Book Club Questions for Jesus the King

1.Keller opens by noting that Mark's Gospel begins with the declaration "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" — a politically charged claim in the Roman world, where Caesar was hailed as son of god and bearer of gospel (good news). Why does it matter that Mark's opening words would have sounded like a direct challenge to Caesar's authority? What does this suggest about the kind of king Jesus is from the very first verse?

2.Keller argues that the story of Jesus is simultaneously cosmic, historical, and personal. What does he mean by each of those three dimensions?

3.Keller describes Mark's Gospel as the fastest-moving of the four, characterized by the word "immediately" recurring throughout. What does that sense of urgency and momentum suggest about the kind of storyteller Mark is, and the kind of Jesus he's portraying?

1.At Jesus's baptism, the Father speaks and the Spirit descends — a rare moment when all three persons of the Trinity appear simultaneously. Keller uses the phrase "the dance" (drawing on C.S. Lewis's imagery of the Trinity as a kind of eternal dance of self-giving love) to describe the relationship within the Godhead. What is the significance of this image? How does it change the way you think about who God is?

2.Keller points out that the Father declares Jesus "my beloved Son" before Jesus has performed a single miracle or preached a single sermon. What does it mean that Jesus's identity is rooted in the Father's love rather than in his accomplishments? How does that challenge the way most of us think about our own identity?

3.Mark summarizes Jesus's entire message in one sentence: "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news." Keller unpacks this carefully. What does "the kingdom of God has come near" mean? Why is repentance the appropriate first response to good news rather than just to bad news?

1.When Jesus heals the paralytic lowered through the roof by his four friends, he first says "Son, your sins are forgiven" — before he heals the man's legs. The religious leaders are scandalized. Why does Jesus forgive sins first? What does this ordering reveal about what Jesus thinks is the man's deepest problem?

2.Keller points out that only the person directly offended can forgive an offense — and yet Jesus forgives this man's sins against God, implying that he himself is God. How does this logic work? Has this argument ever struck you before, or does it feel new?

3.The four friends tear open a roof to lower their friend to Jesus. Keller highlights the extraordinary lengths they go to on behalf of someone else. Who in your life has carried you to Jesus — spiritually, relationally, prayerfully? Who might need you to do that for them?

1.Jesus calls Levi (Matthew), a tax collector — someone despised by religious Jews as a collaborator with Rome and a thief. Keller emphasizes how shocking this would have been. What does Jesus's choice of Levi say about who the gospel is for and how the kingdom operates?

2.When the Pharisees ask why Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors, Jesus replies: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Keller unpacks this carefully. Who are "the righteous" Jesus is not calling — are they actually righteous, or is something else going on?

3.Keller notes that the religious leaders accuse Jesus of breaking Sabbath laws, and Jesus responds by claiming to be Lord of the Sabbath. This is one of many implicit claims to divine authority in Mark. How do these escalating claims function dramatically in Mark's Gospel? What is Mark building toward?

1.Keller spends significant time on the Parable of the Sower. Jesus explains that the seed (the word) falls on four types of soil. Keller argues that three of the four represent not outright rejection but failed forms of reception — distraction, shallow emotion, and divided priorities. Which of these three "near misses" do you find most dangerous, and why?

2.When Jesus calms the storm, he rebukes the disciples: "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" Keller makes a crucial distinction here — the disciples were not faithless people, they were afraid despite knowing Jesus was in the boat. What is the difference between fear that drives you away from Jesus and fear that leads you to cry out to him? Which kind were the disciples experiencing?

3.Keller points out that after calming the storm, the disciples are described as "terrified" — more afraid than they were of the storm itself. Why would the disciples be more frightened of Jesus calming the storm than of the storm itself? What does that tell us about what a genuine encounter with Jesus should feel like?

1.Jesus feeds five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Keller connects this to the manna in the wilderness and argues that Jesus is presenting himself as a new Moses — and more than Moses. How does the Exodus background deepen the meaning of this miracle? What is Jesus claiming about himself through this sign?

