Jesus next taught His disciples lessons dealing with the dangers that threatened their effectiveness as His disciples. These were the desire for greatness, the folly of a sectarian attitude, and failure in self-discipline. They would suffer as He would. Moreover their suffering would threaten their unity with Jesus and with one another.
"Jesus warned against the spirit of elitism that can exist within a ministry team and between ministry teams. The answer to elitism from within is to have a servant's heart, and the answer to elitism toward outsiders is to recognize the unity of the family of God that transcends smaller groups of ministry."226
9:33-34 Jesus returned to Capernaum evidently after several months of absence. This was His last recorded activity there. Rather than discussing Jesus' coming death and resurrection the disciples had been arguing about their own futures in the kingdom. Their silence was probably a result of shame.
9:35 By seating Himself, Jesus assumed the traditional position of a rabbi. He taught them that greatness in His kingdom depends on sacrificial service. All three synoptic evangelists recorded His words indicating the importance of this lesson.
"The spirit of service is the passport to eminence in the Kingdom of God, for it is the spirit of the Master Who Himself became diakonos panton["servant of all"]."227
The Greek word for servant, diakonos, describes someone who serves willingly. It does not describe the servile status of such a person, which doulos(slave) suggests. The desire to excel need not be unspiritual (cf. 1 Tim. 3:1). However it must include willingness to put the welfare of others before selfish interests.228
9:36-37 A child was the least significant person in Jewish and in Greco-Roman culture.229By using a child as His object lesson, Jesus was saying that service involves caring about people, even insignificant people such as children.
"Jesus was one of the first ever to see how essentially precious any person is, particularly a young child. A concern for children was not invented by the welfare state: it goes back to the teaching of Jesus."230
Jesus proceeded to compare the humblest of His disciples to the child (cf. v. 42). This was the focus of Jesus' teaching that Matthew recorded (cf. Matt. 18:3-14).
9:38 This is the only place where the synoptic writers mentioned John speaking out alone. John spoke for the other disciples in the house (v. 33).
Evidently the exorcist was a believer in Jesus though not one of the Twelve or possibly not even one who spent much time following Jesus around. He evidently commanded demons to leave the people they afflicted by using Jesus' name. The Twelve apparently did not mind that this man claimed Jesus' authority to exorcize demons. They objected to his actions because Jesus had not commissioned him to do so as He had the Twelve (3:14-15). Perhaps his success and the recent failure of the nine disciples irritated them further. In view of what Jesus had just said about receiving little children, John wondered if the Twelve had done right in rebuking the man. They had tried to protect Jesus' honor by rebuking him (cf. Num. 11:26-29).
9:39-40 Jesus did not mind that the man was casting out demons by invoking His name. Since the man had such respect for Jesus he would not speak against Him soon. By casting out demons he showed that he was not against Jesus. Jesus expressed the opposite truth in Matthew 12:30: "He who is not with me is against me."There is no neutral ground regarding one's orientation to Jesus. Jesus' point was that the disciples should not view the exorcist as an antagonist just because he was not part of their group. He was doing God's will and would not oppose them.
9:41 The connecting idea with what precedes is the "name."Not only would the exorcist receive God's blessing, but anyone who does anything to help another person using even the name of a disciple of Jesus would receive His reward. This help extends to the almost insignificant act of giving a cup of cold water to some thirsty person. This act was much less helpful than delivering from demonic affliction.
This is one of the rare occasions when Jesus used the title "Messiah"of Himself. His use of it here makes the lesson even more forceful. The person giving the cup of cold water might have only a superficial understanding of Jesus. Nonetheless if that person offered simple hospitality to one of Jesus' disciples because he was a disciple of "Messiah"that one would receive God's blessing.
9:42 This verse gives the other side of the idea just expressed. Anyone who discouraged a disciple of Jesus from following Him faithfully could expect severe treatment from God. Probably Jesus used the little child present to illustrate a childlike disciple (vv. 36-37; cf. Matt. 18:3-14). Jesus referred to a large donkey-driven millstone (Gr. mylos onikos), not a small one that people turned by hand (Gr. mylos).
