September 2024

Read Mark 14:32–42. What did Jesus pray in Gethsemane, and how was the prayer answered?

Leaving the walled city of Jerusalem where they ate the Passover meal, Jesus and His disciples go across the Kidron Valley to a garden on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. The name Gethsemane means oil press, suggesting that there was an olive oil processing press in the vicinity. The exact location is unknown because the Romans cut down all the trees on the Mount of Olives during the siege in A.D. 70.

Read Mark 14:22–31 and Exodus 24:8. What great significance to the Christian faith is found in this account?

Mark 14:12 notes that this is the first day of unleavened bread, when the Passover lamb was sacrificed. The meal was on Thursday evening.

Read Mark 14:1–11. What two stories are intertwined here, and how do they play off of one another?

Mark 14:1 indicates that the Passover was two days away. This meeting probably occurred on either Tuesday night or Wednesday of that week. The religious leaders have a plan and timing. They just need a means to accomplish their goal. It will come from a surprising quarter.

Read for This Week’s Study

Mark 14, John 12:4–6, Rom. 8:28, Exod. 24:8, Jer. 31:31–34, Zech. 13:7.

Memory Text:

Read Ellen G. White, “On the Mount of Olives,” pp. 627–636, in The Desire of Ages.

Many things are happening in the world that are very disturbing. People truly are frightened about what is unfolding. How can we, as Seventh-day Adventists, with a kind of “inside track” on events, use these things to point people to the hope we have in Jesus and the promise of His coming?

Read Mark 13:24–32. What great event is described here?

Read Mark 13:19. What does this verse refer to?

Mark 13:14, regarding the abomination of desolation, is the fulcrum around which the chapter pivots (see Tuesday’s study). Mark 13:19 marks a transition point, as well. It refers to a great tribulation that does not have an equal since the creation of the world. This portends a greater or more extensive persecution than had occurred at the fall of Jerusalem. Mark 13:19 also shifts to the future tense, pointing toward events more distant from Jesus’ time.

Read Mark 13:14–18. What clue does Jesus give in figuring out what the “abomination of desolation” refers to?

Jesus comes to the central point about the fall of Jerusalem in Mark 13:14. He refers to “_the abomination of desolation._” The Lord says that the reader should understand. With these words, Jesus is pointing the disciples to the book of Daniel. This terminology appears in Daniel 9:27, Daniel 11:31, and Daniel 12:11, with a parallel in Daniel 8:13.

Read Mark 13:1–13. How did the disciples respond to Jesus’ statement about the temple, and what is the significance of Jesus’ answer to them?

As we have noted, the temple complex was a truly amazing structure. Josephus notes that the Royal Portico on the south side of the complex had 162 pillars, each of which three men clasping hands could reach around (Antiquities, 15.11.5 §§413–414). Jesus says that it will all be thrown down. Such a prophecy concerning this amazing structure would sound to the listener like the end of the world.

Read Mark 12:41–44. How much did the widow give, and what did Jesus have to say about that?

The Jerusalem temple was an amazingly beautiful structure. The temple mount dominated the city, and the massive stones involved in its construction are a marvel to this day, some weighing hundreds of tons. The remodeling and expansion of the temple and the temple mount began under Herod the Great around 20 B.C., but the construction and embellishment of the structure continued into the A.D. 60s.