টীকা বর্তমানে শুধুমাত্র ইংরেজিতে উপলব্ধ। বাংলা অনুবাদ চলছে।
Mark 12 — Thou Shalt Love the Lord Thy God With All Thy Heart
Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants who killed the owner's son. Pharisees try to trap Him on Roman tribute; He asks for a coin — render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Sadducees pose a riddle about resurrection; He silences them from the burning bush. A scribe asks the greatest commandment; He gives two — love God, love neighbour. Watching the treasury, He sees a widow throw in two mites and declares she has given more than all the rich.
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
— Mark 12:30-31
- v.1-12 The wicked tenants
- v.13-17 Tribute to Caesar
- v.18-27 God of the living
- v.28-34 The greatest commandment
- v.35-40 David's Son and Lord; beware the scribes
- v.41-44 The widow's two mites
A masterstroke. The coin bears Caesar's image; give it back. But man bears God's image (Genesis 1:27); give yourself to Him. The Pharisees' question shrinks; Christ's answer expands.
Christians have two sets of obligations — civic and divine — and the civic ones are real (Romans 13:1-7). But the second clause is the larger; what we owe to God is everything, because everything we are bears His stamp.
Christ argues for the resurrection from Exodus 3:6 — God called Himself Abraham's God long after Abraham's death. If God still owns him as His own, Abraham is not extinguished. The dead in Christ remain alive in Him.
The Sadducees rejected the resurrection because their theology had narrowed; Christ rebukes them by widening their reading. They had missed what was already in their Bible. A wrong theology of the future often grows from a thin theology of God.
Christ's answer to the greatest commandment is the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) with one addition — mind. The whole person is summoned. Religion that engages only one or two faculties has missed the command.
Heart, soul, mind, strength — affection, deepest being, thought, action. Where any one is reserved, the love is not whole. The commandment is impossibly large; it drives us back to Christ, who alone fulfilled it and gives the Spirit to begin doing it.
The accounting of heaven. The rich measured by their gifts a small fraction of what they kept; the widow measured by what she had left. She gave less but gave more, because she gave from poverty rather than abundance.
God notices the sacrifice more than the sum. Two mites slipped in unseen by the world were the loudest sound in the temple that day, because Christ watched. He still watches.
Verse 30 is the only legitimate aim of a life. Notice it includes the mind — Christianity is not anti-intellectual. Ask which of the four (heart, soul, mind, strength) is most reserved from God in your life. That is the next ground for surrender. The commandment is impossibly large precisely so that you will run to Christ for what you cannot produce, and then begin slowly — by His Spirit — to love with the whole.
Every challenge in Mark 12 is an attempt to dethrone Christ; He answers each one and stands. The cornerstone the builders reject becomes the keystone of God's house. The Caesar coin bears an emperor's image; we bear His. The God of Abraham is the God of the living because Christ would soon rise. The two commandments are summed in His person — He loved the Father wholly and laid down His life for His neighbours. The widow gave her two mites; He gave Himself.
Psalm 118:22, applied to Himself. The rejecting builders are the religious leaders before Him. The stone they discard becomes the cornerstone of God's building. The cross is the act of rejection; the resurrection is the cornerstone-setting.
Wherever Christ is being refused by the official gatekeepers, watch for God to make Him the foundation of something they did not foresee. Their rejection does not unseat Him; it positions Him.