Are you not therefore mistaken (I) ..

... because you know nether the Scriptures nor the power of God (Mark 12:24)? The Sadducees had taken their turn trying to trap Jesus with their questions. The Sadducees said that there is no resurrection, and they had a story about a woman having seven successive legal marriages with seven brothers, each one dying before the next marriage. The question is “In the Resurrection whose wife shall she be?” And the above verse is the start of His answer. You can read the rest of it yourself, but what I want to start to do this morning is to draw from this, among other things, that questions can be wrong. I hear two wrong questions all the time. Firstly “Do you take the Bible literally,” secondly, usually by unbelievers, “Can't you make the Bible say anything you want?”

Concerning the first consider the question “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” Whether I say yes, or no, I'm in trouble. What I am saying, is that the question hides an assumption, in this case at the very least, that the wife has at some point been beaten. There is an assumption too behind the “literal” question, and it is that the there are only two possible answer yes, or no! Consider two verses, firstly “Unless you hate your mother and father, you cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Secondly “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Obviously this last one is meant to be taken literally, but what about the first? Well the statement is hyperbole, an “obvious exaggeration not intended to be understood literally.” Taken literally it would contradict the commandment to honour father and mother (Exodus 20:12). It is meant to be startling and cause us to pause and think. Thinking, is about loving the Lord with all our mind, and it is about knowing the Scriptures.

The NLT paraphrases the Luke reference with “you must, by comparison, hate everyone else.” And well yes, but this is to spoon fed us. When Jesus makes such outrageous statements, it is meant to catch our attention, and to cause us to interact with the text. You can read the NLT without pause, and it is likely gone in the next five minutes. Certainly we must honour our father and mother, but how far are we to go with it? As adults should we allow them to overrule what we understand to be our calling? Well maybe, I mean we can get things wrong, and there is wisdom in many counsellors (Proverbs 15:22). But certainly not always, Jesus told us “a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:36, 37). In fact there was a period when his mother and His brothers “went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, 'He is out of His mind'” (Mark 3:21).

Father, Your Word tells us that we are to study to be approved unto God (2 Timothy 2:15), and that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth (John 16:13). It is not by Word only, but it is by the Word and the Spirit, and it is in iron sharpening iron sharpening iron that we lean the truth. Forgive us Lord for our arrogance and pride. thinking we are the only ones who know truth. Bring us together Lord in unity and humility to the foot of the cross in Jesus Name Amen