Reading Mark with Myers

This course reads Mark's gospel as a political-pastoral text written by and for a small Jewish-Christian community in the early 70s of the first century, in the wake of the Jewish-Roman war and the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. The reading is heavily indebted to Ched Myers' Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (Orbis Books, 1988; 20th-anniversary edition 2008). This sidebar names what that means and why it matters.

Who is Ched Myers, and why this book?

Ched Myers is an American theologian, biblical scholar, and lay activist, working out of the Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries in California. Binding the Strong Man is his major commentary on Mark, originally published in 1988 and reissued with new prefatory material in 2008. It is one of the few full commentaries on a gospel that takes its primary lens to be socio-political and economic, rather than doctrinal or devotional.

The book reads Mark's gospel as an act of "non-violent resistance literature" — a document written for a community trying to live faithfully under empire, in the shadow of a recent and devastating war, and in deliberate distance from both the religious establishment that collaborated with empire and the Zealot movement that fought it with violence. Mark, on Myers' reading, is calling his community to a third way: discipleship as the politics of the cross.

What it looks like in practice

Three moves of Myers' reading recur through this course.

First, the historical-political situation matters. Mark is not a document floating free of time. It is written in occupied Roman Palestine in the early 70s. The temple has just been destroyed; Jewish-Christian communities are negotiating their place between an angry Roman empire and a wounded Jewish establishment. Every page of Mark is shaped by that context.

Second, the structural reading matters. Myers reads the gospel architecturally — sandwiches, framing pericopes, the central pivot at Caesarea Philippi, the journey-section catechism of discipleship. The structure carries the argument; reading verse-by-verse misses the argument. (The companion sidebar on the Markan sandwich and framing pericope unpacks the technique in more detail.)

Third, the economic and political register matters. When Mark uses the word euangelion (good news), he is borrowing imperial vocabulary. When he uses huios Dauid (Son of David), he is making a messianic-political claim. When the cloak of Bartimaeus, the cup of the disciples, the temple economy, and the ransom-for-many all appear in close proximity, Mark is doing political-economic theology, not abstract spirituality. Myers' reading honours that.

What it does not mean

Three things this reading is not.

It is not Marxist (a charge sometimes levelled at Myers). Myers' politics are non-violent and pastoral, in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement and Sojourners. The reading is socio-political because Mark is socio-political; the reading does not impose a twentieth-century framework onto a first-century text.

It is not anti-spiritual or anti-doctrinal. The Wesleyan-liberal frame the course holds (prevenient grace, social holiness, incarnational presence) is not in conflict with Myers' reading; the two are partners. Myers' Mark is the Mark of the kingdom drawing near, where God's love is at work in the broken and the searching as much as in the saved and the certain.

It is not the only valid reading. The doctrinal, devotional, mystical, and theological-aesthetic readings of Mark all have their place. The course chooses the political-pastoral reading because it is the reading that opens up the gospel most fully for our time and place, and because the church has sometimes domesticated Mark by reading him otherwise.

Where Myers and the Wesleyan-liberal register diverge

Three places, briefly.

Atonement. Myers' political-economic reading of the ransom-for-many (Mark 10v45) does not pick an atonement theory; this course holds a similar non-prescriptive position, named generously-orthodox, but adds an explicit positive claim about Jesus' death and resurrection. The Wesleyan addition is real.

Personal piety. Myers' reading is strong on social holiness and weaker on the means-of-grace personal practices that Wesleyan Methodism holds central. This course holds both: the practice-for-the-week and the Methodist Way of Life carry the personal-piety register that Myers does not emphasise.

Pastoral tone. Myers writes for activists; this course is written for a Methodist Circuit. The political reading is preserved; the register is pastoral.

Where to read Myers if you want to go further

The book itself: Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (Orbis Books, 20th anniversary edition 2008). The introduction and the first three chapters are the most accessible starting point.

A shorter companion: Ched Myers and others, Say to This Mountain: Mark's Story of Discipleship (Orbis, 1996). Written for small-group study; closer in shape to what this course is doing.

For online resources, Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries (bcm-net.org) maintains study materials, podcasts, and commentary that build on the Binding the Strong Man project.