The Unfaithful Husbandmen
I'm sure if you've ever been an employer or every had co-workers who were unhelpful at the least, you can relate to this story. If you're a family owned business, it probably hits even closer to home. In Mark 12:1-12, a parable is told of a man put a lot of work into a plot of land that he owned. He planted a vineyard there, protected it with a hedge, built a tower to make it easy to see what was going on around it and in it, and dug a place for a catch vessel for the expected wine. After all of his efforts, he turned the property over to husbandmen whom he had selected to run it and went away to a far off land. But he didn't forget about his property.
When it was time for the fruit to have been harvested, he sent a servant to see how the crop had been. The husbandmen beat the servant and sent him away. He sent another and they wounded him even more severely. Finally he sent his beloved son, thinking they would respect him. But the husbandmen knew this was the only heir and decided to kill him to have the inheritance for themselves. They did so. Jesus asks what the owner of the vineyard would do then, and the answer would be, of course, to come and destroy the husbandmen and turn the property over to others. He then recounts the scripture about men rejecting the stone that would become the cornerstone in God's church.
The scribes and Pharisees wanted to take him then, but they were afraid of the people. They knew this parable was told referring to them.
How about us today? Certainly, the church Christ left was young. He had done all He could to give it a firm foundation, to nourish it, and in Acts 1-2, He would add fertilizer to it, to keep with the parable told here, to boost its growth fantastically. But eventually, the time of harvest will come. God hasn't forgotten about His church. He isn't ignoring His promises. He hasn't moved or changed. But I'd say the church has. Are we all faithful stewards of the part of His church that we represent? Do we live our lives properly and in order? Do we follow the Master's bidding? Or are we like the faithless husbandmen of this parable, who beat up and kill when God comes calling to examine our work and accept His rightful harvest from what He has entrusted to us?
Satan's out there trying to destroy the church. After the rapture, He's going to set up his own religion and will try to completely stamp out Christianity so that there won't be any more saved at all while he has free run of the planet (or at least a good chunk of it depending on your interpretation of Daniel and Revelation as to the extent of the anti-Christ's kingdom). Just as in the parable, Christ was put to death to give mankind an opportunity to get right with the Holy God. He paid the ultimate price for us (the vineyard).
But there are many today trying to make the vineyard something that they like the looks of and take away any ownership of the vineyard by God. Since the church was founded, there have been many splits. Today, splits are continuing to occur, frequently over sin issues that have crept into the church because people don't want to live a separated and sinless life. They don't want to believe that the Bible means what it says because if it did, God wouldn't be the loving God that they think He is. God loved his vineyard enough to send His son to die for us. Love doesn't run any deeper than that. But at the same time, God is holy and righteous. He cannot abide sin. He has no compromise where it is concerned. One day, there will be a time in His presence, when all the works will be judged. All the reasons for the splits will be examined. And if the people involved got right with God before they died, they'll have eternity to reflect on the divisions they caused and the weakness that resulted. Maybe the people splitting off were right to reject sin in the church and leave. But those who were espousing sin or false doctrines in the first place have the greater failing.
If this parable touches your heart, and you feel anger at the husbandmen, you are in good company. But remember that we all have our place in the vineyard, and we all have our jobs to do. If we don't do them, we are really just as bad as the husbandmen of this story. Maybe we didn't kill the owner's son, Christ, but He still died for our sins. And there's that scary scripture for those who know to do right, and don't, to them it is sin. So the sins Christ died for can be thought of as not only the black, but the white that wasn't done. That puts a whole new perspective on Christ's death on the cross, doesn't it.
The Coin
In Mark 12:13-17, some more Pharisees and Herodians came to Christ trying to find something else to trap Him with in word. They asked if it was lawful to give taxes to Caesar or not. Nobody wanted to pay taxes to an oppressor, so they thought if He defended the practice the Jews would be against Him, but if He didn't, then the Romans would be against Him.
They thought sure they had him. But He knew, through the Holy Spirit, and probably their countenances, that they were being hypocrites and called them out on their question. He asked for a coin, and then asked them what was on it for both image and wording. They had to answer that it was Caesar's. He simply said to render to Caesar what was Caesar's and to God what was God's. And they were shocked that their clever trap had come apart before their eyes.
The world is full of traps. Many of them won't have as neat a solution as Christ found here. The number of people killed for the sake of Christianity in the world is staggering. In February 2025, for example, 70 Christians were found beheaded in a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It never stops. And when the Anti-Christ takes over, it will accelerate. When a mob attacks, you probably won't be able to escape with a useful phrase. And there aren't always angels around to smite the mob with blindness. But don't give up, because angels haven't gone into hiding either. They are still active. And their work is still hindered by Satan. No human on earth knows how many angels there are. But I do know that the number of humans has grown a lot. And with free will, God doesn't step in all the time to referee. When He steps in the next time in a major way, the world will know it. True Christians will be gone, and His wrath will be poured out on all who haven't accepted Christ as savior.
