11:11
John the Baptist was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. Now greatest here probably refers to the message that the prophet was bringing. All the Old Testament prophets looked forward to the Messiah, but at a distance of hundreds of years. John spoke about the imminent coming of the Messiah. Now the kingdom of heaven was near, it was at hand. So whoever is in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John, even the least such person. What Jesus is saying in all this is that they needed to realise what was happening. There is a natural tendency to look at things, to interpret them, in terms of what things used to be like. Things were different now.
11:12
This verse is difficult to translate. The NIV has the sense of “violent me have been raiding it”. Likewise ESV has “and the violent take it by force”. Most translation have this, with the meaning of opponents attacking the kingdom. However, they also have a footnote with an alternative translation “the kingdom has been forcefully advancing”. Now John was in prison and would soon be beheaded. So Jesus could be talking about the persecution of the kingdom. However, that does not seem to fit the thread of what Jesus is talking about here. He wants people to see how God’s plan is unfolding, so the margin translation seems better. The kingdom has been forcefully advancing.
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