2.After feeding the crowd, Jesus walks on water toward the disciples' boat. Mark adds a puzzling comment: "He was about to pass by them." Keller connects this to the language of Old Testament theophanies — God "passing by" in Exodus and 1 Kings. What is the significance of this allusion? What is Mark trying to say about who Jesus is?

3.Mark records that after both the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand, the disciples are confused and "hardened in heart." Keller finds this indictment of the disciples oddly comforting. Why? What does it mean that even those closest to Jesus could be so slow to understand him?

1.Jesus heals a blind man in two stages — first partially, then fully — an unusual miracle that stands alone in the Gospels. Keller reads this as a deliberate sign about the disciples' own partial spiritual sight. What does "partial sight" look like spiritually? Where do you recognize that kind of half-seeing in your own faith?

2.At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks his disciples the most important question in the book: "Who do you say I am?" Peter answers: "You are the Messiah." Keller calls this the hinge of Mark's Gospel. Why is this question — and Peter's answer — so pivotal? What is at stake in how we answer it?

3.Immediately after Peter's great confession, Jesus begins to explain that he must suffer, be rejected, and be killed. Peter rebukes Jesus — and Jesus responds with the sharpest words in the Gospels: "Get behind me, Satan." What had Peter gotten right, and what had he catastrophically misunderstood? How can someone have correct doctrine about Jesus and still be working against him?

1.The disciples argue about who among them is the greatest — right after Jesus predicts his own death for the second time. Keller notes the dark irony: Jesus is moving toward self-emptying sacrifice while his closest followers compete for status. What does this tell us about the depth of the change the gospel needs to make in us, and how long that change can take?

2.Jesus places a child in the disciples' midst and says whoever welcomes a child welcomes him. In the ancient world, children had no social status. What is Jesus doing by elevating the child as a model of kingdom greatness? How does this subvert every natural human hierarchy?

3.A rich young man comes running to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus lists the commandments, and the man says he has kept them all. Then Jesus tells him to sell everything and give to the poor. The man goes away sad. Keller argues that Jesus is not setting up poverty as a universal requirement, but rather identifying the specific idol in this man's heart. What is the significance of that distinction? How might Jesus diagnose your own particular "one thing"?

1.Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey — fulfilling Zechariah 9:9, a prophecy of a humble, peace-bringing king, not a military conqueror. Keller contrasts this with the Roman triumphal entry, in which a conquering general would ride a warhorse. What does the choice of a donkey say about the kind of king Jesus is? How does this challenge both ancient and modern expectations of power?

2.Jesus curses the fig tree and then cleanses the Temple — and Mark sandwiches these two events together in a way that is clearly intentional. Keller argues that the fig tree interprets the Temple action: Israel (and the Temple system) has the appearance of fruitfulness but not the reality. Where do you see that pattern — religious form without genuine fruit — in churches or in your own life?

3.In the Temple, Jesus quotes Isaiah 56 ("a house of prayer for all nations") and Jeremiah 7 ("a den of robbers"). Keller argues that Jesus is not primarily upset about financial corruption but about exclusion — the Court of the Gentiles had been turned into a marketplace, preventing non-Jews from approaching God. How does this reframe what the cleansing of the Temple is really about? What does it say about who belongs in God's presence?

1.In Mark 13, Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple — which comes true in 70 AD — and speaks of future tribulation. Keller notes that Jesus's apocalyptic teaching is not meant to generate fear but to generate faithfulness. What is the difference between those two responses to uncertainty about the future? How does Jesus's teaching here serve as an anchor rather than an alarm?

2.An unnamed woman pours an entire jar of expensive perfume over Jesus's head. The disciples are indignant at the "waste." But Jesus says she has done "a beautiful thing" and that her act will be told "wherever the gospel is preached." What does the woman's act express about her understanding of who Jesus is that the disciples have missed? What makes her extravagance not waste but worship?

