Scripture: “And Sadducees came to (Jesus), who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.
(My insert: So, what if—7 brothers, all died one by one, all had the same wife from the 1st brother until the last, all the brothers were dead—then the wife dies—whose wife is she in the resurrection?)
Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?…As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.
You are quite wrong.” Excerpts from Mk 12:18-27
Observation: How do theories get argued against effectively? By the Word of God and strong doctrine.
Analysis: These “Sadducees” kind of folks have stopped coming to my door.
I supposed everyone gets a shot by them. They are admirable, consistently doing their “missions”, their once per quarter “witnessing” into my neighborhood.
Their most effective prospects? Those who only know some of the Scriptures and are already focusing on the “moral conduct presentation” of being a Christian— “I know I need to act good if I am a Christian. I don’t know why, but that is what being a Christian is about, right?” This is so-called Christianity defined as moral conduct only, the lack of knowing Him intimately, the folks of “exit, stage left” Matthew 7:21-23.
Jesus hung these Sadducees on their own petard by being accurate with not just the Scriptures, but accurate with the Doctrine of God (He is God of the Living—a Communicable Attribute of God).
He didn’t do this to notch the spine of his Bible, nor to pat Himself on the back (“Hah, got those guys!), He did this to give honor to His Word and the supremacy of Biblical Truth by accurately responding with Scripture. And not just shooting off Verse Bullets (Ka-pow, ka-pow), nor tossing a Quote Bomb but talking and reasoning as if the Word of God was woven into His mind and character (which of course, it is).
I think that the point (for me, at least) of this section of Scripture is not the argument of whose wife is whom, but the picture of the Living Word woven in and out of the discussion by the Master.
I want the Word of God coursing through me like that. C.H. Spurgeon said of John Bunyan, ““If you cut him, (John Bunyan) he’d bleed Scripture!” That’s what I am talking about aspiring to.
Got aspirations yourself?
Prayer: Father, pumped up again—I want more of You. AMEN.