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
S43 || Jesus Challenges Religious Authority || Mark 12:1-11 Pt 2 || Session 43 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
The confrontation between Jesus and the religious authorities reaches a crescendo in Mark 12 with the parable of the wicked vinedressers—a story that's both a judgment and a prophecy.
Standing in the temple courts, Jesus speaks with unmistakable authority as he tells of a landowner who prepared a vineyard with meticulous care, only to have his servants abused and his son murdered by those entrusted with its care. The symbolism cuts through centuries of religious pretense: God created Israel, nurtured it, protected it, and expected fruitful service. The prophets he sent were rejected, beaten, and killed. Now the Son stands before them, and the religious leaders are plotting the very crime Jesus describes in his parable.
What makes this exchange particularly remarkable is the religious leaders' response. Scripture tells us "they knew he was speaking about them"—yet rather than repenting, they immediately begin plotting his arrest. The parable becomes self-fulfilling as they conspire to become the very characters Jesus portrays them to be.
This powerful teaching carries profound implications for spiritual leadership in every generation. The vineyard always belongs to God—never to those temporarily entrusted with its care. When leaders forget they are stewards rather than owners, disaster follows. The cornerstone meant to support everything is rejected, while those who should recognize divine authority instead oppose it.
The parable serves as both warning and invitation. While judgment comes to unfaithful stewards, the vineyard itself remains. God's purposes continue through new caretakers, and the rejected stone becomes the foundation of something greater. This masterful teaching reveals Jesus not merely as prophet but as the beloved Son with unique authority to speak for the Father and establish his kingdom.
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If you were with us last time on Reasoning Through the Bible, we were in Mark, chapter 12, where Jesus is telling the parable of the wicked vinedressers. He is in the temple and he's turning up the heat. In his confrontation with the Jewish leadership. Jesus is forcing their hand. In this parable he is speaking as God did to Isaiah back in Isaiah, chapter 5, with this parable of the vineyard. So let's go ahead and read it again and there's some things in here that we can draw out. He began to speak to them in parables.
Speaker 1: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. 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. They took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent them another slave and they wounded him in the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and that one they killed. So with many others beating some and killing others, and he had one more to send, a beloved son. He sent him last of all to them, saying they will respect my son.
Speaker 1:But those vine growers said to one another this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. They took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine growers and will give the vineyard to others. Have you not read even the scriptures? The stone With this, again, jesus is very clearly speaking to the religious leaders, speaking as God would in judgment over Israel. Now, in this we have several characters in this parable. So Steve, who is the landowner representing Steve McLaughlin.
Speaker 2:The landowner is God himself. That's the representation, and the vineyard is the house of Israel that he has left them to be caretakers over.
Speaker 1:Very clearly the vineyard is the land of Israel. We saw that last time and in this. What good things in the parable does the landowner do for the vineyard?
Speaker 2:Well, he cultivates it and he provides the places for them. He builds a vat, he builds a tower and he provides the places for them. He builds a vat, he builds a tower, as we noticed in Isaiah from our last session. So he has done even some of the cultivation for this vineyard and provided it to them and left them with the duty to then take it from that point and continue it so that it will produce good fruit. That's the expectation.
Speaker 1:This was a fairly common thing throughout history. Even up into our day, there's people that will rent land and farm it and give the owner of the land a percentage of the crop. This happens periodically in many lands throughout history, so it's not unusual to have a story like this. But the landowner it was his land, he was the one that purchased the land, planted the vineyard, put a hedge around it to protect it, built a tower in it the tower would be so someone could climb up and look over the lands to see what was going on, so you could monitor what's going on put in good grapes and provided the slaves or the servants work to do, and provided the slaves or the servants work to do. This was, of course, very similar to what God did. How do we take those things in the parable and apply them to what God did for the nation Israel? What has God done for the nation Israel?
Speaker 2:A better question would be what has God not done for the nation of Israel?
Speaker 2:He took them, he created them. We go back into the history We've gone through this several times and even when we went through Genesis itself. The nation of Israel is a creation of God. It's not something that was built out of other nations. He didn't take somebody from another nation and then work with it. No, he took a person, abraham, and built a nation of Israel out of his lineage.
Speaker 2:Through that, they went into slavery. He brought them out of slavery from Egypt, which was great miracles that happened there. During that time he fed them and nourished them through all of those years. He brought them into their land that was promised to them and he took care of them there. We saw that through the book of Judges that when other tribes or nations would oppress them, they would cry out. He would give them a judge in order to conquer those other intruding nations. Then they would have some time of peace until they decided to do what was right in their own minds. Then, as the time of the kings came in, he was with the kings and he was with them, even as with. Some of the kings were good, some of the kings were bad, but through all of that, he was with them and always promised to be with them.
