This page gives you ready-to-use study questions for Mark 1, the opening chapter of Mark’s Gospel. It covers John the Baptist’s preparation, Jesus’ baptism and temptation, the first disciples, a day of teaching and healing in Capernaum, and the cleansing of a leper. The questions suit a small group, a Sunday class, or personal reflection, and each one comes with a leader’s note so you can teach without preparing a separate summary.
Mark 1 at a Glance
Mark opens quickly. John the Baptist appears in the wilderness calling people to repentance, and Jesus is baptized and named by a voice from heaven. After forty days of testing in the wilderness, Jesus begins preaching in Galilee and calls four fishermen to follow him. The middle of the chapter shows his authority over an unclean spirit in the synagogue and his healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and many others that evening.
The chapter closes with a leper approaching Jesus, being touched and healed, and then spreading the news so widely that Jesus can no longer enter towns openly. Mark’s pace and the repeated word “immediately” give the chapter its urgency, so it helps to read it aloud in one sitting before the group discusses it.
Observation Questions
Use this set first, before anyone offers interpretations. Ask the group to point to the words on the page, and keep the discussion anchored in what the text says rather than what people already believe about it.
Mark 1:1
The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
(WEB)
Reading the opening line aloud sets the frame for the whole Gospel. Mark calls his book the beginning of the Good News, and the rest of the chapter should be heard in that light as an account of how that news began.
Mark 1:10-11
10 Immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 A voice came out of the sky, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
(WEB)
These verses describe Jesus’ baptism and the voice from heaven. Reading them slowly helps the group hear how God speaks identity before Jesus performs any public ministry, which shapes the rest of what happens in the chapter.
Mark 1:15
And saying, “The time is fulfilled, and God’s Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News.”
(WEB)
This is the summary of Jesus’ preaching, and it is worth reading twice so people hear both the announcement that the time is fulfilled and the call to repent and believe. It gives the group a compact statement of the message they are studying.
Mark 1:27
They were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching? For with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him!”
(WEB)
The crowd’s amazement at Jesus’ authority is the emotional center of the synagogue scene. Reading it aloud lets the group feel the astonishment the people expressed and consider what it reveals about Jesus.
Mark 1:40-42
40 A leper came to him, begging him, kneeling down to him, and saying to him, “If you want to, you can make me clean.” 41 Being moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand, and touched him, and said to him, “I want to. Be made clean.” 42 When he had said this, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean.
(WEB)
The healing of the leper is the chapter’s most tender scene. Hearing the request, the compassion, the touch, and the immediate healing in one reading helps people see how Jesus responds to someone who comes to him humbly and asks.
Memory Verse for Mark 1
Mark 1:17
Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you into fishers for men.”
(WEB)
This verse captures the invitation at the heart of the chapter in a short, memorable line. Jesus promises to make the fishermen into fishers of men, and the words are easy to carry into a week of ordinary work and conversation.
A Closing Prayer for the Group
Father, we thank you that you began the Good News in Jesus Christ and that you speak his identity to him from heaven. Help us to hear your call as clearly as Simon and Andrew did, and give us the courage to leave behind whatever holds us back from following him. Teach us to pray early and often, as Jesus did, and to bring our confessions honestly before you as the people did at the Jordan. Open our eyes to those we have been tempted to keep at a distance, and make us willing to reach out to them with compassion. We ask this in the name of Jesus, the Son you love. Amen.
