Mark 13 contains the single longest teaching of Jesus in Mark's Gospel. What might surprise you is the subject that requires so much space: eschatology (teaching about the end times)! People tend to either become obsessed with speculative theories, date setting, and the heretical teachings which usually accompany such a disproportionate focus on the end of the world, or they identify as “pan-millennials” (“it will all ‘pan’ out in the end”) who have no real convictions about a subject the Bible dedicates much space to. Jesus’s teaching on the subject will both warn his people of being deceived and properly set our expectations of the future: stay on mission and on message in the midst of suffering. For “the Gospel must first be preached to all the nations” (Mark 13:10).
