Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life.

In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller.

Like most people, I sometimes suffer from a hangar. You know, it's been a day, you missed lunch,

you hardly ate a thing, and by the time you get

home, you're famished. But no one around really cares because life goes on whether or not you're

hungry. So kids shout and play and make their demands. You know, your spouse asks you for your

attention. Friends call you, they want to chat. But all you can think about at that point is one thing,

food. Any and every

distraction or obstacle to that one goal elicits extreme irritability. So you snap at your son for

asking you for a pencil. You roll your eyes at your friends or your spouse for wanting to share

a story from their day.

Not of your response is rational or fair, but that's the thing about anger.

Hungry anger makes you do things that are out of character.

So as we reach Mark 11, I can't help but wonder, is that what's happening in this story?

Is Jesus getting hangary? Because this is a strange,

strange tale. Let's pick up in verse 12. The next day, as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.

Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, may no one ever eat fruit

from you again, and his disciples heard him say it. So Jesus gets hungry, and then he goes to a tree

that shouldn't even be in season, shouldn't have any fruit,

and then he curses it because it doesn't have any fruit. It's all a bit strange. We never see

him do anything like this anywhere else. But the story's about to get strange or just six verses later.

After Jesus curses the tree, he and his disciples, they enter the temple,

...