Talk 38 Mark 12:35-44 Jesus warns against the Teachers of the Law
Welcome to Talk 38 in our series on Mark’s Gospel. Today we’re looking at Mark 12:35-44. So far in this chapter, Jesus has faced questions from Herodians, Pharisees, and Sadducees, all of whom have been trying to trick him into giving an answer that might give them grounds for taking action against him. But on every occasion Jesus’ answers have silenced his opponents.
Now, in today’s passage, Jesus:
· asks them all a question which they are unable to answer (35-37)
· warns the people to beware of these hypocritical teachers of the law (38-40)
· and draws a contrast between their self-seeking behaviour and the generosity of a poor widow (41-44).
35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, “How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”‘ 37 David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” The large crowd listened to him with delight.
Jesus’ purpose in asking this question is not to catch his opponents out as they had tried to catch him out. His purpose was not retaliation, but to make them and the others listening think. As we shall see, the implications of his question are enormous. They reveal, without a shadow of a doubt, who Jesus really is. The teachers of the law had rightly understood that the Scriptures predicted that the Christ, God’s Anointed One, the Messiah, would be a son (i.e. a descendant) of King David. This view was widely held by the Jews at the time of Jesus, and Jesus is not disputing it. But what he is saying is this:
If the Christ really is to be a son of David (which he certainly is), how is it that David refers to him as his Lord?
Jesus is referring to Psalm 110:1 which says:
The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’.
This psalm was widely held to be messianic (i.e. prophesying about the Messiah). But, asks Jesus, if David is speaking of the coming Messiah, how can he call him my Lord if he is one of his descendants? It would be unthinkable to a Jew that a child could be superior to its father, or a descendant superior to an ancestor. Matthew 22:46 makes it clear that the teachers of the law could not find an answer to this riddle, but the early Christians certainly knew it, as this very verse is quoted in Hebrews 1:13 where the writer is demonstrating the deity of Jesus. And this is what Jesus is trying to show them by his question. If the Messiah was to be David’s Lord, he must be more than a physical descendant. He must be none other than God himself. But that was a mystery that the Jewish leaders were completely unable to fathom.
Now, in the next section, verses 38-40, Jesus warns the people against the teachers of the law.
38 As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, 39 and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets. 40 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”
The meaning of these verses is clear. The Jewish religious leaders – the majority, at least – were insincere and wrongly motivated. Note the words like to in verse 38. They enjoyed dressing differently, to show, as they thought, their superiority to others. They felt entitled to have the most important seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets. The motivation in all that they did was to be admired by others, and even their prayers were designed to impress others rather than to seek the blessing of God.
But Matthew’s account of what Jesus said is more detailed. In Matthew 23:3-7 Jesus makes the following accusations against the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.
1. They do not practise what they preach (v3)
2. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders (v4)
3. Everything they do is done for men to see (v5)
4. They love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues (v6)
5. They love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi’ (v7).
And in verses 13-36 we read how Jesus again and again calls them hypocrites, blind guides, blind fools, blind men, and even describes them as you snakes, you brood of vipers! and warns them of the judgment to come as a result.
Of course, it’s easy enough for us to identify with Jesus’ condemnation of the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day, but I wonder how seriously church leaders today take Jesus’ words of instruction to us as his disciples. Notice what he says in verses 8-12:
But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
If you’re wondering why Matthew includes these verses and Mark does not, it’s important to remember that Mark was writing for a mainly Gentile audience whereas Matthew’s audience was largely Jewish. It was important that Christians with a Jewish background should understand that there was no room for such practices in the Church of Jesus Christ. And the Book of Acts and the New Testament epistles bear witness to the fact that Jesus’ forthright teaching in these verses was largely followed.
For example, unlike the practice in many churches today, the gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 were never used as titles. Words like apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher described a gift God had given a person to fulfil a certain role in the church. They were not used as titles. Paul did not refer to himself as Apostle Paul but as Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Agabus was a prophet named Agabus, not Prophet Agabus. Philip is described as Philip, the evangelist, not Evangelist Philip, and so on. Interestingly, no one is named as a pastor in the New Testament. Pastor means shepherd and it was the elders who shepherded the churches in the New Testament. Yet today the term Pastor is frequently used as a title, a practice completely foreign to the spirit of the New Testament.
But does it matter? Isn’t the culture different today? Yes, it is. But we should align our practices with the teaching of the New Testament, not with the culture of the day, or even the culture prevalent in the church. The New Testament does teach us to respect and pray for our leaders, but the culture of honouring pastors in some churches is in danger of encouraging the very things that Jesus was so strongly condemning in these verses.
But it’s time to return to our passage in Mark 12. So far we’ve seen how Jesus asks the religious leaders a question which they are unable to answer, but which clearly implies his deity (35-37), and then warns the people to beware of these hypocritical teachers (38-40) and in Matthew’s account telling his disciples that it must not be so among them. Now, in the final section of the chapter Jesus draws a contrast between the self-seeking behaviour of the religious leaders and the generosity of a poor widow.
41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. 43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.”
Perhaps you’ll remember that in verse 40 Jesus accused the teachers of the law of devouring widows’ houses. To understand this fully we need to realise that in those days widows had little or no power in the courts. A husband would appoint a scribe or Pharisee to be the executor of his widow’s estate. This gave them authority to deal with the widow’s estate and a corrupt lawyer could easily trick a widow out of her house. In doing this they were directly disobeying their beloved Law of Moses which clearly stated in Exodus 22:22, Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. It’s not surprising that the word Pharisaical has become a synonym for hypocritical! No wonder Jesus said, Such men will be punished most severely.
So when he sees many rich people throwing large amounts of money into the temple treasury, Jesus takes the opportunity to compare their ostentatious behaviour with that of the Pharisees who prayed long prayers for a show, and to contrast it with the abandoned generosity of one poor widow. Note the contrasts between rich and poor, between one and many, between large amounts and only a fraction of a penny. Yet her offering was greater than all the wealth of all the others put together.
If, as we have seen, Jesus told his disciples not to behave like the Pharisees, here he is surely teaching them that they should follow the example of this poor widow. Her commitment was total. NIV translates the last few words of this chapter as everything – all she had to live on, but literally translated the Greek says her whole life! And that’s exactly what Jesus demands of his followers. Unless we deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him we cannot be his disciples. And unlike the Pharisees he does not demand of us more than he himself was prepared to give. He threw in his whole life. It cost him everything he had.
So for us the challenge is not merely to avoid the hypocrisy of the Pharisees – and, if we’re honest, that’s not always as easy as it may sound – but to follow the example of the poor widow, whose prodigal giving is but a picture of the abandoned generosity of Jesus in giving his whole life for us.
As we have seen in previous talks, he was the fulfilment of what Israel was meant to be, he was the fulfilment of all that the temple stood for, and he was the fulfilment of the Law for he loved the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his mind, and with all his strength, and he loved us, his neighbours, enough to die for us.
Surely the least we can do, is live for him.