Jesus’s opening words suggest that God’s kingdom is a dynamic reality. He says that the kingdom of God “is at hand” or “has drawn near”—using another perfect tense verb, ēngiken. This verb appears in the active voice, with the sense that the kingdom is on the cusp of dawning—indeed in some sense is already here. This tension between what has been called the “now” and the “not yet” of the kingdom runs throughout the New Testament and no less in Mark’s Gospel.

Jesus and the New Creation
Compare the beginnings of the Gospels. Matthew provides a genealogy situating Jesus in the history of Israel followed by a birth narrative. Luke has a longer birth narrative and then a genealogy that traces Jesus back to Adam. John refers to Jesus’s eternal presence with God. Mark, in contrast, has Jesus burst onto the scene seemingly from nowhere. John the Baptist announces his arrival, and then we are simply told that “in those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee” (Mark 1:9).
But if Jesus seems to come from nowhere, his message has a history. The Isaiah quotation in Mark 1:2–3 establishes the continuity with the Old Testament, as do his first words: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). The theme of the kingdom of God situates Jesus in the flow of redemptive history.
The announcement of the kingdom gives way to specific teachings on the kingdom throughout the Gospel (particularly through the parables) together with demonstrations of the kingdom’s inbreaking in Jesus’s healings, encounters with demons, and other miracles. We will see that the kingdom of God is not an abstract reality (e.g., a vague idea of “the reign of God”) but is tied to two concrete realities—Jesus Christ and the new creation.
The Time is Fulfilled: The Kingdom is at Hand
To grasp Jesus’s words, “the kingdom of God is at hand,” we need to first understand what he means by “the time is fulfilled” (peplērōtai ho kairos). The word kairos in Mark can refer to both a span of time (e.g., 10:30, where it parallels “age” [aiōnios]; Mark 11:13, rendered as “season”) or a particular, appointed time (e.g., Mark 13:33, “you do not know when the kairos will come”). So, in Mark 1:15, is Jesus saying that “the span of time has passed” or “the decisive moment has arrived”?
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Setting an appointment with our pastor, Bob, she limped into his office on her mangled right foot (while her damaged left leg bore the brunt.) As she sat quietly in his study, he stated, “Gracie, this room is off-limits to every other voice telling you what to do. My job is to help quieten the noise so you can hear your own thoughts – and God’s leading.”

“We’ve done everything possible to save this leg, all that’s left is amputation. When you’re ready, we’ll have that conversation.”
Those words came from my wife’s surgeon, following numerous operations to save her right leg – crushed and disfigured in her 1983 car accident. Everyone in Gracie’s life, including me, had an opinion about this – and Gracie understandably struggled mightily during this time.
The clamor of opinions combined with our self-doubts and fears created a “wall of noise” that felt like a stack of Marshall amps at a Van Halen concert – and, sadly, Gracie found herself amid a storm of speculation by family and friends. At twenty-five, with a toddler, her young heart felt the awful dread of having to look her surgeon in the eye and instruct him to amputate her right leg.
Setting an appointment with our pastor, Bob, she limped into his office on her mangled right foot (while her damaged left leg bore the brunt.) As she sat quietly in his study, he stated, “Gracie, this room is off-limits to every other voice telling you what to do. My job is to help quieten the noise so you can hear your own thoughts – and God’s leading.”
Gracie pondered for over an hour while Pastor Bob sat at his desk – no words passed between them. Finally, Gracie looked up with tear-filled eyes and said, “I’m terrified of doing this,” she whispered. Gaining strength, she continued, “But I can’t live this way any longer – it’s got to come off.”
Nodding somberly, he assured Gracie he’d be with her through the ordeal and kept his word.
Sometimes, the greatest gift we can give to others struggling with heartbreaking decisions is to clear the room, quieten the noise, and sit with them. Scripture reveals God’s explanations are rare, but His presence is constant. Pastor Bob allowed Gracie the stillness and time to be alone with her thoughts, but God assures us that even in our lonely hearts, He is always with us.
More than one hundred years ago, Pastor Cleland McAfee felt rocked when both his nieces died in the same week from diphtheria. Pastor McAfee labored over how to address this terrible grief that washed over the entire community. Working on his sermon, he wrote what would become one of the most beloved hymns in the world. On Saturday evening, the choir assembled and gathered outside his brother’s home and quietly sang the hymn to the distressed family.
There is a place of quiet restNear to the heart of GodA place where sin cannot molestNear to the heart of God. 
Pastor Bob modeled what that hymn affirms.
Gracie later stated, “I didn’t know what was on the other side of that operating room door – but I knew who waited for me there.”
That confidence came from her sitting quietly – near to the heart of God.
Gracie repeated the scenario four years later when she relinquished her remaining leg. I watched nurses push her from recovery to the ICU when she awoke. Lying on the gurney, she lifted her hands and sang the Doxology.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;Praise Him, all creatures here below;Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
The responsibility – and privilege – of pastors is to help quieten the room for others with terrible challenges and heartache. It’s in those quiet places, near the heart of God, that we gain the strength and resolve to trust Him with the anguish – while praising Him in the unimaginable.
Peter Rosenberger hosts the nationally syndicated radio program, Hope for the Caregiver. He’s served as his wife’s caregiver for nearly forty years. His newest book is A Minute For Caregivers.

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Written by Thomas D. Hawkes |
Monday, October 25, 2021
We call them to believe about themselves that God has created them with gifts, abilities, and talents to use for his service, the service of others, and for their own joyful use. We help them to recognize these gifts and talents and call them to believe that God can use them to bless others, and to show forth his own glory. Jesus did this.

