay. Therefore in Mark where the event is recorded, Peter's name is not given; he simply says, "one of them that stood by"… I confess these "evidences" might be of little weight in regard to the generality of writers in an advertising age; but the apostles and primitive Christians were characterised by this kind of humility as to their own deeds no less than of gracious appreciation of the deeds of others. We have already noticed some instances of this, and such may be found throughout the New Testament.

In the second Gospel the Spirit is evidently developing the perfectness of the Lord's ministry in word and deed. Now "John, whose surname was Mark," was just the right person for such a task, always bearing in mind that none was fit unless immediately inspired to write. But, among those who were inspired to write. But, those who were so empowered of God, John Mark was precisely the one fitted by personal experience to appreciate, when the Spirit gave him to indite that Divine account of the gospel service of Jesus; for he had bitterly known what it was to put his hand to the plough and look back, with its painful consequences on all sides (Acts 13, 15). But he had also learned, to his joy, and the blessing of others, that the Lord can restore and strengthen, giving us, through His grace, to overcome wherein we have most broken down. This very Mark subsequently became a fellow-worker of St. Paul, and a comfort to him, as much as earlier he had been a sorrow (Col. 4). "Take Mark," says he, in his last letter to Timothy, "and bring him with thee; for he is profitable to me for the ministry."

The Gospel of Mark is the briefest of the four Gospels. The traditional view, which holds that the Apostle Peter dictated this record into the pen of Mark, so that he was only an amanuensis, has been proven erroneous. Equally incorrect are other theories, that the Gospel of Mark was written first and served Matthew and Luke in giving their account, copying from it and making additions, or, the hypothesis that there was an original record, a common source, which the Evangelists used. All these opinions are mostly the inventions of men who disbelieve the inspiration of the chosen instruments of God in giving a fourfold picture of His blessed Son on earth. An unswerving faith in the inspiration of the four Evangelists solves all the supposed difficulties and discrepancies of which we hear so much in our days. Inspiration makes error impossible.

Mark was not an Apostle. Two Apostles were chosen to write Gospel records, Matthew and John. The other two, Mark and Luke, did not belong to the twelve. Mark's and John's Gospels give us the chronological account, while Matthew and Luke were led under the guidance of the Holy Spirit not to pen the events chronologically, but to arrange them in such a way as to bring out the distinctive features of their respective Gospels.

Called "my son" by Peter (who, however, uses a term never applied by Paul to his children in the faith), it has been commonly supposed that he was one of Simon's converts, though when and where converted none can now say. In reading Mark's Gospel we cannot divest ourselves of the impression that he writes of many things as an eye-witness, thus leading his readers to conclude that he must often have been found in the company of the Lord, as He went about ministering amongst men.

"John whose surname was Mark" (Acts 12:12). This is our introduction, to him who is numbered amongst the Evangelists. Of his family we only know that his mother was called Mary, and that he was related to Barnabas — probably his cousin (Col. 4:10), and not nephew, as the Authorized Version states.

Most of us would perhaps have thought it best to leave Mark alone after that; and it comes as quite a surprise that we subsequently find him doing important work in the assemblies, favourably mentioned in some scattered texts, and finally charged with the high honour of writing one of the four Gospels. Not only does Peter (who was his god-father, if I may use that term) take him in hand with that affectionate care which we should expect from one of his nature, but Paul, who had such a disparaging judgment of him in former times, is able to recognise and acknowledge the value of Mark's subsequent services. He mentions him as being one of his five fellow-workers, who were "a comfort to him" (Col. 4:11.) in Rome about A.D. 64, and two years subsequently, in his last letter to Timothy, he tells him to "Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry."

This explanation, I trust, will help to a general understanding of the relative place of the gospels. We have Matthew and Luke, one of them an apostle, and the other not, both of whom are wont to depart from historical order very largely. We have Mark and John, one of them an apostle, and the other not, both of whom likewise, as a rule, adhere to historical order. God has thus cut off all just reason on men's part for saying that it is a question of knowing or not knowing the facts as they occurred, some being eyewitnesses, and others learning the events, etc., otherwise. Of those that keep the order of history, one was, the other was not, an eye-witness; to those that adopt a different arrangement precisely the same remark applies. Thus it is that God has confuted all attempts of His enemies to cast the smallest discredit upon the instruments He has used. It is thus made apparent that (so far from the structure of the gospels being attributable in any way to ignorance on one side, or, on the other, to a competent knowledge of the facts), on the contrary, he was no eye-witness who has given us the fullest, minutest, most vivid, and graphic sketch of the Lord's service here below; and this in small particulars, which, as every one knows, is always the great test of truth. Persons who do not commonly speak the truth can nevertheless be careful enough sometimes about great matters; but it is in little words and ways where the heart betrays its own treachery, or the eye its lack of observation. And it is precisely in this that Mark triumphs so completely — rather, let me say, the Spirit of God in His employment of Mark. Nor was it that Mark had earlier been a worthy servant himself. Far from it. Who does not know that, when he began his work, he was not always fervent in serving the Lord? We are told in the Acts of the Apostles that he deserted the great apostle of the Gentiles when he accompanied him and his cousin Barnabas; for such was the relationship, rather than that of uncle. He left them, returning home to his mother and Jerusalem. His associations were with nature and the great seat of religious tradition, which for a while, of course, ruined him, as it tends to ruin every servant of God who is similarly ensnared. Nevertheless, God's grace overcomes all difficulties. So it was in the personal ministry of Mark, as we gather from the glorious work Mark was afterwards given to do, both in other ministry (Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11), and in the extraordinary honour of writing one of the inspired accounts of his Master. Mark had not possessed the advantage of that personal acquaintance with the facts which some of the other writers had enjoyed; yet is he the one through whom the Holy Ghost condescended to impart the minutest, and at the same time the most suggestive touches, if I may so say, that are found in any view vouchsafed us of the actual living ministry of our Lord Jesus. Indeed, such was the current of his own history, as forming him for the work he subsequently had to do; for while at first there was certainly that which looked uncommonly like a false start, afterwards, on the contrary, he is acknowledged by Paul most cordially, spite of early disappointment and rebuke; for his company had been absolutely refused, even at the cost of losing Barnabas, to whom the apostle had special grounds of personal attachment. Barnabas was the man who had first gone after Saul of Tarsus; for assuredly he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, and thus the more willing to accredit the great grace of God in Saul of Tarsus, when the new convert was regarded with suspicion, and might have been left alone for a season. Thus Saul had known literally in his own history how little the grace of God commands confidence in a sinful world. After all this, then, it was that Mark, who had fallen under the censure of Paul, and had been the occasion of separating Barnabas from that apostle — that very Mark afterwards completely retrieved his lost character, and the apostle Paul takes more pains by far to reinstate him in the confidence of the saints, than he had done personally to refuse association with him in the service of the Lord.