There are many speculations on why Mark depicts the Gospels as misunderstanding Jesus’ Identity and significance. One that is important to note was that the Gospel writers wanted to reach out to so many different groups of people. With this goal in mind, it is easy to conclude that some groups would understand more than others because of their historical, educational and cultural backgrounds. In the Gospel of Mark there are tons of parables that Jesus tells his disciples and crowds of people. I think having his disciples, who were his closest companions sometimes not understand would put the audiences that Mark was writing to at ease. They would be able to recognize and say, “It is ok to not understand everything because even his disciples didn’t know what he was saying!” However, I am not sure this particular reason would be able to explain Mark’s attempt to portray the “true” understanding of Jesus and a “true” understanding of discipleship. I think it would depend on the perspective of each person.

However, in Mark, certain Christological titles are only used by certain people: Messiah and Son of Man are used by the disciples only, and Son of God is used by the Demons, the high priest and the centurion. I think there is a certain reason why. Each “sayer” of the Christological title reflects who Jesus would be to them. For example, the disciples called Jesus the Messiah. The disciples already believe who he is, they know he is the ‘chosen one’ that is coming to save and redeem them. Son of God is used only by the demons, the high priest, the centurion and the voice from heaven at the baptism and transfiguration. The status that those three are all considerably higher than that of Jesus, proclaiming someone is ‘higher’ than they, would look bad. Mark in a way I think could be using this literary skill to high light this. It almost makes the Gospels ‘interactive’ and allows everyone the opportunity to be a disciple of Jesus.

It is a stretch, I know. But I think Mark could have and probably did do this on purpose to show that you don’t have to understand nor do you need understand, but its great if you do, and no matter what you say I am, I am whatever you say I am. The way they are all presented the readers would have caught on to this. As we have learned all term, all of these titles that they call Jesus have symbolic weight whether you were Greek, Roman or Jewish and it would be fair to say that Mark would have at least got their attention with the way he wrote his Gospel. Right in the beginning Mark begins his Gospel with his depiction of the “true” Jesus in verse one, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). He then expands throughout the whole gospel explaining who Jesus is to each person Jesus encounters and what Jesus means to them. They all come from very different places as do all of the audiences Mark intended the Gospels to be for. I think Mark would have thought it to be effective because it showed that everyone can be a disciple and it wasn’t set apart for only certain people.