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Tag: sadducees

  • Your Mistake – You don’t know the Scriptures

    Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.

    Matthew 22:29 NLT

    כְּתָב – a writing, document, edict

    Scriptures, the written word of God

    First, let’s understand scripture. It’s written down, recorded, a message of importance with authority; but scripture is much more than that.

    • a written edict
      • of royal enactment
      • of divine authority
    http://slideplayer.com/slide/4487529/

    We forget the igniting spark of the Reformation just five centuries ago. The printing press fanned the flame of scripture now available to ordinary saints of the church.

    In the early church, the time of Jesus and before Christ, Scriptures were hand-written on individual sheets or rolls of parchment. Faithful Scribes meticulously recorded every jot and tittle on individual scrolls. Worshipers relied on leaders of the faith for the truth of the Bible recorded through the generations and millenia.

    I remind us: no cell phones, no internet, no television, no radio, no media producers and analysts of pronouncements by authorities. Just authoritarian leadership with men who wrote down important words to be shared with the people. Scriptures for worship and written announcements for a king or emperor’s  emissaries to send out to all the land.

    Jesus spoke with such authority and sent out the Twelve as emissaries to proclaim the Gospel to Israel. Israel was a captive land ruled by a king dependant on Rome. Jesus’s authority, proclaimed throughout these Roman provinces, not only resonated with the common people, but challenged the very limited authority of Jewish officials in Jerusalem.

    Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection

    23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question…

    Let’s examine the role of the Sadducees who have been part of the crowds in various places and among those with no ears to hear. Look for these religious unbelievers in the multitudes. 

    Matthew 5-7

    The Sermon on the Mount

    Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him…

    Crowds of men, women and children came to hear Jesus from distant and nearby towns. Most could not read, although a few local religious authorities always seemed to show up in the crowds. Jesus’ listeners had heard very little of the scriptures in their weekly gatherings and seasonal festivals of the church. 

    Is it so different today among the ‘literate’ of the church illiterate in the Scriptures?

    Many of us know and some can quote the beatitudes (or blessings) Jesus spoke. Jesus’ encouraging proverbs lift our hearts. But let’s listen further.

    17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them… 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…

    (We will see how Jesus addresses the mistakes of the Pharisees later.)

    Israel just before Jesus

    So you think we have controversy today?

    The undercurrent of politics between conservative and liberal, republican and democrat, communist and  theist in the 21st century pales by comparison to Roman rule of 1st century Israel.

    Every religious encounter with Jesus comes from a different perspective.

    Before the empire, Rome once had a king and then a republic in 509 BC until about 29 BC. 

    A glance at a map from 90 BC,  just a little more than a century before Christ, shows a Hellenistic (Greek) Hasmonean State.  It would be like us thinking back to about 1890.

    The Romans had invaded Greece, Macedonia and many other countries. It would be only a few more years until the fall of Jerusalem and massive political and religious changes.

    The Sadducees were a political party consisting mainly of high priests and aristocrats of Jerusalem, who had only been around since about 150 B.C. Their claim to priestly authority came through Zadok and Aaron, but their line was by no means continuous back to those generations.

    They were aristocrats and fancily-dressed priests. Even though they claimed only literal scripture and no validity to any oral Torah, their party had wholeheartedly embraced hellenism as comprise of retaining influence with their greek captors. Jesus may have easily pointed to Sadducees in the crowd by telling any parable against the rich. 

    Once again, it may be helpful to think back on the history of each of these perspectives of the time of Jesus in parallel to looking back the same number of years in the 21st century. In Jesus’ time, Sadducees would only have a history comparable of us looking back to around the 1830’s.

    Just before Christ

    Suppose you sit among the multitudes listening to Jesus on a hillside or by the seashore. The year, about AD 30. A few of the old men will remember well the stories of their fathers about 63 B.C.

    In our current context we would look back only to 1925 A.D. My father had been born. One of my grandfathers was twenty-five years old and I remember his stories about World War I.

    This is how recent the memory of the crowds listening to Jesus would have remembered the fall of Jerusalem in 63 B.C.

