Mark 3 Footnotes

3:31-35 Jesus’s language in this passage would have been shocking to his audience. Family relationships were very important in first-century Palestinian society. But Jesus was not being rude; he was making two forceful and related points. First, his family had come to take control of him (vv. 20-21), and he was distancing himself from obligations to family honor for the sake of his greater calling. Second, he commended those who make a similar choice. He underscored in the strongest terms the pursuit of God’s will as the highest value. Jesus’s family eventually came to be his followers (Ac 1:14).