• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

You are here: Home / Uncategorized / George Herbert and Mark 8:35

George Herbert and Mark 8:35

May 21, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

We often associate Jesus’ word in Mark 8:35 with martyrdom. The reason for this, in context, is obvious:

Mar 8:34-37 ESV And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (35)  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (36)  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (37)  For what can a man give in return for his soul?

I suggest that neither Jesus nor the early disciples treated literally dying for the gospel as a necessary consequence of discipleship. In fact, later in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is clear that with the possibility of persecutions in this life, so also there could be several elements traditionally associated with the good life in this life (also, the elements of the good life will be certain in the age to come):

Mar 10:29-31  Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, (30)  who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. (31)  But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

The point being that losing ones life, in Mark 8:35, is not necessarily the same thing as literally dying. It would seem that it is a commitment to a form of personal transformation under Jesus’ tutelage. I think that George Herbert captures this concept quite well in his poem Clasping of Hands.

Clasping of Hands

LORD, thou art mine, and I am thine,
If mine I am: and thine much more,
Than I or ought, or can be mine.
Yet to be thine, doth me restore;
So that again I now am mine,
And with advantage mine the more.
Since this being mine, brings with it thine,
And thou with me dost thee restore.
If I without thee would be mine,
I neither should be mine nor thine.

Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine:
So mine thou art, that something more
I may presume thee mine, then thine
For thou didst suffer to restore
Not thee, but me, and to be mine:
And with advantage mine the more,
Since thou in death wast none of thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore.
O be mine still! still make me thine;
Or rather make no Thine and Mine!

George Herbert, The Works of George Herbert (London: George Routledge & Co., 1854), 165.

Herbert essentially captures that learning to be possessed of God is precisely to come to oneself as well. Jesus makes this same claim in the parable of the prodigal son. His repentance is described as, “coming to himself” (Luke 15:17). In losing oneself, one comes to knowledge of God. Similarly, in coming to knowledge of God, one comes to true self-ownership.

Related Posts:

  • Rhetoric and Dialectic: The Difference and Why It Matters by Geoff
  • George Berkeley, Aaron Weiss, and Thomas Aquinas by Geoff
  • George Lakoff and Everything by Geoff

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Thoughts, discipleship

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • 2020 Has Been a Big Year or I Finally Quit
  • Steps to Open a Bible College
  • You Have No Power Here, This is a Library
  • What is true wealth?
  • What’s Wrong with Conservatives?

Recent Comments

  • Sharon on Whether we live or die, Aslan will be our good lord.
  • Alishba lodhi on Effort Habit: Keep the Faculty of Effort Alive in You
  • Geoff on Why is Covetousness Idolatry?
  • Geoff on 2020 Has Been a Big Year or I Finally Quit
  • Kelly Jensen on Why is Covetousness Idolatry?

Archives

  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • May 2013
  • March 2013

Cateories

WordPress · Log in