Summary
There are many places in Mark’s gospel where a story starts and then is quickly interrupted by another story. But each time this happens there is a common theme between the initial story and the interrupting one—this is Mark’s way of highlighting the main point. The structure of the story goes like this: the initial part (let’s call that A), then the interrupting part (let’s call that B), and then the initial story is returned too (let’s call that A’). This structure is called a ‘sandwich’, with the bread being A and A’ and the filling B.
What this means is we need to understand the structure of the text in order to also understand it’s meaning. That’s why observing these sandwiches is critical to interpreting and understanding Mark’s gospel. So reading the ‘sandwich’ all together, not simply the top slice, or just the filling is required to ‘get’ Mark’s message.
In this series Mark’s Sandwich Fillings we’ll look at are:
- Faith’s Work: Mark 5:21-43 (Sept 2)
- Discipleship’s cost: Mark 6:7-30, (Sept 9)
- Allegiance’s Sacrifice: Mark 14:1-11, (Sept 16)
- Convicting Grace: Mark 14:17-31, (Sept 23)
- Painful Witness: Mark 14:53-72, (Sept 30)
