Marcos 12
Steven Cole · Citado em PreceptAustin
Marcos 12
Cole - Jesus taught that there is such a thing as doctrinal truth and doctrinal error, and that truth matters. He didn’t say, “Hey, it really doesn’t matter what you guys believe, just as long as you’re sincere.” He didn’t say, “I love you guys! You’re my brothers, even if we disagree over this little matter of the resurrection!” He didn’t say, “I respect your views. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion.” He told them authoritatively that they were greatly mistaken and He set forth the reasons why. As Allan Bloom pointed out a few years ago in his best seller, The Closing of the American Mind ([Simon and Schuster], p. 28), the intellectual community has relegated religion to the realm of opinion as opposed to knowledge. It is simply a matter of one subjective and uncertain opinion versus another. Undergirding this is the view that all truth is relative and that tolerance the chief virtue (pp. 25-27). He said, “The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all” (p. 26). The result of this is that you can have two people holding to opposite views in the spiritual realm and they both can be right, since religious “truth” is simply one’s subjective ideas or experience of it. Luke's version records the reaction to Jesus' reply to the Sadducees... Luke 20:39+ Some of the scribes answered and said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.” 40 For they did not have courage to question Him any longer about anything. Vance Havner - God of the Living When the Sadducees asked our Lord about the woman who had had seven husbands and wanted to know whose wife would she be in the resurrection, He answered by analyzing their trouble as error born of ignorance—ignorance of the Scriptures and the power of God. He declared that in the resurrection we neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels in heaven. Then He gave them God's own word, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" and ended with the declaration, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (see Matthew 22:32). God did not say, "I WAS the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but "I AM...." Always the great I AM whose infinitudes never put Him in the past tense, in His sight nobody WAS but everybody IS. Nobody is dead and everybody who has ever lived is still living. We are so accustomed to think of the dead as corpses lying in graveyards. But those bodies are only the remains, the temporary vehicles of their earthly stay. They themselves are still in existence somewhere. Moses and Elijah came back to the Mount of Transfiguration and the disciples recognized them. That raises questions as to what we will be like after death and before the resurrection but settles one major issue, we will still be living somewhere. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. I found a dirt road behind the motel where I am staying this week in Michigan. I've been walking in the glorious September sunshine meditating on the God of the living. He does not deal in dead things. My loved ones are all alive on the other side. One of these days the trumpet will sound and their spirits will be joined to their new resurrection bodies and death will be swallowed up in victory. What a big swallow that will be! Corpses and funerals and cemeteries will be a thing of the past and we shall gather around the throne of the living God, the God of the living. He is the Author of life and there never would have been any death had not the devil invaded creation. But on that day Satan and his cohorts will be where they belong and we shall meet at the river of life around the tree of life to enjoy life everlasting. But I need not wait for that day for my eternal life to begin. It started when I trusted my Saviour and I have it as surely as I will ever have it, though not as completely as when I see my Lord on that "Great Getting-up Morning." But now I have the promise of my inheritance and the foretaste of glory divine and if this be the first installment, what will it be like when I am paid in full! Until then I shall taste the powers of the age to come and work up an appetite for the Supper of the Lamb where the celebration never ends. I worship the God of the living. My soul is not dwelling in the macabre realm of tombs and ghosts. Everybody past and present is alive. All who died in Christ are more alive than ever, they are but on His other side. We need to "come alive" in our thinking and walk with God in His Everlasting Now. (Though I Walk Through the Valley) Mark 12:27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. Since God spoke of Himself as the God of the patriarchs, centuries after they had been borne to their graves, it stood to reason that they were yet living; and on this ground our Lord met the allegation that there is no life beyond death. Death is not a state or condition, but an act. — We speak of the dead; but in point of fact there are none such. We should speak of those who have died. They were living up to the moment of death; but they were living quite as much afterwards. Death is like birth, an act, a transition, a passage into a freer life. Never think of a death as a state, but as resembling a bridge which, for a moment, casts its shadow on the express train, which flashes beneath, but does not stay. All our dear ones are living. — As vividly, as keenly, as intensely as ever: with all the love and faith and intelligence with which we were wont to associate their beloved personality. It may be that they think of us as only half alive, compared with their own intense and vivid experience of the life which draws its breath from the manifested presence of Gad. Oh, do not fear that they will cease to recognize, know, or love you! Always it remains true, “Without us they cannot be made perfect.” Those who live on either side of death may meet in God. — Those who are present in the body, and those ho are absent from it, meet in proportion as they approach God. When we count near Him in thought, and prayer, and love, we are come to the spirits of the just made perfect. God is the glorious center of all the lines that radiate into all worlds. “Ye are come to God, the Judge of all,… and to the spirits of the just made perfect.” Meyer, F. B. Our Daily Homily Mark 12:28 One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of all?"
