Two Big Questions

Here is an example:

So What?

 

So what if this was not in the earliest versions of Mark we have? Most scholars acknowledge that as a reality.

 

But as an attachment, it made it to the canon and we ask, "Why?"

 

We always ask two questions about scripture:

 

Why? - That alerts us to the message we are intended to receive.

 

So what? - That guides us to the actions we are intended to take.

 

There! That was your hermeneutics lesson for today. Now, the scripture:

 

Mark 16:9-20 NRSV

 

Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

 

After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.

 

Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."

 

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.