Lenten Musings - 17

Wow, I didn't really expect to finish Mark in 16 days. Good for me pat, pat, pat. Now on to John.

John 1

I wanted to read John after Mark because I know that they vary greatly in their content and their intended audience. Mark traditionally has been seen as the gospel for the non-jews, the everyman's gospel, if you will. John's is much different in the information it gives, and has a much more spiritual bent to it. I notice the differences right away. Mark and John cover similar topics in the first chapter. There's a part about John the Baptist in each, and there's something about the call of the disciples. Mark is short and to-the-point. John fills in a little more detail with more of a poetic flair. The other thing I notice is that in Mark, Jesus is very obviously the one who is seeking out his disciples, but in John, one gets the impression that they were seeking him out. Likely, it was a little of both. It's nice to get different perspectives on these stories. It helps to fill in some of the detail, and to add some flesh to the characters.