Intellect or Fatih?

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question,….

There are two things I want to address this morning.

One, is how people use “the question!”

Two, how people use scripture to prove a point!

First I’ll tackle the purpose for a question. 

The first way to ask a question is to begin, or possibly end, a conversation.  It can be a friendly way to show interest in someone else. It can also be asked to gain knowledge, information.  Or a question can be just an honest wonder.  

There are other questions that are begging for debate. To put someone on the defensive.  One that is meant to make them squirm; and/or make them look bad in the company of others. These kind of questions are usually asked to prove a point.  I will label this kind of question a “Passive aggressive question”.  The kind of question that would have two very different purposes.  It is most often presented when the questioner is  avoiding honest, or direct, confrontation.

It is the passive aggressive type of question, that the Sadducees were posing to Jesus.  It was asked to make Jesus look bad — to discredit him — in front of his close followers.  

For those of you who are unaware of who the Sadducees were; they were intellectuals who denied the idea of resurrection.  They believed that life ends with physical death.  The complete opposite of Jesus’ teachings!

I have the impression, of the Sadducees, as being pretty smug.  Thinking that they were holding a place of power in their attempts to bring Jesus down.  They were confident; because they think they have Moses on their side.  So they begin their question with a statement:   

"Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?

Can’t you just imagine the look on their faces?  They had him dead to right.  How could he dare argue with Moses?

However, Jesus resists debate!  He doesn’t enter into defensive behavior.  He walks confidently onto their playing field of information, The Torah (the five books of Moses). And pitches the ball right back.  He also uses Moses’ words:  

37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

You see, the Sadducees invited Jesus into an intellectual conversation trying to trap Jesus about his un-intellectual, illogical, way of thinking.  

However, Jesus interpretation of Moses’ Law, and who God is and what God wills, opens the conversation by using this moment not to debate!  But as a teaching moment!  He begins by reminding them that heaven and earth are not the same.  It will be different then!  The ways of God are not the ways of humanity.  Things do not work in heaven the way they work on earth.

In heaven all believers will be angels (my imagination!) 

Heaven is a new space of life where people live where God is and continues to be God.  

It is a place where our lives are not defined by gender or family status.  Just as children of God!l

This teaching moment probably does not necessarily satisfy some of the questions we may have about resurrection.  Nor can our Bluetooth devices give us exact direction as to how we get to heaven.  

However, what the story does do, is give us a promise.  A promise of a very real God who lives now on into forever.  And that he is waiting for the time to take our hands and bring us into a new place. A place to experience an un-imagine-able way of being.

What this story also does is to point out the problem — the issue— of using scripture to prove our side of an argument.  

Especially if you are debating with Jesus! 

The Sadducees had no idea who they were dealing with.  

And, by the way, neither do we!

If you can take anything from this blog, I hope it would be how blessed each one of us are to live a life of faith in this mighty and merciful God of the living!!  And what that means for our life now and in the future.  

That would be point number one!

Secondly that scripture, in the hands of the human intellect, can be fatal! 

It is wise to come to the written word of God in prayerful awe!  With open minds to what God was communicating to the human mind all those centuries ago.  

And then, at the same time, be willing to understand that that same God is still, today, communicating to us what we need to understand. 

I believe that, God did not stop speaking when the cover of the Bible was finalized.  Just like God didn’t stop speaking when the Torah was completed.  Or after Jesus left his physical life!

Times change!  

Ages move into new ages!  

People Change!  Cultures change! Situations change!  And the understanding of right and wrong — clean or unclean — have also changed over the centuries. 

A perfect example of this truth is communicated in this story.  It was different when Moses created the Torah.  Different then when Jesus stood before proud Sadducees. 

God does not stay cemented on the stones of the Ten Commandments.  Jesus coming made that truth undoubtably clear!

This God we believe in, and worship,  is on the move.  Has never stopped creating and teaching since the embarrassing fruit eating insolent in the Garden of Eden.  Or the closing of the Red Sea!  Or when he moved past anger that destroyed “all that he had made” with a flood.  Or when he sent his son to help us understand him better.

He has never stop trying to find ways to help us listen to what is new NOW!

The truth is, God’s creation has had many stages of life.  And a huge amount of growing pains.  It has evolved over centuries of “hindsight experiences," grown up and matured.  And still has along way to go!

So!  It is not smart to take a sentence from a passage and assume something.  

Because Jesus/God is right there to ask the question: O’really, so how are you so sure?  What makes you positive that you know so much?

Or as Paul so adequately say it:  “Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:20)

I encourage all of us to read the pages of the Bible with humility.  Asking God’s Spirit to guide our minds to what God is calling us to understand in this age. 

If the human ego would stop trying to intellectualize God, and God’s word,  then maybe we could all come together in one faith.  

Not trying to be right!  But grateful!

Just grateful because, in God’s immeasurable, inexhaustible, faithfulness we find enough to live this life day-to-day into the life he has for us tomorrow.

There is nothing intellectual about that truth!

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her." 34 Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”(Luke 20)