With Him
He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach.
Read
Chapter 3 begins with Jesus already under threat. It ends with his family outside trying to reach him. In between: a healing that hardens the opposition, crowds coming from everywhere, twelve men called up a mountain, and a confrontation over whether he is working by God's power or the devil's.
Read it through before the walk-through.
Walk-through
The man with the withered hand (verses 1–6)
Jesus enters a synagogue on the Sabbath. A man with a withered hand is there. The Pharisees are watching closely — will he heal on the Sabbath? They are looking for a charge against him.
Jesus asks the man to stand in the middle. Then he turns to the Pharisees with a question: is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath, or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?
They say nothing.
Mark 3:5When he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts, he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored as healthy as the other.
Anger and grief at the same time. Not two separate emotions but one: the fury is in the grief, the grief is in the fury. He is not indifferent to what is happening in the room — he is wounded by it. The hardness of heart that will not answer a simple question about good and harm is not just a theological error. It is something that costs him something.
The man stretches out his hand and is healed. The Pharisees immediately go out and conspire with the Herodians — normally their rivals — on how to destroy Jesus. It is verse 6. The gospel is barely underway.
Crowds and withdrawals (verses 7–12)
Jesus withdraws to the sea with his disciples. A great crowd follows — not just from Galilee, but from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, beyond the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon. The scale is remarkable. People have heard what he is doing and are coming from everywhere.
He tells his disciples to have a small boat ready because the crowd is pressing in so much he might be crushed. He heals many. Those with diseases push forward just to touch him.
Unclean spirits, whenever they see him, fall before him and cry out: you are the Son of God. He strictly orders them not to make him known.
Again: the demons recognise him when the crowds and the religious leaders do not. And again he silences them. The messianic secret continues — his identity cannot be announced on the demons' terms.
The Twelve (verses 13–19)
He goes up a mountain and calls to himself those he wanted. They come to him.
Mark 3:14He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons.
The primary purpose is presence: that they might be with him. The sending out to preach and the authority over demons come second. Before they do anything for him, they are called to be with him.
He gives names to some of them — Simon becomes Peter, a rock. James and John become Boanerges, sons of thunder. Then the list continues: Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot.
And last: Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Mark includes him without comment. The betrayal is already known to the reader; the list carries it without explanation.
A house divided (verses 20–30)
Jesus goes home. The crowd gathers again so large that he and the disciples cannot even eat.
His family hears about this and comes to take control of him. Their reasoning: he is out of his mind.
Then the scribes who came down from Jerusalem say something worse: he is possessed by Beelzebul. By the prince of demons he casts out demons.
Jesus calls them over and speaks in parables:
Mark 3:27"But no one can enter into the house of the strong man to plunder, unless he first binds the strong man; and then he will plunder his house."
The argument is clean. If Satan is casting out Satan, his kingdom is divided — it cannot stand. A household fighting itself collapses. But if someone is plundering Satan's house — driving out demons, setting captives free — it means the strong man has already been bound. The one doing this is not working for Satan. He is working against him.
Then a solemn word about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Mark's version is direct: calling the work of the Holy Spirit demonic is the sin that has no forgiveness. This has caused anxiety for many readers. The context is crucial — the scribes are not confused or uncertain; they have seen what Jesus is doing and attributed it explicitly to the devil. The unforgivable sin is not doubt, or failure, or a moment of saying something wrong. It is the settled, deliberate refusal to recognise God's Spirit at work — calling light darkness, calling healing possession. Someone worried they have committed this sin almost certainly has not; the very worry points toward a conscience still open.
True family (verses 31–35)
Outside: his mother and his brothers are standing, asking for him. The crowd tells Jesus: your mother and your brothers are looking for you.
Mark 3:33–35He answered them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Looking around at those who sat around him, he said, "Behold, my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."
He is not rejecting his family. He is expanding the definition of family beyond blood. The people sitting around him — listening, following, doing the will of God — are his family. The circle is drawn around obedience, not ancestry.
His natural family thought he was out of his mind. The religious authorities thought he was demonised. The people who came from every direction and sat at his feet to hear him — they are the ones he looks at when he speaks about family.
Take with you
In one of the busiest chapters in Mark — plot against him, massive crowds, twelve called, family intervention, scribal accusation — there is one quiet line that carries the whole weight.
That they might be with him.
Not primarily to preach. Not primarily to heal or cast out demons. Before the work, before the sending: to be with him. The Twelve are called into relationship first and into function second. The function flows from the relationship. Without the being-with, the going-out has no centre.
The same is true in the final scene. The people who became his family were not the ones who had the right bloodline or the right credentials. They were the ones sitting around him, close, present — doing the will of God.
That is the through-line. Presence before performance. Being-with before being-sent. It is the shape of the call, then and now.