Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life, in the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Keith Simon.

We are going through the New Testament and we find ourselves today in Mark chapter 2. The book gets its name from the author, a man named John Mark.

And I think this passage that we're going to look at today

might have been the author Mark's favorite passage in this entire book.

To help you understand why that might be the case, I want to tell you a little bit about Mark. His mother

Mary was one of the earliest Christians. When the church first started it

used to meet at her house. When Peter was arrested and put in prison,

Acts 12 tells us that the believers gathered in Mary's house to pray.

So Mark saw authentic Christianity lived out in front of him.

He saw all the early disciples obey God at great cost to themselves. He heard them pray, he saw their

love and devotion to Jesus. Not only was Mark's mom a Christian, but so was his older cousin

Barnabas. Barnabas is mentioned in Acts as one of the wealthier church members

that sold at least part of his possessions to share with those in need.

When Paul became a Christian and all the other Christians were afraid of him, it was Barnabas who took Paul under his wing and helped him.

Mark came from an amazing family and he became a believer and a member of the church.

When Barnabas and Paul were appointed to lead a mission to plant

churches, they took John Mark along with them as a helper. He traveled with

them and saw many people come to faith and God did amazing things on that missionary journey. So it's

somewhat surprising when we read in the book of acts that somewhere in the middle

of that missionary journey, Mark left the team. The Bible's not clear on why he left, but it is clear that it wasn't a good move on his part.

Maybe he was afraid of the upcoming persecution. Maybe he was tired of being a helper and in a moment of

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