Tag: Mark

Translation and Notes

These notes relate to and expand on my podcast Seeing Stewardship as God Sees It.

⁴¹And he sat down by the treasury, and he was watching how the crowd threw money into the contribution box. And many rich people threw in lots!

Treasury . . . is apparently the hall named from the chest with a trumpet-shaped tube into which were dropped coins for the support of the temple worship; this was something like a church “poor box,” as these offerings were purely voluntary, and perhaps not in very large amounts–though the rich cast in much. H. J. Holtzmann has called this “the Peter’s pence of the Jews.” — IB on Exegesis on Mark 12:41

Mar 12:41 – He beheld how people cast money into the treasury – This treasury received the voluntary contributions of the worshippers who came up to the feast; which were given to buy wood for the altar, and other necessaries not provided for in any other way. — John Wesley

This was the sort of place one would want to go for show. There was no great benefit to be gained in terms of public opinion and reputation from doing the things that were mandatory, but voluntary gifts showed off one’s generosity to the greatest effect.

There are those who hold that the issue here was proportion—that the giving that God approves is giving that involves sacrifice. I don’t agree with that. I think the issue was one of dedication. The money brought by many rich donors was not dedicated to God, but rather was dedicated to building their reputation. They were not giving to support the temple. They were investing in their temporal well-being by being seen while giving. If someone rich had stepped up and given money for the purpose because of generosity, I’m sure he would have met with approval from Jesus.

If I’m right about this, why did Jesus pick someone who gave very little, but nonetheless a gift that was very large in proportion to her income? Jesus is, as usual trying to turn our perceptions around. We tend to measure the gift against the need that it will fill. For example, a gift might be added to the money collected for a building drive. But God is the supplier of all need. He’s more interested in the spiritual state of the person giving the gift than in its size, proportional or otherwise.

The widow was a person with nothing to gain, giving a freewill gift that showed she was trusting God for her provision. She was a good example of giving.

⁴²Then one poor widow came and threw in two small copper coins about the equivalent of a penny. ⁴³And he called his disciples to him and he said to them, “Truly I tell you that this poor widow has thrown in more than all of those who have thrown money into the contribution box.

Mar 12:43 – I say to you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all – See what judgement is cast on the most specious, outward actions by the Judge of all! And how acceptable to him is the smallest, which springs from self – denying love! — John Wesley

⁴⁴For they all threw in from their abundance, but she gave everything she had from her lack, all of her living.”

I would be surprised if someone didn’t think this verse contradicted my comments on the preceding verse. But I believe that the giving of “all her living” was simply the indication of her trust in God and commitment to him. Everything she had was dedicated to God so there was nothing to be gained and nothing to be lost from this action.

Translation and Notes

The notes below relate to and expand my podcast Jesus Strikes Back.

³⁵In response Jesus began to teach in the temple this way: “How is it that the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? ³⁶David said by the Holy Spirit,

The Lord said to my lord
Sit at my right side,
Until I place your enemies
as a footstool under your feet.

This is a hard saying for a modern exegete, because it seems not to follow any sustainable principles of Biblical exegesis. Psalm 110 is not all that likely to actually be composed by David and it was not likely in its original intent Messianic. But all of that is unimportant. What is important is that Jesus knew that his hearers accepted this as a Messianic passage, and based on their view of the passage it creates quite a problem.

The ancestor should be greater than the descendant in this case. David is the one who gives the name to the family. But here David is quoted as calling him Lord. How can this be?

Jesus was not denying that he was the son of David. He was, however, suggesting that he was more than that, more than the ancestor who had received the promise of a returning Messiah. He could indeed be both David’s son and his Lord. The theology of that would take some time to work out, but here it was in seed form.

³⁷If David himself calls him ‘lord’ then where does he become David’s son?”
And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

The crowd loved what Jesus was doing because they were described by these same important people whom Jesus was putting to flight. We often think that the most important thing about our presentation to other people is that we are right. But there is also the issue is whether we, personally, are believable. I think the crowds were drawn to Jesus partially because his life showed that he meant what he said. It also showed that he was connected to them. Thus they were receptive to what he had to say.

