“And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.”
Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge — the lakeside teaching scene with Jesus in a boat positions him as the floating teacher while the crowd lines the shore. The physical arrangement — Jesus separated from the crowd by water, speaking across it — creates both the acoustic conditions for outdoor teaching and the spatial separation that allows him to address the entire crowd without being crushed. Mark 3:9 had anticipated this: the boat kept ready is now in use. The platform over water is an unintentional echo of the Spirit hovering over the waters in Genesis 1.
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