Won't Do That Again

Jesus put a whooping on the Sadducees, so the Pharisees decided they wanted a go at him. Scheming together, they worked up a plan to discredit Jesus using a question on the Law. You can just see the lawyer slither up and say “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 

Jesus’ reply was simple and straight to the point, but it also encompassed all aspects of the Law and, in essence, the whole of the Word of God. He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Then Jesus added for good measure, “… You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Silence. The Pharisees were stomped too. But Jesus was not done. While the schemers were still together and available, Jesus asked a question of them. “What do you think of the Messiah?  Whose son is he?” Well the answer was obvious to the Pharisees. “The son of David”, they replied. 

Wrong.  

The Pharisees were wrong to attempt to discredit Jesus and now they were being discredited themselves. Jesus used a scripture, which the Pharisees would have surely studied, to point out their errant thinking. If the Messiah were the son of David as they proposed, in his 110th Psalm, David would have called his son, “Lord” (reference Psalms 110:1). Fathers do not call their sons, “Lord.”  So how could David’s son be the Messiah?

Silence. That day the Pharisees decided to never do that again.


Matthew 22:34-45