Mk 10

Kingdom entry

Warm-up: On a scale of 1 to 100, how ambitious do you rank yourself? How would that number compare to how you would be ranked by the person who knows you best? How do you explain the potential difference?

Read: Mark 10

Context: Mark started his book about Jesus with a call to “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (1:1-4), where forgiveness by Jesus is the door to the kingdom of heaven (2:10) and repentance its key (6:12).

1) Does Mark finally explain what repentance (gr. metanoia, lit. change of mind) looks like?

• Does repentance have anything to do with laws? e.g. vv5, 14, 17, 21, 25-26, 45-47
• vv1-4: What did the Pharisees want to test by asking Jesus whether divorce is lawful?
  • Hint: Why did they approve of divorce (by men) without second thoughts? vv3-4
  • What answer did they expect from Jesus that would have trapped him?
• v5: How did Jesus avoid this trap?
  • Accordingly, is repenting of lawlessness enough to be saved? Why not?
  • Hint: How are the Pharisees and others in this chapter living proof that lawlessness is not the root problem? vv5, 21, 37
  • How does genuine repentance differ from merely a resolve to try harder to be good? e.g. Lk 15:19

• Hint: What would a softening look like?
• vv6-9: Do people today (still) disagree with Jesus about marriage and divorce? Why or why not?
• Why was Jesus not more inclusive of ‘alternative models’, such as promiscuity or same sex ‘marriage’, not even a thousand years after Moses, v9? =>
  • How are spouses ‘joined together by God’?
    • What does ‘inseparable’ mean?
  • What happens when we separate anyway?
  • How will our defiance of this reality affect our children? Col 3:21; Eph 6:4; 1Tim 2:15

3) Raising children challenges every marriage. Why ‘bring them’ to Jesus, and how? Lk 1:17

• Why did the disciples regard this as unnecessary (or worse)?
• How do infants model the true citizens of God’s kingdom? 1Cor 14:20
• Which adults in this chapter did not yet resemble such infants?

4) vv17ff: Why does a nameless ‘rich man’ feature in the one chapter where Mark explains how we must repent?

• v17: What exactly was his question?
  • Was this the right question, to ask: “What must I do?” cf v47 [The kneeling proves that he knows the virtue of humility, but that is not the same as being humble, cf e.g. Col 2:18]
• v18: Why did Jesus pick first on how the man addressed him as good teacher?
  • How did he receive this reply that no one is good except God, and how do we receive it nowadays?
  • Did this rich man over- or rather underestimate Jesus?
  • How can sin easily deceive achievers, and even with God’s perfect law? cf Ro 7:11; Lk 18:11, 21
• v21: What do you make of how Mark underlined that Jesus loved this chap anyway?
  • Read Phil 3:6 => Do you find people likeable who consider themselves faultless according to the law? Why not?
• Did Jesus actually answer the initial question of this man (v17)? v23 =>
  • Or did he give this man a directive that was designed on purpose to make him see his need for the redeemer (v45) and to humble himself accordingly? v27

5) Read again vv29-30. If Jesus first must die for the kingdom to come, how could this have encouraged James and John* to hope for seats of honor, vv33-34?

• Did they finally grasp that entry into the kingdom is a bequest granted to the heirs by the goodwill of the testator alone?
• In the previous chapter, only they and Peter witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus. If all three were ‘favorites’ of Jesus, how was Peter supposed to benefit from their seat reservation?
  • vv38-39: How does genuine salvation deliver us from such cravings for preeminence?
  • How does sanctification by trials (cup) and baptism (martyrdom) remove such dross? e.g. 1Pet 4:1
• v41: How did Jesus solve the resulting conflict and its inevitable fallout?
  • v42: Why set a face-to face meeting instead of letting Peter’s indignation rot under the carpet to divide them?
  • vv43-45: Why is a first-come-first-serve approach ok to allocate seats in toilets, but not at weddings? cf v31

6) v51: In the subsequent encounter with blind Bartimaeus, Jesus first asked what everyone could plainly see. Why? =>

• Hint: How did the plea of Bartimaeus differ from the ‘prayer request’ of James and John?
  • Why did Mark want his readers to know that the name Bartimaeus means “Son of Honor”?** cf Mt 23:12
• What “cup of sufferings” made Bartimaeus cry out for the one thing that really matters?
• What does the contrast between him and the disciples teach us about how we must be “made well”, v52?
  • How does Bartimaeus graphically illustrate how genuine faith works to truly save us?
  • Or in the lingo of theology: Is God’s righteousness by saving faith only ‘imputed’ (i.e. credited to our account, Ro 4:22-24), or also imparted (life-infusing, e.g. Ro 5:18)?

7) Personal & application