    The Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Pompey the Great, conquered Jerusalem, entered and defiled the Holy of Holies. 

    Just four years later Pompey would enter into an alliance with Julius Caesar. who would be assassinated on the Ides of March (March 15), 44 BC. by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Junius Brutus, ironically next to the Theatre of Pompey.

    In contemporary terms we only need to think back as far as March 15, 1944, near the end of WWII.

    Controversies of the Jews

    Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees –Matthew 16:12

    Hellenistic Period (332-141 BCE)

    Sadducees embraced Hellenism (Greek culture) but argued for the strict religious obligations of Levitical priesthood. Priests have authority over the people according to Hebrew scripture, not the Septigent. 

    The Torah gave this aristocratic class the authority of Law. Sadducees also argued that the resurrection did not exist.

    They opposed any Authority of Jesus as King or Son of God and argued against the Pharisees; for after all they were just common people. Unlike the Sadducees, the multitudes with ears to hear Jesus were, for the most part, just like you and me.

    To be continued…

    Your Mistake – You don’t know the Scriptures – 2

  • Ordinary Men – 1

    Ordinary Men – 1

    … he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead.

    – Acts 4:10b

    Suppose you were arrested and brought before a court of leaders asking how you had healed a lame man. Would you witness Christ?

    The Apostle Peter in effect told the very court which convicted Christ, ‘you are the guilty ones.’ The resurrected Lord healed him.

    We have heard of this blindness before

    The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

    – John 9:30-33

    Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” – John 9:39

    Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?”

    Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt [from sin]; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

    Blind Leadership

    Peter and John had just healed a crippled beggar known to the same authorities who once witnessed a similar powerful miracle, then expelled from the Temple a man blind from birth healed by Jesus. My previous post, the three o’clock prayer service, details this healing recorded in Acts 3. The Apostles face similar retribution as Jesus after healing a lame man in front of many witnesses.

    Acts 3:12 And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?

    … 17 “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

    Acts 4:

    And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, 2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.

    Jewish Stratification

    During the times of Herod’s Temple, social center of religious life in Jerusalem at that time of Jesus and the Apostles, Temple leaders were esteemed above ordinary men. The political appointment of priests claimed status from traditional Jewish Biblical offices and responsibilities.

    • The social world of the priests during the Iron Age and Persian Period was one fraught with concerns about power and status. To be a priest was, at least in terms of public rhetoric, an ascribed, not an achieved status.

    Priests

    • Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the term priest (kōhēn) is commonly used to refer to an official who was set apart from the rest of the community in order to carry out certain duties associated with worship and sacrifice. As “ministers of the LORD” (Joel 1:9; 2:17), priests functioned as mediators of God’s presence and were responsible for the day-to-day operation of cultic sites, whether the tabernacle, local shrines, or the Temple in Jerusalem.
    • Deuteronomy employs the term “Levitical priests” (hakkōhănîm halwiyyim) most likely to underscore the fact that all Levites were qualified to be priests (Deut 17:9, 18; 18:1; 24:8; 27:9).
    • The most prominent and persistent controversy regarding the priesthood had to do with whether all Levities could serve as priests or, alternatively, if only certain branches of the Levitical line (the Aaronides or the Zadokites) were qualified for the priestly office.

    Scribes

    • Outside of their sacrificial duties, priests also oversaw many other aspects of ancient Israelite life… In this role, priests were responsible for communicating the law and adjudicating legal matters (Lev 10:10–11; Deut 17:8–13; 21:5; Ezek 44:24), though in the Second Temple period, such activity was eventually taken over by scribes.
    • Scribes of various degrees of competence were attached to all government and temple offices. Apparently there were also independent scribes who either served the public or were in the employ of men of means.
    • Later the scribe was a professional expert in the writing of Torah scrolls, *tefillin , *mezuzot , and bills of *divorce .

