Not One Stone- Mark 12-13

Reading the whole NT this year – less than 5 minuter per day – Mon thru Fri (This week: Mark 11-16)

Chapter 12 begins with Jesus telling the crowd the parable of the tenants, which is obviously about God sending His Son to the world, only to have the people kill Him. To solidify that, in verse 11 he quotes Psalm 118:22-23 — which is a clearly Messianic passage. Verse 12 demonstrates that the Pharisees were on the verge of having Him arrested already, especially upon realizing that He was talking about them.

Herod’s Temple, Jerusalem model city.

In verses 19-26, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, tried to stump him with a question about it. But what is important to us in His answer is his affirmation of the resurrection, as well as the fact that in the end, there will be no real death because death is the last enemy Jesus defeats for us:

…have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.

Verses 41-44 are about the Widow’s offering. It lets us know that even if we are not wealthy, our gifts from the heart are just as valued by the Lord as those from the rich, and often even more so.

In chapter 13, the disciples were pointing out the majesty and beauty of the temple, when Jesus makes an obvious prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem to come in A.D. 70:

Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

Verses 3 -24 are somewhat difficult, and many have interpreted those verses in different ways. Some of it has apocalyptic language such as in the book of Daniel (the “abomination of desolation” and other poetic language). To some, it seems clear that Jesus is a first talking about the destruction to come in A.D. 70 (and that must be the case). But some also believe that he then shifts in verse 24 to speak of the second coming.

This latter theory is problematic, however. It seems unmistakable that Jesus is giving the people warning of the signs to look for, so that Christians can get away from Jerusalem before the Romans destroy it. This writer believes that the apocalyptic language in verses 24 and following are just that, and that the entire discourse is about the same event. Note how He finishes in verse 30: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”

But then in verse 32 and following, it begins to sound more like He is talking about the second coming. In this case, I think it is logical to consider that He may very well have been referring to both A.D. 70 and the second coming in these verses. Both of them fit very well, and His audience would not likely have understood at that time that the A.D 70 event would take place.

Bible Reading Schedule for this month
Click here to read or listen to audio of this week’s chapters in Mark

/Bob’s boy

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All of my comments in this blog are solely my responsibility. When reading any commentary, you should always refer first to the scripture, which is God’s unchanging and unfailing word.