The Pharisees' Conundrum: Jesus Challenges Religious Leaders

Show Notes

Episode 359:
The main focus of our episode was a deep dive into three passages from the Gospels: Matthew 22, Mark 12, and Luke 20. We explored the interactions between Jesus and the religious leaders of His time, particularly how Jesus turned the tables on the Pharisees by asking them a question they couldn't answer. The question was about the Messiah and His lineage, which led to a profound discussion on the deity of Christ and the Pharisees' confusion over Jesus' identity.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways, Chris Jeff, Today is another day. Oh man, it's good to be here with you, in this place, with all these people, with all these people, all these just me and you and then the audio guy I know, and all the people that are listening. Yeah, you don't feel like you're sitting in the car with this person while they're driving on the road. Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought you were referring all these to our physical proximity, which which, by the way, we always mentioned Desiree who does the show sheets, But I mentioned the audio guy. It's Josh. Josh. Yeah. Our audio guy has a name. He does, Yeah, the audio guy. And he also does the video too, he does whoa Cool. He's our audio video guys. So, and I bet you didn't expect to get mentioned. He didn't. Yeah, he paid you twenty bucks. Okay, So amen, My dream is to be mentioned on the Bible. I want some Shoel credits, okay, definitely, how he talks. What do we do it now? It's not okay? So today I have some really tough ones for you, law or flaw. So I'm going to read five laws and you get to figure out if the laws laws which way? Was so hard. I just found out that we're doing this about two minutes ago, and I my first comment out of my mouth is is that there's no rhyme or reason for this, no right. So there's no way for me to even be able to guess this intelligently. So the flaws are funny because you just go some absurd person wrote down a funny thing to say, right. But the laws, some of these are like who made that a law? And where do you find these things? So Desiree finds some of the weirdest laws and flaws here. It is the first one. Everyone in Arizona. Yep, it's illegal to have a donkey sleeping in your bathtub after seven pm. Oh, stop it, stop it. That is so crazy, okay, law, you're right, it is no way that astinct. I wonder under what circumstances that the geniuses, the founding fathers of that city determined. You know, one of the problems we got around here. Some guy was campaigning on that. So for me and I'm gonna outlaw donkey sleeping in bed whatever. I can't believe I got it. Okay. In Arkansas, Number two, it is illegal to sound your horn at any place where cold drinks or sandwiches are served after nine pm. After nine pm, that's actually the only thing that makes sense. Honking at night is disturbing peace. I'm gonna say, law, it is a law. Why that's crack you worked it out? Wow? Wow? Why cold sandwiches or drinks? So I think the cold sandwiches and drinks probably are just they mean nothing. It's if it's illegal to honk your horn and after nine pm anywhere it would be I'm picturing somebody like their drink is spilling. Yeah. Well, I think if it's illegal to honk your horn anywhere in the city, yeah, after nine pm, then it would be illegal to honk it near place the cold drinks of sandwiches. I think that's just okay for two. Miraculously all right. Number three, in Georgia, it's illegal to bite your landlord. That's interesting. Um, So oftentimes Desiree would make all five of them the same thing, like either they're all laws or af flaws. So I'm gonna say, law, it's a flaw. But I think that there's a mistake there because I think that would be considered assault, wouldn't it an assault is illegal everywhere? Huh So I don't know, but it's a flaw where it's not expressly said I'm not allowed to bite your landlord. But officer, there's nowhere. Show me the law that says I'm not allowed to bite my landlord. Okay, here we go. So you two for three. Number four, in Pennsylvania, it's illegal to tie a crocodile or alligator to a car in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvanias don't have crocodiles. I'm gonna say, people, people have alligators and crocodiles at home. No, the train they have alligators. They don't have crocodiles. Crocodiles are like in the Middle East or well, either in Australia. All right, No, I'm gonna say no, there's no way Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. You didn't even say Florida. Okay, I'm gonna say somebody made that. Ou I'm gonna say flaw. It is a flaw. There it is. And then number five, lastly, boom, so you're three for four. Yeah, I'm very proud of myself. In New York, it is illegal to shine shoes after one pm on a Sunday New York. Okay, Well, first of all, on a Sunday wouldn't matter because New York, of all states, I would imagine, wouldn't care about Sundays in the way that somebody in the South would. Does that make sense? But it's only one pm after one pm on Sunday, so you can shine your shoes for church. I'm gonna say, law, it's illegal to shine shoes after one pm on a Sunday. Yea, I'm gonna say law. It's a law. It is a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah wow, awesome, Yeah, good job, Chris So four for five, four for five. It's pretty good there. You should be proud of yourself. You should