The Empire Strikes Back ep2: Scriptures

March 20, 2022

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Matthew 22:23-33 records the second attempt to use the “Divide and Conquer” strategy against Jesus, as the religious leaders test him with a doctrinal question. The Sadducees hit Jesus with a hypothetical question about marriage in the next life in an attempt to show how the laws of Moses don’t make sense if there’s life after death. Jesus will either side with Moses and say there’s no resurrection, or He’ll side with the Pharisees and the popular view. Either way, they’ll have dragged Him into a doctrinal dispute which will alienate people.

But once again Jesus turns the tables and exposes a bigger issue. Both the Pharisees and the Sadducees had a problem with Scripture! Their faulty approaches to Scripture led to endless disputes instead of life-giving conversation. It robbed them of the opportunity to be well equipped for the life to come as well as the here-and-now. That’s a problem we still have today!

As we see how Jesus deals with these groups we have an opportunity to check our own approach to Scripture to see if we’re falling into the same traps. We don’t want to be in error because we don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God!