Mark 1:14–15 (ESV)
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
John the baptist was arrested and eventually beheaded by Herod. Details like this give validity to the historical accounts of the gospel writers.
Jesus chose to begin his ministry in Galilee. This is a strange choice for a religious leader of his caliber. To put it lightly people didn’t think much of Galilee. In John 1:46, when Nathanael is told Jesus came from Nazareth, a town in Galilee, his response is telling, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Instead of going right to the heart of the Jewish world, Judea, he begins in Galilee.
He comes in proclaiming the good news of God. We’ve already seen that this gospel is a continuation of an old story from the Old Testament but now we see what this good news really entails. The good news is that the kingdom of God has come near, or it is at hand. In Luke’s gospel we learn that he preached from Isaiah 61 at this synagogue gathering. In essence, everything Jesus is about to do (as detailed in the rest of Mark’s gospel) signifies the reality of God’s kingdom coming near. Good news is preached to the poor, freedom is proclaimed to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind. All of these signify that the kingdom of God has come. So this gospel, as we shall see, is everything Jesus did and taught as well as simply who Jesus is, culminating in his death and resurrection. This statement is the summary statement for the rest of the book.
The proper response as Jesus indicates here is to repent (to turn away from wrong thinking and wrong actions) and believe. Repentance denotes that which one turns from; belief denotes that which we turn to--the gospel.
The tense of repent and believe suggests living within the state of repentance and belief. “Trusting” is a word that carries this idea as well. It’s not a one and done event in the Christians life. It is a constant condition in which we live. So we must continually be turning away from our erroneous ways of thinking and affirming our trust in Jesus for our salvation. Certainly, we are justified before God when we place our faith in Jesus but the life of a Jesus follower involves a constant state of repentance and trust as well.