Maybe Try Mark

The Gospel of John is won­der­ful. I love it. It con­tains some of the most provoca­tive state­ments Jesus ever made. It also feels more Jew­ish than the other Gospels (in my opin­ion). John wrote it and mod­eled his sto­ries off of the sto­ries of the Old Tes­ta­ment; I think all of those are fan­tas­ti­cally told.

I say all of that so you don’t think I’m writ­ing this post to hate on the Gospel of John. I know a lot of peo­ple these days make fun of how often begin­ner Bible stud­ies go through the Gospel of John, or how many evan­gel­i­cals would say it’s their favorite book. I’m not doing that here. I might even be will­ing to say that John is my favorite New Tes­ta­ment book; at the very least, it’s in the top three.

A few decades ago—I’d guess the 60’s—everyone started hand­ing out the Gospel of John to their non-believing friends.¹ It was extremely help­ful. Most peo­ple in Amer­ica back then had a reli­gious back­ground. Most young peo­ple had been to church back when they were chil­dren, regard­less of whether or not their par­ents were saved. The Gospel of John worked extremely well because—besides the fact that the Holy Spirit was moving—the way it pre­sented the mes­sage of Jesus was appeal­ing and clear to the demo­graphic to whom it was being presented.

It’s Been Forty Years

The 60’s came and went. The eigh­teen year-olds who received those Gospel of John book­lets have had kids; many of their kids had kids. The reli­gious and cul­tural land­scape in the West has shifted dra­mat­i­cally. Most peo­ple, even Bar­rack Obama (to a degree), would agree that Amer­ica is no longer a Chris­t­ian nation.² Addi­tion­ally, the inter­net age has caused every­one to expect every­thing to hap­pen imme­di­ately.

Per­haps we should recon­sider which book of the Bible we give peo­ple as an evan­ge­lism tool. I’m not say­ing it’s bad to give peo­ple a Gospel of John. I’m just ask­ing if we could hand them some­thing that might bet­ter meet them where they are.

The Prob­lem

The Gospel of John is extremely intri­cate. It’s filled with beau­ti­ful details and nuances. The argu­ments are com­pli­cated and bril­liant. It is extremely Jew­ish in style, but it was clearly writ­ten to be read­able to a fairly sophis­ti­cated, philosophy-loving, Greek audi­ence. The trou­ble is that the thinkers of the 60’s have all but van­ished. Sure, we still have some deep thinkers. For the most part, though, peo­ple don’t think deeply enough to get the most out of John with­out work­ing really hard… and hardly any­one in Amer­ica these days likes work­ing hard.

Enter Mark

Mark was writ­ten to a pri­mar­ily Roman audi­ence. I men­tioned how peo­ple today expect every­thing to hap­pen imme­di­ately. It’s worth not­ing that the Gospel of Mark uses the word “imme­di­ately” (in the esv) thirty-five times. That’s an awful lot. Mark is a short Gospel (six­teen chap­ters) writ­ten to a fairly impa­tient audi­ence. He comes right out and states that Jesus is the Son of God in the first verse, and then he jumps straight into Jesus’ ministry.

Just an Idea

This is really just me think­ing out loud. It’s pos­si­ble for some­one to get saved if you hand them a copy of Leviticus. Still, though, we want to be as clear and cul­tur­ally rel­e­vant as we can when we present the mes­sage of Jesus to peo­ple. I’m think­ing that giv­ing peo­ple the Gospel of Mark instead of John as an evan­ge­lism tool might be a lit­tle more effec­tive. What do you guys think? What book do you think we should (gen­er­ally) sug­gest to new believ­ers and unbe­liev­ers? Post a comment.