Hi everyone. Welcome back to the logical.
Bible study, the mass reading today is from Mark, chapter 12,
verses 35 to 37. So as we always do in this
podcast, will start by reading out that gospel passage and then
we'll have a go at looking at the literal sense of the text.
And that's what We want to do in this podcast is work out.
What the original author was trying to convey to his original
audience. So and that's always where we
should start as Catholics when we want to understand what God
is trying to communicate to us in his word.
So Mark chapter 12 verses 35 to 37.
At that time, while teaching in the temple, Jesus said how can
the scribes maintain that the Christ is the son of David,
David himself, moved by the holy spirit.
Said, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand and I will
put your enemies under your feet.
David himself calls him. Lord in what way, then can he be
his son? And the great majority of the
people heard this with delight, So a really interesting passage
and a short one, it's only three versus long, but from this, we
learn a lot about Jesus view of scripture about the Jewish view
of scripture and about David as well.
So there's a lot of really interesting things going on
here. But as always, we want to start
by asking ourselves, what's the context?
So Jesus has been arguing with the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
and the scribes in the temple earlier, in Mark, chapter 12 and
they have all been trying to trap him.
And we know that there's a large crowd of people watching verse
35. We starting at today, says, at
that time, while teaching in the temple.
So, we're continuing in the previous section.
Jesus is continuing to teach in the temple.
This is in the final week of his life.
It's probably likely that he also preached other things in
the temple on this day, but they're not recorded and it's
important to keep that in mind. We don't have a complete record
of Everything. Jesus, preached, So Jesus is now
going to ask the crowd, a question to get them, thinking
about the Messiah, and his relationship with David.
So, rather than being prompted by one of the Jewish leaders, he
takes the initiative here and asks the crowd a question.
How can the scribes maintain that?
The Christ is the son of David, So, the scribes, we saw them in
the last few passages here, but they are the ones who teach
people about the Old Testament directly.
They are professionally trained theologians, they were teaching,
a common Jewish people that the Christ or Messiah.
The word means, the same thing, would be the son of David.
That's what they expected the Messiah to be the son of David
now, that is indeed taught in the Old Testament.
If you look at second Samuel 7, verses 12 to 14.
It's pretty clear that it's in there, and also Jesus, Has
accepted this title in. If you look at 10:47, 248 of the
Gospel of Mark Jesus himself, accepts that title.
So he's not denying that. The Messiah is the son of David,
but he is going to highlight an aspect of this that they have
overlooked Now when Jesus says, how can the scribes maintain its
not, how in the sense of denial it's he's asking a genuine
question to the crowd. He wants them to think about how
Now, notice in this passage, Jesus does not identify himself
as the Messiah. He doesn't say how can the
scribes maintain that I am the son of David.
He just says the Messiah is the son of David.
So, in this particular spot, his teaching the people about the
Messiah in general without calling himself.
The Messiah though, probably with a view that the crowd would
hopefully realize through his teaching here, that he is the
Messiah that he's describing verse 36 and Now, he's going to
mention here, the holy spirit, it's important.
To realize the Jews did believe in the Holy Spirit.
It is mentioned in the Old Testament, although only really
in the later books, such as the book of wisdom, mentions, the
old test, mentions the Holy Spirit, and that's only about
100 years before Jesus. So, certainly in the time of
Jesus, they had some understanding of the Holy
Spirit, but it appears the Jews saw it to be kind of like a
force sent from God. A holy force from God.
So, Jesus is not introducing a new concept when he talks about
the Holy Spirit. But during his ministry he would
reveal that. The holy spirit is God himself.
The Jews did not know that. This is what he says in this
context. David himself moved by the Holy
Spirit now more. Literally what it says here is
inspired by the holy spirit. This is an important verse and
one that we don't talk about enough.
Jesus here, again, he says David himself inspired by the Holy
Spirit. Sir, Jesus here a firm's at the
following quote that we're about to hear and it's from the Psalms
is authored by a human who he attributes to David.
But he also affirms here that it's the Holy Spirit, who
authored that text. And that's important that tells
us a lot about Jesus view of scripture of the Old Testament.
He believes that the Old Testament scriptures are indeed
inspired by God and that's essentially the later teaching,
the Christian teaching about the inspiration of scriptures to To
that's developed in the New Testament.
The so 2nd Timothy 3 verse 16 and second Peter 1 verses 20 to
21, they both talk about the New Testament, understanding of
inspiration, and it's basically the same as what Jesus teaches
here. Now, a side comment Jesus.
He says, David himself moved by the Holy Spirit.
