Write a skit where Søren Kierkegaard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth wrestle (intellectually AND personally) with “possessing Jesus” (rather than vice versa) in Mark 3.
ChatGPT Prompt
Setting:
A bare room. Three chairs. An open Bible lies on the floor, open to
Mark 3.
The Text That Will Not Behave
Barth (standing, uneasy):
The trouble with this chapter is that it refuses to stay put.
Demons speak correctly.
Family loves sincerely.
Theologians reason carefully.
And Jesus treats all three as threats.
That should terrify us.
Kierkegaard (quietly, almost to himself):
It terrifies only those who still expect Christianity to be comfortable.
Most people read Mark 3 and think it is about them.
It is not.
It is about how to avoid Jesus while speaking truth about him.
Bonhoeffer (sharp):
Or how to follow him without letting him lead.
(Silence. They look at the Bible.)
Demonic As Truth Without Obedience
Bonhoeffer:
“They fell down before him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God.’”
(Mark 3:11)
Confession. Correct. Public.
And Jesus silences them.
Barth:
Because revelation is not information.
It is event.
God speaks — or no one does.
The demons are not lying.
They are commandeering.
Kierkegaard (smiling grimly):
Yes. They are Christian scholars.
They know the right answer and therefore imagine they stand above the question.
Truth has become something they possess.
Family As Love That Seizes
Bonhoeffer:
“They went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He is out of his mind.’”
(Mark 3:21)
This one hurts more.
Kierkegaard:
Of course it does.
Nothing commandeers like love that cannot bear cost.
The family does not reject Jesus.
They reinterpret him.
Madness is safer than obedience.
Barth:
They are not trying to stop God.
They are trying to protect meaning.
Which is worse.
Theology As Possession
Barth (suddenly fierce):
“He has Beelzebul.”
(Mark 3:22)
This is my terror.
They do not deny power.
They reassign its source.
That is theology at its most dangerous:
correct form, rival authority.
Bonhoeffer:
This is what happens when the church must survive.
Kierkegaard:
Or when certainty replaces obedience.
Barth:
And this is why Jesus says what he says next
(Mark 3:28–30).
Not because they are mistaken —
but because they have placed themselves over the Spirit.
The Question Turns
(A pause. The air thickens.)
Bonhoeffer (quietly):
Let us stop pretending this is about them.
When do we commandeer Jesus?
Kierkegaard:
When we admire him instead of obeying him.
When faith becomes reflection rather than risk.
Barth:
When theology stabilizes God instead of trembling before him.
Bonhoeffer:
When grace costs nothing.
(He looks at the Bible.)
Cheap grace is possessed grace.
Possession vs. Being Possessed
Kierkegaard:
Here is the inversion:
To avoid being possessed by Christ, we possess Christianity.
Barth:
And the moment we do, we are possessed by something else —
order, fear, relevance, nation, self.
Bonhoeffer:
We thought we were protecting Jesus.
We were protecting ourselves.
Unsettling Silence
Barth (soft now):
Jesus does not ask, Do you believe the truth?
He asks, Who owns you?
Kierkegaard:
The demonic is not error.
It is unauthorized certainty.
Bonhoeffer:
And discipleship begins when Jesus stops being useful.
(They look again at the open Bible. No one moves.)
Curtain
A voice — not theirs, not ours — lingers in the room:
“This is my Son; listen to him.”
(Mark 9:7)
Lights out.
Underlying claim of Mark 3:
Jesus cannot be safely known, protected, or explained —
only followed.
Radically Happy 
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