Mark 12:13-27 (CLICK HERE FOR BIBLE VERSES)
Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is . With an open mind and a humble heart, read this passage and see what sticks out to you in this passage. Is there a verse, a phrase, or a lesson you think the Holy Spirit may be highlighting for you in this passage? After you’ve thought about the passage yourself a bit, read the GAME sharing below. Let’s go!
Mark 12:13-17 (NIV)
13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words.
14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.”
16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied.
17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.
On verses 13-17: By asking Jesus whether it is right to pay taxes to Caesar, the Pharisees and Herodians were trying to trap Jesus in a lose-lose situation, a “catch-22”. If Jesus answered their question by suggesting that the Jews should not pay taxes to Caesar, the Pharisees and Herodians could then take this to the Roman government and say, “Look, Jesus is inciting rebellion against Caesar!” On the other hand, if Jesus suggested that the Jews should pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus might be seen by some Jews as siding with the Roman government and betraying the Jewish nation, similar to the way they viewed tax collectors.
Yet Jesus brilliantly avoids his enemies’ trap. He sees through their initial flattery as well as their subsequent question. Jesus’ famous response – “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s” (v17) – gave his enemies nothing to take to Caesar and nothing to take to the most anti-Roman Jews.
Jesus demonstrated such grace and tact in the way he responded to controversial questions. No one exemplified Colossians 4:6 better than Jesus: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Let’s pray that we also would have wisdom to answer tough questions with tact, wisdom, love and skill.
Mark 12:18-27 (NIV)
18 Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.
19 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother.
20 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children.
21 The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third.
22 In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too.
23 At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
24 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
26 Now about the dead rising–have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?
27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”
On verses 18-27: Who were the Sadducees? The Sadducees originated as a priestly sect claiming their descent from the priest Zadok in 1 Kings 1:26. But over the centuries the Sadducees came to include high class rich people. They became something of a philosophical and spiritual elitist club for rich men and were bitter opponents of the Pharisees.
The Sadducees did not believe in the supernatural. In the Sadducees’ worldview there is no such thing as angels or demons, heaven or hell, and definitely no possibility of resurrection. The Sadducees didn’t believe most of the Hebrew Bible, except for possibly parts of the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch). The mindset of the Sadducees would in some ways be very much at home in secular Canada. (According to scholars, the Sadduccees’ prominence as a group was short-lived, ending after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D.)
In an attempt to show that believing in resurrection is absurd, the Sadducees pose a hypothetical question to Jesus about a woman who ends up marrying 7 times. “Whose wife will she be at the resurrection?” they ask in a mocking, sarcastic way. Jesus, sharper than a sword, cuts through their question by attacking the wrong assumption on which their question is based. Jesus clarifies that life at the resurrection (i.e. life in heaven) is not like life on earth where people are married (v25).
After pointing out their wrong assumption, Jesus uses the Scriptures that the Sadducees did believe to show that their Scriptures do teach that there is a resurrection. Jesus refers to an incident in Exodus 3 where God says to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Here God is speaking in present tense as if Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive. In other words, if long after their death God still remains the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then they must still be alive, for dead people cannot have a God; only living people can. In the end Jesus shows that the silly ones were really the Sadducees who claimed to believe the Scriptures and yet ignored the Scriptural teaching that there is life after death.
What can we learn from this?
First, notice that in the marketplace of ideas, Jesus was comfortable talking to different groups with different views. He could discourse with the Sadducees as well as the Pharisees. I pray that, like Jesus, may you and I have love and wisdom from heaven to converse with people who are far from Christ and lovingly point them to God.
Second, know your Bible and believe it with faith. You don’t want Jesus coming to you too one day and saying, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?” (v24) When we don’t know our Bible well or don’t combine what we read with faith, we will find ourselves in error.
Third, don’t assume that life in heaven is simply an extension of life on earth. It’s not. As Jesus tells the Sadducees, life in heaven will be sharply different from life on earth. “So, JB, is Jesus saying that when my spouse dies or I die, that’s the end of our marriage relationship and we won’t be married in heaven?” That’s correct. Marriage between two human beings is until death do us part and is an earthly institution. That doesn’t mean that you won’t recognize your loved one in heaven or won’t remember the bond that you had on earth. I believe you will. But heaven won’t have all the same labels that we use on earth. Our main identity in heaven is as children of God, not as husband to X, or wife to Y or relative of Z. The marriage we will all be focused on in heaven is between Jesus and His church (Revelation 21:1-3).
On a related note, once when my oldest son Bradley was six, he asked me, “Daddy, will there be video games in heaven?” I told him, “I’m not sure if there will be video games in heaven, but if they aren’t, I’m sure there will be things that are much, much cooler and more exciting than video games.” Considering how the Bible describes God and heaven, I believe anything good that we know on earth, if it’s not replicated in heaven, will be replaced by something much more amazing in heaven.
Jesus, You were so good at conversing with different groups of people and answering their questions graciously and wisely. I pray that I would be the same. Thank You that heaven is waiting and that it is far better than anything we could imagine on earth. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
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