When were interpreting this passage, we shouldn't interpret
this phrase to mean, that Jesus is affirming that David himself
by his own hand, was the one who composed this, some that we're
about to hear some 110, it's possible that that's what he's
affirming. But also at the time of Jesus,
it was common for them to ascribe parts of the Old
Testament to authors that they knew didn't actually.
Rewrite it. So for example, it was common to
attribute cords from Zephaniah, the minor Prophet to Isaiah.
So they tend to group minor writers Under The Heading of
major writers as though the major writer was in some way
responsible for writing it even if they weren't the one that
literally wrote it. And that might be what he's
doing here with David. There was a tendency to
attribute all of the Psalms to David, or though it was
reasonably well known that. Not all of the Psalms were
literally done by David. So It's beside the point here as
to whether David himself, actually, composed some 110.
We shouldn't get too wrapped up in that the Jews did have a
broader view of authorship than we do today.
And they knew that many of the Psalms that were ascribed to
David were probably not written by David but they saw they just
put it under the umbrella of being authored by David.
Hopefully that's helpful. When David or whoever it was
that wrote, this passage Jesus teaches here that the author had
one intention in mind but the Holy Spirit had a different
intention in mind and Jesus is now going to reveal that Holy
Spirit intention behind the psalm passage.
So before we go any further let's read the psalm.
Before we dive into the different senses of this, some
the Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand and I will put
your enemies under your feet. So Some 110, this is from this
in its original context, wasn't enthronement Psalm and it was
sung at coronation Ceremonies for the kings of Judah.
So, when a new king of Israel was about to be, crowned, the
crowd would sing this song. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at
my right hand and I will put your enemies under your feet.
So in this Psalm the new king, the king of Israel is Promised
Royal dominion and victory over his enemies.
So when they say the Lord said to my Lord, Lord, what they
mean? Is God.
The Lord said to my Lord, the king.
That's the two different senses of the word Lord here, it
actually means god the first time and then the second time,
it's about the king. So the basic teaching of this
Psalm and it was again, it was used at coronation, ceremonies
was God is inviting the king of Israel to metaphorically.
Sit at his right hand showing that the king of Israel has
God's approval and protection. That's what the Jews believed.
About every king of Israel that he had a special protection from
God and that in a sense, he could be said to be at God's
right hand as his messenger. That was the close relationship
between God and the king of Israel.
So in context originally it's about Earthly Kings of Israel
and on the day of their enthronement, this is sung about
those kings. That's probably what David or
whoever the original, some writer had in mind when he wrote
it, perhaps they were viewing a in ceremony, and they wrote it
down at the time of the coronation ceremony.
They meant it him in reference to the king of Israel at their
time. But Jesus, now teaches here that
the Holy Spirit, also intended another, meaning he intended,
the Lord here, The first sorry the second Lord to be understood
as the Messiah who is literally sitting at God's right hand.
So the Lord God said to my Lord, the Messiah sit at my right
hand, that's what Jesus says is the meaning or at least The Holy
Spirits, meaning of this passage, we know that many Jews
in Jesus time had come to see this as a Prophecy of the
Messiah. Who would one day Return To
davidic Rule? So that's how the Jews in Jesus
time. Had come to interpret it and
here Jesus affirms, that, that is a correct interpretation.
That is the easier deeper reference here to the Messiah.
This is a really, really important passage for helping us
understand how Jesus understood the Old Testament and therefore,
how we should understand the Old Testament.
Let's be really clear about this and it's quite fascinating as
Catholics. We believe we always want to
start with the literal sense and what we mean by that is what did
the inspired author mean? What were they trying to convey?
What did they intend to say? When they put pen to paper?
So that would be the literal sense.
However, as Catholics, we also believe the Holy Spirit can also
intend additional meanings on top of the literal sense.
And this is Catholics is what we call the spiritual sense of the
text. And often this comes up in
conversations about the Old Testament because there's
Catholics, we believe that in the New Testament, basically,
the literal sense and the spiritual sense of the same
thing. Because they're both about Jesus
on the literal sense, the New Testament text talks about Jesus
and it tells us how the New Covenant works.
But when we look at the Old Testament, they'll be a literal
sense, which applies to the original context.
But there might also be a spiritual sense, which teaches
us about God's Plan of Salvation that will be fulfilled in Jesus.
So, this additional meaning that the Holy Spirit inspires is
called the spiritual sense. We need to be careful, though.
Sometimes it's possible to discern.
What the Spiritual sense is particularly when Jesus or one
of the other New Testament. Authors tells us what the
spiritual sense of a certain Old Testament passages which is what
Jesus does here. But sometimes we can only
speculate as to what may be the spiritual sense is, for example,
the Apostle Paul makes a lot of spiritual senses out of the
Exodus story, he gives them deeper meanings.
