David’s Son and the Widow’s Mite

Mark For Everyone

MARK 12.35–44
David’s Son and the Widow’s Mite...

...The final scene in the Temple courtyards takes us to a dense and difficult riddle which Jesus himself puts to his hearers (and which they cannot answer), and to a small but striking incident by the Temple treasury. The riddle and the incident are, at one level, completely different, but as we shall see, at a deeper level, they belong together powerfully.

We take the riddle first – the question about David’s Lord and David’s son. The question of messiahship in general, and Jesus’ messiahship in particular, has been swirling around Mark’s gospel most of the time, and particularly since chapter 8. Now Jesus himself addresses it head on...

Taken from Mark for Everyone by Tom Wright