SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/2/2023 9:54 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: “The Approach of the Pharisees”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
22:34-35
Message of the verses: “34 But when the
Pharisees heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered
themselves together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question,
testing Him,”
I mentioned in our last SD that this will be the
final question that Jesus is asked as the Jewish leaders will give up trying to
test Him, so they will plan another way to have Him killed.
Here
is a review of the first and second tests given to Jesus. The Pharisees used the Herodians to give Him
a political test about the poll-tax. The
second test, by the Sadducees was a theological test and it pertained to the
reality of the resurrection, something they denied. Now the Pharisees are about to give Jesus a
test in the area of theology.
MacArthur
writes “When Jesus answered the absurd question about the seven brothers by
showing that even Moses taught the resurrection, He had put the Sadducees to
silence. The verb Phimoo (put…to silence) literally means to muzzle, to forcefully
restrict the opening of the mouth. The
term is used of the muzzling of an ox (1 Cor. 9:9) and of Jesus’ silencing a
demon (Mark 1:25) and a storm (Mark 4:39).
The Sadducees were verbally incapacitated by the Lord, rendered utterly
speechless, just like the man who was rebuked by the king for coming to the
wedding feast without proper clothes (Matt. 22:12).”
One
would think that the results of the first two questions given to Jesus that
could not be answered by the friends of the Pharisees that they would not want
to ask Him another question, but they decided to have another try themselves at
entrapping Him, this time directly by one of their own number rather than
through their less capable disciples.
Now if they thought the others were less capable then they should not
have used them earlier to ask questions.
We will see that they are not successful themselves as their lawyer will
not only agree with Jesus but Jesus will tell him that he is not far from the
kingdom of God.
The
feelings of the Pharisees were far outweighed, and I suppose that pride has a
great deal to do with this and so they would try again, and so they gathered
themselves together clandestinely somewhere in the Temple to plan their next
strategy. In do so, they unintentionally
and unknowingly fulfilled prophecy by plotting together “against the Lord, and
against His Christ” (Acts 4:26-28; Ps. 2:2) Out of that conclave came the third
and final question to test Jesus.
We
see that their choice as seen in this section is a “lawyer,” but in Mark 12:28
he is called as scribe, as Matthew wanted to indicate his unusual expertise in
the Mosaic law and perhaps also his renown in adjudicating religious and social
disputes. I have to believe that there
is no difference in what this person was called as far as someone trying to
make a big deal about this.
“The
lawyer, however, also seems to have been a cut above his fellow religious
leaders in honesty and humility. Like
that of a few of the other scribes, his acknowledgment that Jesus had answered
the Sadducees wisely seems to have been genuine (Mark 12:28; cf. Luke
20:39). Obviously the man was not
totally straightforward, because he allowed himself to be used in testing Jesus
in order to discredit Him. But
apparently his duplicity was mixed with a measure of sincere concern for what
Jesus would say in response to the test question.” (MacArthur’s commentary)
9/2/2023 10:22 AM
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