How does one mentor effectively? There are dozens of books on the subject with many different emphases. It can become confusing. So confusing that we are tempted to shy away from mentoring others. But mentoring does not have to be complicated. After decades of mentoring scores of leaders, reading many books, and failing and succeeding, I want to suggest a simple approach to mentoring: Call them to faith and to repentance.
To offer slightly more complete guidance: in a relationship of love and encouragement call them to faith and repentance.
To help others grow we should call them to faith, to believe things that might be hard or unclear to believe. What are some of the calls to faith that we issue regularly to our mentees? We call them to believe things about God, his Word, themselves, the church, and the world.
We call them to believe that God loves them with an everlasting love, every moment of everyday. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9). This is the framework within which all growth is made possible, the love of God for us changes us.
We call them to believe that God is sovereign and loving, in control of every hair that falls from their heads. In particular, we call them to believe this when life is difficult and filled with suffering and trials. “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’” (Matt. 6:31).
We call them to trust God in good times and in bad. To depend upon him. To look to him. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1).
We call them to believe the Word. To know it is true, but more than that. We call them to embrace it as sufficient, that it really can guide them through uncharted waters. We call them to believe that they can trust God’s promises and should heed his warnings. We call them to depend on his Word to do for them what they cannot do themselves: to be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
We call them to believe about themselves that God has created them with gifts, abilities, and talents to use for his service, the service of others, and for their own joyful use. We help them to recognize these gifts and talents and call them to believe that God can use them to bless others, and to show forth his own glory. Jesus did this. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do” (John 14:12).
For example, I was working with a younger pastor who was unsure of his spiritual gifts. I encouraged him to ask those close to him what spiritual gifts they saw prominent in his life. He asked and reported back to me that universally they had said hospitality. I affirmed that this was a dominant gift that I had seen. But he objected that the gift seemed more feminine. When I assured him that men and women were both gifted in hospitality, indeed, that elders are required to be hospitable (1 Tim. 3:2) he warmed up to the idea. He went on to develop that gift more fully as a cornerstone of his pastoral service in his various ministries.
We call them to believe that God has a purpose for their lives that is bigger than making it in this world. A purpose that he will fulfill in their lives. A calling to serve him as he has designed them and purposed them. They have a purpose that he will certainly fulfill. “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me” (Ps. 138:8).
Think of how Jesus persistently called the disciples to faith. “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matt. 6:30). “’Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’ Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm” (Matt. 8:26). “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?” (Matt. 16:8). The faithful mentor, like Jesus, will call his mentees to greater and greater faith.
We also call those we mentor to repent. To repent of individual sins, sinful traits, and unbelief.
We call them to repent of individual sins. When they are in conflict, say with a spouse, we help them see, not where their spouse has offended them—they will see that clearly enough—but how they contributed to the conflict, calling them to repent. I recall helping one young husband see that the greater cause of the conflict in his marriage was his lack of love for his wife, which prompted the insecurity in her that he so resented.
We call them to repent of the deeper sin, the dark side, the sin beneath the sin. This is often the most difficult aspects of mentoring: helping the mentee see what they do not want to see, what they desperately have concealed even from themselves, the passions, fears, and idols that drive them. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1).
For example, as a mentee myself, when I was contemplating marrying my girlfriend, I asked my father for advice. He responded with a penetrating letter that laid bare the real reason behind my hesitancy. He pointed out that I hesitated because I was a perfectionist wondering, due to my youth and inexperience, if there might still be some more perfect woman out there I had yet to meet. While chiding me for that perfectionism, he also addressed it by assuring me, with his age and experience, that I could rest easy, I would not find a better wife anywhere. Forty-two years of marriage to the right woman later I am still thankful for his loving and penetrating call to repent of perfectionism.
We call those whom we mentor to repent of unbelief. They may have little faith in the love and forgiveness of God, or his ability to use them. We need to call them to repent first of the lack of faith in the promises of God. I find it helpful to ask those I mentor the simple question of self-examination during any issue or problem: What is it that you are failing to believe about God right now?
Think of how Jesus called his disciples to repent, confronting them with specific sins and sinful patterns. To the pushy Peter he said: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Mark 8:33). To the disciples who doubted the report of his resurrection there came a rebuke. “Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen” (Mark 16:14). When the disciples argued about who among them would be the greatest, Jesus did not let it go in silence but called them to repent with a rebuke. “And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, ‘If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all’” (Mark 9:35).
We call those we are mentoring to faith and repentance, all in an environment of love and encouragement. Those we mentor will not want to hear from us if they feel that our goal is simply to perfect them as pet projects. They, like us, want to be genuinely loved and cared for amid our relationships. They, and we, want respect, to be valued, to have fun together. Our relationship must be marked by a genuine love and concern for them. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).
We should aim to be encouraging. Every encounter with us should be one that leaves them feeling built up, whether calling them to faith or repentance. “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11). Our goal is never to tear down but to lift them closer to the heart of God.
For example, I was correcting a young intern once, showing him what he had done wrong and why it was important to get it right. At the end of our time together when I asked how he was doing with the interaction he said with a tone of surprise: “Oddly, although I messed up, I feel really encouraged right now, thanks.” Think of the encouragement Peter would have felt when Jesus restored him after his falling away with those words, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17).
Mentoring does not have to be complicated. It can be as simple as calling those we mentor to faith and to repentance, all in a relationship of love and encouragement. May I encourage you to try it? Your best years of mentoring others may still be ahead of you.
Dr. Tom Hawkes is a minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church who serves as the Director of Church Planting for the Florida Presbytery, and as church planting pastor for Christ Presbyterian Church, Fernandina Beach, Fla.