call your mom, by the way, mom. On two of those, I went completely against my instinct. I thought I was gonna say flaw for the last one, and I almost literally as I was saying the word flaw, I just said law, law wow. And I thought, because I'm always get these wrong, right, just said the other one. Yeah. And George Costanza, yeah, I'm doing the opposite, right. That's you saw that episode A side twenty two forty one. Great, okay, well, good, good job, Chris. We are so proud of you. It's one of the reasons why we listen to you, because we feel like your authority on all the important things in life. Well, that's so kind of you. You're an expert. So today our reading is in three different passages. Matthew twenty two, yes, Mark twelve, and Luke twenty And the religious leaders cannot answer Jesus questions, so they've been asking him questions. Now he flips the script, and while he answered all theirs, they're a little befuddled. Befuddled. Thanks for bringing that out, great one, so Matthew twenty two to forty one says. Then, surrounded by the pharisees, Jesus asked them a question, what do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he? They replied, He's the son of David. Jesus responded, then, why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the spirit, call the Messiah my Lord? For David said the Lord said to my lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemy. He's beneath your feet. Since David called the Messiah my lord, how can the Messiah be his son? No one could answer him, and after that no one dared ask him any more questions. There it is again, There it is again. He just shutting them down, the shut down left er right, yeah, yeah, Well they quit asking him questions, so now he's coming after them. Uh. Mark chapter twelve, verse thirty five says later, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple, he asked, why are the teachers of religious law claim that the Messiah is the son of David? For David himself, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said the Lord said, to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet. Since David himself called the Messiah my Lord, how can the Messiah be his son? The large crowd listened to him with great delight. Ah, they knew what he was doing. And then in Luke chapter twenty, verse forty one, it says, then Jesus presented them a question. Why is it? He asked that the Messiah is said to be the son of David? For David himself wrote in the Book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them footstool under your feet. Since David called the Messiah lord, how can the Messiah be his son? So it seems like two of them are straight up Jesus going after the Pharisees. The one in the middle Mark seems to be. After he does it, he goes and tells the crowd what just happened, right right, which is funny. Yeah, and it says the large crowd listens to him with great delight because it would be delightful to watch Jesus put the Pharisees in their place, wouldn't it. Yeah, yeah, so I would imagine that would be very delightful. Well, they kind of functioned a little bit like the morality police, right, so we know this In some of the Muslim countries they have clothing police and hijab police and you know, all those things, and they go around and punish people who aren't following the rules exactly right when it comes to morality stuff. And the Pharisees would wouldn't do that with regard to violence all the times, but they would be the ones that would incite it. Somebody got caught in a thing, they'd be the ones that would incite the violence against them. They would shame people for not following the law exactly right or not living exactly like they lived. And so, yeah, the people would have they would have admired them on one level while those are holy people, and they also would have been frustrated. It's the way. I had a friend that went to a private school that was led by nuns back in the day, and when he would talk about the nuns, he would talk about how holy they are and how with God connected to God they are, and at the same time, same time you talk about how mean they were to am smacking the back of his hands with rulers, and so he admired them and resented them at the same time. And I think that's very, very similar to the way that the people viewed the Pharisees. They admired them for being so holy, better than me, but they also were frustrated because they were always, you know, being shamed and punished by them, and so they delighted it when Jesus, when Jesus would catch them right. Well, you know, I always view the people's view of the Pharisees based on the evidence in the scriptures. I always viewed it as a similar really not that much different than today. So, for instance, somebody somebody, you walk up and tell somebody that you're pastor. Right, immediately somebody will go, oh, oh goodness, and they'll pay you respect or something, and they'll like literally change their demeanor or they'll say, I didn't know you were a pastor, Sorry for that joke. I just told you know, you know, backtrack or something like this. And immediately there's like a there's like a reverence thing happening, right, or respect thing, I guess. And then and then at the same time, there are people who just will actually resent you for being a pastor. Right. I've run into my share of people, even one time at a wedding somebody, you know, it was just such a weird