John Mark (5) - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

She that is elected with you in Babylon salutes you, and Marcus my son.
1 Pet. 5:13

John Mark (5)
The last time we read of Mark in Acts, he is sailing to Cyprus with Barnabas (15:39). Years later, we catch a glimpse of him again in Babylon, in the greetings that close Peter's first letter. We cannot be sure where he had been in the meantime, but doubtless Mary his mother followed him in her prayers, for her home was a house of prayer (; 1 Th. 5:17).

Babylon lay several hundred miles east of Jerusalem. To get there Mark had to travel in completely the opposite direction to Cyprus. In those days it would have been an arduous journey we might not have expected him to make on his own. All this speaks volumes of the kind of spiritual change of direction needed when we go wrong in our spiritual lives (2 Cor. 7:10-11).

When Mark arrived, he found someone who had failed the Lord too but who was well qualified to help because the Lord had restored him. Peter had doubted the devotion of his fellow disciples before he denied the Lord himself (Mt. 26:31-35), but now this once devout Jew was working among the descendants of Jews who remained in Babylon rather than returning to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel or Ezra. He had learned to distrust himself and dispense God's grace to the lost and the least (Lk. 15:6; Jn. 21:15). It is to just such a saint the Lord can entrust Mark.

It seems Mark was well known to believers of the Jewish diaspora, perhaps because they held his family in high esteem. But he needed to be right with the Lord Himself. Peter's ministry had helped to form a deep spiritual bond between the two men because he calls Mark his son. Praise the Lord for His shepherd care in both their lives that led them to repent and follow Him. May we respond to His love in the same way by helping others in their spiritual restoration (Gal. 6:1).

Simon Attwood