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by Charlie Wolcott

Matthew 21-22 covers Jesus’ time teaching in the Temple after He cleaned house and drove out the merchants and traders. The Pharisees and Sadducees had tried everything to figure out what Jesus was up to, disturbed by His open rejection of their traditions that overrode the actual purpose of the commands, but they could not find anything on Him. But they had a bigger problem: the people. Jesus came into Jerusalem to them singing His praises, and the Pharisees knew if they moved an inch against Him, they themselves would be stoned. So they had one option left: try to get Jesus trapped in His own words. They needed to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the public, and they knew that was a tall task ahead of them.

They had several things to try out. They asked Jesus about His authority since it clearly was not from any of the rabbinical schools in Judea. They asked Him about taxes to try to see if He actually was against Rome or not. And then the ridiculous scenario question: a woman married seven brothers who each died before she could have any kids, so whose husband would she be? I can imagine Jesus thinking: “Are these really your best questions?” Because He was always listening to the Holy Spirit, He was always ahead of everyone. But here is how Jesus handled these three key challenges.

First, Jesus’ authority. Jesus’ authority was questioned – how He believed He could do the things He was doing. He could not say “My own authority” (sorry, The Chosen, you did bomb that one, even though you made it up in the next episode). He could say He got it from God because He had already claimed to have it from God via His miracles and His discourses in John 5, 6, and 8. But He was not going to go Messianic complex on the Pharisees here. He had already backed up His claims through three years of miracles, and since He knew they were testing Him in the public’s view, He put the onus on them. Since they wanted to test which authority He had, Jesus put them to the test to see what authorities they would even recognize, and so He tested them regarding John the Baptist. They knew they could not say “from heaven,” and they could not say “from men,” so they said they didn’t know. So Jesus wouldn’t tell them. He knew the people knew, and He knew the Pharisees knew but didn’t want to admit it.

Second, taxes. The test here was to see if Jesus could be put between a rock and a hard place by making Him look bad before the people or before the Romans. Was it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, whose denarius basically gave Caesar’s face and a declaration of him to be a god? And they opened with an attempt to butter Him up and gave Him a high platform that He could fall down from. I picture that Jesus just snickered, “Really?” So Jesus answered plainly: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God that which is God’s.” Jesus showed recognition of the authority of both the local politics AND the church and never gave a direct “yes or no” answer.

Third, marriage in heaven, the ridiculous hypothetical. I get these all the time, such as “What if Adam squished an ant by accident? That makes death before sin; therefore, animals must have died before sin.” Jesus sighed at this one, as with the others. With each case, the question designed to trip Him up was flawed in itself, and Jesus exposed the faulty question. Jesus did not answer the silly hypothetical but pointed out that the hypothetical scenario itself showed its own ignorance of Scripture and how God does things. Now, it’s worth noting this question came from the Sadducees, who were a sect of Pharisees. They rejected a bodily resurrection, and they only accepted the Torah as valid Scripture. So not only did Jesus school them, but He even cited from Moses, when the very name of God was revealed to Moses at the burning bush, that He was the God of the living, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had long passed when Moses was around. Right there in the very text these Sadducees scoured over was a text for a doctrine they denied. Jesus humiliated these experts in the field, and at that point, they had nothing left to say. If they tried, they would only implicate themselves even further than they already had.

When I give my fencing presentation on the Armor of God, I like to go over different moves we do in the sport and showcase them as a visual for how we are to engage in the spiritual battle. One move is called a “circular parry.” This changes the “line” (the area of the target in relation to the opponent’s blade) of the attack, which now makes the defender in control of the action. Jesus was a master of this move. He never allowed His opponents to put Him on the defensive, and when He allowed them to ask questions, it reminds me of a tactic I use for which other fencers have dubbed me the “Iron Wall.” It’s when I don’t react to any wild moves anyone does and just keep my point on target; when they finally do something, I am already on top of them. Jesus never let any of the actions of His opponents draw Him off target or His game. He always controlled and dictated both the pace and tempo of each of these dialogues. In some cases, He acted as a teacher and showed moves on what to do. In other cases, He was in competition mode and with a very calm, cool, collected mindset, never lost a “bout,” and I would argue no one even got an actual “touch” on Him (to use a fencing term).

Let us study Jesus’ interactions and use them as a model for how to engage the skeptics we deal with, always controlling the dialogue and never chasing after any silly claim. Next week, we’ll look at Jesus’ most aggressive speech: the woes upon the Pharisees and the judgment He declared upon the whole system.

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