Too often a preacher or teacher presents a topic faithfully and accurately, but does not frame it in such a way that an audience can receive it.

³⁸And as he was teaching he began to say, “Beware of the scribes who want to walk about in fancy robes and to receive greetings in the marketplaces

Mar 12:38 – Beware of the scribes – There was an absolute necessity for these repeated cautions. For, considering their inveterate prejudices against Christ, it could never be supposed the common people would receive the Gospel till these incorrigible blasphemers of it were brought to just disgrace. Yet he delayed speaking in this manner till a little before his passion, as knowing what effect it would quickly produce. Nor is this any precedent for us: we are not invested with the same authority. — John Wesley

John Wesley makes a good point. We are tempted to use this passage in two wrong ways. First, we see it as a license to criticize the Jews, because Jesus is hear criticizing the Jewish leadership. But we must remember that whatever Jesus said to other Jews, he said as a Jew. As gentiles, we don’t have the same freedom. Second, we see it as a license to judgment, something to which we are not called. We have to be sure to be constructive in our rebuking.

³⁹ and the best seats in the synagogues and best places at feasts, ⁴⁰ who eat up the households of widows and make a show of long prayers. These will receive the greater judgment.

This preoccupation with prominence is an inevitable result of the lack of any significant “inside.” The great sin of the scribes, and of all pushers to front seats, is a lack of love. The way of salvation is to be found in the acceptance of another and higher standard. Jesus proclaimed it again and again. The road to greatness is still the way of service. What would an edition of Who’s Who be like if it were published, not in Chicago or London, but in heaven? If it contained the names of the occupants, not of the chief seats of earth, but of the kingdom of God? A strange book, truly! It would be a “servants’” directory, as Jesus used that word “servant.” In the very next paragraph he awards an honored place in God’s Who’s Who to an unknown in Jerusalem, a widow who put a penny in the alms box. — IB Exposition on Mark 12:37-40

It’s interesting how many of us think we would like to be in leadership. Sometimes we then get into leadership and wonder why we ever wanted the position. They will receive the greater judgment is a warning to all of us. For me it always combines with James 3:1—not everyone should want to be a teacher! The point is that greater knowledge and greater authority bring greater responsibility. And when you abuse your greater responsibility you become subject to greater judgment.

This shouldn’t keep you from answering God’s call, but it should make you answer that call prayerfully and carefully.

Translation and Notes

Overview

There are parallel passages in Matthew 22:34-40 and Luke 10:25-28

On the questioner, the Interpreter’s Bible comments:

He is a model for the right approach both to Christ and to the scriptures. The psalmist speaks of “inquiring” in the temple (Ps. 27:4). We do so many other things there. We talk, we pray, we sing, we give. But so many never really inquire. That is the attitude which Jesus so eagerly welcomed. It is the reverent, humble search to learn the will of God for us and for our time; vastly different from the frequent attempt to bend the Almighty around until we can use him as a support for policies and points of view which we have already decided upon without reference to him. So often the common question “What would Jesus do?’ does not mark the beginning of a search at all. It marks the beginning of an argument. The conclusion usually runs something like this: “So, you see, Jesus would do just what I am doing.” — IB Exposition on Mark 12:28-34

I agree with their assessment of the questioner. Many modern commentators try to make him out to be one of those questioners who was trying to trap Jesus, but there is nothing of that in the text here.

I have adopted these two laws as a key to interpretation. You can see my essay on this at Hanging Biblical Interpretation.

²⁸And one of the scribes heard them debating, and when he saw that Jesus had answered them well, he came and asked him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”

²⁹Jesus answered, “First is, ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord,

Mar 12:29 – The Lord our God is one Lord – This is the foundation of the first commandment, yea, of all the commandments. The Lord our God, the Lord, the God of all men, is one God, essentially, though three persons. From this unity of God it follows, that we owe all our love to him alone. — John Wesley

The quote is from Deuteronomy 6:4-5.