And he says that the Holy Spirit intended, those meanings we
don't have the gift of inspiration like Pull in the
oven New Testament, writers do. So we can't we don't always get
this right in terms of understanding.
What the spiritual sense, Maybe. Often you might go to
conferences or you might hear priests or Parish was talking
about breaking open the scriptures.
And what that is supposed to be is getting at the the spiritual
sense of the text as in what might God be trying to say to us
as New Testament Christians. So breaking open the word or
breaking open. The scriptures is a good thing
and in fact we should be looking for Spiritual senses of the
text, but we need to understand that not every interpretation of
what the spiritual sense of the text.
Might mean is guaranteed to be true.
We can't be as certain as that. So if someone says here's what
the scripture means, to me will be, can't be certain that.
That was the spiritual sense that was intended by the holy
spirit. So we need to be careful with
that. It's actually a lot easier to
determine the literal sense of the text.
If you do a bit of study, as we do in this podcast, it can be a
lot harder to discern. What the spiritual sense of the
text is. Although we're certainly Guided
by Jesus, sometimes when he interprets it for us.
And in later centuries, the church helps us interpret
spiritual senses of certain texts as well.
So that was an interesting side discussion about literal sense
and spiritual sense, but it's very relevant to what Jesus is
doing here. He's telling his crown, the
spiritual sense of Psalm, 110 verse 37.
This is the challenge he issues to them.
David himself calls him Lord, in what way, then can he be his
son? So to recap, Jesus, here is
saying in this Psalm David calls, the Messiah Lord, so how
then can we call the Messiah David's son in that culture of
father, would not call a descendant.
Lord, that would just not be done.
So, that's the Paradox that Jesus is Raising now.
Jesus is not denying that the Messiah will be the son of
David. In fact, as we looked at,
there's quite a few passages of the Old Testament, which teach
that. But he is saying that the Jews
of his time, were focusing too much on this aspect of the
Messiah, as being the son of David.
He's not denying it, but he is kind of saying that they're
great. Reverence for David has almost
led the Jews to place him above the Messiah.
So in a sense, David has become an idol for the Jews of his time
and that may be preventing them the scribes and those that they
teach from true. Understanding the Messiah
because they almost see David is greater than the Messiah.
And that's a mistake. So, Jesus is getting the crowd
to consider what this some teachers.
He says, if even David considered the Messiah to be his
Superior, then these are the kind of things.
He wants the crowd to think about what are the implications
of the fact that David Revere's, the Messiah as someone Superior
to himself? What is this?
Psalm reveal about the Majesty of the Messiah.
Is he merely an Earthly Monarch like David or is he something
much greater could he even be lured in the same sense?
In which Yahweh himself is the Lord?
And we know from elsewhere in the gospels that Jesus himself
says that his greater than Solomon and greater than Jacob
greater than Abraham as well. He says, so here jesus takes it
another step further and hints that he is greater than David.
Although he doesn't come right out and say that he is the
Messiah here. He might also be trying to show
you the crowd that the scribes, don't know everything he's
showing him that it's possible for the scribes to miss some
things when they're teaching the scripture.
And Maki says, the great majority of the people heard
this with delight. So, the Jewish people who were
in the temple, there who were genuinely seeking God.
Receive this teaching. Well, they understand what Jesus
is saying, and they agree that the Messiah will be greater than
David, their Overjoyed to hear this teaching of Jesus, a
fascinating passage and some 110 that we've looked at in the
early church, this ends up being one of the most important Old
Testament prophecies about Christ.
It's quoted a few times in the book of Axe and at other times
in the early church as well, they saw some 110 here and it's
language about the Lord giving command and authority to a
second Lord, as being fulfilled in Christ, in its deepest sense.
It's fulfilled at his resurrection when Christ won
victory over his enemies. So Satan and sin, which he
defeated on the cross and he was enthroned at the father's right
hand at the Ascension. So some 110 keeps getting quoted
throughout the rest of the New Testament.
It's one that's worth. Studying.
So in the next part of chapter 12, Jesus is still going to be
in the temple, but he's now going to directly denounced the
scribes. And we'll also see another
visitor to the temple, come in and Jesus, Praises that visitor.
So we'll look at that in the next part of Mark. we'll just
finish today by looking at one paragraph from the catechism,
which makes a reference here to this passage paragraph 2 or 0 2
which is in the discussion about I believe in one God, Jesus
himself affirms that God is the one Lord whom you must love with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and
with all your strength at the same time, Jesus gives us to
understand that he himself is the Lord to confess that Jesus
is Lord is Distinctive of the Christian faith.
This is not contrary to the belief in one God.
And then that section goes on to talk about the complexities of
the Trinity. Hopefully, you learned something
new today once again, can I ask you?
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tomorrow.