Mark 3:31-35 · Jesus’ Mother and Brothers

31 Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."

33 "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.

34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Jesus Turns to His New Family
Mark 3:31-35, Mark 3:20-30
Teach the Text
by Grant R. Osborne
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Big Idea: Opposition to Jesus takes a new turn as his family thinks that he is insane and the religious leaders accuse him of being demon possessed. Jesus’s response is twofold: he cannot be under the control of Satan because he has already bound Satan, and his true family consists of those who have joined him in the household of God.

Understanding the Text

Jesus’s ministry to sinners and his call to several outcasts to be among the Twelve will now get him in trouble with the authorities. This is the first intercalation, or “sandwiching” episode, in Mark, in which one story is placed within another so that the two interpret each other. In this case the Beelzebul charge (3:22–30) is placed within two parts of the story in which Jesus’s family comes to take him home (3:20–21, 31–35). The m…

Baker Publishing Group, Teaching the Text, by Grant R. Osborne