By Clement Harrold
April 23, 2026
1. It’s short.
Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels, and he doesn’t waste any words describing the key events of Jesus’s life. Famously, he uses the adverb “immediately” (Greek, euthus) over forty times in the space of just sixteen chapters! This helps create a fast-paced narrative filled with a sense of urgency.
2. It’s early.
Most scholars believe that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, probably sometime between 65 and 69 A.D.
However, some scholars argue that Matthew was the first to write down a collection of Jesus’ sayings in either Hebrew or Aramaic. According to this theory, Matthew’s original composition (which we no longer possess) provided the starting point for Mark’s Gospel.
Later on, Matthew produced his own Greek version of the Gospel that drew on his earlier work while also expanding on what Mark had already written.
3. It’s dramatic.
Mark spends less time on Jesus’ extended teachings and parables, choosing to focus instead on His exorcisms and healings.
He also frequently employs a literary device known as intercalation—or, more colloquially, the “Markan sandwich”—where one story is inserted into the middle of another. For example, the healing of Jairus’s daughter in Mark 5 is interrupted by the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage, where the “inner” story is designed to highlight faith as the key element in both miracles.
This technique allows Mark to draw powerful contrasts, and it contributes to building a sense of tension in the narrative.
4. It’s secretive.
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is particularly concerned with concealing His true identity.
Both the people He heals and the demons He casts out are instructed not to make Him known. His disciples are also commanded to keep parts of His mission secret, and their repeated confusion and misunderstanding is an important theme in the Gospel.
Mark is also less quick to explain Old Testament allusions than Matthew is. Instead, Mark’s principle seems to be one of maintaining a layer of mystery until the time is right: “For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light” (Mark 4:22).
5. It’s written for Romans.
Scholars believe that this Gospel was probably written for Gentile (i.e. non-Jewish) Christians living in Rome. Evidence for this comes from the fact that Mark often explains certain customs and practices that would already be familiar to a Jewish audience.
He also borrows certain words from Latin (e.g. centurion, legion, denarius), and he emphasizes the hardships that Christ’s followers will face. It’s even possible that Mark is writing to strengthen the Roman community during the fierce persecution conducted by the Emperor Nero between 64 and 68 A.D.
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6. It contains eyewitness testimony.
While Mark is usually referred to by his Roman name, the New Testament also sometimes uses his Jewish name “John.”
We know that Mark was a cousin of Barnabas (see Col 4:10) and that he was a missionary associate of Paul. At some point a rift arose between Mark and Paul, but the two were later reconciled.
Christian tradition holds that Mark was also a disciple of Peter (see 1 Pet 5:13), which explains why his Gospel has features that one would expect to come from an eyewitness. For example, Mark notices that the paralytic in Capernaum was carried by four men (2:3), that Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the boat (4:38), and that the grass is green at the feeding of the five thousand (6:39).
7. It preserves unique details.
Famously, most of the material in Mark is subsumed by the other synoptic Gospels.
Matthew includes roughly 600 of Mark’s 660 verses (~90%), while Luke includes around 350 (~50–55%). This means that only around 5-10% of Mark’s Gospel is unique to him.
Nevertheless, he still offers a number of significant stories and details that we don’t find elsewhere. Examples include the teaching that the Sabbath was made for man and that the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath (2:27); the healing of the deaf and mute man in Decapolis (7:31–37); the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida in two stages (8:22–26); and the strange incident of the young man running away naked in Gethsemane (14:51–52).
In addition, Mark includes a number of Aramaic phrases and personal names or titles (e.g. “Bartimaeus,” “Alexander and Rufus,” “Sons of Thunder”) that we don’t find in the other Gospels.
He is also the only evangelist to highlight the critical importance of the parable of the sower (4:13), and he is the only one to describe Jesus addressing God as “Abba” (14:36).
8. It portrays Jesus as the suffering Messiah.
The central question of Mark’s Gospel is found in 8:27 when Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”
It’s after Peter answers that He is the Christ that Jesus begins warning His disciples in earnest of the suffering and death that awaits Him. This causes consternation and confusion on the part of Peter, who finds the idea of a crucified Messiah totally incomprehensible.
Strikingly, it is the non-Jewish centurion at Calvary who offers the most profound proclamation of faith in the whole Gospel at the precise moment when it appears that Jesus has been crushed and defeated: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39).
9. It emphasizes the Cross.
Martin Kähler famously described Mark’s Gospel as a “passion narrative with an extended introduction.”
Peter’s misunderstanding of Jesus’ mission in chapter 8 is the turning point in the Gospel, and Mark devotes five of his sixteen chapters to the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion.
Mark is also very clear that the Cross is the place which reveals who Jesus really is. Whereas Jesus is never described as king prior to His trial before Pilate, in chapter 15 he is called a king six times in the space of thirty verses—a form of irony highlighting how Christ’s true identity is revealed in His Passion and death.
10. It ends abruptly.
Mark’s Gospel seems to have originally ended at 16:8, or else it contained a different ending that has since been lost.
The final verses found in 16:9–20 are written in a different style from the rest of the Gospel and they aren’t found in some of the earliest manuscripts.
Nevertheless, they are part and parcel of what the Church officially recognizes as the canon of Sacred Scripture, which means they were still inspired by the Holy Spirit even if they weren’t actually written by Mark.
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Further Reading
Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Baker Academic, 2008)
Leroy A. Huizenga, Loosing the Lion: Proclaiming the Gospel of Mark (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2017)
Dr. Shane Owens, “The Gospel of Mark,” Course.
About Clement Harrold
Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s degree in theology, philosophy, and classics from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. He is a columnist for The Catholic Herald, and his writings have appeared in First Things, Word on Fire, Catholic Answers Magazine, Church Life Journal, Our Sunday Visitor Magazine, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.
