Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S41 || Fruitless Faith: Jesus Curses the Fig Tree || Mark 11:12-14; 20-24 || Session 41 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
The cursing of the fig tree isn't a random act of frustration but a deliberate teaching tool sandwiched around Jesus' cleansing of the temple. Both incidents highlight the same spiritual truth—Israel's leadership had failed in its divine purpose. Though "it wasn't the season for figs," Jesus makes clear that this particular season in Israel's history was characterized by spiritual fruitlessness.
We examine how the withered tree serves as both judgment and warning. Just as Jesus inspected the fig tree and found no evidence of future fruit, He inspected the temple and found corruption instead of worship. The parallel is unmistakable—God expects fruitfulness from those who claim to follow Him.
This episode delivers a sobering question for today's church: What happens when Christ inspects our ministries and personal lives? Are we bearing genuine spiritual fruit, or merely displaying religious leaves? The fig tree's withering stands as a powerful reminder that God's judgment falls on fruitlessness.
Join us next time as we continue our verse-by-verse journey through Mark's gospel, exploring the final days of Jesus before His crucifixion—the most significant events in human history.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. This is a ministry where we go verse by verse through the Word of God. We've been reasoning our way through the Gospel of Mark. Open your Bibles to Mark, chapter 11. In there we find that last time we discussed the section where Jesus goes into the temple. He gets quite angry. He confronts the Jewish leadership temple. He gets quite angry. He confronts the Jewish leadership, he overturns the tables of the money changers and drives them out of that part of the temple complex, which was the part where the Gentiles would come, and he says you're not being a good witness for the Lord. Jesus is forcing the hand of the Jewish leaders In Mark.
Speaker 1:Of course, all these things are indeed a historical account. But it things are indeed a historical account. But it's not just a historical account. It's the inspired Word of God that tells us many spiritual truths because of this section. There are many very profound ones In this section. The part we read last time of the overturning of the tables of the money changers has a story of a fig tree that starts just before that section and it ends just after. We have this clear sandwich, if you will. That is communicating some spiritual concepts. Now we're going to discuss and read the part about the fig tree. Steve, can you read Mark chapter 11, 12 to 14, and then the follow-up section 20 to 24?.
Speaker 2:On the next day, when they had left Bethany, he became hungry. Seeing at a distance a fig tree and leaf. He went to see if perhaps he would find anything on it, and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples were listening. Then, starting in verse 20, as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Being reminded, peter said to him Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you had cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them saying have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain Be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore, I say to you all things for which you pray and ask, with this Jesus curses the fig tree.
Speaker 1:He cursed the fig tree on one day and then came back in the morning and the tree had withered and he has this discussion about prayer with his disciples. I think the main purpose of this before we get into all of the details about how fig trees grow the main purpose, I think, was very clear Israel was fruitless at this point in time. He's making the analogy, the illustration, if you will, between a fruitless fig tree and a fruitless nation or a fruitless group of leaders. The story of the fig tree was sandwiched around the story of him judging the leaders for selling animals and making money off of religion with the overturning of the money changers' tables. The stories are connected in the sense that Israel, at least the leaders, were not bearing fruit. They were sinning by not following God and they were a bad witness to the nations. That's really the message of the fig tree. He's finding a fruit tree with no fruit, just like he found Israel with no fruit.
Speaker 1:In this story, jesus goes over and inspects the fruit tree and finds no fruit. God inspects Israel and finds no fruit. The Jewish leaders had evaluated Jesus earlier in the book and rejected him. Here Jesus goes and he inspects the temple. He inspects the fig tree. He sees no fruit and he judges both. That's the real connection. What else can we learn from this story, steve?
Speaker 2:This isn't to be taken in just on its own and its own only. He had already, as you alluded to, on its own and its own only. He had already, as you alluded to, Glenn, they had evaluated him, they being the leadership, and attributed to him of casting out demons through the power of Satan himself. Jesus condemned him at that point in time under some judgment, saying that's an unpardonable sin. Whenever you blaspheme the Holy Spirit like that, then it's an unpardonable sin. If this was just something that was on its own, I think maybe something bigger could be made out of it.
Speaker 2:But I think this is all in the consistency of what you led off with here. It's a further condemnation of the leadership of Israel that they're not bearing fruit, they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. He just got through cleansing the temple of the money changers, where we talked about last session, that they're not being true witnesses of Yahweh to the Gentiles and others through the activities that they were doing. So I think, by putting it in context with all the other things that have been going on, it's another sense of judgment that Jesus is placing on this leadership of Israel. And one thing to note is at the end there of 15 or so it says, and the disciples were listening. So you get an indication that this is another teaching moment for the disciples that he's leading at this time.