I don't know what the status of those men who beheaded the Christians will be at that time. Maybe what they did, and the lives of the Christians will have gotten to some of them and converted some of them. Hope lives eternal. But I suspect when we get to heaven, we too will marvel at all the times God has gotten us out of a problem and outwitted the forces of Satan. Let's all work for that number of times to increase daily, with faith, discernment, study of His word, prayer, and fasting. Those were the tools Christ used.
Marriage and Eternity
Next, in Mark 12:18-27, the Sadducees came to try their luck at trapping Christ with words. This particular group didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, so they used the law of Moses concerning women whose husband had died before producing offspring being given to near relatives in order to produce children to carry on the bloodline. They give and unlikely scenario of seven brothers, all of whom took the wife after the previous man died in order to try to fulfill the law, but all failed and finally the wife died as well. They wanted to know who she was considered married to since she had been married to each.
Jesus replies that they are in error because they know neither the scripture nor the power of God. He says first, to address their lack of faith in the resurrection, that God declared to Moses at the burning bush, that God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He declared them to all be living, and that God was not God of the dead. So they were in great error in the basic beliefs.
To their question about marriage, He declares that people are like the angels in heaven after death, and don't marry or are given in marriage. This question should put to rest the Mormon belief in Celestial Marriages, once and for all. Yet another split of the church, in this case by a confused Christian, that should have never happened. Satan won a pretty big victory there. Regardless, no marriage in heaven. I'm sure the Mormons would just say that this bit of scripture wasn't really translated right and shouldn't be in there. But they are recorded as Christ's words, and I'd bet on Christ being more correct in His knowledge about what heaven is like than Mr. Smith. Still, it's clear that there has been confusion for a long time on the subject and Christ's words evidently weren't sufficient to quell the arguments.
The First Commandment
In Mark 12:28-34, the scribes who had been listening in wanted to know what the greatest commandment was. We all know the answer, quoted from the Old Testament, that The Lord is united in everything, and man is to love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Before they could ask what the second greatest commandment was, He said to love your neighbor as you love yourself. No other commands are greater than these two things. The scribe who had asked the question admitted that the answer was a perfect answer, and nobody else dared to ask Christ anything. Christ told the man that he was close to the kingdom of God.
That commandment is still the same. It hasn't changed. When Christ instructed us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek, He wasn't kidding then either, and it is still just as important. At some level, they are your neighbor, just as much as the person who actually lives next door.
These are hard times to be Christians. It seems like the world is getting blown up all around us. Some see that as a good thing. Others see it as the beginning of the end. Yet we are called to love, even those who are doing the damage. We are to love whatever group killed the 70 in the church in the DRC. We are to love the politicians and political appointees who are trying to tear the country apart at the seams. We aren't asked to love their actions. Be we are asked to love them. They all need saved, just like we do.
And that is what Christ is calling each of us to do. No matter who has hurt you in your life, no matter who is hurting you now, you are called to love them and turn the other cheek. And on top of that, we're called to forgive over, and over, and over. That's what 70x7 means. It doesn't just mean when you hit 490 you can let the cannonballs fly.
And even when the modern equivalents of cannonballs are literally flying, like between the Ukraine and Russia, or Gaza and Israel, or other terrorist groups in Yemen and ships, or any of a number of other places, God expects them to forgive as well. No matter how hard it is. And then there's Christ comment that as we forgive those who have trespassed against us, so God will forgive our trespasses. Christianity is tough. Don't let anyone kid you that it's easy.
The Widow's Farthing
At the end of the chapter (Mark 12:35-44), Christ gives one of the last warnings about the scribes. As He is teaching, He again talks about David recognizing the Son of God, and the people liked what they heard. But Christ warned about the scribes ability to puff themselves up, but devout the substance of widows. He warned also about public displays of prayer that is done only to lift up the image of the person doing the praying, as, evidently, many scribes did.
At the very end, as He is near the treasury, he points out a widow who gave a farthing to God's treasury, which was overwhelmed by the donations of the rich people around her. Christ points out that she had given everything that she had made (her living) whereas the rich were just giving out of their abundance funds that they would never miss. God looks on the sacrifices we make along with our actions. Why should we think we deserve any praise or reward when the gifts or time or whatever we give to God doesn't cost us anything?
The country would be a lot better off if the 1% and especially the 1% of the 1% understood this parable and how God looks on what He has provided them with. Truly, the rich do not understand, and I suspect there aren't many that will make it to heaven.