³⁰ and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heard and with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹And the second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no greater commandment than these.”

The second quote is from Leviticus 19:18. “First” in this sense is not chronological, but logical. Which commandment best sums up the law, or is most basic logically.

³²And the scribe said to him, “Excellent, teacher, you’re really right when you say that he is one, and there is none other than him, ³³ and ‘loving him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength’ and ‘loving your neighbor as yourself’ is better than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

Darrell Bock notes:

“. . . Properly relating to God translates into properly relating to others. This is more important than any ritual. The rule of God presses for people to live righteously with one another” (p. 331).

Mar 12:33 – To love him with all the heart – To love and serve him, with all the united powers of the soul in their utmost vigour; and to love his neighbour as himself – To maintain the same equitable and charitable temper and behaviour toward all men, as we, in like circumstances, would wish for from them toward ourselves, is a more necessary and important duty, than the offering the most noble and costly sacrifices. — John Wesley

In this rare case the scribe is totally in tune with what Jesus says. This wasn’t a trap, but a genuine question, genuinely answered.

³⁴And when Jesus saw that he answered thoughtfully, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And nobody dared to ask him questions any more.

Referring to this questioner and the young man of Mark 10:17, Wuest quotes Swete:

“. . . In both cases something was wanting to convert admiration in discipleship. If wealth was the bar in the one case, pride of intellect may have been fatal in the other. The mental acumen which detects and approves spiritual truth may, in the tragedy of human life, keep its possessor from entering the kingdom of God.”

It seems to me that this is reading more into the white spaces than one is getting from the text itself. The questioner was near the kingdom. There is no necessity to assume that he didn’t finish the journey. There is no negative comment about him in Mark at all. Any assumption that he failed to completely apply his insight in his own life and eventually become a disciple is just that—assumption.

Translation and Notes

Note: These notes accompany my podcast on this passage, Angels and Marriage.

¹⁸Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him, ¹⁹“Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies, and leaves a wife, but no child, then his brother must take the wife, and raise up descendants for his brother.’

The command here comes from Deuteronomy 25:5-10, though it is not quoted precisely. The situation, however exaggerated, was a realistic one under the Mosaic law. Having everyone alive at once who ever has lived would produce some significant practical complications, and this was just one of those possibilities.

²⁰There were seven brothers, and the first one took a wife and died without leaving a descendant. ²¹The second took her, and died, not leaving a descendant, and the third did the same thing. ²²And all seven did so, but left no descendant. Finally the woman also died. ²³In the resurrection, when they rise, to which of them does that woman belong? For they all had her!”

It’s easy for us to laugh at the Sadducees, but they are not alone in trying to understand the spiritual and the supernatural based on common logic. Try answering the question yourself. How do you think such a situation could be handled?

At the same time God is not nearly so limited in his ability to solve problems as we are. The bottom line here would be that we simply do not know how things will be done in the kingdom, or how relationships will operate.

²⁴Jesus said to them, “Here’s why you’re wrong: You don’t know the scriptures nor the power of God.

Notice that Jesus does not merely tell them that they don’t know the scriptures. It is not a direct scriptural quote that will solve this problem for them, but rather an understanding of the power of God. The resolution is well beyond the level of discussion at which they are operating.

²⁵For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but they will be like the angels in heaven.”

Now frequently people take this text as giving a definitive answer to how we’ll live in heaven. But I would suggest that this also results from not knowing the scriptures nor God’s power. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, but they also did not believe in angels. So Jesus points them to their own logic. Those raised from the dead live like the angels—whom the Sadducees also denied—making the whole discussion rather silly.

