B. The record of "rejection" begins with Jesus' curse upon the fig tree (11:12-26); a record that is structured in terms of "The Curse", "The Reason", and "The Necessity for Faith".
C. The record of the "interruption" between the segments of Jesus' treatment of the fig tree.
D. The challenge by the offended "leaders" of Jesus regarding His "authority" to act as He had the previous day.
E. The "problem" the "authority question" posed for the "offended leaders".
F. The "parable" that explains His coming death at the hands of the leaders of the nation.
G. The effort to "trap" Jesus in His words.
1. The "trappers" are identified as "apostles" by the choice of the verb (apostello) of the "they" who "are sending". This refers to the prior group of "chief priests, scribes, and elders".
a. They are sending "Certain of the Pharisees".
1) These are the "theological conservatives who have tried to "hold the line" in the face of "drift" in the culture in regard to the "literal interpretation" of the Words of God.
a) By "literal interpretation", they mean "having a written scripture" upon which they promote their "interpretation".
b) By "literal interpretation" they also mean an interpretation that "fits" their over-arching theological premise.
(1) In the process of interpreting, there is a "view of the forest" that compels a harmony between the "meaning" of every observed detail of every tree, bush, type of terrain, etc. (this is "theology" guiding the process of seeking meaning).
(2) The primacy of the "forest" restricts the possibilities of the meanings of the individual words (this is both a protection and a killer).
(3) In legitimate "hermeneutical theory" the "forest" is "a tentative thesis of divine purpose" (this means that if/when a "leaf" is simply impossible to harmonize with the "forest", one must adjust the "forest" so that the "leaf is in harmony with the forest and makes sense").
c) The "forest" of the Pharisees was that God's words must be understood in terms of man's responsibility to "obey" in order to receive the blessings of God.
2) These "Pharisees" are being sent because they will "pounce" on any statement Jesus makes (leaf-details) that makes the "forest" a "flawed" Unity of Truth.
b. They are sending "certain of the Herodians".
1) The "Herodians", defined by their descriptive title, are those who have made the "forest" to be that God intends for men's lives to be governed by the rules of those whom He has established to be the "political rulers" (this, like the forest of the Pharisees, depended upon man's ability to "obey unto blessing").
2) The "problem" between the Pharisees and the Herodians is that the Herodians exalted human rules above God-established words so that the actual foundation of the "Herodians" was not rooted in God's words, but, rather, in the words of those He placed into political power (this was, to be sure, an attempt to "root" the forest in God's words, but it forced a "disconnect" in the "harmony of the forest" by exalting a set of "words from Scripture" to the highest level of value when they could not comfortably "fit" that level of importance; Satan tried this on Jesus in the temptation).
3) The presence of the "Herodians" would assure that Jesus' words were in harmony with their "forest" (or not) ... with their anticipated "testimony" to be used against Him.