Speaker 2:Yes, there were times of judgment. They were taken off into captivity by Assyria and then Babylon, but he also promised to bring them back, and he did bring them back. The city was rebuilt, the temple was rebuilt. Then afterwards, at the time of Jesus here we're going to see later, after they kill him, there's judgment on the city of Jerusalem again and the temple that's torn down in 70 AD, but God has brought them back in the mid-20th century.
Speaker 2:The question is not what has God done for them. The question is what has he not done for them? He's done everything to nourish them, even though time and time again, they have rejected him in different ways, and there's other periods, though, whenever they had great love for him. So this is we see a relationship from the nation of Israel with God. As to our relationship with God, that sometimes we have valleys that we go through, where we maybe walk away from God for a while, but we come back. But God is forever faithful to us and to believers. It's something that we can take. Israel is that example, and that's what they were supposed to be was the example to all the other nations.
Speaker 1:If we take the items in the parable, we can make a clear parallel with Israel, and we can make a clear parallel with what God does in our lives as well. God created this vineyard in the parable. Well, he created the nation Israel from nothing. He chose Abraham and said I'm going to build a nation from you. He took them into Egypt but then took them out of slavery. He left them in Egypt for hundreds of years, while the people of Canaan were building cities, planting vineyards. You know, it takes a while to build cities. It takes a while for grapevines to grow to maturity so they can bear fruit. Well, god told the people of Israel I'm going to give you cities that you didn't build and I'm going to give you vineyards that you didn't plant. I'm going to give you a land flowing with milk and honey. God built this land and then put Israel in it.
Speaker 1:In the parable, the other thing the landowner did was he put a hedge around it. Well, the hedge is a hedge of protection. God said I will protect you from your enemies. All you have to do is be faithful to me and love me. Well, god protected them as long as they were faithful. The times that they were not faithful, he removed the hedge and allowed the enemy in as judgment. He then forgave them many times. He gave them the covenants. He gave them the law In the parable.
Speaker 1:The other thing that the landowner did was built a tower. Well, what's a tower for? A tower was so you could climb up and the landowner could look over his land and see a long way away what was going on at each corner of his large property. That's what God does. He watches over us in our lives. He watched over Israel and he knew what was going on in Israel. He would keep track of Israel and know when they were in trouble and when he needed to help.
Speaker 1:He also dug the wine vat. The wine press was the container that would be able to hold the fruit. You know you're trying to make grape wine. So that was what God did. He provided a way for Israel to be fruitful. Just like he provides a way for us to be fruitful, he builds a hedge around us in our lives. So this parable applies to the nation Israel and to us. God is a good landowner, but in the parable he goes away and the vines then mature and it's time for the fruit. So in the parable, the landowner knows when it's time for harvest? Does God know when it's time for us to bear?
Speaker 2:fruit. He always does, and the expectation is for us to bear fruit. If we are not doing that, then that shows that there's a disconnect between us and God. Now the question is, what exactly is bearing fruit? Is that just bringing other people into a relationship with God? I think it's more than that. I think Scripture tells us it's more than that it's being kind and generous to other fellow Christians. Jesus, even in the earlier verses, said if you just give a cup of water to a fellow believer, you won't lose your reward. Bearing fruit is being a light to the world, being salt of the earth. It's not just leading others to Jesus Christ, it's being Christ-like to the world. It's being a servant to the world, just as Christ was a servant.
Speaker 1:In the parable. The landowner knew when it was time for the fruit to come in, and he sent servants to collect his profits. He knew when the time for the fruit to come in and he sent servants to collect his profits. He knew when the time for the fruit to bear who were the slaves that he sent to collect the fruit.
Speaker 2:The slaves that he sent were the prophets that he sent periodically throughout their history.
Speaker 1:Exactly. God sent a series of prophets in the Old Testament giving a message to the people of Israel. And then how did the people of Israel treat the prophets? Well, they rejected them. Some of them they killed. They were treated poorly. God kept sending these messengers to Israel because he expected them to bear fruit. Well, likewise God expects us to bear fruit. What will happen if we in our lives and we in the church don't bear fruit? Are we immune from God's judgment? Is it true that God would judge Israel for not bearing fruit, but he's going to let us off the hook.