Speaker 1:Right, right, exactly. I think you hit it spot on. There's been many, many discussions amongst Bible teachers and commenters over the years about whether the fig tree represents Israel and his condemning of the tree was a condemnation of Israel. What I would say is just this I don't think the tree represents Israel and his condemning of the tree was a condemnation of Israel. What I would say is just this I don't think the tree represents Israel. There's not really a spot where a tree in the Old Testament is supposed to represent Israel.
Speaker 1:However, there are several places in the Old Testament where God speaks of Israel not producing fruit. They ought to produce fruit. They don't produce fruit. He uses both the example of both grapes and figs to say this. In Micah 7, 1, and following Jeremiah 8, 13,. Hosea 9, 10,. God says I've examined you. I should see grapes and figs. I'm not seeing grapes and figs. So he's condemning Israel for not producing fruit. That concept is fairly common and at least a precedent back in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:Here, jesus found Israel not producing fruit. He found the temple, a den of robbers seeking money. They should be worshiping and promoting worship of God to the nations. So he judged the money changers. He judged the leaders of Israel, both in cleansing the temple and in not finding fruit on the fruit tree and judging that. So these stories go together. Verse 13 is really one of the keys here. It says he found no fruit on the tree quote for it was not the season for figs.
Speaker 1:Now again, there's been many discussions amongst Bible teachers on. Well, if it wasn't supposed to find figs when it wasn't the season for figs, then what's the point? Well, the point one is this First of all, I had a fig tree all in my yard. My parents planted all the time I was growing up and I'm not sure if our kind of figs are the same as their kind of figs. I suspect they are. But just like any fruit, there's a season for fruit, and fig trees will have a small bud that starts out in the early part of the growing season and it will slowly grow as a very green not very well-tasting green bud that slowly grows and then it gets ripe in fig season. So we would be able to see whether there were these buds there and whether there's going to make fruit. As we're recording this, it's early spring and I can tell you my pear tree this year did not bloom. It has no small buds on it. Later in the year, three, four months from now, when it's supposed to be time for pears I'm not going to have any pears on that tree because it doesn't have any buds on it now, and I can tell you that now. So Jesus would be able to look at this in the early part of the season around again this is around Passover time and tell whether there's no buds here. It's not going to bring fruit. But again, that's missing the point.
Speaker 1:Everything in here has a reason. And he says it was not the season for figs so he condemned it because there's no figs. Well, it wasn't the season for Israel. That's the point. It wasn't the season for Israel to produce fruit. If we look at the nation Israel in its long history, going all the way back to its beginnings in the book of Genesis, all the way up through the Old Testament times and going through the coming out of Israel and the wandering in the wilderness and coming into the promised land in the time of the kings, in the time of the Babylonian captivity and up to this point with Jesus, if we look at that entire history of the nation of Israel, this wasn't the season for fruit history of the nation of Israel. This wasn't the season for fruit. This season had no fruit in it. So he's condemning it because by now they should have had fruit in the nation of Israel. It wasn't the season for figs, it wasn't the season for fruit in Israel. So he condemned it because there's no fruit in the nation. That's the point.
Speaker 1:There's a parable in Luke 13 that Jesus tells Luke 13, verses 6 through 9,. Jesus tells this parable of a landowner who has a fig tree that was not producing figs. In the parable he decides to give it one more chance. We'll give one more year and we're going to dig around it and clear around it and fertilize it. We'll give it one more chance and see if it produces fruit and if it doesn't, then we'll cut it down. That's the picture here. Is he saying is this tree going to make any fruit or not? Jesus says this tree, this tree of Israel, this Israel that should produce fruit, isn't. We're going to take this down. And it says it wizard to the root. The image of Israel was that it ought to have fruit, but in this season of Israel's life it's not producing fruit. What else can we learn from this passage, steve?
Speaker 2:I just want to clarify what you're saying there, glenn. You're saying is that it wasn't the season for Israel to have fruit. What I want to understand is that at this time, as he comes, he should recognize that there should be some sort of blossom or some type of a bloom on there that will turn into an actual fig six months down the road, as he comes to this fig tree, he looks to see and there aren't any type of blooms that are on it. And at the time they say that at certain parts they would eat these blooms, even though they weren't the full fig, in order to satiate themselves in a very small way. But when he comes to it he doesn't see the bloom there, which means automatically, through the illustration of your pear tree, that there weren't going to be any figs there four or five or six months later.
