The Eikon Podcast

The Eikon team examines Mark 6:30-44 and the incredible story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. They look at some important, but often missed details in that account that demonstrate Mark's explosive purposes for crafting that incident in the way that he has. Central to the discussion is a way of life challenged by Jesus that has taken deep roots in today's social and political culture which makes this portion of Mark's gospe...

Looking at Mark 6:6-13, the Eikon team discusses what Jesus was doing when he sent the apostles on a special two-by-two mission, what they might have thought they were being sent to do, and why Mark crafted this account the way he did. At the heart of this passage is a community that is being created with Cruciformity at its center rather than conversionism. The team then discusses the implications of that reality for today's c...

The Eikon Team dives into one of the Gospel of Mark's most beautifully crafted passages. Two women, separated by status, circumstance, age, social position, support system, and many other ways but see their stories intersect as they interact with Jesus. There is much in these two stories that we can miss with a modern eye but as we dive into the text, we have the opportunity to see what Mark did not want us to miss about the ki...

The Eikon team moves to Mark 4:21-25 to continue examination of the Parable of the Sower, a parable so important that Jesus said if we don't grasp the heart of this parable, we will misunderstand everything that he is about. They explore what Jesus meant when he said that "whoever has will be given more" and "whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them," and how our individualistic materia...

Author and Theologian, Tim Gombis, joins the Eikon Living team to discuss the Parable of the Sower. When Jesus first taught the Parable of the Sower, he made clear that not only was it pivotal to understanding his ministry, but also that many who would hear would misunderstand it and not put it into practice. Gombis walks through this foundational parable, showing how it provides a textual map for the rest of Mark, how we can miss ...

Jesus constantly seemed to take aim at the Sabbath practices of his day. Before we begin to ask what that means for us and whether or not we should be observing a Sabbath today, the Eikon Living team analyzes what Sabbath was, what it was intended for, and how it was approached by many of the Jewish believers of Jesus’ day. The reality is, they conclude, that Sabbath was a much bigger and deeper concept than we tend to understand t...

One of the primary themes in Mark’s Gospel and one of his main challenges to the church revolves around our view of insiders and outsiders. Jesus constantly challenged those preconceptions about people that were typically excluded and marginalized. Rather than building fences to keep them out, he embraced those very people. But he didn’t stop there. Throughout his gospel Mark highlights that Jesus also challenged the insider status...

Do we fully understand the implications of the Gospel accounts surrounding Jesus’ confrontations with the demonic? The Eikon Living Team suggests that there is much more behind those encounters than we might first suppose. They also discuss why Jesus was perceived as having so much authority in his teaching, what we can learn about Jesus’ ministry from the evil use of power by Vladimir Putin, who and what are the divine council, an...

Today’s study of Mark 1:12-20 includes discussions on why Mark seems so truncated in his accounts, what Jesus meant when he pronounced the coming of the kingdom, the importance of which direction the kingdom was moving, what is discipleship according to Mark, and whether we have completely misunderstood the meaning behind the phrase “fishers of men”? The team also responds to lessons that can be gleaned from the story of a church t...

When examining a passage Like Mark 1:1-11, it is important to be aware of what we think we already know. If we don’t analyze our own assumptions, we will bring them into the text with us which causes us to decontextualize the biblical passage without being aware this is what we’re doing. The Eikon Living team begins our contextual study of Mark in the first chapter and talks about the meaning of terms like “gospel,” “repentance,” a...

Our study of the book of Mark begins with an often-neglected passage in Mark 12. Jason and Michael explain why we are starting Mark with a strange passage about Sadducees, widows, resurrection, and Scripture. Is it possible to know the Scriptures forward and backwards and still miss the heart of God and who Jesus is? The warning from Mark is not only did the Sadducees do this, but so can we. Michael and Jason also discuss how Jesus...

Marshall Mead, Executive Director of the World Discipleship Summit planned for July 31-August 7, 2022 in Orlando, Florida, joins Michael to share the journey of the conference that was originally planned for July, 2020. Marshall talks about the challenges of planning, postponing, and rescheduling such a large event and shares about important spiritual lessons learned during that process. He gives a rundown of the new plan and sched...