Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 21:1 (Spring 2017)
Article: “Whatever You Ask” For The Missionary Purposes Of The Eschatological Temple: Quotation And Typology In Mark 11-12
Author: Nicholas G. Piotrowski

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SBJT 21:1 (Spring 2017) p. 97

“Whatever You Ask” For The Missionary Purposes Of The Eschatological Temple: Quotation And Typology In Mark 11-12

Nicholas G. Piotrowski

Nicholas G. Piotrowski is Professor of Hermeneutics and New Testament at Crossroads Bible College and Indianapolis Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana. He also serves as an Associate Pastor at Northside Baptist Church in Indianapolis. He earned his PhD from Wheaton College in Biblical Theology—New Testament focus. Dr. Piotrowski recently published Matthew’s New David at the End of Exile (NovTSup 170; Leiden: Brill, 2016) which explores the Christological and ecclesiological effects of the first evangelist’s Old Testament quotations.

The beginning of the Gospel of Mark anticipates—right away—that the narrative will climax at the Jerusalem temple. This “gospel” of Jesus Christ in Mark 1:1 is “as it is written” (καθὼς γέγραπται; 1:2) in Isaiah. The meaning of “gospel,” therefore, should be sought in the first place in Isaiah, specifically in the context of Isaiah 40:3 which is what Mark quotes in 1:3.1 That is, Mark does not simply quote Isaiah 40:3, but indexes the entire Isaianic context, most narrowly 40:1-11, which then provides a definition of “gospel.”2The “gospel of Jesus Christ” (1:1) that now follows in the entirety of Mark (1:4-16:8) is the manifestation in history of Isaiah’s “gospel.”3 How, then, does Isaiah define “gospel?” In Isaiah 40:9 a messenger with the “gospel” (מְבַשֶּׂרֶת; ὁ εὐαγγελιζόμενος) calls people to see (הִנֵּה; ἰδού) the arrival of the God of Israel.4 In the larger context of Isaiah 40-55, 5 specifically Isaiah 52:7-10,

SBJT 21:1 (Spring 2017) p. 98

this also means the reign of God as he re...

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