Mark 11:27-33

First Encounter with Religious Leaders on the Question of Authority. On the Tuesday, an official deputation meets Jesus in the Temple, and asks by what right He has taken upon Himself police duties like the control of the market. Who has given Him permission to clear the court of the Gentiles and even to teach in the Temple? The one decisive question which Jesus puts in reply is not a subtle evasion of an attempt to trap Him into a Messianic confession. The nature of John's authority raised a fundamental issue on which Jesus and the Pharisees were at variance. To Jesus John was a man sent from God. That conviction underlay His whole activity. The men who would not recognise John as a prophet, and who yet had not the moral courage to deny his authority, could not understand Jesus, and deserved no direct answer. For all that, the question of Jesus, so far from evading theirs, clearly answered it.