The penetrating question that Jesus asks them—“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your mat, and walk’?”—has been puzzled over for twenty centuries. Once while preparing a sermon on this text I got out my Anchor Bible Commentary, which is arguably the most thorough, scholarly, and respected set of critical studies of the Bible. And when the commentator arrives at the place in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus poses this question, he says, in essence, “You know, after countless pages written on this, we still have a good question before us.
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