Matthew 22: 23-46, Tests by the Religious Leaders, II

The religious teachers continue to challenge Jesus.  They have their favorite nuggets to throw at him. "Can God make a stone so big He can't move it?"  No, that is not one of the questions... but the questions are on that simplistic level.

Matt 22:23-33, Who is a man's wife in heaven?
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children 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?"

Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

"But about the resurrection of the dead--have you not read what God said to you.  `I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of  Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."

When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

The Sadducees also attempt a direct line of questioning, hitting Jesus with one of their conundrums intended to show that the resurrection is a foolish idea.  Jesus's response is more direct here and he confronts the foolishness of the Sadducees by confronting their underlying assumptions.

(This reminds me of some of the silly things I see on Facebook, ideas that only make sense to those who have already bought into them....)

The quote in verse 32 is from  Exodus 3:6.  This quote is significant, I think, to one's view of the afterlife and the "restoration" mentioned in an earlier passage.  The afterlife is not going to be like the popular church description, sitting high above the clouds, looking down on the earth.  It will be on the earth, in a new, restored earth and universe.

Matt 22:34-40, Greatest commandment
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Jesus replied: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Jesus quickly summarizes the Law in a way that shows he has thought deeply about it.

The quote in verse 37 is from Deut. 6:5. The quote in verse 39 is from Lev. 19:18.

Matt 22:41-45, David calls his Son, "My Lord"
While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked  them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?"  

"The son of David," they replied.

He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him `Lord'? For he says `The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I  put your enemies under your feet."' If then David calls him `Lord,' how can he be his son?"

Jesus has saved up a question for the Pharisees: why did David call his chosen descendant, "Lord"? The quote in verse 44 is from Psalm 110:1 and hits at the Pharisees' narrow view of the coming Messiah.

Matt 22:46, Stymied
No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Jesus seems to know the entire Old Testament by heart, and to have thought deeply about it.  The Pharisees' trick questions (over the last two chapters of Matthew) have been futile and Jesus has ended the session with a question that has caught them out.

Matthew 22:1-22, Tests by the religious leaders

The religious leaders test Jesus, trying to trap him.  But most of Jesus's teachings are in parables, which seem to confuse and distract them.

Matt 22:1-14, A king prepares a banquet
Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, `Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'  But they paid no attention and went off--one to his field, another to his business.  The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.

"The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, `The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.'

"So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. `Friend,' he asked, `how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, `Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will  be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

"For many are invited, but few are chosen."

The metaphor implies that the Jewish nation has ignored God's invitation and so the invitation (as prophesied in the Old Testament) is dispersed to the Gentiles, to the "foreigners".  But even then, there are guests who seem to ignore the prestige and importance of such an invitation.

These parables (denouncing Jewish apathy and opening the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles) force the Pharisees' hand....

Matt 22:15-22, A question about Caesar
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." 

They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied. 

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."  

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

The Pharisees ask Jesus a direct question.  But even the direct question he manages to deflect in a way that frustrates them.  Jesus does not, as they had hoped, attack the Romans, but continues to emphasize a larger kingdom of heaven.

Note the outright flattery that leads the questioning.

The "Herodians" have been brought to this questioning.  Presumably the Herodians are sympathetic to King Herod and so the question put before Jesus has considerable danger; if he runs down the Roman government, King Herod will have witnesses to his treason.