It is Satan who would have Jesus to be something other than the king he is really meant to be. And straight away we can begin to see what is at stake in Mark 8. This passage is incredibly relevant today because it gives us a picture of the issues that have always been at stake when it comes to the son of man. People have always wanted to make him into the king that they want, the king who stands in direct parallel and therefore opposition to earthly kings. But what must be realized over and over again throughout history is that while Jesus is parallel to earthly kings, he is not the same as any earthly king. He is absolutely different, and it is satanic to suggest that he can simply be like an earthly king using earthly powers.

This is a somber article to write, simply because its issues are very close to home. January 6th has just passed, a second anniversary of when rioters stormed our nation’s Capitol building, something that continues to be a highly politically charged issue, still being investigated today. Nor is the issue limited to the United States, as Brazil suddenly attests.
Why is this relevant in an article about Mark 8:27-38? Why is this important? It is important because Jesus’s words, his exchange with Peter in this passage, speak to the issues of how Christians should see ourselves in the midst of revolutionary situations when we possess of limited human powers, the questions of what we should do and think about Jesus and his kingdom in its relationship to kingdoms of this world. Of course, Mark 8 will not be the final and exclusive word on these questions—other passages must be brought into the mix as well. Nor is this article at all intended to be the final word on how Mark 8 is understood. But what I hope to do is at least alert readers to some things Jesus says here, very relevant to us, as we ponder how Christians should think and act when it comes to the power of governments and the way Christians respond.
And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:27–38, ESV)
Here Peter proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. Here he makes his famous grand statement about who Jesus is. But what comes next exposes Peter’s misunderstanding of what his own confession actually means. To the extent that we may share Peter’s misunderstanding, this passage powerfully challenges us to reflect further.
Note the way Jesus responds to Peter. He affirms the good part of what Peter has to say. And this is an affirmation we must hear too. But he also challenges Peter, a challenge that must be heard loud and clear, a challenge to the wrong ways of thinking about Messiah and kingdom. Only as we fully understand who Jesus is, not just potential “political revolutionary” but as the true king, can we understand all this in its fullness, appreciating what we must do also.
A strong case can be made that the whole of Mark’s Gospel is about the identity of Jesus. This book is written to suffering Christians living through Nero’s persecutions in the 1st century, Christians having to wrestle with how they will respond not just to the general vague suffering that surrounds them, but also to the suffering that occurs via the power of the political regime over them. Even as the Christians suffered under the hands of this great tyrant, they were wrestling to understand how their leader, their ruler Jesus, would be greater than Nero and yet not like him at all.
Our story begins all the way back at the beginning of Mark with a discussion of how Jesus will be the king envisioned by the prophet Isaiah, a king who does not rule over simply a worldly Kingdom, but instead a king who rules over an eternal Kingdom, yet paradoxically an eternal kingdom that is already here. But Jesus rules this already-present kingdom not with an iron fist but with gentleness.   Isaiah 41 says he will not break a bruised reed, not snuff out a smoldering wick. This is Jesus the powerful and yet compassionate king. Isaiah 40 indicates he leads captives back gently, leading those who carry their young quietly, close to his breast.
The picture of Jesus is the picture of a great and yet compassionate king, unlike Nero in every way. But as well as being great and compassionate, he is also a king who suffers. The disciples had been trying to understand and needed to understand that Jesus is all of these things – and therefore the kingdom that he rules must be like this as well.
As we reach Mark 8:27-38, we have come to the climax of Mark’s gospel. This exchange is the middle of the book, not just spatially, but conceptually, the place where everything comes to a head. Immediately preceding this passage, Jesus heals a blind man, something that will recur in 10:45.
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Written by Robert W. Alexander |
Thursday, May 23, 2024
By faith we depend on Jesus to walk with us. We rely on his Spirit to guide us so that our relationship with Christ brings life to the wearisome, broken aspects of life. We can participate in God’s work wherever he has called us. Whatever our role—student, dishwasher, waitress, stay-at-home mom, working mom, office staff, church staff, small business owner, doctor, plumber, artist, contractor—we do all things with Christ, because of him, and with the Spirit’s help (Philippians 4:13). Christ transforms our work from something we do to fulfill our own goals into something much more significant. 

A friend who just lost his job sits across from you with tears in his eyes. “I know I have a purpose,” he says. “I need to know that what I do matters, that I’m doing what God wants me to do.”
A young mom shares with her friends at playgroup, “I just wasn’t pre­pared for the drudgery of caring for a baby. I love her so much, but how do you cope with doing the same thing day after day on little or no sleep?”
“My work is so stressful,” a hardworking executive confesses. “Even when I’m home I’m connected to work electronically. I know my family wishes I wasn’t always ‘checking in,’ but they don’t understand what’s expected of me. I don’t even have the time to think about God and what he wants. It seems like just one more thing to do.”
“I’m trying to get my schoolwork done, but everyone around me is party­ing,” a college student says. “I don’t know if I’ll get a job when I graduate anyway, so usually I go for the fun. I’m a Christian, but I don’t know how that connects to life right now. Maybe I’ll work on that later.”
“Homeschooling my children was so much work, but I loved it,” a mom said. “But now my oldest son doesn’t want to go to church or do anything. What was it all for?”
How about you? Most likely you also have questions about the meaning, significance, and motivation for what you do. We all want the work we do to make a difference, yet we feel the gap between the realities of daily work and our lives as Christians.
We wonder:

Am I doing the right thing?
Why do I get so afraid when I make a mistake at work?
What should I do with the rest of my life?
Is it possible to go to work and not get involved in gossip and politics?
My work is unpaid; does that mean it’s not important?
Am I a good parent?
Why is work so stressful?
Is what I’m doing making a difference?
What if I lose my job? Who will provide for my family?

These questions are not just about work. They are spiritual questions about faith, meaning, significance, identity, and the struggle with sin. The struggle to bring work and faith together is as old as the fall of humanity. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, they experienced God’s good gifts of work, childbirth, and relationships as broken and hard. We know this isn’t the way it’s meant to be, but we wonder how (and if) our lives can be made whole again.
A Deeper Understanding of Vocation
In Genesis 1 and 2, we see God at work, creating, separating, filling, examining, and declaring all things good. God’s intent was for human life to bind together work, family, personal spirituality, and worship into a seamless tapestry. The need to apply faith to work wasn’t necessary before the fall since Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect relationship with God, each other, and creation. One day in the future, the effects of the fall will come to an end. We will see the end result of Christ’s first and second comings. All of life will be made new.
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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.