We
live in an information age. Our culture could even be described as information
obsessed. So, how did Jesus deal with misinformation and deceit?
In
the last week of Jesus’ life, He is confronted with three questions that were
asked not out of a sincere desire to seek Jesus or to seek the truth, but to
try to trap Jesus and discredit Him with deceit.
In
Matthew 22 the Pharisees plot to entangle Jesus in His own words. They send some
of their disciples or followers along with the Herodians to ask Jesus a
question. They try to ingratiate themselves with Jesus by saying that they know
He is truthful and teaching the way of God and is not swayed by anyone else’s
opinion.
In
verse 17 they ask Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
In
verses 18-20 Jesus says, “Why put Me to the test, you hypocrites?” Show Me the
coin for the tax. Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
In
verse 20 they say it’s Caesar’s. Jesus says, “Therefore render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Jesus
is revealing to us that we are citizens of the Kingdom of God and our first
loyalty is to God and His kingdom. We as citizens of God’s Kingdom have the responsibility
to be godly citizens of the earthly kingdom where God has placed us.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is placing the Kingdom of God first in our
lives and obeying God in how we relate to earthly kingdoms.
Then
the Sadducees come and ask Jesus a question about the resurrection.
There
were seven brothers. The first brother married a woman and died without having
any children. The other six brothers in order of age married the woman and none
had any children. Then the woman died.
In
verse 28 the Sadducees asked Jesus in the resurrection whose wife will she be.
The Sadducees did not believe in any resurrection. They were trying to ask
Jesus a question that they thought He could not answer.
In
verses 29 through 32 Jesus says, “You are wrong, because you neither know the
Scriptures nor the power pf God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry
nor give in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the
resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not a
God of the dead, but of the living.”
The
Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They were viewing the
resurrection from a human viewpoint and not a scriptural viewpoint. They did
not understand the truth of God’s word or God’s power. Jesus tells them that
God is not a God of the dead but of the living and thus those who have faith in
God will have eternal life.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing the word of God regardless of
feelings or circumstances and living based of the truth of God’s word.
Then
the Pharisees came with another question.
In
verse 36 they asked Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment?”
In
verses 37-40 Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first
commandment. And the second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
There
was a debate among the Jewish scribes over which commandment was the greatest.
Jesus very simply says that we are to love God with all that we are and to love
others as we love ourselves. Jesus also says that all the Bible is dependent on
these two commandments. We as humans complicate things, but Jesus simplifies
things.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving God with our whole lives and loving
others in the way we love ourselves.
Jesus
deals with misinformation and deception by speaking the truth. It is all based
in the truth of God’s word. That is the way God has given us to handle
misinformation and deceit: by speaking the truth in love.
Speaking
the Truth in Love and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,
Joe
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