Mark commences his account of Jesus' ministry by announcing the dawning of God's kingdom and by singling out repentance and faith as the fundamental response sought to this great event. We have seen how, in light of the literary functioning of 1:14f, the initial call to faith is implied every time we subsequently find Jesus addressing an audience. Furthermore, since Jesus is portrayed as a figure of integrity, whose words lead to corresponding action and whose actions exemplify his words, Jesus' deeds also embody an inherent challenge to repentant faith.

Among Jesus' deeds, the miracles have a particularly prominent place in the development of the faith theme. The majority of the explicit references to the subject are found in or related to miraculous happenings. In later chapters we will examine these miracle episodes in some detail to discover what they contribute to Mark's conception of faith. But lest we are tempted to regard each account as an isolated unit unrelated to the overall sweep of the narrative, we should first consider in more general terms the significance of the miracles in Mark's work, and in particular their relationship to the call to conversion and faith. This will help set the general narrative context for the closer exegetical work in subsequent chapters.

Miracles are quite clearly of enormous importance in Mark This is obvious from the sheer amount of space devoted to them, proportionately more than any other early Christian document.