Speaker 2:So as he's looking at that, it's at a time that, even at the blooms, that Israel should at least have blooms, to take the illustration that would prove that it would have fruit later, but he's not even seeing the blooms. Therefore, when the season comes later on, the actual season for the figs to come, he already knows they're not going to produce fruit. So I want to clarify with you that's what you mean by. It's not the season for Israel to produce fruit, meaning that they should at least now have the blooms that show that it's a fruit-bearing fig tree. But he's looking at it and knows that it's not a fruit-bearing fig tree, even though it's not in the actual season for the figs. Is that kind of what you're talking about?
Speaker 1:Exactly All fruit trees, figs included. You don't just pop up suddenly one day and there's fruit. Every fruit tree has some sort of a flower way early in the year. From that flower the petals will fall off. It starts out as a teensy little bud that slowly grows. And on a fig tree those buds start out very small and very green and it's got a white milky sap that tastes kind of nasty. It's not poisonous, it just doesn't taste very good.
Speaker 1:But they start out as a very small bud in the early spring and you can tell, okay, five months from now there's going to be figs and that bud will slowly grow. It's still green. Then over about a two-week period, in the middle of summer it'll turn dark and it'll get sweet. The bitterness goes away, the milky sap disappears and they turn sweet. That's the season for figs. But you could tell as soon as it leaves out you're going to tell whether it's going to make fruit this year or not. So Jesus would be able to walk up to this and if he sees leaves, there ought to be little bitty buds there. That would say there's going to be figs this year. But again, making the analogy to the Jewish leadership, this period in the entire life of the nation. This isn't the season it's going to bear fruit. That's the picture here.
Speaker 2:To follow along with that, then his curse of saying may no one ever eat fruit from you again. He's not keeping the fig tree from producing fruit. It's already a fig tree that's not going to produce fruit. Therefore, the curse that he gives to it is not one of saying you will not produce fruit. It should be producing fruit. It's not and he's just following through and saying okay, you have rejected me. You're not producing fruit the way that Israel should be.
Speaker 2:It's aimed at the leadership we even have in the Old Testament whenever Yahweh is admonishing the priests for not performing the rituals and the sacrifices and leading the people the way that they should be leading them. And this is that same sort of a thing here. I think the leadership is not leading the people in a right way to bring about fruit. So therefore, it's a condemnation or a judgment on the leadership and Israel from that standpoint, from their leadership at the time. But we see that Israelites for sure produce fruit later on, because the first Christians are all Jewish people, they're all people from Israel. All of the disciples, the apostles, paul, all of them are all Israelites. From that perspective, the nation of Israel itself does begin to produce fruit in this current Christian era by starting out with the gospel message of Jesus Christ and who he was in that regard. What do you think on that perspective?
Speaker 1:My response would be if we look at what he says here in this passage he comes up to this fig tree. He says in verse 14, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. Then later the next morning, verse 20,. It says it withered from the roots up. Now the Jews as a people group have never stopped existing as a country in the land. After the Romans drove them out, they weren't in the land, but they've been a people group all the way from Abraham in Genesis 12 all the way to today. Now, as we record this, they're back in the land again, but they've still been a people group all these years. The quote-unquote nation of Israel never ceased, but as a fruit-bearing people they withered away. They withered away when they rejected Jesus Christ. They stopped being a light to the nations, they stopped bearing fruit, if you will, to the world, because they've rejected their Messiah. As such, god has condemned them. He comes and examines the fig tree. He goes into the temple in the same chapter and examines the temple. He sees there's no fruit here. All we have is corruption. He condemns the priests, he condemns the fruit tree. It withers from the roots up. Still there, the nation of Israel as a nation never ceased to exist. It's still there, but as far as bearing fruit, it's withered from the roots up.
Speaker 1:God is working through the church now. What is it going to take for Israel to bear fruit? Well, they're going to have to have their Messiah back and there will come a day when he returns, zechariah 14. He's going to come. He's going to go into Jerusalem and set up his kingdom. That's when the nation is going to resurrect again and start bearing fruit again. So Jesus can resurrect a withered fig tree, just like he can resurrect a withered sinner. Today he can like. The Old Testament says that he can restore what the locusts have eaten, and so Jesus can come back and cause fruit again. But what we're not going to see is Christian fruit coming from a dead Israel. It's just not going to happen. There'll be individual Jewish people today in the church that are bearing fruit, but as a people group they've withered away. Here's the next question, steve what will happen to the church? The church is supposed to bear fruit. Also, what will happen to the church if he comes and inspects the church and the church isn't producing fruit? What would he do to us?
