5.9

Pronouncement Stories in the Gospels: Some Examples (Box 5.6)

Correction Stories

• let the dead bury the dead (Matt. 8:21–22)
• forgive seventy-seven times (Matt. 18:21–22)
• whoever wants to be first (Mark 9:33–35)
• whoever is not against us (Mark 9:38–40)
• who is truly blessed (Luke 11:27–28)

Commendation Stories

• the confession by Peter (Matt. 16:13–20)
• the generous widow (Mark 12:21–44)
• the woman who anoints Jesus (Mark 14:3–9)

Controversy Stories

• eating with sinners (Mark 2:15–17)
• Jesus’s disciples don’t fast (Mark 2:18–22)
• picking grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23–28)
• eating with defiled hands (Mark 7:1–15)
• by what authority? (Mark 11:27–33)
• paying taxes to Caesar (Mark 12:13–17)
• whose wife will she be? (Mark 12:18–27)

See Robert C. Tannehill, “The Gospels and Narrative Literature,” in The New Interpreters Bible: New Testament Survey (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), 1–16.