Interesting Markian scriptures

Mark 10:34 and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again." 
Notice the 4 specific things that Jesus prophesied about himself - mock, scourge, spit and kill. 
If you read the passion narrative in each of the gospels, you will see that this step by step prophetic word closely follows what actually happened during the trials of the high priest, Pilate and Herod. They mocked him by insinuating that he was the "Son of God," and a King. They scourged him and put the crown of thorns on His head. The soldiers spat on Him and mocked Him. Finally he was crucified.
It seems like Jesus saw the story unfolding before Him before it even happened. It was a prophetic story with the outline and sequence all laid out. I imagine, God sees the whole of eternity at one time and then picks out the story to give to the prophet - in this case, Jesus who prophesied His own death and resurrection. Why didn't the disciples get it? Why didn't they understand what was going to happen. Couldn't they foresee the story before it happened? Why didn't they understand? My guess is, the story was not understood because it was not meant to warn them right then and there, but to serve as a reminder after the fact, that Jesus was really the King, the Son, the Prophet, the Priest and the Lord God. 
Sometimes prophetic purpose isn't immediately understood; only in hindsight can we really see the purpose of the prophetic word.
Many prophetic words can only be understood when the word is completed because our minds are somewhat darkened by God himself. If the disciples had really understood the prophetic word, they may have tried to prevent the will of God by not hindering Jesus to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. This would have been a tragedy. The disciples might have risen up in action to prevent the crucifixion of Jesus, thus thwarting the ultimate will of God. This is why, even though many times the enemy tried to kill Jesus, by throwing Him off a mountain or by pushing Him off of a cliff or even hiding himself from the crowds so that he wasn't prematurely killed by the Romans. In addition He didn't want Jesus to die under Herod's malevolent hand, like John the Baptist. 
All in all, this scripture in Mark, reminds us that God knows the plan, the future and even the intimate details; however, it is not for us to manipulate God's will or plan, only to trust and obey, even if things seem to be outside our understanding, we must still trust that God has a plan and that all things work out for our good.
The flip side to this, the book of Job reminds us that even when God's plan seems to be counter to our own plans or our thinking, that God is the God of the whole universe. Even though we are limited in our understanding, we can't just blame God for bad circumstances. God's will be done - and He will accomplish His perfect will even when it contradicts our thinking and our plans. He knows the plans He has for us, not for evil but for good.
Mark's style of writing is full of dramatic imagery, action and emotion. This scripture is atypical of his writing style - he uses very succint and dramatic words to describe the actions of our Saviour. In this scripture, it is obvious that the essence of this scripture is to get the right words and the right flavour of the prophetic. It's obvious that Mark does not use unnecessary language to describe the action or sequence of events. We know that we get to the very heart of what Jesus was saying and we can trust that Mark recorded what Jesus actually said.
This scripture excites me because of the culmination of the final events and magnificent finality of the the events and also because we now understand how much Jesus is on the inside of the story, communicating with the Father. Jesus is not a casual observer, with events unfolding without His foreknowledge, but He is an active participant, willingly allowing the Godhead to take the story to it's final conclusion. Jesus is not being carried along by unknown events, unable to change the story, He is letting the Godhead unfold the events one step at a time and with logical clarity of mind and purpose. Events and actions were not happening, to Him; they were guided by Him. He was the director and the actor; the protagonist and the antagonist. Satan thought he was killing Jesus for his own purpose; however Jesus fooled him by willingly offering up Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. The Godhead used the actors in the stage to complete His good work and we, who are reading the story understand things in the story that the disciples did not get. We almost want to insert ourselves into the story in order to warn the disciples of the story behind the story, the resurrection story.
Each step of this drama was written long before time began. God's story of redemption was already written when Eve bruised the serpents head, and now it culminates in the final victory over death, when Jesus was crucified and resurrected.
All of this in one little scripture in the book of Mark.
Amazing, eh! 

The Kingdom of God

I did a cursory study of the Kingdom of God (heaven), in the New Testament and I found many metaphors, symbols and similes. Just in Matthew alone it is called a: mystery, sower who sowed, grain of mustard seed, leaven, treasure, net, separated from the world, for the righteous, treasure, good seed, merchant seeking beautiful pearls, dragnet (not the movie), householder, for little children, hard for the rich to enter, like a landowner who went out, taken from you, like a king, like ten virgins who with lamps, like a man traveling, present with power, at hand (or near depending on the version you are reading).

 I believe, based on this specious reading of scripture that you would concur with me that, the kingdom of God or heaven, as it is varously translated, is not something easily grasped or understood. Even the disciples were told that that it was given to them to understand the mysteries of the kingdom, but to the unlearned and wicked, Jesus would teach in parables. Why would he do such a thing? Why wouldn't he just tell them that He was doing something different, like replacing the Law with a new Law of the Spirit. Why didn't he just make it plain to them, as in the plain truth of the kingdom. Why teach through metaphors and symbolism?

In my work with companies, a lot of what we do is to help develop a new thinking paradigm -which is called the "Thinking Way," or a developing a Learning organization. The way we do this is by helping develop the skills of individuals to identify opportunities for improvement through rigorous attention to everyday identification of problems/opportunities. We call this developing a Learning culture. Now culture is not something you can see or feel, but you know it when you see it. It is developed, by people, through daily repetition and re-inforcement.

I believe this is what Jesus was doing with the disciples. He was teaching them a new culture, a new pardigm. Instead of just giving them the answer, He was teaching them to see what the Kingdom of heaven was like so they could see it themselves and would be able to teach it to others. All of the questions they asked Jesus, like why don't you just tell us plainly- Are you the Christ? - were attempts by Jesus to teach them a new way of thinking. He wanted them to live and breath the kingdom - not just head knowledge but actual living of the Kingdom.

He could have given them a prescriptive version of the Old Testament ten commandments and thereby get acceptance of a new updated collection of laws. Or he can try to get their heart involved by getting deeper into their souls by the ongoing questioning, reinforcing by miracles and signs, and the deeper teaching about what the kingdom of heaven was like. The Old Testament was like a slogan you see in many organization that read something like this - Vision - we will be the best company in our city. It's a nice sloga, but what does it really mean, how do you actually become the best company? Will slogans change people's hearts and minds so they start to live the slogan, or is there a better way?

I believe the better way to teach new thinking, is like Jesus did. He did it through actions, questioning, coaching, and metaphor. This is the way to get into the behaviours and thinking of people. Doing it explicitly by telling people what to do is not effective for long term change. This is what Jesus was all about - changing the world through the kingdom of God and doing that through people.

When thinking about all the metaphors for the kingdom and the frustrations of the apostles, think about what it takes to develop culture and you'll see that Jesus was all about changing culture and thinking of the whole nation of Israel and eventually the world.

Nest time you read the Sermon on the mount, read it with the kingdom in mind. Jesus was inaugurating a new kingdom and it was a kingdom based on His kingship and His mercy to us. If we simply read the scriptures and say we are in the kingdom because of our good deeds and perfection, we are missing the point. Jesus is the only perfect and sinless one, our role is to proclaim His perfection, His holiness and His righteousness - not ours since ours is as filthy rags.

The Jesus culture is a new life being lived by millions of Christians based on the new way of thinking - a culture of CI- or continuous improvement- always striving to do His will on a daily basis- as it says in scripture we strive for holiness and perfection - we're not there yet - but He is.