interaction where people just scoffed at me because they thought that pastors would judge their lifestyle of the kind of thing. And so anyway, I just think that it was sort of that way. I think that people who felt, you know, who were angry and felt really repressed by the pharisees the morality police, they just hated them. And then there are probably people who absolutely respected them and loved them. And I don't think it's that much different than today. I really don't. Hey, let me tell you real quick story just for fun. So I was in college and I remember coming home on Christmas break to Ohio and I was I was at home visiting my girlfriend who's now my wife, and I remember driving from her house to my house and it was about two in the morning, right. I had stayed over there watching movies with their family. And so as I'm driving home, I'm really sleepy, right, and so I ended up weaving, and as a as a weaving, an officer pulls me over and I literally get out of my car. I don't know why I was out of my car because I don't think he was doing the walk the line test, but I think he wanted me out of the car, and maybe he was about to do the walk of the wine test, right, But anyway, here's what happens. He looks at me and he goes, hey, he goes, were you drinking? And I go, well, no, I wasn't drinking. And he goes, it's two in the morning. This when the bars get out, and I go, I wasn't drinking. This is Youngstown, Right, I mean if you're out of two in the morning and you're start coming from a bar, right, And I said no, I said, I don't drink, sir, And he goes, you kidd me. He goes, you're like twenty one years old. He goes, you're prime drinking age. And I said, sir, I'm a Bible college student, right, I don't drink. And he looked at me and he started laughing, and he goes, you're not a Bible college student. And he just starts cracking up, like this is the most absurd lie ever. And I said, look, and I pointed to the back of my car and in my window I had like a sticker that said Baptist Bible college speak from Missouri. And so I go look, and so he grabbed the light and he shined it. And as soon as he saw that, he goes, I'm so sorry. He goes, I'm so sorry, you know, He goes, then just just stay safe and get in your car and go home. And at twenty one years old, I thought to myself, I can't believe that worked. And I can't believe that he changed his entire demeanor. A police officer immediately showed me respect. And I guess it's because looking back at it now, probably hears everything, right sure, and he probably thinks, wow, I've actually come across somebody who's innocent. Yeah, yeah, right right, But isn't that crazy? That's funny. Yeah. So in this then the Pharisees are you know, Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees and he's challenging them. Now, let me ask you a question, because they they have been for quite a while trying to trip him up. And if you remember, you know, it spends several days since this happened, but Jesus kind of went on a string there of him telling the people, I am the Messiah right as he's as he's coming into Jerusalem. He mentions it several different times. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. We read that passage. There's a bunch of these these things where he's claiming to be God, and in this one, there's not maybe a better argument among the religious leaders that Jesus is claiming to be God than right here, because they knew that the law or not the law, but the prophets had said that the Messiah would be from David's family right now, they're looking for a political Messiah, and Jesus is trying to say, you know, it's not the return of the king, right, You're not looking for some you know, exiled king who they were just going to sneak the crown out and polish it off, and I'm taking over Rome right that. Instead, he says, well, then why does David refer to the Messiah as his lord? Right? And they're like what? And what he's saying is David was claiming that the Messiah was going to be God. And this is the exact same test that there's a note here where did I see it? Uh? There's a note here in Life Application Study Bible that says Jesus quotes from Psalm one ten, verse one, that the Lord said to my Lord, sitting in their place of honor, at my right hand, right, and to show that the Messiah would be greater than David, which is a shock because people don't view at that time, they didn't view the Son as being greater than the Father. Right. But Hebrews one, verse thirteen uses the same text as proof of Christ's deity. Isn't that interesting? So Jesus uses it later on the Book of Hebrews uses it to say. Know, what he's saying is the Sun is the Lord, and the son of David are It's God who's coming from David's family, right, He's going to be born in David's family. And this is one of those declarations of the deity of Christ. And clearly the Pharisees understood what he was saying. They didn't have an answer because David said it, right, and they hadn't even ever seen that passage that way before. Have you ever had that? You've had somebody bring up a verse and you're like, I have never Yeah, I never noticed that before, right, Yeah, that's why it happened, has happened on this podcast with us, Yeah yeah, right. In fact, the one that just aired that I watched where you'd said, hey, I've never seen this before, but it said when he overturned the money, Oh yeah, changers, you're just like and the