The Way of the Cross: Following Jesus in the Gospel of Mark

by Joel B. Green

Publisher:

Wipf and Stock

, 2009

Overview

Jesus has always invited and challenged his disciples to follow him in the way of redemptive suffering—the way of the cross. According to Joel B. Green, this is the very heart of Mark’s Gospel, and it is also the heart of discipleship. In The Way of the Cross, Green shows how Mark unfolds the drama of Jesus’ mission to suffer for others, how this mission was not initially understood by the first disciples, and how all this can transform our own understanding of the call to follow. Each chapter deepens our sense of the integrity of Mark and challenges us to follow Jesus in our own practice of discipleship and experience with suffering today.

Contents

Top Highlights

“For Mark, we have not understood Jesus if we have not plumbed the depths of his passion. Clearly, Mark believes that authentic discipleship must be oriented to the cross, and that followers of Jesus must join him on the way of the cross.” (Page 9)

“Mark does not tell us these stories of call and response in order that we might copy the disciples. Rather, he is illustrating in their response the basic character of all true discipleship: a response to the presence of a sovereign God whose vision for peace and justice reaches the concrete realities of our personal, social, and economic lives. God’s kingdom brings near an alternative vision of human existence in the world, calls for allegiance to this new reality, and makes it possible for people like James and John to embrace that new way. We may not be able to create from these stories a simple code for following Jesus, but we know this much: His call addresses us in our concrete, daily activities, and it looks to transform our priorities toward serving rather than being served.” (Pages 54–55)

“As we shall see, Mark’s audience was a perplexed people. They were a people with well-established beliefs and convictions about the nature of God’s kingdom,¹¹ about the character and activity of God’s agent of salvation, about the life of discipleship. But a great chasm had opened between their faith-grounded expectations and the realities of their world. God’s kingdom had not come in fullness, in power. God’s agent of salvation, the Messiah, had been crucified, not crowned. And the way of discipleship had become not a life of bliss, but of duress.” (Page 8)

Product Details

• Title: The Way of the Cross: Following Jesus in the Gospel of Mark
• Author: Joel B. Green
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Print Publication Date: 2009
• Logos Release Date: 2016
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Bible. N.T. Mark › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Jesus Christ › Passion; Jesus Christ
• ISBNs: 9781606085738, 1606085735
• Resource ID: LLS:WAYOFTHECROSS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T03:41:24Z

About Joel B. Green

Joel B. Green has been associate dean for the Center for Advanced Theological Studies since 2008 and professor of New Testament interpretation at Fuller since 2007; prior to that, he served for 10 years at Asbury Theological Seminary as professor of New Testament interpretation, as dean of the School of Theology, and as provost.

Green has written or edited 30 books, including four that have won awards: In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem (with Stuart Palmer), Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology (with Paul J. Achtemeier and Marianne Meye Thompson), The Gospel of Luke, and Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (with Scot McKnight).