This week the Eikon team looks at Mark 8:1-13 and the feeding of the 4,000. They reveal Mark's awe-inspiring reasons for including two similar feeding miracles and why that message is just as relevant for us today as it was for the original readers. We can easily fall into the line of thinking that acts as though the problems we face in the world today are too big for kingdom solutions, but this passage in Mark exposes and challenges that kind of limited imagination.

In Mark 6:45-52 Mark crafts the incredible account of Jesus passing by the disciples while walking on the water. The Eikon team explores this passage and discusses what Mark was communicating about Jesus to his readers as well as how and why the disciples were in very real danger. They then discuss how we can fall prey to the same factors that caused the disciples to miss what was happening right in front of them.

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 gospel one of the more relevant passages in the entire book.

The Eikon team shares a very special "news" story and discusses the upcoming two-week break before resuming the study of the Gospel of Mark.

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 church.

The Eikon Team takes on the beginning of Mark 6, taking a second look at Jesus in his hometown.

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 kingdom of God and the Messiah that was bringing it into the present age.

Mark 5:1-20 is one of the darker and stranger scenes in all of Mark's Gospel. Jesus encounters a demon-possessed Gentile in a graveyard by the sea surrounded by herds of swine. From a Jewish perspective, it cannot get much worse than that. The Eikon team breaks down this scene as well as discussing who Jesus may have really been confronting here and why he might have sent the legion of demons into the herd of pigs.

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 materialism can get in the way of us truly catching his point. They finish with thoughts on the gravity and meaning of this passage for the contemporary church.

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 important elements of it just as Jesus' disciples did, and how we can rightly understand and rightly respond to the challenge of it today.

Tim Gombis is the host of the "Faith Improvised" podcast and author of several books including, "Power in Weakness," The Drama of Ephesians," and "The Story of God Bible Commentary: Mark."