What Does Mark 11:29 Mean?
And Jesus answered and said to them, I will ask you one word, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.THE KEY
The demand for authority becomes a mirror: the one asking must answer what source they recognize.
THE MEANING
Jesus asks the questioners to answer before he gives his own account. The truth of a claim is exposed by the source a person is willing to acknowledge. Authority is tested through an answer, not settled by assertion alone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that demanding credentials is automatically impartial: the one demanding an account is also accountable for the source and standard behind the demand.
THE ROOT
ἐξουσίᾳ
exousia
GROWS FROM
ἔξεστιν
exestin
It is permitted; it is possible.
The Greek noun is tied to ἔξεστιν, meaning “it is permitted” or “it is possible,” so authority includes a recognized right or scope to act, not only force. Jesus turns the demand for that right back toward the questioners: they must name the source behind their own judgment.
ALSO GROWS
exousiazō: To exercise authority; to have power over.
ἐξουσιάζω
This verb turns the right or capacity named by exousia into the act of exercising it.
exousiastēs: One who holds or exercises authority; a ruler.
ἐξουσιαστής
This related noun shows authority as a capacity carried by someone.
ἀποκρίθητε
apokrithēte
GROWS FROM
κρίνω
krinō
To separate, distinguish, decide, or judge.
The passage repeats this verb: Jesus answers them, then tells them to answer him. Its word-family carries the sense of discerning and deciding, so their reply will reveal what they judge to be a valid source.
ALSO GROWS
krisis: Judgment; a decision.
κρίσις
The noun names the act of deciding that is present in every answer.
kritēs: A judge; one who decides.
κριτής
This branch makes explicit the judging role carried within the exchange.
THE PATTERN
A claim’s source is disclosed when it is put to a truthful test.
The aligned one at the head of his own contention seems straight, but his neighbor comes and searches him out.If anyone wills to do his will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from myself.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
But as many as took him in, he gave the right to become children of God, to those who trust in his nature.John uses the same Greek word for authority, here rendered “power,” and presents it as something given. That shared word opens Jesus’ question further: authority carries a right or capacity whose source matters.
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