M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The question about Jesus’ authority

20 On one of those days, while Jesus was teaching the people in the Temple, and announcing the good news, the chief priests and the scribes came up with the elders, and said to him, ² “Tell us: by what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority?”

³ “I’ve got a question for you, too,” said Jesus, “so tell me this: ⁴ was John’s baptism from God, or was it merely human?”

⁵ “If we say it was from God,” they said among themselves, “he’ll say, So why didn’t you believe him? ⁶ But if we say ‘merely human,’ all the people will stone us, since they’re convinced that John was a prophet.”

⁷ So they replied that they didn’t know where John and his baptism came from.

⁸ “Very well, then,” said Jesus. “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

The parable of the tenants

⁹ Jesus began to tell the people this parable. “There was a man who planted a vineyard, let it out to tenant farmers, and went abroad for a long while. ¹⁰ When the time came, he sent a slave to the farmers to collect from them some of the produce of the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ¹¹ He then sent a further slave, and they beat him, abused him, and sent him back empty-handed. ¹² Then he sent yet a third, and they beat him up and threw him out.

¹³ “So the master of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I’ll send my beloved son. They will certainly respect him!’ ¹⁴ But when the farmers saw him they said to each other, ‘This is the heir! Let’s kill him, and then the inheritance will belong to us!’ ¹⁵ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

“So what will the master of the vineyard do? ¹⁶ He will come and wipe out those farmers, and give the vineyard to others.”

When they heard this, they said, “God forbid!” ¹⁷ But Jesus looked round at them and said, “What then does it mean in the Bible when it says,

¹⁸ “Everyone who falls on that stone will be smashed to smithereens; but if it falls on anyone, it will crush them.”

¹⁹ The scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on him then and there. But they were afraid of the people, because they knew that Jesus had told this parable against them.

On paying taxes to Caesar

²⁰ So the authorities watched Jesus, and sent people to lie in wait for him. They pretended to be upright folk, but were trying to trap him in something he said, so that they could hand him over to the rule and authority of the governor. ²¹ So they asked him this question.

“Teacher,” they said, “we know that you speak and teach with integrity. You are completely impartial, and you teach God’s way and God’s truth. ²² So: is it right for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”

²³ Jesus knew they were playing a trick.

²⁴ “Show me a tribute-coin,” he said. “This image . . . and this inscription . . . who do they belong to?”

“Caesar,” they said.

²⁵ “Well, then,” replied Jesus, “you’d better give Caesar back what belongs to him! And give God back what belongs to him.”

²⁶ They couldn’t catch him in anything he said in front of the people. They were amazed at his answer, and had nothing more to say.

Marriage and the resurrection

²⁷ Some of the Sadducees came to Jesus to put their question. (The Sadducees deny that there is any resurrection.)

²⁸ “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that ‘if a man’s brother dies, leaving a widow but no children, the man should marry the widow and raise up a family for his brother.’ ²⁹ Well, now: there were seven brothers; the eldest married a wife, and died without children. ³⁰ The second ³¹ and the third married her, and then each of the seven, and they died without children. ³² Finally the woman died as well. ³³ So, in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be? The seven all had her as their wife.”

³⁴ “The children of this age,” replied Jesus, “marry and are given in marriage. ³⁵ But those who are counted worthy of a place in the age to come, and of the resurrection of the dead, don’t marry, and they are not given in marriage. ³⁶ This is because they can no longer die; they are the equivalent of angels. They are children of God, since they are children of the resurrection.

³⁷ “But when it comes to the dead being raised, Moses too declares it, in the passage about the burning bush, where scripture describes the Lord as ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ ³⁸ God is God, not of the dead, but of the living. They are all alive to him.”

³⁹ “That was well said, Teacher,” commented some of the scribes, ⁴⁰ since they no longer dared ask him anything else.

David’s son and the widow’s mite

⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “How can people say that the Messiah is the son of David? ⁴² David himself says, in the book of Psalms,

⁴⁴ “David, you see, calls him ‘Lord’; so how can he be his son?”

⁴⁵ As all the people listened to him, he said to the disciples, ⁴⁶ “Watch out for the scribes who like to go about in long robes, and enjoy being greeted in the market-place, sitting in the best seats in the synagogues, and taking the top table at dinners. ⁴⁷ They devour widows’ houses, and make long prayers without meaning them. Their judgment will be all the more severe.”

A house waiting in the heavens

5 For we know that if our earthly house, our present “tent,” is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house no human hands have built: it is everlasting, in the heavenly places. ² At the present moment, you see, we are groaning, as we long to put on our heavenly building, ³ in the belief that by putting it on we won’t turn out to be naked. ⁴ Yes: in the present “tent,” we groan under a great weight. But we don’t want to put it off; we want to put on something else on top, so that what is doomed to die may be swallowed up with life. ⁵ It is God who has been at work in us to do this, the God who has given us the spirit as the first installment and guarantee.

The judgment seat of the Messiah

⁶ So we are always confident: we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. ⁷ We live our lives by faith, you see, not by sight. ⁸ We are confident, and we would much prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹ So we work hard, as a point of honor, to please him, whether we are at home or away. ¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of the Messiah, so that each may receive what has been done through the body, whether good or bad.

The Messiah’s love makes us press on

¹¹ So we know the fear of the Lord; and that’s why we are persuading people—but we are open to God, and open as well, I hope, to your consciences. ¹² We aren’t trying to recommend ourselves again! We are giving you a chance to be proud of us, to have something to say to those who take pride in appearances rather than in people’s hearts.

¹³ If we are beside ourselves, you see, it’s for God; and if we are in our right mind, it’s for you. ¹⁴ For the Messiah’s love makes us press on. We have come to the conviction that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all in order that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised on their behalf.

New creation, new ministry

¹⁶ From this moment on, therefore, we don’t regard anybody from a merely human point of view. Even if we once regarded the Messiah that way, we don’t do so any longer. ¹⁷ Thus, if anyone is in the Messiah, there is a new creation! Old things have gone, and look—everything has become new!

¹⁸ It all comes from God. He reconciled us to himself through the Messiah, and he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ¹⁹ This is how it came about: God was reconciling the world to himself in the Messiah, not counting their transgressions against them, and entrusting us with the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are ambassadors, speaking on behalf of the Messiah, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore people on the Messiah’s behalf to be reconciled to God. ²¹ The Messiah did not know sin, but God made him to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might embody God’s faithfulness to the covenant.