In Mark’s gospel, there are twelve disciples of Jesus. They try to help Jesus; however, they look and sound stupid in his gospel. They always don’t understand what Jesus says and does. Mark portrays the disciples as “dumb disciples” in his gospel because he wants to make Jesus seem even greater in comparison. Jesus is great person or God ever exists, but by doing this way, he would be much greater besides. Mark wanted more people to think that Jesus is really great person or God undoubtedly.
First, I will explain how stupid his disciples are with parts of his gospel. One example that shows their stupidity is in Chapter 4. Jesus was telling one story about sowing. He usually used parables to teach people many things. His story was like this. A sower was sowing seeds. Some seeds fell by the way side,but the birds came and ate it. Some seeds fell on stony ground, where it had not much soil. The seeds immediately sprang up, but when the sun was up, it died. Some seeds fell among thorns, but the thorns grew up, and covered it, and it could make no fruit. However, some seeds fell on good ground, grew up, and produced great number of fruits. When disciples heard the story, they didn’t understand what it meant. They were too dumb to understand what Jesus wanted to tell. People who was listening his story understood, but his disciples. His disciples might be more stupid than normal people. The other example which is in Chapter 8 is this. When Jesus and his disciples went to the other side by ship, his disciples forgot to take bread. They had only one piece of bread. They thought Jesus was sad because they forgot to bring. However, they didn’t understand this time too. Jesus said to them “Why can’t you understand?” He was kind of upset. Even though there were similar situations for twice before, they still didn’t get it. Jesus might not expect them that they would understand what Jesus meant each time, but this time because there were similar story before.
In addition, I will describe how this way of writing helps to make Jesus greater. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus can do anything people wants like magic. Many people think he is the greatest ever exist. However, if his disciples were smarter and they could understand everything what Jesus does and says, Jesus wouldn’t be such a great person or God. The audiences would think there might be another great person like Jesus or greater person than him. It means he is not the greatest. By making his disciples stupid, Jesus becomes even greater and truly the greatest. Think about if his disciples were smarter. They would understand everything and help Jesus a lot if they were cleverer. Jesus would be a person or God who can do whatever people wants ONLY, but teaching. It means he doesn’t need to teach. Instead of him, his disciples could teach to people if they were smart. Jesus would be just a doctor or magician who can heal all suffering or do things which people would be surprised. Even so, Jesus would be great because he can do whatever he wants, but not great as Mark gospel’s Jesus. In Mark’s gospel, he is genuinely the best person or God in the world. That is because it is true that he is the best, but also the disciples makes Jesus even greater. Mark wrote his gospel to let people know how Jesus is the GREATEST. So it is good way to write by this way to make him even greater.
In this paragraph, I will write how Mark’s audiences would understand about Jesus. Even though they knew that Jesus was the greatest person or God before they read Mark’s gospel, they would feel that he is truly great person or God unsuspectingly. Moreover, people who didn’t believe Jesus or think he was not the greatest, they would become to be sure about Jesus who is really incredible. And people who didn’t know anything about Jesus, this is my case, would know many things about him from his gospel. The things in Mark’s gospel are only good things, so people would know Jesus didn’t have any weak points, which is why people believe Jesus and they become Christians. If he were not great, who would believe him? Of course, Mark didn’t exaggerate about Jesus in his gospel (If he had exaggerated, it would have been problem, right?), but in order to write his gospel by this way, Jesus would be perfect. Also, I think many people were helped by this Mark’s gospel. For example, I suppose that there are people, who did bad things such as steeling or crimes. Of course, they wish to have better lives than now. But if they read this gospel, they would think if they followed Jesus, the lives would be much better. In order to think this way, they would be able to have better lives than before at least. Mark’s gospel makes most people more confident about Jesus was the best.
Jesus’ twelve disciples sound like idiots in his gospel, but there was a reason why Mark wrote his gospel by this way. The reason was to make Jesus even greater. I bet many people became to be sure that Jesus was the greatest ever after by his gospel. Even though Jesus’ disciples feel it is embarrassing for them, Jesus should thank Mark about writing his gospel by this way.