The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 12

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

And welcome back to ‘The Gospel of Mark’!

We’re steadily getting close to Easter time and this Biblical blog post series is the best way to find out what Easter is truly all about. If you want to find out more, click on ‘the gospel of mark’ tag to check out my first eleven summaries of the 16 chaptered gospel of Mark, featured in the Holy Bible.

Last time in Chapter 11 of the Gospel of Mark, the Easter story begins when Jesus enters Jerusalem as a king. He rides on a colt and cloaks and branches are laid out on the road. Jesus curses a fig tree whilst in Jerusalem as well as clearing the temple courts. Jesus authority also gets questioned by the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders.

Let’s find out what happens to Jesus in Chapter 12 of Mark’s Gospel. Enjoy!

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The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 12

Following on from Chapter 11, Jesus began to teach in parables. He starts off by telling the parable of the tenants. A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. He then rented his vineyard to some farmers and he moved off to another place.

At harvest time, the man sent a servant to the farmers now tenants to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard from them. But the tenants seized the servant, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. The man sent another servant, but he got struck on the head and treated severely by them.

The man sent another servant, but that servant got killed. The more servants the man sent, the more they got beaten and killed by the tenants. The man had one person left and that was his son, whom he loved. The man sent his son last of them all, believing that the tenants will respect his son.

The tenants however agreed to kill the man’s son, throwing him out of the vineyard. They did this so that they can get the inheritance. Once Jesus finished this parable, he asked ‘what will the owner of the vineyard do?’ Jesus then answers he will come to kill the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

Despite Jesus’ parable, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him. They knew that Jesus had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left and went. Later on, they sent in some Pharisees and Herodians to challenge him.

The Pharisees and Herodians asked Jesus whether it is right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Jesus knew the Pharisees and the Heroidans were hypocrites and asked to have a denarius brought to him. The denarius coin gets brought to Jesus as he then asks whose image and inscription is on it.

They told him that it was Caesar’s image and inscription on the denarius coin. Jesus then told them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” The Pharisees and the Herodians were amazed at this. Then the Sadducees, who don’t believe in resurrection, asked Jesus a question.

They asked a question regarding marriage at the resurrection, involving a man’s brother’s wife who becomes widowed and seven brothers to choose from to marry her. Jesus answered whether the Sadducees are in error because they don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God in this question.

Jesus told them ‘when the dead rise, they will not marry nor be given in marriage’, but that ‘they will be like the angels in heaven’. He also tells them about what was written in the account of the burning bush with Moses. He tells them they’re mistake that God is not of the dead, but of the living.

Then one of the teachers of the law asked Jesus which of the Ten Commandments is the most important. Jesus answers that the most important one is ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul with all your mind and with your strength.’ He also tells them the second one.

The second one is ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Jesus told the teacher that there is no commandment greater than the first two. The teacher of the law applauded Jesus saying that he is right in what he says about the commandments. Jesus told him that he isn’t far from God’s kingdom.

As he was teaching in the temple courts, Jesus asked ‘why the teachers of the law say the Messiah is the son of David’. He quotes from David who spoke by the Holy Spirit saying, “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet’.” Jesus makes a valid point of this.

He tells people that David called the Lord ‘Lord’. Jesus asks how the Lord can be David’s son. The crowd listened to Jesus with delight. Then Jesus gave a warning about the teachers of the law. He told them to watch out for them, saying they like to walk around in flowing robes and get respected.

He warns them that the teachers of the law like to have the most important seats in the synagogues and have places of honour at banquets. He warns them that they devour widows’ houses and make lengthy prayers to show themselves off. Jesus tells people that these men will be punished severely.

Later, Jesus sat down opposite where the offerings were made in the temple courts. He watched as many people put their money into the temple treasury. These were mainly rich people who threw in large amounts of money. But then a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins into it.

Jesus called his disciples over and told them that the poor widow has put a lot more into the temple treasury than anyone else has done. He tells that the rich people gave out all their wealth into the treasury, whereas the poor widow gave out all her poverty and put in everything she had to live on.

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That’s it for Chapter 12 of Mark’s Gospel. Stay tuned next week for Chapter 13.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