When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Then, surrounded by the Pharisees, Jesus asked them a question: “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

They replied, “He is 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 enemies 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 to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:34-46)

Jesus kept hitting home runs against everything that the religious establishment threw at him. The Sadducees had taken their best pitcher and Jesus belted it out of the field. So now it was the turn of the Pharisees, who of course would fare no better.

When they asked Jesus about the greatest commandment, their expectation was that no matter which one he picked, they’d be able show how some other law was better and thereby make Jesus look foolish.

Once again, Jesus’ answer short-circuited their expectations. And before they could react, Jesus turned the tables and asked them about the issue that motivated all their attacks upon him: who they thought the Messiah was.

Jesus showed them that they had no clue about the Messiah, since they had no answer for a rather obvious paradox in the Bible about him. How could he be both a descendent of David and God himself? They had never considered the incarnation: God becoming human. At that moment, they should have realized that they might be wrong about Jesus, since they didn’t know as much about the Messiah as they imagined.

We don’t always know as much as we think we do. Be ready to open your mind and adapt yourself to what the Bible says, rather than insisting upon what you think you already know.

Send to Kindle