Big Idea: In the kingdom of God accepted human values of status and importance are turned upside down.

Understanding the Text

As the journey to Jerusalem nears its end, encounters with others on the way illustrate the principle expressed in 18:14b, and in so doing they reveal how far those around Jesus still are from grasping the true nature of God’s kingdom and the necessary pattern of Jesus’s own mission. Their incomprehension focuses especially on the issue of wealth, and thus it provides an opportunity for some far-reaching teaching on this theme, which has been so prominent on the journey (see especially 12:13–34; 14:1–24, 33–34; 16:1–15, 19–31). A final, and more detailed, prediction of the specific fate awaiting Jesus in Jerusalem (18:31–33; cf. 9:22, 44; 12:50; 13:32–33; 17:25) p…