10. Forgiveness and a Paralytic (Mark 2:1-12)

Having established the theme of Jesus' authority in chapter one of his Gospel, Mark now begins to describe that authority on a collision course with the entrenched but corrupted religious authority of the Jerusalem establishment. The healing of the paralytic is the first of five so-called 'conflict stories,' which span all of chapter 2, and part of chapter 3. In all of them, Jesus lodges his critique of abusive authority, whether in first century Israel, or in any chapter of human history, and especially in the history of the Christian movement.