A Plot to Trick Me

Meditations based on readings from

The Story of My Life As Told by Jesus Christ

January 21, 2020

A Plot to Trick Me & Sadducees Asked about the Resurrection

Page 237-239

Matthew 22:15-33;

Mark 12:13-37;

Luke 20: 20-40

At the time when Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem, the Jews had lived their entire life under Roman oppression. The Jews hated the Romans. Adding insult to injury, the Roman coin had an inscription of the Roman Emperor with text affirming him as divine. Because the Jews were forbidden to make an image of their God, just to hold a Roman coin was offensive to a devout Jew. (Interestingly, the Jewish leaders had no trouble producing the Roman coin when Jesus asked for one.)

The Jews were burdened with Roman taxes, local taxes, Temple taxes and taxes to King Herod. The Pharisees thought Jesus had no choice but to anger the Romans, King Herod or the Jews by his response. However, Jesus’ response went in an unexpected direction. On the surface, Jesus’ reply seems simple enough: pay your taxes. On a deeper level, it is important for us to grasp what Jesus intended, and what he did not.

Jesus was not making a statement about separation of church and state. Jesus asked the Pharisees whose image was on the coin. Because Caesar’s image was on the coin, Jesus said “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” The image of God is not on a coin, it is within human beings. We are created in the image of God. When Jesus says “give to God what belongs to God,” Jesus is teaching us to give ourselves to God. This understanding inspires the lines in my favorite prayer: “I acknowledge you to be my Creator and my God. I render to you the reverence of my being and my life. I am not my own. I am yours. By creation and redemption I am yours. I will devote myself to your service this day and forever.”

Whose wife is she? One simple question revealed the utter ignorance of a group of self-righteous scholars. Jesus points out how they are limiting God’s power when they presume there cannot be a resurrection. Second, they do not understand God’s purposes when they presume that if there were a resurrected life, it would simply be an extension of their present culture. In their question, the woman is treated as a piece of property, and in the ‘after-life’, they assume she is still someone’s property. Jesus says that all things in the Kingdom of God will be radically different than they are now. In our bodily resurrection in the coming Kingdom, we will have been completely transformed into the image of God.

My Takeaway: The church has continued to tell this story of Jesus’ encounter with the Sadducees because Jesus’ resurrection proved that all things are possible with God, even the reversal of our death sentence.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2020 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.