But God who could make a resurrection happen can also provide a life for those so raised. This doesn’t mean, by the way, that there will be marriage in the kingdom of heaven. It means that the same God who can raise the dead (as the Sadducees denied) can also provide a new life for those who have been raised. “But just as it has been written, Eye has not seen, neither ears heard, nor have entered the heart of any person, the things which God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Without due consideration for the power of God, the scriptures will not make sense.

²⁶But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read in the book of Moses at the bush, how God spoke to him and said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²⁷God is not the God of the dead, but of the living! You are very deceived!” — Mark 12:18-27

It’s quite possible that this latter portion was not part of the same confrontation with the Sadducees, simply because the story ends so effectively with verse 25. Verses 26 and 27 may well have come from another answer to a question about the resurrection of the dead. In any case, they provide a very different response, in this case owing to the interpretation of the Torah. Since the Sadducees accepted only the Torah, or Pentateuch, as authoritative, it was important that the argument Jesus made for the resurrection come from that source (Exodus 3:6).

It’s an interesting piece of interpretation, because we modern folks usually assume that when God identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he meant that he was they God they worshiped, not that he was continuing to be their God in present time. That is, however, the sense in which Jesus takes the passage.

“God is the God of the living” suggests that we are not as ephemeral as it may appear.

These notes accompany my podcast Caesar’s Stuff.

Translation and Notes

It’s important in reading any of these challenge stories to consider the challengers, the situation in which Jesus finds himself, and the goals he is trying to accomplish. For example, here he needs to respond to the questioners in such a way as to keep from taking the focus off of the kingdom. If he starts talking about the legality of the Roman tax, the topic will become temporal rule, and people will no longer be interested in talking about the type of people they are to become.

¹³Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent to trap him with a controversial issue.

This was not a usual alliance, but it was an alliance of two groups who would want Jesus to fail. His agenda of compassion as the guiding principle of holiness would challenge either of their agendas. For this particular mixed group it would be likely that no matter what Jesus said somebody would be happy and many people would be angry, and for them that would be a good thing.

¹⁴When they got there they said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are honest, and you don’t concern yourself with what others think, because you don’t look at a person’s face, but you sincerely teach God’s way of life. Is it proper to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them or not?”

Flattery is a dangerous thing. If they had really believed that Jesus didn’t care what other people thought, however, they might have realized that flattery would not work for him. I have seen this type of flattery used on a visiting speaker. In his introduction he may be praised for certain views that the leadership certainly hope he has, and which they desire him to emphasize. Those who speak the truth must have the discernment to recognize flattery.

¹⁵But knowing their trickery he said to them, “Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius so I can look at it.” ¹⁶So they brought him one. Then he asked them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.”

Caesar made the money, and Caesar gave the money value. Even coinage gains value through the authority of the person who mints it. The metal itself may have value, but it’s not the same as a coin. The better question was which kingdom would get allegiance. For Jesus, the importance of paying the Roman tax was of less importance, because he was not so much challenging the earthly kingdom with an alternate form of government. He was challenging it with a way of life and an allegiance to God and his principles.

¹⁷So he said to them, “Give Caesar’s things to Caesar and God’s things to God.” And they were amazed at him. — Mark 12:13-17

A less satisfactory answer, from the point of view of those who asked the question, can hardly be imagined. No wonder they were amazed! Jesus had really told them nothing. Those who try to make theologies of Christian involvement or non-involvement in politics out of this passage seem not to realize that Jesus intended NOT to answer the question.

One point we might take from this incident is that Jesus kept the focus on his mission, and not on temporal things. It was more important to him to help make holy people than it was to solve their political problems. This doesn’t mean that, under the right circumstances, Jesus might not have given a clearer and more precise answer. It does mean that he subordinated this issue the the more pressing things he was trying to teach. Note the definite answer he gives to the question in verses 28-34. I’ve often heard folks say that the reason the scribe got a straightforward answer was that his was a sincere question. I don’t know how sincere it was, but I would note that it was centered on Jesus’ primary agenda.