Speaker 2:Well, we have the letters that he wrote to the seven churches in Revelation and he does condemn one of those churches I believe it's the church of Laodicea and he says you're neither hot nor cold and you're lukewarm. And I will spit you out of my mouth. We see that if the church does become lukewarm, that it's not a good thing and that we shouldn't become that way. It's a warning for us, and as we speak today, there are churches across the continents that have left their first love. That's another warning that he gives to the church of Ephesus in those letters of Revelation You've lost your first love.
Speaker 2:In those churches that are in the other continents, they have been abandoned, they have been turned over to nightclubs or to restaurants. The influence of the world has come in and they're no longer the light and salt that they once were centuries ago. We have in our day areas on the globe where the church was light and salt at one time, and now the bulb is very, very dim and there's very little salt that it is producing on that continent. Even in the area where we live, glenn, the light is dimmer than it was just a few decades ago. So it's a warning for us as Christians, members of the body of Christ today that we do not want to give over to the world. We want to continue being the light and the salt of the earth.
Speaker 1:The fruit he expects from the church is to be a light and a salt of the earth. Like you just said, we are supposed to be spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. Yes, we help the poor, yes, we try to be moral to the world, but the point is to introduce them to Jesus Christ. And if we fail to introduce lost sinners to the Word of God and if we fail to introduce lost people to the Lord Jesus, then we are not bearing fruit and he will curse us, jesus, then we are not bearing fruit and he will curse us and he will overturn everything we're doing and he will come and judge us just like he judged Israel. We can stand on no moral high ground that they did if we lose our first love, like you said out of Revelation. In this get the picture he comes to the fig tree, condemns it, goes into the temple and overturns the tables and drives out all the animals and confronts the Jewish leaders. They come in the next morning and Peter, in verse 21, says look, the fig tree withered.
Speaker 1:And Jesus' response is a message about prayer. He has a message about prayer and praying with confidence, praying with faith that you've received it. And he has, in verse 23, the sort of famous comment about casting the mountain into the sea. If you don't have any doubt, then cast a mountain in the sea. I suppose if we wanted to carry the analogy we could say, okay, he says this mountain could be the one they were standing on at the time, which was around Jerusalem, and the sea is often the Gentiles. So if we want to carry it a little farther than it makes me comfortable, then you could carry the analogy into saying if you cast Jerusalem into the sea of the Gentiles. But I think really that's not the point of this section. What I think you could drive out of this section is just that is a lesson on prayer, a lesson on prayer and praying with confidence.
Speaker 1:The lesson here is that when we pray, we should pray for difficult situations. Remember, this was a difficult situation. The people that were supposed to be bearing fruit were not the condemnation and God's wrath was coming. This is a very difficult time. Jesus is saying when you come to difficult times, then pray and pray with confidence that you're going to receive whatever you ask.
Speaker 1:Now, steve, I always tend to want to balance this with other sections of Scripture that talk about prayer when he says here, first of all in this section, he said take up this mountain and cast it into the sea. Well, my first response is far as I know, there's never been a mapmaker in the history of the world that's ever had to redraw a map because a mountain moved. Either Jesus is talking in figurative language here or there's never been a Christian in the entire history of Christianity that's had enough faith to actually move a mountain. I think it's the first one, pretty confident, it's the first one. But what is he really talking about here? What's the message here when he says, if you command this mountain to move, that it will?
Speaker 2:I think that part of what he's talking about here. It said earlier on that the disciples were listening whenever he put the curse what's called the curse on the fig tree. They come back the next day and it has withered. Well, number one, it shows his deity, because he commanded the tree to be cursed and wither away and it did. And his response to Peter is to have faith in God. Then, in verses 25 and 26, which we haven't read yet, but he midst of talking about praying, he says to forgive. He says if you do not forgive, neither will your Father, who is in heaven, forgive.
Speaker 2:What is about to happen in the next few days is that the leadership are going to arrest him, him being Jesus, they're going to beat him, they're going to turn him over to the Gentiles, to the Romans, who are going to scourge him, and they're going to kill him and Jesus is going to rise again for the third day. Mixed up in here is a couple of things I think. Now I could be totally off base on this, but there's going to be some resentment, I think, possibly from Jesus' disciples, that the leadership has led him to have been killed or died and come to this point. They're expecting the kingdom to come. It's not going to happen. Jesus is going to rise again and he's going to ascend. Of course Jesus told them that, but yet there still might be something there of wondering well, what's going to happen to Israel now? Jesus said it was the unpardonable sin for what they've done. They've rejected him. What's going to happen to Israel? Maybe some resentment for them arresting him and turning him over to where he's going to be killed.