Marcos 12
Cole concludes this parable - Jesus told this parable for two main reasons. He wanted to encourage His faithful servants who get beat up and thrown out of the vineyard to keep on being faithful. He owns the vineyard and the main thing is for His servants to bear fruit for Him. Second, He told it to warn those who wrongly think that they own the vineyard that they do not. A day of reckoning is coming! Every first time visitor to the town of Twin Lakes, Colorado hits the brakes when he first drives into town. The reason for that automatic behavior is that there is a police car with a mannequin sitting behind the wheel just as you come over a hill heading into town. Before you realize that it is just a dummy, you hit your brakes because you think that you are accountable. We need to keep in mind that God is not a dummy-He’s real! Jesus Christ is the rightful heir and owner of the vineyard. Either we submit to Him and serve Him or we will face His certain judgment. If we wrongly start thinking that we own the vineyard, the stone will fall on us and scatter us like dust. (Who Owns the Vineyard?) John
Marcos 12
Cole - It’s easy to scoff at the inconsistency of these religious leaders, but we need to look within and admit that we’re all prone toward hypocrisy. It lurks in all of our hearts because we’re all disposed to want to look good to others, while we forget about what God sees. We’re like the little boy who was bragging to his brother about how he had killed a mouse that he caught. He told him how he clobbered it with a broom and then it grabbed it by the tail and smashed it against a rock. Just then, the boy looked up and saw that the preacher was visiting the family and was within earshot. Without missing a beat, the boy added, “And then the good Lord called it home.”...But preachers are prone to hypocrisy also. It’s easy to want to look more righteous in front of people than you really are. If you’re not careful, you can give the impression in sermons that you have it all together spiritually, when you really don’t. Sometimes someone will make a comment about my level of piety that goes beyond the truth: “You must spend hours in prayer each week!” No, as a matter of fact, I struggle with prayer just like you do! But if I let the comment go uncorrected, thinking, “What will it hurt?” I fall into hypocrisy.... to avoid hypocrisy, we must not convey false impressions to make ourselves look better to others than we know we really are. (Guile, Government, and God) ILLUSTRATION - Questions!!! – Consider this true story about a very successful grocery store in Connecticut. Stu Leonards' grocery store grossed over $100 million last year. The average grocery store makes $300 per square foot. Stu's preparation generates an amazing $3,000 per square foot. The average grocery store stocks 15,000 items; Stu stocks only 700. Stu has profited immensely from the art of listening and asking the right questions. One day Stu asked a lady, "What do you think of our fresh fish?" She says, "I don't think that the fish is fresh." After explaining it is fresh every day from Boston’s Pier she still wasn’t convinced so he asked two questions:(1) "What do you mean our fish is not fresh?" She said, "Look at it. It just doesn't look fresh to me. You have that filet sitting on a green cardboard container. You have plastic wrap over the filet -- and it's wrinkled. Finally, you have a price sticker over half of the filet." He asked her a second question:(2) "What would fresh fish look like to you?" "I go to Boston all the time," she said. "I like to see the fish on ice." Stu walked across the aisle and laid the fish flat on the ice. Fish sales soared from 15,000 lbs. a week to 30,000 lbs. a week and stayed at that level. - Listening & asking the right questions holds tremendous opportunity for all of us…unless you’re not sincere with your questions!!! (Brian Bell) Mark 12:15 "Shall we pay or shall we not pay?" But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at." knowing: Mt 22:18 Lu 20:23 Joh 2:24,25 21:17 Heb 4:13 Rev 2:23 Why: Mk 10:2 Eze 17:2 Ac 