“She who is in Babylon, elect together with you, greets you; and so does Mark my son.”
and so does Mark
THE LIFE OF MARK, Part I
The “Mark” of this verse is the one who wrote the gospel of Mark under the direction of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament mentions Mark in five books of the Bible. We meet him first in Acts 12,
“So, when he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying” (Acts 12:12).
The church at Antioch (300 miles or 483 km north of Jerusalem) sent financial relief by Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem (Acts 11) because of widespread famine in Judea. By Acts 12, the gospel team was in Jerusalem.
Terrible events transpired while they were there. Herod executed James, the apostle, with a sword. When Herod saw that this pleased his constituency (this is all a politician needs), he threw Peter in jail. Herod decided to execute Peter after Passover. The night before Herod was to execute Peter, the church lifted Peter’s potential demise to God in an all-night prayer meeting. After God freed the apostle from jail, he knocked at the gate door where people were praying for him. Rhoda answered but did not open the door for Peter. She reported that Peter stood at the gate. Those praying told Rhoda that she was out of her mind. While praying, they did not believe that God answered prayers!
PRINCIPLE:
God answers even faithless prayer.
APPLICATION:
We often enter prayer not believing that God will answer our prayer. God answers even faithless prayer.
We need to develop a mechanism that will help us recognize when God does answer prayer. My method for doing this is to write down my prayers. Sometimes I write “answered” beside the request when God answers the prayer.
Whatever method you choose, you need to strengthen your faith by seeing how God answers prayer in your life.
