Mark 12
Parable of the Vine-Growers (Mark 12:1-12)
Jesus then invites the leaders to listen to another parable. This one told of a landowner who planted a vineyard. The story is very similar to that told in Isaiah 5:1-7, though the story takes a different turn. The vineyard was well protected and prepared for collecting and processing grapes. He then leased it to some men to operate it while he was in a far country. When it came time to collect the rent in the form of a portion of the produce, he sent servants. The men mistreated the servants, scourging one, killing another, and stoning another. When the landowner sent a large delegation of servants, they were treated similarly (II Chronicles 36:16; Jeremiah 44:4-6; Acts 7:52-53; I Thessalonians 2:15; Hebrews 11:36-37). Finally, the landowner sent his only son, thinking they would at least respect him (John 5:23). Instead, they killed the son in hopes of taking the son’s inheritance for themselves. Jesus is alluding to the fact that he knows their plot (John 11:53). Even the casting out of the vineyard is a part of the prophecy (John 19:17; Hebrews 13:12-13). Jesus then asks what will happen when the landowner comes. The leaders pointed out that the wicked men would be destroyed, and the vineyard would be given to others who would respect the landowner.
Jesus then reminds them of a passage from Psalm 118:22-23 where the stone rejected becomes the chief cornerstone. The leaders are just like the wicked men in the parable. The kingdom of God would be taken from them because they disobeyed God, mistreated His servants (the prophets) and would kill God’s Son. It would be given to others who would use the kingdom productively (Acts 28:28). Jesus then alludes to Isaiah 8:14-15, continuing to put himself in the position of the stone. Those who stumbled over him would be broken, but they would be utterly destroyed if he fell on them.
The rulers did not miss the point that Jesus talked about them in these parables. They longed to arrest Jesus but didn’t dare do anything in front of the assembled people. The people saw Jesus as a prophet and would rise up to protect him. As Jesus pointed out, they hoped to retain power, thinking that by killing Jesus, they could hold on to the kingdom.
Question by the Pharisees and Herodians (Mark 12:13-17)
The Jewish leaders sent in men to trap Jesus. They were instructed to ask questions.
The first attempt came from the sect of the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Herodians were believed to be a political party instead of a religious party. The fact that the Pharisees teamed up with them hints at the level of their hatred for Jesus because the Pharisees, who focused on religious purity, would not normally associate with men who concentrated on secular thoughts and dealt regularly with the Roman government.
Since their goal was to catch Jesus in a slip, they began by complimenting him, hoping to get him off his guard. While the compliments are true, Jesus was true, a teacher of truth, and impartial. The ones complimenting him were not sincere. The emphasis on his disregard for a man’s position gave Jesus an opening to take a stand against the government. They then asked Jesus if paying taxes to the Roman government was proper.
No one likes to pay taxes, and for the Jews, taxes paid to a conquering nation were especially painful. If Jesus said taxes must be paid, it would undermine his popularity with the people, and the Jewish leaders could spread the word that Jesus supported the Romans. If Jesus took a stand against paying taxes, they would be able to bring him before the Roman governor and charge him with sedition.
These deceivers did not count upon that they were indeed dealing with God. Jesus knew their thoughts and the motives behind their question. He told them plainly that he knew they were trying to trap him.
Jesus then asked for someone to show him the coinage used to pay taxes to Caesar. When producing the coin, the people indicated that they accepted the coinage for value. Jewish taxes were paid with a temple-issued coin. Roman taxes were paid with coinage issued by the Roman government. Jesus sealed the point by asking the questioners whose image was on the coin. In other words, he asked who issued and backed the coin's value. They answered that it was Caesar’s image. Jesus then pointed out that Caesar had the right to tax what he issued, just as God had the right to tax what belonged to Him (Romans 13:7; Malachi 3:8-10).
