Jesus and his disciples had spent the day at the temple again. As had happened every time they went to the temple, they were confronted by the temple priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and a lot of others, all wanting to argue and try to make Jesus and all of them look like a bunch of radical losers. On most days, Jesus just dealt with them and then left.

But today, as they had left the temple, Jesus had said that God was going to come back and destroy the temple, as well as all of those people who had been doing the things to mistreat God’s people. And he said it was going to happen soon.

Now they were back at the place they were staying on the Mount of Olives. It was one of those increasingly rare moments when they were alone, and the disciples could ask Jesus about things they did not…