Camp Talks & Bible Studies From Mark

This year on our newly planted CPAS Pathfinder Camp / Venture for 11-14 year olds, we're thinking of teaching Mark's gospel:

Here’s out draft teaching scheme for the main evening talk and group Bible studies on camp:

----------- Talk -------- Bible Study

(1) Sat -- Mark 1:1-8 --- 1:9-20

(2) Sun -- 2:1-12 ------ 2:13-17

(3) Mon -- 4:35-41 ----- 6:30-52

(4) Tues -- 7:1-23 ------ 7:24-37

(5) Wed -- 8:22-9:1 --- 9:2-32

(6) Thurs 15:1-15 ----- 15:16-32

(7) Fri ---- 15:33-39 --- 15:40-47

(8) Sat --- 16:1-8 ------ On your own at home!

We are expecting perhaps more un-churched members than in previous years, so we thought we’d go for a gospel and aim to be quite evangelistic.

We’d like to focus on 3 key themes in Mark’s gospel: who is Jesus, why did he come and what does it mean to follow him? We should see, among other things, that he’s the Christ, the Son of God (the long awaited rescuer-King) who came to die as a ransom for many. Discipleship means repenting and believing the good news of the kingdom and following Jesus, taking up our cross, denying ourselves, and losing our life that we might save it.

In the Bible studies we aim to model how to read the Bible for ourselves by asking good questions of the text – not giving another talk! Feel free not to use the whole text if you think its long and time is short. And you may want to spend some time discussing the preceding talk and looking back at that passage.

Notes will be provided for the Bible Studies but you should do your own preparation on the text too.

You may find some of the following helpful (I’ve not used all of them):

Paul Barnet, The Servant King: Reading Mark Today (Aquila Press, 1991)

Tim Chester, Mark 1-8: The Coming King 10 studies for individuals or groups (The Good Book Company)

Tim Chester, Mark 9-16: The Servant King 7 studies for individuals or groups (The Good Book Company)

P. Bolt & T. Payne, Mark: News of the Hour 10 studies (Matthias Media)

Phil Crowter, Preaching Mark - Book 1 (The Good Book Company) – esp. Mark 1-8 – designed for the developing world

R. Alan Cole, Mark: Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Eerdmans / IVP, 1961 2^nd ed. 1989)

Tom Wright, Mark For Everyone (SPCK, 2001)

Dick (=R. T.) France, Mark: The People’s Bible Commentary (The Bible Reading Fellowship, 1996 / 1998)

Donald English, The Message of Mark: The Mystery of Faith The Bible Speaks Today Series (IVP, 1992)

The Christianity Explored and CY (Youth version) available from The Good Book Company also use Mark’s gospel.

More technical fatter commentaries are:

James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark Pillar Commentary Series (Eerdmans, 2001)

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: New International Commentary on the Greek Testament (Eerdmans, 2002)

William Lane, The Gospel According to Mark New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1974)