“The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the son of God.” (Mark 1:1, ESV)
One of the wonderful things about the New Testament and the gospels in particular is the way in which the personalities of the writers remain intact through the inspiration of God. God could have just as easily decided to strip the writers’ style and tell them exactly what to write in each instance because we know he’s done that elsewhere. However, for his own good and perfect purpose, he has decided to allow Matthew to sound like Matthew and Luke to sound like Luke.
Even through the most cursory read of the gospels it becomes clear that Matthew does not sound like Mark, Mark does not sound like Luke, and John certainly does not sound like Matthew, Mark, or Luke. When you read, you get a sense of the person behind the writing—their purpose, their heart, and their particular urgency. Mark especially writes with an urgency that just may be unmatched by the author gospel authors.
To be sure, the other three writers all write with purpose—telling the story of Jesus and his impact upon the world. And yet, Mark seems to write as one who can barely wait to get out to his reader’s what he has come to know and believe. We can see this clearly with the opening line of his gospel.
The first main statement of Mark’s gospel goes like this: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the son of God” (Mark 1:1). With that first statement Mark set the tone for everything else he was going to write. The reader need not wonder what Mark is writing about because he tells simply right from the get-go.
Unlike Matthew who begins with a genealogy from Abraham to Jesus, or Luke who begins with the famous birth narrative, or even John who begins with similar language to Mark but reaches back to a time before creation, Mark sees fit to get at least two things straight from the beginning: 1) good news and 2) Jesus.
From the first statement forward the reader knows that Mark is writing to them about the good news he knows about and how this good news is bound up with this person, Jesus.
Mark couldn’t be clearer and his clarity serves us greatly by allowing us to relax from the beginning because we know what we’re about to get into. There’s no guessing with Mark. He has told us plainly that we going to be reading about Jesus and the good news that’s found in him.
Mark has much to tell us, which we can see by continuing to read his story, but he thinks it’s best if we know those two main things from outset, and God bless him for that.