Tuesday Scripture for today: Mark 11:27-12:11 and Matthew 24:1-3. You may wish to read portions of our Lord’s teachings on this day as outlined below.
Mark 11 27 They *came again to Jerusalem. And as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders *came to Him, 28 and began saying to Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?” 29 And Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question, and you answer Me, and then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 “Was the baptism of John from heaven, or from men? Answer Me.” 31 They began reasoning among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 32 “But shall we say, ‘From men’?”—they were afraid of the people, for everyone considered John to have been a real prophet. 33 Answering Jesus, they *said, “We do not know.” And Jesus *said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Mark 12 1 And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT, AND DUG A VAT UNDER THE WINE PRESS AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. 2 “At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. 3 “They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 “Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. 5 “And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. 6 “He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 “But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ 8 “They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others. 10 “Have you not even read this Scripture: ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; 11 THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD,
Matthew 24 1 Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. 2 And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” 3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Jesus spent the entire day preaching and teaching the people. The parables and sermons recorded for us from this day take roughly two chapters in Luke’s gospel (Luke 20:1-21:36), three chapters in Matthew (Matthew 21:23-25:46). We don’t usually realize when we read our Bibles that all of the things that Jesus said and did in these chapters happened on one day or happened just two days before His death.
Jesus spent much time answering the questions of the Scribes and the Pharisees as they sought to entrap Him. The Jewish leader’s questions about taxes, resurrection and the Messiah were asked not because they hungered for truth, but because they wanted to find something with which to charge Jesus legally.
Jesus knew His ministry on earth was going to end in His suffering and death, and not in the reign of the Messiah the people expected. That is why He took much time in the sermon on the Mount of Olives to explain His second coming. Jesus wanted His hearers and us to know that He was coming again to establish His kingdom and rule over it. Many of these parables were given to share the truth of His second coming with His hearers.
The amount of time Jesus took to teach and preach so close to the end of His ministry clearly shows the importance Jesus attached to sharing God’s truths with the people. It also indicates the priority we should give ourselves to reading and applying God’s Word in our lives.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, please make me attentive to your Word, the Bible. I want to be led in reading and understanding Your Word by Your Holy Spirit so that I can apply it to my life. Amen.
