GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 10:3
Desuetude
After I finished all the classroom studies as a doctoral student and completed four days of written examinations, I prepared for the two-hour oral examination that would elevate me to doctoral candidacy—the status between coursework and completion of a research and writing project. My mentor, Dr. David Conrad, gathered the five professors on the examination committee for a prep session. He turned to each professor and asked what I would be responsible for. I remember that the medieval history professor, Dr. Lon Shelby, said I would be responsible only for the social, intellectual, and political history of the Middle Ages. Yeah, that really helped!
After that session, Dr. Conrad and I sat in his office discussing the strategy for the examination. He said that if he saw one of the examiners backing me into a corner, he would throw me a rescue question. I admired and respected Dr. Conrad and had taken all his classes. During the examination, however, he watched as I was pummeled by the committee members and never threw me a rescue question. As chairman, he reserved the last twenty minutes for himself and conducted his own pummeling.
St. Mark wrote that some Pharisees, probably from Jerusalem, approached Jesus to test him with a zero-sum question—one that could cause trouble however he answered it: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” “And answering, he said to them, ‘What did Moses command you?’” (Mark 10:3)
A good lawyer never asks a question without knowing the answer. Jesus knew the writings of Moses. As a regular synagogue attendee in Nazareth, he would have had this knowledge instilled in him from an early age. In Mark’s account, Jesus employed the ancient strategy of answering a question with a question, thereby putting his examiners on record.
The approach of New Year’s Day (2026) reminds me that I must be prepared to answer the questions put before me by the Great Examiner.
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