Mark 10:17

Mark tied this incident into what immediately preceded more closely than the other evangelists did. He wanted his readers to see this young man as expressing exactly the opposite of what Jesus had just taught His disciples. The man was a rich (Mark 10:22) young (Matthew 19:20) ruler (Luke 18:18). His approach to Jesus was unusually earnest and respectful, but he viewed eternal life as something one must earn.

Matthew wrote that he asked what he should do to get or obtain (Gr. scho) eternal life, but Mark and Luke said that he used the term "inherit" (Gr. kleponomeo). The man clearly did not believe that he had eternal life and wanted to learn what he needed to do to get it. Probably Matthew recorded the exact word he used (the ipisissima verba) and Mark and Luke interpreted what he meant (the ipisissima vox). It was important for Matthew to tell his original Jewish readers that the young man was talking about getting something that he did not possess. Mark and Luke wrote for Gentiles for whom "inheriting" clarified what was in the rich young ruler’s mind. He was talking about getting something that he as a Jew thought that he had a right to obtain because of his ethnic relationship to Abraham.

"In the rich young ruler’s mind entering heaven, inheriting eternal life, and having eternal life were all the same thing, and all meant ’go to heaven when I die.’ Jesus neither affirms or denies this equation here. He understands that the young man wants to know how to enter life, or enter the kingdom." [Note: Joseph C. Dillow, The Reign of the Servant Kings, p. 65. Cf. William E. Brown, "The New Testament Concept of the Believer’s Inheritance" (Th.D. dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1984).]