daily java

Daily Java:

“But now, as to whether the dead will be raised — even Moses proved this when he wrote about the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, he referred to the Lord as ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him.” “Well said, Teacher!” remarked some of the teachers of religious law who were standing there. And then no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Luke 20:37-40)

You can imagine what it is like to be in a situation where people were constantly waiting for you to make a verbal mistake, listening to your every word, to find something you say that is wrong.

There was the story of a guy named Gordium who tied a knot that was so intricate no one could untie it. It was said that the one who could figure out how to untie the knot would be King of Greece. Alexander the Great tried and failed, so he took his sword out and just cut through the center of the knot. He “cut the Gordian knot” as the old expression says.

Jesus did  that a lot. He just cut through all the junk and found the answer.

Those who didn’t like what Jesus said were desperate to trip him up. They would bring out every old argument they could think of to see if he would make a mistake.

But he never did and that infuriated them. In fact, usually, he would go a third way on their arguments. Generally, when they argued, there were two camps of thought on the subject. Jesus would introduce a third line of argument which would surprise all of them, infuriate some of them and delight the others. He was a good debater.

As far as dead being raised, it was an old argument. Some of the Jews took the idea that there was no afterlife, nor angels, nor anything supernatural. The other group took the idea that there was a large supernatural part of the afterlife. Both argued a lot.

When they tried to involve Jesus in their argument over resurrection, Jesus pointed out that their scriptures mentioned Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as if they were still alive.

Some of the teachers, said, Well said, Teacher! They recognized a good answer when they heard it. And even if they didn’t like him, they had to admire the turn of phrase Jesus had the knack for.

But one thing for sure. It shut the rest up. They quickly found that there was no way to try to trip Jesus up without coming out looking like fools themselves. And that was no fun. At least not for them.

The crowds, on the other hand, loved it. They hated those stuck-ups that thought they were so much better than anyone else. And Jesus was one of them, they felt. He came from nowhere, had been a carpenter of all things, had no formal training, yet had the ability to impale these teachers of the law on their own arguments.

The word of God always shuts up the words of earthly wisdom. For one thing, the true word of God, the real thing, is always simple. The more complex the argument, the less likely it is to be true.

Psalm 19:7says: The instructions of the Lord are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

Psalm 119:130 The teaching of your word gives light, so even the simple can understand.

The apostle Paul said that the message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.

Jesus did not come so that we could argue theology. He didn’t come to argue but to save. And the message God brought us is a simple one.

I, for one, am glad.

cutting the gordian knot

Watching for their opportunity, the leaders sent spies pretending to be honest men. They tried to get Jesus to say something that could be reported to the Roman governor so he would arrest Jesus. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you speak and teach what is right and are not influenced by what others think. You teach the way of God truthfully. Now tell us—is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” He saw through their trickery and said, “Show me a Roman coin. Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. “Well then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” So they failed to trap him by what he said in front of the people. Instead, they were amazed by his answer, and they became silent. (Luke 20:20-26)

When you are not getting what you want, and getting what you want is the most important thing to you, you will stoop to anything. Including pretending to be honest.

Some people have to pretend to be honest because they are not honest naturally. They have done things on the sly for so long that they have lost the ability to just be honest.

The problem is that they couldn’t get what they want by being honest. What they want is power and control. And they can’t come right out and say that. “I want power and control over you.” If they did that, everybody would turn away from them immediately because they could see their greed.

So they pretend to be honest. They pretend to be concerned for other things. They pretend to be concerned with health, or politics and leadership, for the welfare of others.

But underneath, it is just the plain old greed for power and control over others.

In this case, they wanted Jesus to trick himself and be shown as either a revolutionary against the Roman government or a puppet of the Roman government.

Now these people hated the Roman government because they were an occupation force. But still, any port in a storm. So they brought up taxation.

If Jesus said, yes, we should pay taxes, he would make all of the conservatives mad because they hated taxation by an oppressive government. If he said no, the government would step in and arrest him as a troublemaker.

As far as they were concerned, he was stuck.

But, Jesus did something they hated. He went a third way. Show me a coin and tell me whose picture is on it. Well, Caesar’s, of course. Then give what is Caesar’s back to him and give what is God’s to him.

What it did, was scare them. It amazed them. In fact, it was such a good answer that it shut them up for a while. They even had trouble discussing it among themselves because it was so masterful. Jesus just cut the Gordian knot and said something that even they couldn’t disagree with.

Man, they hated him.