5:9 1Co 10:9 a denarius: Mt 18:28, Mark 12 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries Related Passages: Matthew 22:18 But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, “Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites? 19“Show Me the coin used for the poll-tax.” And they brought Him a denarius. Luke 20:23+ But He detected their trickery and said to them, 24 “Show Me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Marcus Aurelius on Denarius TO PAY OR NOT TO PAY THAT IS THE QUESTION Shall we pay or shall we not pay?" - If Jesus answered, “Yes, pay Caesar,” the Pharisees would accuse Him of yielding to Rome which negate His claim as Messiah for the people believed the Messiah would deliver Israel from Rome. If He answered, “No, do not pay Caesar,” the Herodians would report Him to Pilate as being opposed to Caesar’s rule, thus guilty of sedition. They thought that they had Him this time! But He, knowing their hypocrisy - Matthew 22:18 "But Jesus perceived their malice (poneria - intentional evil)" Luke 20:23+ "But He detected their trickery (panourgia also describes their "father" [Jn 8:44] Satan in 2 Cor 11:3)." Geddert - Knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus first exposes it. In response to Jesus’ request, someone immediately produces one of the forbidden idolatrous coins. Their trap would have worked better if they had pretended they didn’t have any of the detested coins. (Mark Believers Church Bible Commentary) Edgar - "The baseness of the plot is evident. Their hearts are hostile to Caesar, but they are ready to become "informers" against him for the sake of getting rid of him."
Marcos 12
Cole - Jesus’ answer stunned the pretenders. In one succinct sentence, He showed that God and Caesar each have legitimate realms of authority with corresponding responsibilities. But if there is a conflict between realms, God is supreme over Caesar. By asking His critics to produce the Roman coin, Jesus underscored the fact that they were enjoying the benefits of Caesar’s government. They used his coinage; they enjoyed many civil improvements and benefits that he provided. Thus they were obligated to give him his due. And yet, by His final statement, “to God the things that are God’s,” Jesus affirmed that it would be wrong to go along with Caesar’s blasphemous claim to deity, which was stamped on each coin. One side read, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus” ("divine Augustus"? Woe!); the other read, “Pontifex Maximus” (“Chief Priest”). Jesus meant that above Caesar is God. We must never go so far in rendering unto Caesar that we violate our obligation to God, the supreme sovereign who rules over all....By His statement, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” Jesus acknowledged that God has ordained civil government and given it a proper sphere of authority. God ordained civil government for the good of society. Paul explains this in Romans 13:1-7, where he commands, “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God” (Ro 13:1). He goes on to state that the government “is a minister of God to you for good” (Ro 13:4). When Paul wrote this, the godless Nero was emperor. Thus we must conclude that we are not free to disobey or rebel against wicked rulers, unless they command us to violate God’s higher law. (See his sermon Guile, Government, and God for more on the role of government and how Christians should interact). 🙏 THOUGHT - Let's apply the truth in this passage - Who's image do you bear? By creation all men bear the image of God (Ge 1:26-27). But only by redemption do men bear the image of Christ. So let me ask "Whose image do you bear?" As Paul says if we bear Christ's image, we "are not our own, for we you have been bought with a price: therefore we are to glorify God in our body." (1 Cor 6:19-20-note) That is the way we render to God the things that are God's! We "present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is our spiritual service of worship." (Ro 12:1-note) Dear Christ follower, are you rendering to God what is due to Him Alone?