Thought from today’s Bible reading from Mark 13.
“As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down’” (Mark 13:1-2).
It is common for man to be impressed with the beauty and greatness of physical, man-made structures. This was the reason for this disciple’s remark on this occasion. As they left the temple, the disciple noted the impressive buildings that surrounded them. There was nothing necessarily wrong with this. But Jesus wanted to be sure that His disciples kept the proper perspective about such things.
The buildings that they found to be so impressive would one day be torn down. They would not last forever. Everything in life decays, one way or another. We must understand this truth.
But there is another point that Jesus made here. The temple was the place where the Jews would go to worship God. But when that temple was torn down, that would not signal the end of man’s ability to worship God. Jesus explained this to the Samaritan woman:
“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. […] But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers’” (John 4:21-23).
Not only was the temple going to be destroyed, but the whole system under the Law of Moses was going to be taken out of the way (Colossians 2:14). Christ came as “the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15). We now serve God according to His new law.
Tomorrow’s reading: Matthew 24
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
