‘And it came about that, on one of the days, as he was teaching the people in the temple, and preaching the gospel, there came on him the chief priests and the scribes with the elders,' So one day while He was teaching in the Temple, and preaching the Good News of the Kingly Rule of God, the member... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And they spoke, saying to him, “Tell us, by what authority do you do these things? or who is he who gave you this authority?” ' Their question, as an official deputation from the leadership, was twofold. Firstly on what did He base His authority for His actions, and secondly, who had given Him tha... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And he answered and said to them, “I also will ask you a question, and you tell me, The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?” ' Jesus replied by using the Rabbinic method of dealing with a question by a question. He had, of course, twofold authority, the first came as a result of what... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And they reasoned with themselves, saying, “If we shall say, From heaven, he will say, Why did you not believe him? But if we shall say, From men, all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” His opponents in their discussions together revealed how clearly they the... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And they answered, that they knew not whence it was.' So they replied lamely that they did not know the answer to His question. Lame though their reply was they were really left with no option. But we can imagine their sense of extreme humiliation at having to do it. For by answering like this the... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And Jesus said to them, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.” ' So when Jesus then declared that He was not willing to submit His case to the very people who had admitted that they did not know how to judge a prophet's authority, the people would recognise that He had really... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And he began to speak to the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another country for a long time.” ' Jesus' words are spoken to the people, but as ever among these were a number of antagonists, including chief priests and Scribes. The idea of... [ Continue Reading ]
THE PARABLE OF THE WICKED TENANTS OF A VINEYARD (20:9-19). But Jesus did not leave it there, He riposted with a parable that connected His accusers with the slayers of the prophets, by this confirming their connection with others in the past who had been unable to recognise those who came from God,... [ Continue Reading ]
“And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard, but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. And he sent yet another servant, and him also they beat, and handled him shamefully, and sent him away empty. And he sent yet a third,... [ Continue Reading ]
“And the lord of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. It may be that they will reverence him.' ” Finally the owner of the vineyard decided that He would give them one last chance. He would send to them his beloved son. This was with the twofold hope, firstly that they wou... [ Continue Reading ]
“But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.' ” The reaction of the husbandmen is then given. Reasoning with each other (which has been seen to be a trait of the Jewish leaders - Luke 20:5) they deter... [ Continue Reading ]
“And they cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do to them?” The result was that the servants rejected the son, expelling him from the vineyard and killing him. This was a clear warning to the Jewish leaders that both God and Jesus were ful... [ Continue Reading ]
“He will come and destroy these husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others.” And when they heard it, they said, “God forbid.” ' What the Lord of the vineyard will do is then spelled out by means of the answer to a typical question. What will He do with them? He will destroy the evil men who h... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But he looked on them, and said, “What then is this that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner?” ' This method of finishing off a parable with a Scripture quotation is regularly found among the Rabbis. For then Jesus looked at them and emphasis... [ Continue Reading ]
“Every one who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomsoever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust (or ‘blow him away as chaff').” And the stone will not only become the head of the corner, but it will also become a stone of destruction on which men will fall, like a pot on a h... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And the scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him in that very hour, and they feared the people, for they perceived that he spoke this parable against them.' The parable made the Scribes and the chief priests even more determined to arrest Jesus, and they sought to find ways of doin... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And they watched him, and sent out spies (or ‘ambushers'), who put on a pretence that they themselves were righteous, in order that they might take hold of his speech, so as to deliver him up to the rule and to the authority of the governor.' This verse beautifully sums up the true situation. Thes... [ Continue Reading ]
THE SECOND TEST: IS IT LAWFUL TO GIVE TRIBUTE TO CAESAR? (20:20-26). In the chiasmus of the Section this challenge parallels the challenge concerning His authority (Luke 20:1). Sneakily they seek to take advantage of His claim to speak with authority by trapping Him into subversive remarks that can... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And they asked him, saying, “Teacher, we know that you say and teach rightly, and do not accept the person of any, but of a truth teach the way of God.” ' Their approach was with obsequious flattery. It is a warning to us to beware of those who speak too well of us. Very often it is because they s... [ Continue Reading ]
“Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” Their question was as to whether it was ‘lawful' or not to give tribute to Caesar. That is whether it was in line with the teaching of Moses. Now strictly speaking the Law does not deal with that question. But the Law does make it clear that... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose image and superscription has it?” And they said, “Caesar's.” ' Jesus, however, saw through them immediately. And so He called for them to produce a denarius, the silver coin in which the tax would be paid, which bore o... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And he said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” ' His reply was then, in that case, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's”. It was a very wise reply. It was pointing out that anyone who co... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And they were not able to take hold of the saying before the people, and they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace.' The ‘spies' were staggered at His reply. They recognised how cleverly He had avoided their trap, while at the same time teaching something very positive. And they recognise... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And there came to him certain of the Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection,' The Pharisees having been defeated in their attempts to discredit Jesus, the Sadducees now approached Him in order to dispute His teaching on the resurrection of the body. Like many Greeks they did not bel... [ Continue Reading ]
THE SADDUCEES AND THE RESURRECTION (20:27-40). Having made two attempts the Pharisees now withdrew for the time being in order to nurse their wounds. They were deeply chagrined, but unable to do anything about it. Jesus had thwarted their every move, and shown them up in the process. Now, however,... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And they asked him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote to us, that if a man's brother die, having a wife, and he be childless, his brother should take the wife, and raise up seed to his brother. There were therefore seven brothers, and the first took a wife, and died childless; and the second, and the t... [ Continue Reading ]
“In the resurrection therefore whose wife of them shall she be? for the seven had her to wife.” Thus their question was, assuming the resurrection of the body, to which of the brothers would she belong as his wife when they were all raised again in the body? They considered that this therefore made... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this world marry, and are given in marriage, but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage, for neither can they die any more. For they are equal to the angels, and are so... [ Continue Reading ]
“But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the place concerning the Bush, when he calls the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” Jesus then dealt with the Torah's basis for the res... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And certain of the scribes answering said, “Teacher, you have well said.” Then certain of the Scribes, almost certainly Pharisees, who had been searching for such an argument in the Law of Moses for a long time, expressed their admiration for Jesus' argument. To move such men, who were among His o... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For they dared not any more ask him any question.' And from then on no one dared to come to Him with any more questions in order to try to prove Him wrong and to discredit Him. They recognised that they had met their match.... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And he said to them, “How say they that the Christ is David's son?” Mark has “How do the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?” We must assume from this, as mentioned above, that some Rabbis, especially perhaps even with Jesus in mind, were downgrading ‘the Messiah to come' into a lesse... [ Continue Reading ]
JESUS HIMSELF NOW PUTS A QUESTION: WHO IS DAVID'S LORD? (20:41-43). In the chiasmus of the Section (see above) this statement, where Jesus reveals Himself as ‘David's Lord', and denounces the ostentation and claims of the Rabbis who set themselves up as false deliverers, a situation in which their... [ Continue Reading ]
“For David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit you on my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.' ” Jesus here took the Psalm to be Davidic, as His opponents did, and His argument was based on what David had said of the coming King in his psa... [ Continue Reading ]
“David therefore calls him Lord, and how is he his son?” Now if this were the case, asks Jesus, how can He be limited to being described merely as David's son, when He is in fact declared to be David's Lord? Whatever else this therefore demonstrates it certainly reveals Jesus' exalted view of His o... [ Continue Reading ]
JESUS WARNS AGAINST THE HYPOCRISY OF THE PHARISEES AND COMMENDS THE EXAMPLE OF THE POOR WIDOW (20:45-21:3). Having established His position over against Pharisaic teaching, Jesus now warned further against following the ways of the Pharisees, who did ape such ways. Just as in the parallel in the Se... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples,' Jesus now turns to teaching His disciples, but in such a way that all the people overhear Him. It will then be up to them how they take it.... [ Continue Reading ]
“Beware of the scribes, who desire to walk in long robes, and love salutations in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the synagogues, and chief places at feasts,” His warning is that they beware of a particular type of Scribe of whom there were far too many (not all Scribes could be put on the same... [ Continue Reading ]
“Who devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers.” We do not know quite how they devoured widow's houses. They were not supposed to receive payment for teaching. But they could soon find themselves idolised, and the worst would then no doubt be open to receiving munificent gifts on... [ Continue Reading ]