The answer left the questioners and the audience stunned as to the clarity of Jesus’ answer. Instead of directly answering the yes or no question, Jesus answered with the foundation upon which an answer could be concluded. This is something we all should note and learn. Often, false teachers propose questions that are formed with a limited number of possible answers, all of which look bad. Instead of answering the question directly, we should point to the teaching of God that gives the foundation for answering the question.
Question by the Sadducees (Mark 12:18-27)
The other major sect of the Jews, the Sadducees, tried their hand at trapping Jesus. The Sadducees were the main political arm of the Jewish nation, yet they came with a carefully crafted religious question. To understand the nature of the question, God made sure we understood that as a sect, the Sadducees taught that there was no life after death. They did not accept that spiritual beings, such as angels, existed (Acts 23:8). Nor would they believe that God would resurrect people from the dead. It is essential to understand this because their question concerned the resurrection. A common technique for denying a belief is to seek a flaw in its application. If the belief is seen as resulting in something unacceptable or absurd, then the belief is declared wrong.
In this case, the question involved who a woman would be married to in the resurrection if she was married to multiple brothers because of the law that the wife of a man who has had no children be given to the next nearest relative to raise up children on his behalf (Deuteronomy 25:5-6). The use of seven brothers leading to seven marriages was to take the point to the extreme. If Jesus said that she was married to all of them, then that would be advocating polygamy. While some polygamy was tolerated by men, polygamy by a woman would be repulsive. The Sadducees would then claim that Jesus was promoting an immoral position, and they would claim there could be no resurrection because it would lead to such situations.
Jesus points out that their question, which is actually a teaching, is in error. It came about from their misunderstanding of God’s word and God’s power. They assumed that marriage would have to remain past death if there was a resurrection. Yet, the Old Testament never made such an assertion.
Their denial of a resurrection, in essence, denied their very existence. If God could give life to dust (Genesis 2:7), then why would it be absurd to believe God could raise the dead?
Jesus points out that in the resurrection, people don’t marry. Marriage comes about from the physical world, which has male and female sexes. In the resurrection, people will be spirits like the angels, living eternally. When people live eternally, there would be no need for a marriage to raise a family since there would be no need for repopulation. The need to preserve families, implied in the question, would not be needed in eternal life.
Notice that in answering, Jesus uses the very doctrine the Sadducees thought to declare as being absurd. The Sadducees rejected the resurrection but brought the topic up as if it existed. Jesus affirms what they implied by their question. He supports his argument by mentioning angels, something else the Sadducees deny. He mentions eternal life, yet another doctrine the Sadducees say cannot exist. But now they are in an awkward position because they opened the door to contradicting their beliefs by asking a question that assumes their doctrine is wrong.
Interestingly, the Old Testament contains clear passages that there is life after death and that resurrection would occur (Daniel 12:2; Isaiah 26:19), but Jesus chose a more subtle approach. Jesus points out that God told Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 3:6). These men were long dead when Moses lived, but God spoke of them as existing, thus there must be life after death. This particular book was selected because history tells us that the Sadducees had doubts about the writings of the Prophets but accepted Moses’ writings – they even cited Moses to back up their question. They could not deny the source for the basis of their own question.
As a side note, in Hebrew, the phrase in Exodus 3:6 is stated without a verb. However, Jesus’ argument is based on the verb tense, implied but not stated in Hebrew, but clearly stated in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. This is a clue that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written in Greek. It is also support for the use of translations for discussing the Scriptures.
Question by a Pharisee Lawyer and Scribe (Mark 12:28-34)
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, a scribe decided to ask a question. He thought Jesus had answered the Sadducees well. As a scribe, he was well-versed in the Law of Moses. He proposed this question: “What is the greatest command in the law?”
This is a difficult question because there are so many laws in the Law, and one can argue that all are equally important. Any selected law would leave a person open to an argument that another is equally important -- or so it would appear on the surface.
