Mark - Lesson 17...Continued from page 3

DAY FOUR:  Questioned by the Pharisees

Please carefully read Mark 12:28–34 and answer the following questions.

1.  Seeing that the Sadducees and the Herodians failed to trip Jesus up, a scribe (a cohort of the Pharisees) approached Jesus. He may have been trying to trap Jesus in vital matters according to the Law, for if He failed here they could completely discredit Him.  What did the scribe ask, and how did Jesus reply? (vv. 28–30)

2.  Loving God with one’s whole being is the first and foremost (Greek: chief, principle, first, greatest) commandment, but what did Jesus say was also vital in God’s sight? (v. 31)  Also, read Leviticus 19:15–18 and record what it taught about this.

3.  Jesus’ quoting  Deuteronomy 6:4, 5 sums up the first tablet of the 10 commandments in our relationship with God, and the second sums up the second tablet regarding our relationships with other people.[ix] What does Matthew 22:37–40 add to this all?

4.  There was something about this scribe that was different from the others questioning Jesus that day.  He actually didn’t seem to have a hostile hidden motive about Jesus answering a much-debated subject in scribal circles. The scribes spoke of 613 individual commandments of the Mosaic Law?365 negative and 248 positive. While they believed all were binding, they thought there was a distinction between weightier and lighter statutes and often attempted to sum up the whole Law in a one unifying command.[x]  How did he react to Jesus’ answer, and how did Jesus’ reply and impact all of His interrogators? (vv. 32–34)

NOTE: Here we find something else unique to Mark’s Gospel.  Verse 32 is the only place in the Gospels where a scribe is described as favorably disposed toward Jesus, and verse 34 is the only place where Jesus commended a scribe. We must remember that not all scribes and Pharisees were bad. As James Brooks reminds us, “Indeed, at their best they represented the finest element in Judaism.”[xi]

Scripture Memory:  Try to fill in the missing words in the blanks below, by memory if at all possible, and then review the passage several times today.

Jesus answered him, "The _________________ of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the ________________ our God, the Lord is _________________.  And you shall __________________ the ___________________ your God with all your _____________________, with all your _____________________, with all your ______________, and with all your _________________________.' This is the first commandment.  And the _____________________, like it, is this: 'You shall _______________ your _____________________ as yourself.'

(Mark 12:29-31a nkjv)