Asking questions

Matthew 22:23-33

Ten verses, that contain 12 sentences and 194 words are so dynamic, if the reader is looking for truth, do you believe the Sadducees were exploring truth, or had they come up with what they believed was an unanswerable question?  It’s clear that Sadducees and Pharisees were not in the same camp, one believed in the resurrection and the other did not, so what is a Sadducee?  “The Sadducees were elitists who wanted to maintain the priestly caste, but they were also liberal in their willingness to incorporate Hellenism into their lives, something the Pharisees opposed. The Sadducees rejected the idea of the Oral Law and insisted on a literal interpretation of the Written Law, they did not believe in an after life, since it is not mentioned in the Torah. The main focus of Sadducee life was rituals associated with the Temple.” (Jewish Virtual Library)
This is the question ask by the Sadducees: “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him.  Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother.  The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh.  Finally, the woman died.  Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” (Matthew 22:24-28)  Now some thought went into their question, I bet they spent hours working on just the right question, asked in what they believed was, “We gotcha” language.
These guys were not sales people, for a salesperson wants to word the question in a manner that exposes facts, or brings understanding and clarity to the question.  They were also not that smart to confront Jesus with a trick question, when they had just witnessed Him replying to the question about paying taxes to Caesar.
This is Jesus’ reply: “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:29-32)
Have you ever played the role of a Sadducee?   Maybe a better question would be do you ask questions with no interest in the answer of the one you are asking?  If so, it is the heart of a Sadducee, and that seems to be the heart of so many in our culture, which have a mind made up of unfounded thoughts, with no desire for truth.  If that is where you find yourself, and this writer has found himself there more than once, it’s time to listen and learn from Jesus.  Jesus is saying: “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”  It is Ok to be wrong, but a Sadducee is too full of self to understand they are wrong, but in that you are much smarter than a Sadducee, examine the Scriptures, see if what you say you believe holds true with the written word of God. 
As just a side note, as a recovering Baptist it has taken years to unlearn much of what I believed, but I’ve learned that I must come to the Scriptures as a child and ask the Holy Spirit who Jesus sent as my Helper, to help me, not just to understand, but to apply these truths to my life.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice