Who is John Mark in the Bible?

Answer 1

We find Mark (or Marcus) mentioned by Paul in Philemon 1:24. The reference tells us nothing about Mark, except that he was a Christian who appears to have been known to Philemon and other Christians associated with Philemon.

We then find Mark mentioned in Colossians 4:10, in one of the early pseudo-Pauline epistles, as a nephew of Barnabas. If this epistle was written during the 70s of the first century, as scholars such as Burton L. Mack believe, it is unlikely that the author knew this information with any certainty. 2 Timothy 4:11 mentions Mark, but adds nothing about him.

1 Peter 5:13 portrays Mark as Peter's son, either intending this to be a blood relationship or a suggestion of close friendship for a younger man. Papias, an early second-century Church Father who probably knew the epistle known as 1 Peter, seems to have believed that Mark was indeed Peter's son. However, this epistle is now regarded by most New Testament scholars as pseudepigraphical, so this reference is probably not reliable.

Acts of the Apostles refers to Mark four times, calling him John Mark on three of these occasions. Dennis E. Smith and Joseph B. Tyson (Acts and Christian Beginnings) say that the author of Acts clearly relied on Paul's epistles for information about the early Christians, which means that if Paul does not refer to 'John Mark', it is likely that Mark was never referred to in this way in his own lifetime.

Thus we see that nearly everything we know about John Mark comes from the imaginations of anonymous writers. We only know from Paul that Mark was an active Christian known to Philemon and perhaps to other Christians associated with Philemon.

Answer 2

The nephew of Barnabas the Apostle who traveled with Paul the Apostle on his first missionary journey and went back when things got tough. Later on Paul mentioned him in his epistle and said to send Mark because he was profitable in the ministry and he had been restored in fellowship with Paul. His mother had a large house probably in the center of town (perhaps even the place where the apostles first gathered) where the saints in Jerusalem would gather for preaching and prayer and that is where they were praying when the Apostle Peter was released from prison by an angle, which would indicate that they were somewhat well to do as well the fact that Barnabas sold land in Cyprus and gave the money to the Apostles would attest to the wealth of their extended family. The split between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15 was over whether to take John Mark on their next missionary journey. In Christ, Pastor Ed