Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Mark 10:30

"but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." — Mark 10:30 (ASV)

Instead of rebuking Peter, Jesus made a threefold promise: No one who forsakes home, loved ones, or lands for Jesus’ sake and the Gospel’s will fail (1) to receive back in this life a hundredfold what he or she has lost; (2) to suffer persecutions (only Mark includes this); and (3) to have eternal life in the age to come. The hundredfold return in this life must be understood in the context of the new community into which believers in Jesus come. There they find a multiplication of relationships, often closer and more spiritually meaningful than blood ties.

Jesus is also realistic about the Christian life. There will be persecutions, but through them the new relationships as members of the Christian community develop and flourish. Jesus goes on to promise eternal life in “the age to come.” Everything that happens in the present is an earnest of that far richer fulfillment when there will no longer be any persecutions.