“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 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?”

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.”
Matthew 22:23-33 NIV

And so, here we find Jesus confronted by a group of men who were set in their ways of thought and theology. They imagined themselves learned and clever and they come to Him with a question they thought would be impossible to answer intelligently. They had so convinced themselves they were right, that they couldn’t see the flip side of the coin they held in their own hands.

When we sit down with like-minded people, we are often drawn into circular conversations centered around pet topics and pre-set lines of thought. We are encouraged to entrench deeper and deeper into those mind sets and we build up the foundations of our arguments on those common points and ideals. This is totally normal behavior, and honestly, this is what we expect to find in human nature. We tend to gravitate toward people who we deem are ‘like us’ whether it’s a music preference, a fashion/style choice, a political leaning or a theological group like we find here.

Socially speaking, this is an easy thing to do. I am going to gravitate more toward the group of guys that can still quote Monty Python and discuss the finer points of Star Wars series and The Lord of the Rings books more so than the guys who can quote you stats about last year’s NFL/NHL/FIFA/NBA seasons, teams and players. My mind works from a narrative, not statistics, and so my social leanings are going to match up better with storytellers than statisticians.

Jesus meets these men in the midst of their social club’s riddle night. They thought they had come up with a clever question based on their belief system. But what Jesus taught them was that they had centered too much within their own school of thought to the point of intellectually choking themselves and their understanding of God Himself because of this encampment they had built up.

While it’s nice to be around people who think like we do, it’s also intellectually dishonest to cut off debate and always assume that you are just going to be right all the time. Jesus points out to these men that they weren’t even on the right page when it came to the nature of God and His interaction with us in this life and the next. They had circled their wagons, entrenched themselves and dismissed the possibilities that lay beyond their boundaries.

And so Jesus take a them to the source of truth, the litmus test for ideas and ideologies, Scripture itself. He says, ‘You say you believe this? Then let’s look at the whole of it, let’s examine the breadth of it and see what it really says.’

We cannot pick and choose which portions of Scripture we want to believe or adhere to, to do so is, again, intellectually dishonest to ourselves and others. We build weak foundations when we pick them apart for what portions we want because of personal bias. Instead, we examine the whole, we study the entirety, and what we will find is truth, when left to stand for itself, will always prove itself and reveal itself as such. Jesus is very direct in showing them that God presides over the living, indicating the nature of the afterlife, and that their question has no merit due to their lack of understanding. He also reveals to them what Scripture plainly states when you read it, that our relationships here, while significant, will not be the focus of eternity.

By removing the blinders they had placed on themselves through their carefully constructed arguments, Jesus reveals the whole of God’s truth, even in just this topic, and He silences their supposed cleverness.

We aren’t fooling God when we rationalize arguments to suit our own agendas. We cannot justify our distortion of truth simply by finding people who share in our skewed perceptions. We must accept God’s Word in its entirety, and we must let truth be truth untarnished. That means that we need to constantly examine our stances and foundations in the light of Scripture and see if we still mesh with what it says, and never the other way around. Truth isn’t subject to change based on what I find convenient or socially acceptable according to secular culture. Truth doesn’t change. God’s Word doesn’t shift like sand in the desert. It is our bedrock foundation for life, thought and all intellectual pursuits. It keeps us honest, humble and ready to learn.

Jesus showed love by revealing bias and empty arguments and encouraging an honest examination of the truth. May we GoLove others who think differently than us, and be a signpost towards His truth in all gentleness and respect as we live out these precious rhythms of grace.