Speaker 2:No, we're going to be disciplined, just as Israel was disciplined all throughout that history, as they rejected the prophets on some of the areas. We saw God disciplining the nation of Israel quite often throughout their history. So, no, we're not going to get away with it. We're going to suffer the same type of discipline that Israel did if we get off of the wayward path somewhere and do things that are right in our own eyes.
Speaker 1:God has given us as Christians, as individuals, an assignment, and he also gave the church at large an assignment. The end of the book of Matthew he gave the great commission go and make disciples. That's our job is to go and make disciples. We expect to bear fruit, which is the lives of people that are changed through the gospel of Jesus. If we're doing that, when he returns, then we are blessed. If he sends a servant or he comes back and we don't have fruit, then we will get judged. We can have no more standing than Israel did.
Speaker 1:Israel was expected to bear fruit and we, as Christians in the church, are expected to bear fruit. Now our salvation in Christ is secure, but we can still be judged as individuals. We will face the judgment seat of Christ. When he goes and says have you borne fruit while I was away? That's what we can expect, because he says it over and over in the Gospels. He sends these servants out to gather fruit and in the parable, the people beat them and he says, last of all, he sent his son. Well, obviously, who's the son in the?
Speaker 2:parable, the son is Jesus Christ. It's his beloved son, as in the parable and as the baptism of Jesus. When the Holy Spirit came down as a dove, you heard the voice say this is my beloved son. At the Mount of Transfiguration, you heard the voice which was God, the Father, saying this is my beloved son. So obviously the beloved son in the parable is Jesus himself.
Speaker 1:In the parable. He sent these series of servants to go collect the fruit, and the wicked vinedressers beat them, killed them, threw them out. He kept sending them and they kept rejecting the servants that he sent. It says, last of all, he sent his beloved son. There's no more the landowner could do. He did everything he could to reach out to these wicked vinedressers. And that's the picture of Israel and God. It's the picture of us and God.
Speaker 1:God has sent many messengers over the years with many messages telling us what he expects from us, and we turn a deaf ear to it. Last of all, he sent his son, and we are judged by how we treat his son. It says he was his beloved son and it says, last of all, so there's no more prophets that we can expect, no more messengers from God after Jesus Christ, no more apostles after the ones, because the message has been sent. The final message from God has been sent through Jesus Christ, and we are judged by how we treat him here. Jesus is the beloved son, the heir in the parable, and we are judged by how we treat him.
Speaker 1:If we look at verse 7, jesus claims to be the heir of the Lord God. He claims to be the heir of God. It's very clear Jesus is making himself out to be the heir in this parable. The claim to be the Son of God the heir is a claim for deity. By Jesus standing up in the temple, speaking to the Sanhedrin, picking up the same message that Yahweh had spoken through the prophet Isaiah, and calling himself the Son the heir, was very clear in their ears to be making a claim for deity, the unique deity. He was claiming to be the Son of God, which is God deity. He was claiming to be the Son of God, which is God. Jesus is also claiming to be the last prophet sent to Israel, the final messenger sent from God. This is quite profound. Again, steve, how is this going to land on the ears of the chief priests?
Speaker 2:It's going to hit them like a brick wall, to use that phrase, because in verse 12, it says they knew that he was talking about them. So, as we talked about in the last session, the background of this is the verses from Isaiah, chapter 5, verses 1 through 7. They knew exactly what Jesus was doing here and he has actually expanded on Isaiah through all the things that you have just been talking about in this session. It's hitting them hard, but we also see their reaction to it because they themselves are doing exactly what he says. In verse 7, they go out and turn to plot to kill him. It's just mind-boggling to me how direct Jesus is with them in this parable. In verse 7, the vineyard owner sent his son and the leaders, the vine growers, say we'll kill him and then it's going to be all ours.
Speaker 2:Verse 12, it says they knew that he was talking about them and they turn around and plot to kill him. I don't know how to explain it. It's just a picture of where they were. They're just nowhere connected to Jesus and who he is. They're so engrossed in their own abilities and, I guess, power-hungry. I guess you might be able to put it. But the parallel from the parable itself and to them is astounding. Last thing, remember, glenn, before he said I'm speaking parables to them so that they won't understand. But we saw that the disciples. They came to Jesus and said please explain it to us and he would explain the parable to them. Well, that's not the case with this parable. It's right out in the front. They understand this and Jesus said it in such a way that they would understand it.
