Anchor My Faith

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Author: Stephen Weller
476 words, 3 minutes read time

The Desire To Destroy Jesus

Scripture: Matthew 21:16-17; Mark 11:18-19; Luke 21:37-38

We closed the previous lesson with Jesus prepared to respond to the complaint of the chief priest and the scribe. In this lesson we will hear that response.

 ^{Mt 21:16} And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”

In his response to the chief priest and scribe’s complaint over the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”, Jesus acknowledges the children’s praise and links it to Psalm 8:2. These Jewish religious leaders should have known that the children’s praise applied to God, thus confirming Jesus as the Messiah. They were unable to or maybe not willing to accept the fact that Jesus was God the Word, the Son of God.

^{Mk 11:18} And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

With an apparent display of power, Jesus cleansed the temple of the commerce that was taking place there, allowing the people to gather around him as he taught and healed those who came with needs, and in so doing, Jesus was providing a blessing for the people and God was receiving praise. However, the Jewish leadership didn’t care about the people, but instead sought financial gain and glory from the people resulting in their suffering. Jesus cleansed the temple, allowing prayer and worship to return, but the chief priest and scribes were not willing to be cleansed themselves and instead sought to destroy the one who could cleanse them by removing their sin.

^{Mk 11:19} And when evening came, they went out of the city ^{Mt 21:17} to Bethany and lodged there.”

At the end of each day Jesus and the disciples went to Bethany to stay the night. Luke records that they “lodged on the mount called Olivet” (Luke 21: 37), which would be just outside of Bethany.

^{Lk 21:37} And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. ³⁸ And early in the morning all the people came to him in the temple to hear him.”

When trying to establish a single harmonized narrative from several sources, small issues like this one are easily spotted. Since Bethany and the mount called Olivet are so close together the identification could have been either.

Conclusion

This lesson brings us to the end of Monday. We need to get a good night’s rest because Tuesday is packed with 27 events that will require several months of lessons.