Jesus selected a command that doesn’t appear in the famous Ten Commandments. He selected the command found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. It is the greatest command because all others follow from it. Unless we acknowledge and love God, we will not be motivated to follow any of God’s commands (John 14:15). Thus, a love for God must come before everything else.
Though not asked, Jesus states the second greatest command, which was to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). It was one listed as an explanation to a series of commands, easily overlooked. But like the first command, it is the key to most of God’s commands to men. It is what is behind most of the commands (Romans 13:8-9). These two commands sum up the entire Law of God.
Unlike the other questioners, this man did not mind admitting that he was impressed with Jesus’ answer. His honesty impressed Jesus in turn. He told him that he was close to being able to enter the kingdom.
Jesus’ Question for the Pharisees (Mark 12:35-37)
By this time, the leading Jews were afraid to ask Jesus more questions. In answering their questions, Jesus was making them look ignorant and shallow. So Jesus turned the tables on them and asked his own question. Like the other questions, the question was to test the other person’s knowledge and not to gain more personal knowledge.
Since they refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus asked them why the scribes taught that the Christ is the son of David. Jesus points out that David, in Psalm 110:1, called the Messiah his Lord when the Messiah was his descendant. The word “Lord” is reserved for a person over the person, yet a descendant would normally be seen as under the ancestor. In asking, Jesus rules out a mistake on David’s part by emphasizing that David spoke these words by the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
The answer to Jesus’ question is evident if one accepts that the Messiah was superior to David because of his divine nature. Yet, those Jesus was addressing would not accept that God could be born in human form, thus they could not determine an answer to Jesus’ question. In other words, their expectation concerning the Messiah was less than what the Scriptures indicated.
The question does not prove that Jesus was the Messiah, but it does illustrate why the leading Jews had so much trouble accepting him. The nature of Jesus and his authority differed from what they were expecting.
Though the experts in the Law could not answer Jesus’ question, the common people listening were glad to listen to someone who knew more than the scribes. The leaders' goal was to make Jesus look foolish, and they could not dent the people’s view of Jesus. Nor were the leaders willing to ask Jesus any more questions because they knew it would not further their cause, and Jesus was making them look foolish.
The Scribes’ Motivation (Mark 12:38-40)
While serving God, the scribes' primary motivation was to look good to other men. Pleasing God wasn’t their first goal. They wore long robes to indicate their status. The scribes sought out prominent seats at dinners and in their religious worship. They wanted to be noticed and respected. It was thrilling for people to recognize them in the marketplace. Not only were they being noticed, but others were witnesses to their identification. They gave long prayers so that others would think of them as devout followers of God.
Yet, these are the same people who put widows out of their homes. Jesus said their condemnation would be greater because they knew better.
The Widow’s Mite (Mark 12:41-44)
We next see Jesus sitting across from the temple treasury, watching as people put their contributions to the temple. The contribution boxes were kept in the Court of Women in the temple. There were thirteen boxes, each labeled for various purposes. Two were for the temple tax (Exodus 30:12-13). The remainder were for items such as money given in connection with a sin offering, money given in connection with a trespass offering, money given to purchase wood for the altar, money to purchase incense ingredients, and the like.
Jesus observed wealthy people giving large sums of money but saw a widow putting in two mites. A mite is the smallest coin used in Jewish society. Mark explains to his Roman audience that two mites equal one quadran. There are sixty-four quadrans in a denarius, which is equal to the pay an unskilled laborer would make in a day. So, the widow had put in 1/64 of a day’s wage into one of the contribution boxes. If a person made $16 per hour and worked an 8-hour shift, then he would make $128 in a day, and this woman gave $2 to the temple.
Jesus called his disciples over, told them what he had seen, and told them that this woman had given more than all the wealthy people because they gave a portion of their wealth, but she had given everything she had. The value of the contribution is not in the amount given but in the amount it costs the giver.
She demonstrated faith in God’s care for her by giving all she had. The widow contrasts with the scribes Jesus had just condemned.
