7.17

John Mark in the Early Church (Box 7.2)

The author of the Gospel of Mark has been identified popularly and traditionally with a Christian known as John Mark, who is mentioned in the book of Acts (12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37–39). What do we know about this person?

• John Mark was a young Christian who lived in Jerusalem, where his mother hosted meetings of the early church. He would have had opportunity as a child to meet Peter and all the rest of Jesus’s disciples, in addition to Jesus’s mother and brothers.
• John Mark was a relative of Barnabas, and he accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. The rigors of the trip, however, proved to be too much for him, and he returned home. Paul refused to let Mark go on the next trip, but Barnabas took him on a separate missionary venture.
• Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, is later mentioned as being with Paul when the latter was in prison (Col. 4:10; cf. Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11). This suggests that John Mark and Paul had reconciled.
• It is not clear whether John Mark is the same “Mark” mentioned as being with Peter in Rome in 1 Peter 5:13.