Speaker 2:I think in this section, if they're taking his admonishment of the fig tree like we're explaining it here, then he's telling them Israel is going to come back. Don't worry about the nation. God is going to fulfill the promises that he's made to them. And ask for that in your prayers. Don't give up, have faith in God that he's going to come through. And then also, when he finished it up, say forgive. Make sure that when you're praying that you forgive others. If you have something against somebody else, go and straighten that out with them in order for your prayers to continue. Like I said, I could totally be off base there, but I think that's a possibility of what he's trying to get across to these disciples at this particular point in time. It says over and over again that he is teaching them at various places. Possibly this is a teaching moment in regards to what's going to happen and their feelings after he leaves and ascends back into heaven.
Speaker 1:Whatever he's saying. He's saying to have confidence in God. I think that would apply quite well with what you just said, steve. He's saying have confidence in God. You may not know how this is going to work out, but God does, and he's powerful enough to bring it about. Whatever he means here the surface level of it's true, which is when we pray, pray with confidence, but we pray with confidence in God. We don't pray in confidence in our own strength. I think also here, steve, what he's not saying is that, oh, we can just command health and we can command wealth and we get anything our fleshly desires ask for, as long as I have faith to do it.
Speaker 1:I'm reminded of a story. There's a Christian author named Frank Peretti, and he told of a guy in his church that had convinced himself based on passages such as this. This man convinced himself if he had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus did, so he wasn't going to start on the shore, that wouldn't show enough faith. He walked right off the end of the pier and Peretti was laughing at him and his wife says you shouldn't laugh at people like that and he says no, he gets a better spiritual lesson from that dunking. This man was a fool because he did not compare Scripture with Scripture. To walk off the end of the pier into the water will teach you a nice spiritual lesson after your clothes dry out.
Speaker 1:But what are we told? Yes, it's clearly taught right here all things for which you pray and ask. Believe that you've received them and they will be granted you. So that is true. We hold to that because that's what the Lord Jesus said. But let's look at what else the Scripture says.
Speaker 1:John 15, 7, quote If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. And in 1 John 5.14,. This is the confidence we have before him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that if he hears us, we have whatever we ask. So we have to pray to have God's Word in us and ask according to God's will. We can't ask for something sinful and expect God to bless that. I can't ask for, oh God, help me rob a bank or things like that. Or pray for command God to move over and let me sit down. That's just not going to happen. We have to pray in God's will, and if we have God's word in us, then we will pray righteous things. That's what he's assuming here. We can't pray for sinful things and expect God to honor that.
Speaker 1:Psalm 37.4, quote delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. That's the key. So the message is consistent. Old Testament knew here and there is. We ask according to his will, and he hears us In this passage, steve. What do we need to do first? Well, we have to delight ourselves in the Lord, and if we're doing that, then all these other things will fall into place, don't you think?
Speaker 2:Yes, we're told to seek the kingdom first, and everything else will fall into place. That's where we should put our worship is in God. That's where we should put our mindset, that's where our treasure is stored up. It says in heaven. Paul even says that we're citizens of heaven. We're not citizens of the world. I think that we do need to think of where we're ultimately headed and where our life in eternity is going to be, and not be focused on this world, where we are here really literally just for a temporary basis in these bodies for a few decades, whereas in eternity we're going to be in glorified bodies and we're going to be doing much, much different things. We should be thinking about that. If we do that, then the life that we have here on earth, in these bodies, I think, is going to be much better than if we just ignore God altogether.
Speaker 1:Matthew 7.10,. Jesus says that a human son asks his father for a fish, he's not going to give him a snake. Well, that's the same thing here If we ask our father for something good, he's not going to give us something bad. That's the lesson here in Mark. In this section, he says yes, pray for big movements of God. Pray for mountains to move into the sea. Pray in a way that you expect God to do big things. We should pray expecting Him to do big things. As you well pointed out, steve, we have a very large, powerful God that can do all that we ask or think beyond what we ask or think, but he is the one that's going to do it, and not out of my fleshly desires. He is the all-wise one, but he's fully capable of doing hard things. He's fully capable of doing brilliant things and good things, and he will if we just ask Him. We should pray asking and expecting Him to answer our prayers, but we also submit to his will. I just think that's a great lesson.
Speaker 2:We hope that you've enjoyed this session. Stay with us because we're coming in on the end part of Mark. Very exciting things that are coming up in these final days of Jesus. Those are the most important days and they're worth going through verse by verse, as always. Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