"This brief incident stands as a firm rebuke to the spirit of sectarianism. It condemns that exclusive attitude which insists that only those who carry on their work in harmony with our own views and practices can be accepted as really doing God's work. If they demonstrate that they are on God's side in the war with Satan, even though their views may be imperfect, they must not be condemned for such work or regarded with abhorrence."231
John evidently learned this lesson well as evidenced by the frequent references to loving one another that appear in his writings.
Jesus' proceeded to elaborate on the importance of disciples dealing radically with sin in their lives. He had just warned about leading other disciples astray. Now He cautioned against being led astray oneself.
"Seducing simple souls is disastrously easy work; but still more easy is seducing oneself, by letting the body lead the spirit astray."232
9:43-48 Jesus compared the members of the human body to the agents of sinful activities. He did not want His disciples to perform physical surgery but spiritual surgery to excise the sin within us. The language is hyperbolic, but Jesus described probable sins. The threefold repetition highlights the importance of the warning.
"As a surgeon does not hesitate to cut off a gangrenous hand to save a life, so evil and destructive practices, though precious to us as a very part of our lives, must be sacrificed to save the soul."233
"Hell"translates the Greek word gehenna, the transliteration of the Hebrew phrase ge hinnom(lit. "Valley of Hinnom"). This valley, just south of Jerusalem, is where the apostate Jews offered human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer. 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35). King Josiah terminated this practice and converted the site into a city dump where rubbish burned constantly (2 Kings 23:10). The fire never went out at gehennaand the worms never died. Unquenchable fire must be eternal.234External fire and internal worms are Old Testament pictures of destruction (cf. Isa. 66:24). Thus gehennabecame a picture of the place of eternal punishment (Enoch 27:2; 90:26).235The word gehennaappears 12 times in the New Testament, and in all but one of these occurrences Jesus spoke it (i.e., James 3:6).
Disciples should take prompt and decisive action against anything that might lead them away from their allegiance to Jesus. Temptations come through the hands (what we do), the feet (where we go), and the eyes (what we see) primarily. Disciples who are believers will suffer the loss of rewards in the kingdom if they do not exercise self-discipline. Disciples who are unbelievers will experience eternal damnation if they fail to do so.
Verses 44 and 46 are absent in important early manuscripts. Probably scribes added them later to fill out the parallelism in the passage. They repeat verse 48.
9:49 This verse evidently alludes to Leviticus 2:13. The "everyone"in view could refer to unbelievers who enter hell. Unbelievers are the immediate antecedent of this verse. As salt preserves food, so God will preserve them forever in torment.
A second possibility is that "everyone"refers to believers living in a hostile world. Jesus' believing disciples were those to whom He addressed these words. As the Old Testament priests salted the animal sacrifices, so God will season His living sacrifices with fiery trials to purify their faith (cf. 1 Pet. 1:7; 4:12).236
A third interpretation is that "everyone"refers to every person, unbelievers and believers alike. God will subject everyone to fiery trials. He does this to believers and unbelievers alike during their earthly lives (James 1:1-18). He will also do this to believers' works when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ (cf. Matt. 25:14-46; 1 Cor. 3:10-15). He will do this to unbelievers when they stand before Him at the great white throne judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). This seems to me to be the best interpretation. It takes "everyone"literally and is consistent with other revelation. The point is that everyone should realize that divine testing is an inevitable part of life.237
Since this verse appears only in Mark it must have had special significance for the original readers. If they were Roman Christians, it would have encouraged them to realize that the fires of persecution were part of their calling. Everyone will experience trials (cf. James 1:1-18). We sometimes say that into every life a little rain must fall. We could change that a little and say that into every life a little salt of testing must fall.
9:50 Jesus continued to use salt as a figure for testing. He said that testings from God, as salt on food, are good for us. Salt preserves food, prevents decay, and enhances flavor. The trials that God allows people to experience should have similar beneficial effects on them (cf. James 1:2-4). However if salt becomes bland, it will not achieve its desired results. Likewise if God's trials lose their bite--if we become insensible and unresponsive to the self-discipline that He is seeking to teach us by hardening our hearts--these trials can cease to benefit us. Therefore we must have salt in ourselves, namely accept the trials that God sends us that demand self-discipline rather than rejecting them. Furthermore we must live peacefully with one another rather than becoming sectarian (v. 38) or self-seeking (v. 34).
This command concludes this section of instruction that deals with the enemies of disciple fidelity (9:33-50).