3.Keller observes that the woman anoints Jesus's head — the place where kings and priests are anointed — but she may not have fully understood the theological significance of what she was doing. Keller says she did the right thing for perhaps incomplete reasons, and Jesus honors it fully. What does that tell us about how God receives our imperfect acts of devotion?

1.At the Last Supper, Jesus takes bread and wine and declares them his body and blood. Keller argues that Jesus is not just instituting a ritual but making a breathtaking claim — that he himself is the Passover Lamb, the sacrifice that liberates God's people from the ultimate slavery. How does this Exodus background change the way you understand the Lord's Supper? What should it feel like to participate in it?

2.In Gethsemane, Jesus prays: "Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." Keller spends a great deal of time on what "the cup" means — drawing on Old Testament imagery where the cup of wrath is God's response to human sin. What is the cup Jesus is asking to have removed? Why is his willingness to drink it the hinge of the entire gospel?

3.Jesus is "deeply distressed and troubled" in Gethsemane — language that Mark uses to describe extreme emotional anguish. Keller argues this is not a failure of nerve but a real reckoning with what the cross will cost. How does the full humanity of Jesus in this scene affect your understanding of his suffering? Why does it matter that he was genuinely afraid?

1.Before Pilate, Jesus is silent — he does not defend himself, does not bargain, does not leverage the crowd's sympathy. Keller argues that Jesus's silence is itself a form of speech: it is the silence of a sacrifice that has chosen this path. What does Jesus's voluntary silence say about the nature of his death — was it something done to him, or something he did?

2.The crowd chooses Barabbas — a convicted murderer and insurrectionist — to be released, while Jesus is condemned. Keller sees in this exchange a parable of substitution: the guilty goes free and the innocent is condemned in his place. How does the Barabbas episode function as a picture of what the cross accomplishes for every believer?

3.The soldiers mock Jesus with a crown of thorns and a purple robe, hailing him as "King of the Jews" in derision. Keller notes the crushing irony: they are speaking truer than they know. How does Mark use irony throughout the crucifixion narrative to make theological points? What does it say about God's way of working that the most important truths in this story are spoken by those who don't believe them?

1.The women come to the tomb expecting to anoint a dead body — they are not expecting resurrection. Keller notes that the first witnesses to the resurrection were women, whose testimony was not legally admissible in the ancient world. Why is it historically significant that the Gospel accounts place women at the center of the resurrection witness? What does this say about the nature of this story — is it the kind of story a fabricator would tell?

2.The young man at the tomb tells the women: "He has risen! He is not here." Keller argues that the resurrection is not resuscitation — Jesus did not simply return to the life he had before. The resurrection is the beginning of a new kind of existence, the firstfruits of the new creation. What difference does it make whether Jesus merely came back to life versus rose to an entirely new form of life?

3.The messenger specifically tells the women: "Go, tell his disciples and Peter..." The singling out of Peter — who had denied Jesus three times — is, Keller argues, an act of extraordinary grace. Jesus is not writing Peter off; he is specifically seeking him out. How does this personalized grace change the way you think about your own failures and the possibility of restoration?

1.Keller's thesis is that Jesus came as a king — but a king unlike any other, who served rather than demanded service, and who won his kingdom through sacrifice rather than conquest. How has your understanding of what it means to call Jesus "King" changed, deepened, or been challenged over the course of this book? What feels most new to you?

2.Looking back across all twelve chapters, which single scene from Mark's Gospel — as Keller explores it — had the most impact on you? Was it the calming of the storm, Gethsemane, the cry of dereliction, the anointing woman, Bartimaeus, the rich young man? Why did that particular moment land most deeply?

3.Keller returns repeatedly to the contrast between moralistic religion (trying to earn your way to God) and the gospel (receiving grace freely through Christ). Where have you seen that distinction most clearly illustrated in Mark? And where do you still catch yourself slipping into moralism — trying to earn what Jesus has already freely given?