I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 12-13.

    The parable Jesus tells about the evil farmers does not directly apply to most of us. Most of us are not in a position to persecute those who call us out for our sins. Yet there is something there for us to think about. How do we react to those who do call us out for sin? Do we listen to what they have to say, examine our lives, and change our behaviors if their accusation has merit? Or, do we seek reason to find fault with our accusers?

    Mark illustrates three reactions to Jesus. These are the reactions which all religious leaders who step out of the status quo inspire. The first reaction is on social/political issues. The Pharisees asked Jesus taxes in a way designed to trap Him between an answer which would anger those inclined to follow Him and an answer which would bring down the power of the government on Him. Jesus recognized that the question was not being asked honestly, but merely as a way to use His answer, whatever it was, against Him. Remember that this question and answer occurred in the context of the religious leaders challenging Jesus on what authority He had to drive the money changers out of the Temple. Jesus asks them to show Him one of the coins used to pay the tax. When they do, He draws attention to the fact that it has Caesar’s image stamped on it. This was the basis for why the money changers were even here. Because the common coins had Caesar’s image on them it was considered idolatrous to use them to use as offerings in the Temple. Jesus points out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees for on one hand saying that these coins were idolatrous, yet carrying them around in the Temple. But there is more to His answer. The problem with these coins was that they had Caesar’s image on them. Jesus had asked them whose image was on the coin, He then told them to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s and to God what was God’s. Those who were truly paying attention would have realized that He was referring to the fact that the Bible teaches that we bear the image of God. Give your money to the government which created it to do with as it pleases, but give yourself to God, who created you, to do with as He pleases.

    The second response was an attempt to show that Jesus’ positions were logically inconsistent based on not understanding what He taught. The Sadducees believed that the idea of the resurrection of the dead was logically inconsistent and came of with a hypothetical which they thought illustrated this. Jesus showed that they had created a straw man argument. They assumed that since He taught that divorce was wrong that He also taught that marriage continued after the resurrection. Not satisfied with showing that they had misrepresented His teachings, Jesus pointed out the logical inconsistency of their position. When God revealed Himself to Moses, He presented Himself in the present tense as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

    The final reaction is the one which we should seek to emulate. One of those listening apparently did not have a preformed opinion on Jesus. Having heard Jesus give good answers to questions which he thought were on peripheral matters, he asked Jesus the question we should all ask of those who proclaim themselves religious teachers; what really matters? When Jesus answered that what really matters is that there is only one God, whom we must worship with all that we are and that we must love our neighbors as ourselves he knew that Jesus was a true teacher of God’s word. Everything else follows from that. If someone truly believes these two (or three, depending how you consider them) basic premises are the starting point we can debate all other beliefs and doctrines on the basis of how they fulfill them.