🧎🏻 Mark 8:35 | "But whoever loses his life.."

📧In today’s email…

• 🤓 Background context on this passage

• 📱 A social media platform…for Christians

• 🙏 A prayer and reading to set the tone for the week

• 🎵 A song to help you meditate this week

Let’s dig in…

🧠Memorize

For whoever would save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Mark 8:35

Book Context & Authorship: Mark 🧠

• Author: John Mark (aka Mark)

  • Chapter 8 is believed to be written in an effort to document the apostle Peter’s testimonies about Jesus

• Audience + purpose: The listeners of Peter in Rome were not content with just hearing his teachings once.

  • They persistently urged Mark, who was a follower and writer for Peter, to provide a written record of the teachings they had heard from Peter.

  • They continued to persuade Mark until he agreed, leading to the creation of the Gospel of Mark.

• When: Mark wrote this chapter in the mid-to late-50s AD

Stewarding his gifts ✍️ 

Mark used his God-given gifts as a writer and communicator to document Peter’s direct experiences with Jesus, resulting in the Gospel we have today.

More context:

• The ultimate purpose and theme of Mark is to present and defend Jesus’ universal call to discipleship.

• As the narrative unfolds, Mark categorizes his main audience as either followers or opponents of Jesus.

This week, I encourage you to spend time working through Mark’s gospel (beyond just our memory verse).

What better way to know and love God more than to sit in silence and meditate on an eyewitness account of our Creator’s life and teachings. 🤯 

🧠 To learn more about the background and structure of the Gospel of Mark, check out this Bible Project video.

TUVU: The NEW Christian Social Media 📱 ✝️

This week we’re excited to be partnering with Tuvu, a new social media app built for Christians.

We all know that Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are filled with content that is distracting and does not glorify God.

The good news: TUVU is a new Christian social media app that changes all of that.

It’s ad free, your data will never be sold to advertisers, and my favorite part?

All of the content is family-friendly 🙂

And thanks to Tuvu, Malachi Daily subscribers get a free 30-day trial!

Check it out and experience what it feels like to use a social media platform that actually cares about your faith and your family.

_{*Please consider supporting our partner! They help us keep Malachi Daily free!} 🙂

Apply & Respond: What does the Gospel mean for you? 📖

The first thing to internalize as we read and memorize Mark 8:35 is the reason why the Gospel is our greatest hope.

The Gospel refers to the “good news” of Jesus Christ.

It includes the account of Jesus’ life, his teachings, his miracles, and his example of perfect love and obedience to The Father.

It’s one thing to know the steps involved in fishing.

It’s another to have the embodied skill required to do it.

The gospel also includes the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, which Jesus inaugurated through his ministry.

It invites people to repent, believe in the gospel, and live under God’s reign.

Thanks to early believers like Mark, we have the truth of the gospel documented and accessible today!

Pray 🙏

Lord, as I memorize Mark 8:35 this week, show me where I’m seeking to “save my life” instead of losing it for your sake.

Give me the courage to see others’ need and to share with them about the only One who can save them from sin. Amen. 🙏

Read 📖

Read all of Mark 8 slowly today to get a feel for the important things that Jesus wanted us to contemplate.

Pay special attention to Mark 8:35, and how upside down the Kingdom of God is compared to what you might hear as “a wise way to live” today.

🍽️ Bonus: Read it out loud at the dinner table with your friends or family.

Listen🎵

Occasionally, there are songs we find that can help us meditate on and memorize our verse for the week.

Here is one by Vertical Worship..

We’re praying that this song helps you not only memorize, but also remember God’s faithfulness today because of the ultimate gift we have received in Christ.

Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music

LAUGH 😂