He had no name, no home, and no hope, until Jesus crossed the lake to find him. In this episode of the Word for the Week, we work carefully through Mark 5:1-20, the account of the Gerasene demoniac, from the Greek text (NA28) outward. We look at why the demon's…
What value do you put on a human life? Filmed live at Carmarthen livestock market, where the price of sheep and cattle was being weighed up all around, this Super Short Thought asks a harder question. In Mark 5, Jesus set a higher value on one broken man than on…
Jesus didn't manage the man in the tombs, He restored him. Chains were the town's solution. Redemption was His. A quick look at Mark 5:1-20 and the cost of choosing restoration over restriction ... the way to view broen people the Jesus way. Watch the full Word for the Week…
They gave him chains instead of a name ... a man so broken that his own family and neighbours gave up and left him among the dead. This is the true story of the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5, and what happened when Jesus refused to just manage him. If…
In Mark 4:35-41, Jesus calms a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee with two words. The point of the story isn't the weather, it's the question the disciples ask afterwards: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" In the Old Testament, only God…
We assume smooth water means we're doing the right thing, and a storm means we've gone wrong. Mark's Gospel suggests the opposite might sometimes be true. The disciples are crossing to the eastern shore of the lake, Gentile territory, heading straight toward one of the most disturbing encounters in the…
A boat full of disciples starts the night afraid of a storm and ends it afraid of the man who stopped it. In this Super Short Thought, we unpack Mark 4:35-41 and the psychological shift buried in the Greek text: the flinching fear of danger, giving way to a second,…
Lovely weather today. Wouldn't want to change it. But what if you did? In Mark 4, Jesus is in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, caught in a violent squall. He speaks two words in the Greek: σιώπα, πεφίμωσο (siōpa, pephimōso), "be silent, be muzzled." The wind stops. A…
"Teacher, don't you care that we are perishing?" It's the sort of question we've probably all wanted to scream at God at some point: in the hospital waiting room, in the middle of the night, in the silence after the prayer that didn't seem to get us anywhere. Mark doesn't…
Burry Port, West Wales. There's a gap in the land formation here that funnels the wind straight through. It's the perfect place to ask a question: if you were on a boat in a storm and the most experienced person on board was fast asleep, would you wake them up?…
If you're going to challenge somebody with the question "who do you think you are?", you'd better make sure it's not the person Mark has just introduced as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In this Word for the Week, Simon works closely through the Greek text of Mark 2:1-12,…
What happens when the thing that defined your helplessness becomes the evidence of what Jesus has done? In this Super Short Thought, filmed at Llandeilo Mart, Simon looks at one of the most striking details in Mark chapter 2. A paralysed man is carried in on a mat by four…
Jesus looked at a paralysed man lowered through a roof by his friends, and said something nobody in the room expected. Not "be healed." Not "get up." He said: "Child, your sins are forgiven." He went somewhere deeper first. In this Markine Super Short Thought, Rev Simon Bowkett reflects on…
When every route is blocked and your own strength runs out, sometimes the most important thing you can do is let someone carry you. In this Super Short Thought, we look at one of the most dramatic moments in the Gospel of Mark: four friends who refused to give up…
Standing in a field close to the site of the 13th-century Battle of Llandeilo Fawr, Simon Bowkett opens Revelation 5:9 and asks a question that cuts right to the heart of contemporary debate: where is the line between loving your nation and making an idol of it? In this Word…
Filming outside the RNLI lifeboat station in Penarth, with their flag flying behind me, a question came to mind. What would Jesus make of Y Ddraig Goch, the Welsh Red Dragon? What does He think about national identity, language, culture, and the fierce pride people feel about where they are…
Standing on Penarth esplanade, beside an Italian Garden that marks a century of welcome, WelshRev asks one of the most pressing questions facing Wales today: can a nation be both genuinely open and genuinely honest? Wales has declared itself a Nation of Sanctuary. That is a noble instinct. But good…
Is it actually okay to be a patriot ... to love your country, your people, your language? Yes. Absolutely, yes. The Bible is full of it: Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, Paul saying he could almost wish himself cut off from God if it would save his people, Nehemiah in tears…
There's a song in heaven celebrating a Lamb who was killed, who purchased people for God from every tribe, every language, every people, every nation. But that word "from" matters more than you might think. It doesn't mean every single person from every nation automatically ends up in God's story.…
Standing on Penarth seafront, Simon asks a simple question: what does God think of Wales? Revelation 5:9 describes a heavenly scene where people are gathered "from every tribe and language and people and nation" before God's throne, every language included, every nation kept distinct, not erased into sameness. That means…
Mark 1:21–28: Jesus walks into a synagogue in Capernaum on an ordinary Sabbath and teaches without citing anyone. The congregation is struck out of their categories. An unclean spirit interrupts, names Jesus using the ancient leverage tactic of correct identification, and is dismissed with two Greek
