Jesus as a Servant: The Gospel According to Mark

The Importance of the Four Gospels. For most Christians, the most important books in the New Testament of the Holy Bible are the four books known as the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). These four books lead off the New Testament and contain the heart of the Christian faith-the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They also contain the ideas and events that underly the rest of the New Testament writings.

Why Four Gospels? Why four? Wouldn't one be enough? The theological answer is that God inspired four different individuals to write down their experiences with Jesus, and for many people, that is reason enough. Another answer is that the four writers saw Jesus' life and impact from different perspectives and their four Gospels help us better to understand the complex character of Jesus and his wide-ranging influence on human life and culture over the past 2000 years.

The Perspective of the Gospel according to Matthew. Matthew, as I explained in an earlier Associated Content article, serves as a vital bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Holy Bible and, in the process, invites Jews to consider Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecies of a messiah or special person from God. In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus is portrayed as the King for which the Jews and the world are waiting.

The Perspective of the Gospel according to Mark. The Gospel according to Mark, the shortest of the four Gospels and often considered to be the first one written, strips away much of the theological and scriptural underpinnings of Matthew and presents Jesus as above all a servant. In Mark, the emphasis is more on what Jesus does rather than who Jesus is.

The Gospel of Mark is a fast-paced story. Unlike the other Gospels, the action in Mark is not interrupted by long theological disputes and discussions. In general, Mark moves Jesus from place to place and from action to action. Thought to be writing to shape the thinking of the Roman Empire about Jesus, the writer of Mark approached his subject with an action-oriented people in mind. That approach determined what the writer included and what he excluded. For example, as one commentator (See reference below) points out, there is no genealogy in Mark, because no one cares about the family lineage of a servant. What counts is what the servant does in meeting the needs of other people.

From a larger perspective, Jesus is the Servant-the Servant of God, the Servant of the human race, the One who has come to reveal and glorify God in the world and, at the same time, to meet the deepest needs of humanity. Not only does Jesus have the desire to serve; Jesus follows through. Mark tells his readers that Jesus is, to use the words of Ephesians 3:20: "...able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine..."

To summarize:

In Matthew, Jesus is presented as King
In Mark, Jesus is presented as Servant

Source:

www.associatedcontent.com/article/384626/the_gospel_according_to_matthew.html
Henrietta C. Mears, What the Bible is All About (Ventura, CA: G/L Regal Books, 1953) 376.