Chapter Twenty - Quick Notes and Facts

• The theme of blindness and the dense disciples is taken from Mark. You can compare this section to chapters 8 to 10 in Mark’s gospel.

Chapter Twenty - Question 5

What is the reaction of the healed men? What is the message of the gospel writer to us?

Chapter Twenty - Question 4

Compare the reaction of the disciples to Jesus’ prediction of the Passion and the blind men. Who recognizes whom and what does that mean for the disciples and for us?

Chapter Twenty - Question 3

Jesus talks about having to ‘drink of the cup’ in his rebuke to the brothers. What is he referring to? What would this symbolism have meant to the early church? What does it mean to us?

Chapter Twenty - Question 2

The mother of James and John asks for something quite natural - a good place for her sons. (“It is not what you know, it is who you know....”) Jesus tries to make a point. What implications do his point have for our accommodation to the prevailing culture?

Chapter Twenty - Question 1

A contract for wages is a legal agreement. What is Jesus saying about our ‘contract’ with God? How does it strike you? Who do you side with in this dispute?

Chapter Nineteen - Quick Notes and Facts

• In the Mosaic law, divorce is permitted. In ancient Judaism, only the husband could initiate a divorce. Women had no way to contest a divorce. Unless her family of birth took her back, she would have no support. Husbands controlled the children; a divorced woman had no access to them.


• The ‘Matthean exception’ is unique to this account of Jesus’ teaching on divorce. The Greek word is porneia, from which we get the word pornography. But scholars don’t know from the context exactly what the word means here.
  
  It means "uncleanness", but is the meaning "unlawful degrees of relationship", or "adultery" or some other sort of perverse behavior? Much ink has been spilled, but we don't know what the original author of the gospel intended in using this word. (Remember that porneia is a Greek word, while Jesus spoke in Aramaic. So, the specific meaning could easily have been lost in translation.)


• The inclusion of a teaching on celibacy here is very much outside the mainstream of Jewish thought. (The first command in the Scriptures is to “be fruitful and multiply” so the expectation was that everyone would eventually marry.) However, there were Jewish sects, like the Essenes, who practiced sexual continence. Also, in the ancient world, castration was a common practice, especially of slaves. Jews found this completely abhorrent, but Jesus’ contemporaries would have undoubtedly have met or seen eunuchs.

Chapter Nineteen - Question 5

Is the advice given to the Rich Young Man intended for anyone else? (Like us?)

Chapter Nineteen - Question 4

Do you see exaggeration and hyperbole in this chapter? If so, what is an exaggerated point and what should we take as a literal guide for living?

Chapter Nineteen - Question 3

Twice in this chapter Jesus mentions the renunciation of marriage and family. Why does this have a place in the Kingdom?

Chapter Nineteen - Question 2

Look at the question of divorce from the perspective of 'what is just?' Does this change how you view this text?

Chapter Nineteen - Question 1

What are your reactions in reading the teaching on marriage and divorce?

Chapter Eighteen - Quick Notes and Facts

• Gehenna was the Jerusalem garbage dump, and fires burned there almost continuously to get rid of the refuse. No one chose to live there, since it had been the site of Canaanite human sacrifices (usually of young children.) That reluctance to live there continued into the twentieth century. However, in modern Jerusalem, it is now a residential neighborhood.


• Observant Jews tried to avoid all conversation with Gentiles and public sinners like tax collectors. They would certainly avoid touching them and never eat with them.


• The number seven is one signifying completion, not a quota. Jesus’ multiplication of that number is a kind of hyperbole, and a reflection of God’s endless mercy.


• Being sold into slavery was a very common way to settle debts.

Chapter Eighteen - Question 3

What are the implications for disciples of Jesus’ teaching on temptation, sin and forgiveness?

Chapter Eighteen - Question 2

Read through this chapter and note all the times that Jesus uses exaggeration to make his point. What were the reasons for this? What do you think the effects are?

Chapter Eighteen - Question 1

Jesus makes some radical statements about ‘citizenship’ in the kingdom. Pair this section with the one right before it in chapter 17. What is Jesus trying to say about God’s vision for us?

Chapter Seventeen - Quick Notes and Facts

• Elijah left the earth in a fiery chariot, according to 2 Kings 2:11, rather than just dying. In legend, Elijah is supposed to come back again before the Messiah returns. For this reason, a place is always set for Elijah a Passover seders, in hope that the Messiah is to come quickly.


• Both Moses and Elijah received revelations from God on holy mountains.


• Matthew's accounts of the predictions of Jesus' Passion are met with grief. In Mark, the original account, it seems that the disciples never quite ‘get' what Jesus is trying to tell them.

Chapter Seventeen - Question 3

Look at the scene where Jesus cures the boy the disciples could not. What went wrong with their approach?

Chapter Seventeen - Question 4

See if you can spot the political sarcasm in the story of the temple tax. What point is Jesus trying to make about their ‘status' in the Kingdom?

Chapter Seventeen - Question 2

What are the parallels and differences between the account of the Transfiguration and the appearances of the Risen Lord?

Chapter Seventeen - Question 1

Put yourself into the scene of the Transfiguration. What would you have seen, heard, felt, thought?

Chapter Sixteen - Quick Notes and Facts

• "Adultery" is a motif used often to describe the faithlessness of the people and their attraction to other gods. At various points, when the people stray from the God of Israel, God's reaction is like a spurned spouse. (See Exodus 32.)


• Yeast was seen as a corrupting agent. While it was handy to make bread rise, it is still bacteria (although they didn't know it) and a yeast starter that went bad was a green, moldy mess. During the Passover, Jews eat nothing with yeast. This is to remember the unleavened bread of the Exodus, but also is a sign of a pure people, uncorrupted by foreign elements.


• Elijah and Jeremiah were both important prophets. Elijah was expected to return to earth, since in tradition he didn't die, but left the earth in a fiery chariot.


• The ‘commission to Peter' in verse 18 is the primary foundation for the organization of the Catholic church. This verse, in Latin, (Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portæ inferi non prævalebunt adversus eam) is inscribed in the dome of St. Peter's basilica in the Vatican.

Chapter Sixteen - Question 3

Jesus gives Peter a particular status in his commission to him, ...on this rock I will build my church.

What significance does this have for the church? For you?

Chapter Sixteen - Question 2

The next section is borrowed from Mark and is the central piece of Mark's gospel. As you read it ask yourself:

• What does Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God mean to him? What does it mean to you?


• Jesus answers that to follow him means to follow him to the cross. How does this strike the disciples? How does it strike you?


• What do you think ...those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it means to us as 21st century Americans?

Chapter Sixteen - Question 1

What is Jesus' approach to "signs and wonders?" How do you think that miracles fit into his ministry? (Did he work miracles to prove anything?)