Today, I am reading and commenting on  Mark 12-13.

I am going to try linking the accounts of the three questions asked of Jesus in today’s passage.  These stories come in the context of the Jewish teachers of the law and other leaders seeking a way to arrest Jesus without inflaming the crowds.  So, the first question was intended to either get Jesus to say something which would allow them to get the Romans to arrest Him, or alienate the crowds.  If He declared that Jewish Law, the Law of Moses, forbade paying tax to Caesar, they could accuse Him of insurrection to the Romans.  On the other hand, if He said that the tax to Caesar was legitimate under Jewish Law, they would have been able to present Him to the crowds as a stooge for the Romans.  Jesus avoided both of these while pointing out to the crowd that the hypocrisy of those who had tried to trap Him.  Then the Sadducees tried a different trap.  They thought they had found a contradiction between the Law of Moses and belief in the resurrection of the dead.  Jesus pointed out the “easy out” on this and that they did not believe in resurrection because they did not believe that even God could bring the dead back to life.  The final questioner was honestly interested in Jesus’ answer.  And because the questioner was honest in seeking to understand what Jesus taught, Jesus gave him a sincere, honest answer.  Not that Jesus’ other answers were not honest and sincere, it’s just that this last answer did not include any condemnation of the questioner.  Each of the answers teach us important lessons about our God and our faith.  However, taken together these three answers from Jesus teach us how to answer those who question our beliefs.  If they are looking to understand then we should answer them honestly and with respect.  On the other hand, if they are asking in order to trap or  trick us we should answer with shrewdness and wit.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.