The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 12

 What a jam-packed, action-filled chapter this is!

How many different groups of people all came at Yeshua, one after the other! But our Lord and Saviour had a good answer to all of them!

    Yeshua was walking in the Temple courts with his talmidim the morning after he had overturned the moneylenders' tables. The first ones to approach Him and ask Him by what authority He had done that were the Torah-teachers, the elders and the head cohanim. He put them firmly in their place; He then began to teach and they sought to have him arrested, but refrained for fear of the crowds, who were following Him.

    Then they sent some of the Pharisees - please note that there were 22 different sects of Pharisees and 7 kinds; Pharisees are the ones who have guarded the Oracles of God for thousands of years - there were many good people among them, for example, Nicodemus - together with some members of Herod's party to try and trip Him up by asking difficult questions. Again, He bested them with His knowledge and understanding of Torah.

    Then some Saducees came to Him and tried to do the same with a different question, but again our Lord showed by His answer their lack of understanding of the God's Torah.

Then one of the Torah-teachers came and asked Him:

V27 - 31

    "Which is the most important mitzvah of them all?"

    Yeshua answered:

    "The most important is, 'Sh'ma Yisrae'el, ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad (Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one), and your are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your undersanding and with all your strength.' - 1

    The second is this:

    'You are to love your neighbour as yourself'. - 2

`    There is no other mitzvah greater than these."

Reference 1: Deuteronomy 6:4-6

Reference 2: Leviticus 19:18

    The Sh'ma is the cornerstone of our faith - "why?" you might ask?

Let's go and look at the text of Deuteronomy 6, which was part of this week's Torah portion.

Devarim 6:1-7 (Moses is giving his farewell speech to the children of Israel):

    "Now this is the mitzvah, the laws and rulings which ADONAI your God ordered me to teach you for you to obey in the land you are crossing over to possess, so that you will fear ADONAI your God and observe all his regulations and mitzvot that I am giving you - you, your child and your grandchild - as long as you live, and so that you will have long life. Therefore listen, Israel, and take care to obey, so that things will go well with you, and so that you will increase greatly, as ADONAI, the God of your ancestors, promised you by giving you a land flowing with milk and honey.

'Sh'ma Yisrae'el! ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad (Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one), and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your being and with all your resources.' - *

These words which I command you today, shall be on your heart, and you are to teach them carefully to your children. You are to talk about them when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up."

    * The slight difference in wording between Mark and Deuteronomy is not a conflict, it is an elucidation.

So Moses, by the command of God, told the Israelites that he was about to give them God's most important commandment. Then he named the Shema. Yeshua agrees with Moses in the Scripture from Mark!

    In this chapter alone, Yeshua quotes the Torah seven times. It's impossible to think that He came to do away with it or nail it to the cross - God forbid. Paul tells us that the Torah is good. Yeshua is the living Torah. The Word become flesh.

    Also notice that Yeshua is teaching in the Temple. He was recognised as a Rabbi by the Jewish religious leaders, because he was a Jew - He still is a Jew and He is coming back as the King of the Jews. We need to know his true identity if we want to identify Him when He returns.

    He was teaching in parables, a common rabbinic method of teaching. The Talmud is full of parables. We can even recognise Yeshua's words in some of them.

    You might ask: "What about the other commandments? The ten commandments?"

    These two - the Sh'ma and love your neighbour - are the two coathangers that all the other commandments hang on.

Lastly, when a verse of Torah or Tanakh is quoted, one needs to go and read the verses before and after it to get a sense of the context of how and when the words were spoken, or written. 

    Perhaps we could do that, go and read up all of these 7 Torah references and read the whole chapter around each one. Perhaps it will open the words more fully. We could all do with a bit more understanding of God's word.

Blessings in Yeshua for a lovely week!