other political leaders. Right, yeah, I've never seen that. I'd never seen that before. Right. Hey. By the way, the Son of David could be the root of the entire line of thinking of misunderstanding, because let me ask you this, and I actually don't know the answer to this, how many years at this point in time? Because this is right around like what thirty three a d ish, right, Yeah, yeah, roughly roughly. So how many years had it been since Israel had an actual king? Because the Greeks defeated Israel and then the Romans defeated the Greeks, So I mean it's hundreds of years? Yeah, yeah, it would have been the four hundred years between Yep, between Malachi and Jesus. Okay, so probably somewhere in there. So yeah, so maybe four hundred years, maybe a little bit longer. Yeah. So you know, Israel wanted a king from the beginning, remember, and and and actually God, it was not God's desire to give Israel a king, but Israel. But Israel wanted to be a nation just like every other nation, right, And so what ended up happening was because of their you know, relentless desire to have a king, they chose a king among themselves who was you know, by his stature, and they chose Saul, remember, and then then then God raises up David, right, and so David becomes you know, the greatest king that's still referred to here in this case, hundreds of years later, one hundreds and hundreds of years, and there was a promise attached to David where you know, it said, hey, the Messiah will come from David. Now it's when they say the son of David, they don't literally mean one generation. They mean the lineage of David, right, which is why in the Book of Matthew he actually includes the lineage of is it Mary right where he actually like, high is the Mother of Jesus all the way to David because I think mat Matthew. And then the other one comes from Abraham right and goes all the way to Joseph. But anyway, with what they're really doing is is there they're saying that the savior of the world will come from the lineage of King David. Well, this is the reason why. And I may have gotten that wrong, but you know, you know what I'm saying. There's two lineages, and both of them lead. One leads to Mary, one leads to Joseph. One comes from David, one goes all they back to Abraham. Kay, and and and he's the son of Abraham and he's the son of David. Was the point, Yes, that's right. Anyway, here's my rambling on point. My rambling on point is I could almost completely see why they thought that the Messiah would be just the restoration of an earthly king, right, because after all, he's the son of David. And so if he's the son of David and the Messiah is going to come from, you know, the son of David, that means eventually God is going to give us a king to restore our kingdom, to make us again a great nation. And you can't have two kings, which means our king will overthrow the King of Caesar. Right, and so that that is what you know, it's almost understandable, right. And so when Jesus is challenging their notion of the Messiah, whose son is he? They're saying, the son of David, Jesus is trying to right size the understanding, and he's trying to say, yeah, it's from the leaningage of David. He is nicknamed the son of David, but he is David's Lord. To understand what the Messiah is. The Messiah is the Lord. And even David acknowledged it, yes, right, yeah, so and it's really interesting too because after all, this is the you know, this is after they were yelling Hosannah, right, you know, the son of David. They were marching him in as the next king during the Triumphal entry just recently, so they just didn't realize that his role was far greater than just being unearthly king r Yes. So the note for Luke, chapter twenty, verse forty one and through forty four says, the central issue of life is what we believe about Jesus. Other spiritual questions are irrelevant unless we first decide to believe that Jesus is who he said he is. The Pharisees and said Dises could not do this and they were being confused over jesus identity. So that's really the issue. You might have lots of other spiritual questions, but the first question you have to settle is is Jesus who he claim to be. All the other things we can resolve, we can work through, but the only one that really matters is is Jesus who he claimed to be. And Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, he claimed to be God in the flesh, and eventually he winds up proving it by you know, dying on the cross, paying for our sins and rising again. So that's really it. All the other questions are irrelevant until you answer this one. Is Jesus? Who he claim to be? Yeah? Yeah, there's a book called Who Is That Man? Have you ever read that book? I don't know who is that Man? And you as I forget who wrote it? Is it? Is it a CS Lewis book? I don't remember that one. But anyway, Who Is That Man is a book that I read in college and it talks about answering that question, you know, who was Jesus? Was he an earthly figure or was he more than that? And it's a beautiful book. It's awesome. Did you ever read the book More than a Carpenter? Josh McDonald? Yes, yes, Actually it's kind of that book too. Yes, right, it's the same idea. You haven't want to read a quick book that's built around that idea he's more than a carpenter. Yeah, that's great. All right. Well, hey that is right at our time, so we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys,