The stronger one: Jesus appoints the Twelve and binds the strong man

Mark's Gospel is anonymous, but the earliest tradition, reported from Papias by Eusebius, ties it to John Mark, interpreter of Peter. Most scholars date it to the mid or late 60s AD, shortly before or after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and most regard it as the first of the four Gospels, though a minority hold that it was written after Matthew. Its first readers were probably Gentile Christians, perhaps at Rome, who needed to know who Jesus was and what following him would cost. In that light, chapter 3 shows two things that mattered to a persecuted community: Jesus' authority over evil, and the fact that opposition began with his own religious leaders and even his family.

The chapter sits in the Galilean ministry, around AD 28 or 29. It begins in a synagogue, probably at Capernaum, and ends in a house. The crowds named in 3:7-8 come from the whole map of Israel and beyond: Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea to the south, the Transjordan east of the river, and the Gentile coast of Tyre and Sidon. Idumea was the old territory of Edom. Its people had been brought into Judaism under the Hasmonean rulers, and the Herod family came from it. The Herodians were supporters of the Herod family, which ruled Galilee through Herod Antipas.

The three Synoptic Gospels share much of this material, in a slightly different order. Matthew 12 has the healing and the Beelzebul controversy together, and gathers the appointment of the Twelve in chapter 10. Luke 6 has the appointment of the Twelve after a night of prayer. Mark's order, with the family interrupting the Beelzebul controversy, is distinctive and probably deliberate. The four lists of apostles (Mark 3, Matthew 10, Luke 6, Acts 1) agree on eleven names. The twelfth in Mark and Matthew is Thaddaeus; Luke and Acts list Judas son of James. Most take these to be the same man with two names, though the Gospels do not say.

Mark builds this chapter with care. The first scene ends the five-story sequence that began in 2:1, with Jesus' question and the plot in 3:6. The next three sections show Jesus withdrawing to the sea, then to a mountain, then to a house, and each one adds a group around him: the crowds, the Twelve, and finally a circle of seated listeners. Between them are the two sets of opponents. The family and the scribes belong to a deliberate frame. Mark begins the family's story at 3:20-21, interrupts it with the scribes' charge, and then returns to the family at 3:31-35. Scholars call this a sandwich, and the usual lesson is that each part explains the other: both the family and the scribes misjudge Jesus, and the question is who truly belongs to him.

Two interpretive principles apply.

• First, read the Beelzebul controversy as an argument. The charge is that Jesus drives out demons by Satan's power. Jesus answers with logic, then with the picture of a strong man, and finally with a warning about where the charge leads. The saying on blasphemy against the Holy Spirit must be read with Mark's own comment in 3:30, 'because they were saying, He has an unclean spirit'.
• Second, read the Twelve as an act of appointment with a purpose. The numbers and the three purposes are the meaning.

The passage also raises the question of how Jesus' family is portrayed. The Gospels do not hide that his brothers did not believe during his ministry (John 7:5), and Mark says the family came to take custody of him. The class reads this as honest reporting.

Verses 1–6

On a Sabbath in the synagogue the critics watch to see whether Jesus will heal a man with a withered hand. The man's life was not in danger. Later Jewish rules allowed healing on the Sabbath only to save life, so by their own standard it could wait until the next day. Jesus puts the man in the middle: 'Stand up among us.' Then he asks, 'Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?' They are silent. Mark says Jesus looked at them 'with anger and sorrow at their hardness of heart'. It is one of the few places where Mark names Jesus' anger. He heals with a word, with no work done, and the Pharisees go out and 'began plotting with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus'. Pharisees and Herodians were unlikely allies. They agreed on one thing. The question 'to save life or to destroy it' becomes a grim irony when they leave to plan a death.

Verses 7–12

Jesus withdraws to the sea, followed by a vast crowd, and asks for a boat so he will not be crushed. The unclean spirits fall down and cry, 'You are the Son of God!', and he orders them not to make him known. The title is correct, and the demons know it, but he does not accept testimony from that quarter.