Speaker 1:It's a direct challenge back to them as to what he is saying to them with this parable Back earlier in the book of Mark, jesus had healed people on the Sabbath and the religious leaders were plotting to kill him because of this. And we pointed out at the time, the irony was Jesus was doing something good healing somebody on the Sabbath. The priests didn't like that. They decided it was okay for them to plot murder on the Sabbath. So they had been looking for ways to kill him and again plotting murder even on the Sabbath day. They thought that was okay. Well, for several chapters now, the Jewish leaders have been looking for a way to kill him, and the reason why they had come to him in this conversation in the first place was because they were trying to trap him in his language so they could kill him. And he's then turning that back on them, saying this parable that you're trying to kill me.
Speaker 1:And, as you pointed out, steve, they're so blind with their own purposes, their own power-hungerness that they really don't understand what is going on. They don't stop and think. Now we have to ask ourselves why they would say some of these things. For example, in the parable they're saying ah, this is the heir. If we kill him, then we can inherit the vineyard. Well, why would they say that? How could a hired worker think okay, we're just going to kill the heir and it'll be ours. The only way they could think that is if they're convinced that the owner is absent and never coming back, wouldn't you think, steve? Otherwise, it's just not making any sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a nonsensical statement to me, glenn. As you put it up, their only thought process could be well, we've gotten away with killing all the prophets before the other ones that he sent and we still have the vineyard. So now we have the son. He won't send anybody else. If we take care of the son and kill him, then the owner of the vineyard will just stop sending people and the vineyard will be ours. That's the only thing I can think of. They just have gotten to the point where they don't understand whose vineyard it really is and that they are the attendants of the vineyard. They're the vine growers, they're not the owner of the vineyard. But now they've taken it upon themselves to think oh well, now we're going to own the vineyard itself. They're just fooling with the danger and trying to take over this vineyard that isn't even theirs, it's God's vineyard.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it, that's God's vineyard had convinced themselves that the country was ours, that they could make the decisions, they could make the theological decisions, and that they were really in charge, when really they weren't. Really. They were hired workers under God and needed to submit to God whatever he might command them to do. Jesus is judging them because of this. Now, I think this application. We are not immune to this. Today we have church leaders, pastors, who do not realize that they are really hired shepherds and the flock is not theirs. I've heard and met pastors who are convinced that they were the ones that were really in charge, when really they're hired workers and the flock is not theirs to manage.
Speaker 1:People have a flaw in us in that power becomes appealing to us and when we get in positions of power, we don't realize how, drawn away, the power can pull us in the sense of pulling us into sin and the sin of pride and the sin of covening large positions of power. It happens over and over with pastors. What did Jesus say? If you want to be first, you have to be last. If you want to be the greatest of all, you have to be last. If you want to be the greatest of all, you have to be the servant of all. So it's a great crime to have a pastor who is not submitting to the Lord Jesus in the sense of being humble and being contrite and considering himself the servant of all and not the leader of all. These things apply so well even to our day.
Speaker 1:In verse 7 and 8, Jesus knows that he's going to be killing him even before they do it. The son is thrown out of the city in the parable, thrown out of the vineyard where Jesus was killed on a cross outside the city. The leaders of Israel were rejecting Jesus entirely, throwing him out of Israel. In verse 9, Steve, what does the landowner do?
Speaker 2:in the parable. It says in verse 9 that he's going to come and destroy the vine growers. He's not going to destroy the vineyard, he's going to destroy the vine growers. He's going to bring a judgment on them.
Speaker 1:What did God do not long after this exact conversation, when Jesus died and rose again? What did God do with the leaders of Israel?
Speaker 2:Well, approximately 40 years later, in AD 70, jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was destroyed and, as Jesus predicted, not one stone of the temple stood upon another. Then the people of Israel, the Jews themselves, were finally dispersed after a final revolt around 130 or 135 AD, and dispersed out of the land altogether.
Speaker 1:The question then becomes what does he mean in the parable when he says give the vineyard to others? Because that's what the parable says he's going to destroy them. And he's speaking to these leaders basically saying he's going to destroy you and give the vineyard to others. The question then comes is what exactly does he mean by that? There's three or four logical possibilities, but it seems to me, steve, the one that is the most applicable here is that he's taking away Israel's right to be the primary representatives of Yahweh on earth. The primary representatives of God on earth is no longer Israel, it's now the church.
Speaker 2:Let me start with Romans, chapter 3, to back up and support what you just said, glenn. Romans, chapter 3, verse 1, it says then, what advantage has the Jew? And then in verse 2, it says great in every respect. First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God. So that is what he's talking about. I don't think this has anything to do with the land promises that was given to Abraham and his descendants. This is talking about the responsibility that they have to produce fruit and to be examples to all the other nations.
