Shared with Permission from Criswell Theological Review
A Ransom for Many: Mark 10:45 As Key to the Gospel. By John J. R. Lee and Daniel Brueske.
Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2023, 203 pp., $24.99, Paperback
In A Ransom for Many: Mark 10:45 As Key to the Gospel, John J. R. Lee (PH.D. University of
Edinburgh, 2011) author of such works as Christological Reading of the Shema in Mark’s
Gospel (Mohr Siebeck, 2020), and the forthcoming Biblical Justice (Kegel) and Daniel Brueske
(PH.D. Candidate Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) have presented an admirable
addition to Markian studies and the field of Biblical Theology, wrapping up numerous themes
into a cohesive package that does justice to Mark’s brilliance as a writer and theologian.
The title expresses the core of Lee’s and Brueske’s contention that the Gospel of Mark is written
with the express intention of motivating “his audience who are facing rejection and persecution
to remain loyal to Jesus,” by focusing “substantially on who Jesus is and what he has done.” (31)
This “who” and “what” are found most clearly and comprehensively in a Mark 10:45 context:
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
many.” If Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, and Son of Man of Daniel fame has not come to be
served, but to serve, and to suffer rejection and die so that he might redeem as much of fallen
humanity as he can, then it is not asking too much for his disciples to follow suit, to take up their
crosses and follow his model of true servanthood.
After unpacking the historical and textual evidence for the occasion of the Gospel of Mark,
settling on a Roman context during or shortly after the “Neronian persecution of Christians that
began in 64 CE” (pg.9), the authors turn to inductive considerations for discovering the larger
purpose of Mark as a context for evaluating their claims about Mark 10:45. They argue that
through the author’s selection and arrangement of materials Mark centralizes “who Jesus is and
what he has done in order to motivate his audience who are facing rejection and persecution to
remain loyal to Jesus” (pg. 31), detailing “Jesus’s own faithfulness as he endured shame and
suffering for the sake of God’s people,” (pg. 46).
It is within this larger mission, and its relationship to the literary development of Mark’s gospel
that the meaning and significance of Mark 10:45 can be more fully understood. Mark 10:45
“provides the explanation for Jesus’s teaching that anyone who would follow him must ‘deny
himself and take up his cross,’” (pg. 78), because “honor and authority work very differently in
the Kingdom of God (and of his Messiah) than they do among the kingdoms of this world,” (pg.
113). Thus, in Mark 10:45, in responding to James’s and John’s request for positions of power,
Jesus uses the self-identifying label of Son of Man from Daniel 7, to whom was promised,
“dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him,”
(Daniel 7:14) to set the contrast for his own suffering, service, and sacrifice as reflected in the
work of another last days’ figure, The Servant, who will “sprinkle many” (Isaiah 52:14), “justify
many” (Isaiah 53:11), and “bare the sin of many” (Isaiah 53:12). If Jesus, as that most glorious
and honored Son of Man, heir of the Divine Kingdom, has come to serve and sacrifice,
exchanging even his own life to ransom many, how much more should the servants of that Son
of Man be willing to do so.
To carry Lee’s and Brueske’s primary contention, however, it is not enough to show that Mark
10:45 is one piece among many that add to Mark’s design to preach “the upside-down nature of
God’s kingship, and the demand that followers of Christ imitate Jesus’s own path of suffering,
service, and sacrifice. It must be shown to be key in that regard. Thus, the authors move on to
establish that Mark 10:45 is highly strategic within the narrative flow of Mark, that it proves “the
final and most explicit purpose statement,” thus climactic, among a host of other purposes
statements within the Gospel, and that it proves unique among them as the sole “explication of
the purpose of Jesus’s death,” (pg. 117), as a ransom for many.
Finally, the author’s seek to unpack the practical implications for the modern Christian in Mark’s
call to believers of his own time to follow in the suffering, serving, sacrificing steps of Jesus as
they walk out their faith. This “radical servanthood” (pg. 156) is not abstract in Mark, it is “quite
specific and personal,” being related to “a particular person, Jesus,” a “specific manner at a
specific time and place, namely giving his life sacrificially for the sake of others by being
crucified on a Roman cross,” (pg. 157). This extreme should inform our willingness to endure
varied lesser sufferings with the same redemptive spirit, with a “willingness to subordinate our
liberties, comforts, rights, and sometimes ever our necessities to those of others,” (pg. 157).
For those in Mark’s audience who have failed thus far in their commitments, Mark provides
another unfolding example in his book, the Disciples, who “are continually stumbling, erring,
and—honestly—failing to live up to the call of discipleship.” They struggle to understand him,
desert him (Mark14:27-31, 50) and even openly deny him (14:71). These failures, however, are
anticipated (Mark 14:27) and accounted for as Jesus speaks of their return to him after his
resurrection when he will meet them again in Galilee, (Mark 14:28). Thus, Jesus comes back to
the beginning. “Repent and believe the gospel,” (Mark 1:15).
In A Ransom for Many, Lee and Bureske have admirably carried their point that Mark 10:45 is a
key to understanding the whole book of Mark. They are careful with the details, having used
well-crafted inductive processes in their analysis, but also bring in pertinent secondary
discussions to explore debate over important points of interpretation and translation. They have
shown a keen interest in using this analysis to bolster the faith and commitments of their readers
through the biblical theology of Mark, finding relevance in the author’s narrative message for the
present and ongoing circumstances of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
That said, there are two mild points of interest that do not rise to the level of actual critique.
Firstly, while the book is only 175 pages of main text with two appendixes, their thoroughness in
revisiting essential points from various perspectives makes the book feel longer. They are aware
of this redundancy and do make admirable efforts to change up the rhetorical flair of every go-
round, giving each pass its own sense of thrill in discovery, its own distinct quotable moment.
Secondly, I would like to see an expansion of their work on Mark in regard to the whole book
with more care taken to reveal all its themes in relation to the central theme that they have
explored, as well as an unpacking of Mark’s “narrative sermon” structure, clearly represented in
the author’s transitions and concluding remarks. (e.g. Mark 1:2-13; 1:14-45; 2:1-3:6, 3:7-35, etc.)
This, however, is tantamount to asking for a different book, requesting a type of inductive
commentary as a worthy next step.
Anyone interested not only in expanding their knowledge of Mark and preaching it, but also in
the honing their skills in inductive processes in general would be well advised to spend some
time with John J. R. Lee’s and Daniel Brueske’s A Ransom for Many: Mark 10:45 as a Key to
The Gospel.
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
