Mark 11:30
John’s baptism—was it from heaven or from men? Answer Me!”
BSB
ASV
The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men? answer me.
KJV
The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me.
On Baptism (220)
The baptism announced by John formed the subject, even at that time, of a question, proposed by the Lord Himself indeed to the Pharisees, whether that baptism were heavenly, or truly earthly: about which they were unable to give a consistent answer, inasmuch as they understood not, because they believed not.
This colt was borrowed too. Christ went upon the water in a borrowed boat, ate the passover in a borrowed chamber, was buried in a borrowed sepulchre, and here rode on a borrowed ass. Let not Christians scorn to be beholden one to another, and, when need is, to go a borrowing, for our Master did not.
Christ might with the better grace put this question to them, because they had sent a committee of their own house to examine John, John i. "Now," saith Christ, "what was the result of your enquiries concerning him?" They knew what they thought of this question; they could not but think that John Baptist was a man sent of God.
1816–1900
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition) (1857)
Let us observe in these verses, how much spiritual blindness may be in the hearts of those who hold high ecclesiastical office . We see "the chief priests and scribes and elders" coming to our Lord Jesus, and raising difficulties and objections in the way of His work. These men, we know, were the accredited teachers and rulers of the Jewish Church. They were regarded by the Jews as the fountain and spring-head of religious knowledge. They were, most of them, regularly ordained to the position they held, and could trace their orders by regular descent from Aaron.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk5
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Mark 9:13But I tell you that Elijah has indeed come, and they have done to him whatever they wished, just as it is written about him.”
leads to
Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,
But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him whatever they wished. In the same way, the Son of Man will suffer at…
And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.
Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—
But when he rebuked Herod the tetrarch regarding his brother’s wife Herodias and all the evils he had done,