Speaker 2:You know we talked earlier that God took and created the nation out of nothing. He took a man by the name of Abraham and built the nation from that Same thing, in a way with the body of Christ, or what we call the church. Glenn, at Peter's confession, when Jesus asked him, who do men say that I am? And Peter's confession of you are the Messiah, the son of the living God, jesus said what he said on that statement I will build my church.
Speaker 2:The church is a new concept to the disciples and it's a new thing. And later we find out that Paul describes it as it's just these Jewish believers and Gentile believers coming together to become the body of Christ. This is something that has been created by Jesus, not created by us. So now we're entrusted us being believers that are in this body of Christ, we're entrusted to go out and spread the word to produce fruit. I think that's exactly what he is talking about here when he says I'm going to bring judgment on you, the vine growers, and now I'm going to turn this vineyard of producing fruit to the rest of the world over to another entity.
Speaker 1:And I think that's exactly right. I think we also need to consider the other promises that God made to Israel. We covered back in Genesis the land promise, which was unconditional and eternal. We saw that in several places in Genesis, including Genesis, chapter 17. That in several places in Genesis, including Genesis, chapter 17. Those promises are still intact because God promised them to be still intact.
Speaker 1:We also hold yes, it's true that God is judging Israel here for rejecting Jesus Christ, but they rejected God throughout their history. They rejected God all the way back to Abraham, isaac and Jacob. They rejected God with the golden calf. They rejected God all through Judges and all through the time of the kings. There was a repeated, almost monotonous cycle of Israel disobeying and God judging them, and God returning because he was faithful. We saw that over and over and over again. So, yes, they rejected Jesus Christ. Yes, he is now working through the church and not Israel, but the promises that God made in the unconditional covenants we take are still in place. The Jewish leaders, though, knew exactly what he's talking about here. He goes on to say in verse 10, the stone which the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone. Well, what, steve, is the significance of a cornerstone?
Speaker 2:The cornerstone sets the building itself the directions off of that 90-degree angle of the cornerstone so that everything is going to be square with the building. It all goes off of the cornerstone. If the cornerstone is not correct or set in the right place, then the building is not going to be square or correct and it's not going to be in the right place If the cornerstone is perfect, then the building can be built perfect.
Speaker 1:If the cornerstone is a little off, then by the time you get to the rest of the building, it's going to be off as well. The cornerstone sets the level, sets the square, sets the directions of the building, and if you have a cornerstone that's off, the rest of the building's going to be off. The builders always look for a cornerstone that's perfect. Well, what this is not saying? It is not saying that the builders found this imperfect stone that they're going to use. No, no. What it means is the builders overlooked the perfect stone. That was the cornerstone. That's what he's saying here in verse 10. The stone which the builders rejected became the cornerstone. The builders rejected the perfect stone, the cornerstone, because the builders were flawed. That's the point here, not the cornerstone.
Speaker 1:When people today consider Jesus, how do they respond? Do they find Jesus imperfect and pass him over, or do they see him as, wow, he is the cornerstone. I could build my life upon that and I submit, both those reactions happen. Today. There are people that consider Jesus and pass him over, but if we take a closer look, he is the perfect cornerstone. If we use him as our cornerstone of our lives, then now we can build something in our lives. He can build something in our lives that's straight and true and level. But if we try to pass him up, then we're going to have a cornerstone that's crooked and unlevel and our building is going to collapse.
Speaker 1:Verse 11, to wrap this up, says this came about from the Lord, from Yahweh. The fact that Jesus would be rejected and die on the cross was God's plan from the very beginning. The Lord knew that Israel would be disobedient and reject Christ. He provided a way for him to die and people make their way back to God through Jesus' death on the cross. He knew that you and I would be rebellious and disobedient, yet he still loves us. He sent his beloved son, his only son, and what we do with him is determine our eternal fate. We can either realize that we've been wrong in the past for rejecting the past prophets and accept the Son, or we can decide to take over the vineyard for ourselves and kill the air and in case we will be crushed by the cornerstone. Steve, there's such a great, great spiritual truth in this simple parable.
Speaker 2:The text in verses 10 and 11 come from Psalm 118. So I encourage our listeners to go and read Psalm 118 to get a full picture of what Jesus is referring to here in these last verses that we've been discussing.
Speaker 1:So next time we're going to see the failure of the scribes and Pharisees to ask Jesus questions, so he's going to turn it back on them. So tune in next time as we continue to reason through the Gospel of Mark.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
