What if you had to deliver bad news? And suppose you had to deliver it to the rulers of your country? And suppose the bad news wasn’t about a natural disaster or problems with the economy or a scandal in government or a war that was going badly? What if the bad news was that the leaders, the very people you were talking to, were the problem?
That is a lot of supposing. But unless we imagine ourselves in something like the situation Jesus faced, we will never understand passages like we find in Mark 12.
Read Mark 12:1-12.
What do the different characters in this parable represent?
How do the religious leaders react to this parable?
Read Isaiah 5. No happy ending to this story. As it stands, it is pure tragedy. All that is left is judgment.
In verses 10-11 Jesus quotes from Psalm 118, the same psalm that excited worshipers were using when singing their hosannas a few days before (see Mark 11:9). What is Jesus saying with this quotation?
Read Mark 12:13-27.
How could Jesus get in trouble (with different groups) by answering either way?
How does Jesus avoid being trapped?
A different group of religious leaders, the Sadducees, try another trap with Jesus by telling Him a story, which depended on a Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Genesis 38:8). What is the trap this time?
How does Jesus turn this trap around?
Read Mark 12:28-44.
Now a lawyer approaches Jesus with another question. What does he want to know and how does Jesus answer him?
Jesus commends the lawyer for understanding that following these two commandments is worth more “than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (vv. 32-34).
It was commonly understood from the Old Testament that the Messiah would come from the line of David. Now Jesus offers a riddle of his own in verses 35-37. How does Jesus expand their ideas about the Messiah?
Jesus commends the widow who gave what seemed to be a very small amount. How does the widow’s offering foreshadow Jesus’ own coming sacrifice?
Think through each of the parts of chapter 12 and consider their interconnectedness. What is Jesus teaching us?
Trent Dean
dean008@gmail.com