Verses 13–19

Jesus goes up on the mountain and calls 'those He wanted'. The initiative is his. He 'appointed twelve', and Mark gives three purposes: 'to accompany Him', 'to be sent out to preach', and 'to have authority to drive out demons'. Being with him comes first. The number twelve recalls the twelve tribes of Israel, a link Jesus makes himself in Matthew 19:28. Simon is given the name Peter. James and John are named Boanerges, 'Sons of Thunder', which Mark translates for his readers. 'Simon the Zealot' may refer to a zeal for the law or to the later revolutionary movement; scholars disagree. Judas Iscariot is named last as the one 'who betrayed Jesus'. The meaning of Iscariot is uncertain, and the most common view is 'man of Kerioth'.

Verses 20–21

Back home the crowd is so large that Jesus and his disciples cannot eat. His family hears and goes out 'to take custody of Him', saying, 'He is out of His mind.' The phrase may mean they thought he was beside himself with zeal, or that he was mentally unwell. Either way, they intended to stop him.

Verses 22–27

Scribes who had come down from Jerusalem say that he has Beelzebul and 'by the prince of the demons He drives out demons'. Beelzebul is a title for the ruler of demons, a form of the name Baal-zebub known from 2 Kings 1:2. Jesus calls them and answers in parables. If Satan is divided, he cannot stand, and a house or kingdom divided against itself falls. Then he says, 'no one can enter a strong man's house to steal his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man.' The picture means that Satan holds a house, and Jesus has come in and bound its owner. The exorcisms are the plundering.

Verses 28–30

'Truly I tell you, the sons of men will be forgiven all sins and blasphemies.' The next verse names the exception: whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit 'will never be forgiven'. Mark explains in verse 30 that the charge was calling the Spirit's work in Jesus the work of an unclean spirit. The sin is a settled refusal to recognise the Spirit's work as God's. Augustine is usually understood to have taken it as persistent refusal of repentance to the end of life. A concern to be forgiven is itself a sign that this has not happened, as many pastors and commentators note.

Verses 31–35

His mother and brothers stand outside and send in. Jesus asks, 'Who are My mother and My brothers?' Looking at those seated around him, he says, 'Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother.' He does not deny his family. He redefines who counts as family, by obedience to God.

The chapter teaches that the Son of God has come into a world held by a rival power, and has begun to break that hold. The picture of the strong man corresponds to the Bible's account of Satan as accuser and adversary (Job 1-2; Zechariah 3) and prepares for the later teaching that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8; Colossians 2:15). The exorcisms are part of the kingdom's arrival, not a side effect.

The appointment of twelve belongs to the Bible's story of the people of God. Israel had twelve tribes. By appointing twelve, Jesus signals that he is forming or renewing the people of God around himself. The New Testament later pictures the foundation of the church in the apostles (Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:14). The apostles' calling is first to be with Jesus and only then to go.

The warning about the Spirit raises a doctrine of sin and forgiveness: all sins can be forgiven, but refusing the only means of forgiveness leaves no remedy. Finally, the saying about family sets the household of faith above natural ties without cancelling them (Matthew 12:50; Hebrews 2:11).

In a Gospel, Christ is not foreshadowed but present. The chapter shows him as the stronger one who has come to bind Satan and plunder his house (3:27). This is likely an echo of Isaiah 49:24-25, where God promises to take captives from the mighty and rescue the prey of the tyrant. John the Baptist had promised 'One more powerful' (1:7); here is the stronger one at work. The Son of God is named by demons, whom he silences.

The appointment of twelve echoes the twelve tribes. Jesus forms a new Israel around himself, and he says elsewhere that the Twelve will sit on twelve thrones judging the tribes (Matthew 19:28). Some readers also hear in the mountain scene an echo of Sinai, where Israel was formed as a people; Mark does not make the link, so it is tentative.

The plot of 3:6 looks ahead to the cross. The one who asked whether it is lawful to save life or destroy it will be destroyed by those who plot, and will give his life to save. His family's misunderstanding may also echo Psalm 69:8, where the sufferer becomes a stranger to his own brothers, a psalm the New Testament applies to Jesus (John 2:17; Romans 15:3), though not at this verse. As an echo it is offered with caution.