Mark 6:5,6 - He went about teaching

6:5

Now this is an interesting verse. First, let’s look at the last bit, “except heal a few sick people”. If you or I healed a few sick people at church next Sunday we would be delighted and there would be talk of miracles and revival! In Jesus case it says, “He could do no mighty work”. The second point of interest is the level of dependence upon the people’s faith, or in this case the lack of faith. Well, note that the verse doesn’t actually say anything about the lack of faith of the people, certainly not the lack of faith in healing. It is a general refusal to listen to Jesus. Matt 13:58 says “He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief”. The unbelief is a general unbelief, and Matthew says He did not, rather that He could not.  So what are we to make of this? Well, we assume that mighty works means miracles and signs. One could say that the real mighty work is changing people’s hearts. So possibly the mighty works are not the miracles as such.

6:6

Jesus marvelled because of their unbelief. The unbelief was unbelief in who He was. He had given them plenty of evidence. The evidence of the miracles, the evidence of the teaching. It wasn’t that they did not recognise Him as the Son of God, as Jesus said to Peter later on, only the Father can reveal this to us (Matt 16:17), but it should have been obvious that He was more than Joseph’s son. So what was Jesus marvelling at? The effect that sin has in blinding us to the blindingly obvious. Jesus went about the villages teaching, yet more emphasis on teaching!