    Sadducees

    • (followers of Zadok), (Matthew 3:7; 16:1,6,11,12; 22:23,31; Mark 12:18; Luke 20:27; Acts 4:1; 5:17; 23:6,7,8) a religious party or school among the Jews at the time of Christ, who denied that the oral law was a revelation of God to the Israelites. and who deemed the written law alone to be obligatory on the nation, as of divine authority.
    • To these sons of Zadok were afterward attached all who for any reason reckoned themselves as belonging to the aristocrats; such, for example, as the families of the high priest, who had obtained consideration under the dynasty of Herod. These were for the most part judges, and individuals of the official and governing class.

    Sadducees held the majority of the seats in the ruling Jewish court of the Sanhedrin. They held political power and influence in Judah, even under Rome.

    As you can see from description of these several classes of ‘blind guides,’ these Jewish rulers are not in any way ordinary men.

    Though five thousand men came to believe Peter and John, these arresting authorities are in no way intimidated.  The Apostles face a trial, the first of many, for proclaiming Christ Jesus.

    Allow me to ask you, what is your response to opposition to Jesus Christ?

    To be continued…

     

     

  • Resurrection Before Jesus

    Resurrection Before Jesus

    Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son

    Nain Galileenain mapLuke 7:11 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him.

    12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.

    (Recall that Jesus had told the people of Nazareth of Elijah being sent to a widow outside of Israel.)

    13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still.

    The-Widow-Of-Nain,-1927And he said, “Young man, I say to you,arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

    Imagine… get the picture. A widow no longer has a husband to support her. A woman cannot (in this culture or most) support even herself. A son becomes responsible for taking care of his mother; but the son himself is sick and dies.

    It is a picture of hopelessness for this widow of Nain.

    Yet as the providence of God would have it, Jesus, God Emmanuel walks into town just as all wail for her great loss at the funeral. Jesus has compassion for her, touches the unclean bier with the unclean dead body of her son. He sits up!

    16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!”

    17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

    It is the same compassion by which he has fed the multitudes and healed the sick (even from a distance); yet this time Jesus has done that which cannot be done without the Hand of God. He has resurrected a dead man.

    (There is a precedent the Jewish crowds would know well from a town of old nearby.)

    A woman once perceived another Prophet of God.

    2 Kings 4:

    Elisha and the Shunammite Woman

    Shumen map8 One day Elisha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food.

    9 And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I know that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing our way. 10 Let us make a small room on the roof with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.”

    11 One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. 12 And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”

    (The woman is content to have the blessing of showing hospitality to a true Prophet of God.)

    14 And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.”

    (Again, as we have just seen in the story of Jesus, a widow has great need of a man to take care of her. The woman and old man have no son, considered to be a blessing to a faithful family of God.)

    15 He said, “Call her.” And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. 16 And he said, “At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord, O man of God; do not lie to your servant.” 17 But the woman conceived, and she bore a son about that time the following spring, as Elisha had said to her.

    What a joy for a woman to conceive a child, especially the miracle of conceiving after the age of traditional childbirth as demonstrated by several important faithful women of God throughout the many generations of the Bible. Such births are always witness to the power of God to bring forth life where there cannot be life (by the world’s ordinary standards).

    It seems like a conclusion of God’s story of witness; but like Jesus, Elisha travels from place to place as God instructs and this chapter of Elisha’s miracles is more like a conclusion of ‘Act One’ for this couple blessed by the Prophet. Elisha’s room is always ready for his unannounced return.

    18 When the child had grown, he went out one day to his father among the reapers. 19 And he said to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” The father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20 And when he had lifted him and brought him to his mother, the child sat on her lap till noon, and then he died.

    Tragic. Yet a God who can bring life to a lifeless womb can restore life where and when the Lord pleases. We see now a remarkable faith of this woman (similar to that of the Roman centurion).

    21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door behind him and went out. 22 Then she called to her husband and said, “Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may quickly go to the man of God and come back again.” 23 And he said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.” She said, “All is well.” 24 Then she saddled the donkey, and she said to her servant, “Urge the animal on; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25 So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

    When the man of God saw her coming, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite. 26 Run at once to meet her and say to her, ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?’” And she answered, “All is well.”

    ‘All is well,’ answers the woman whose only son has just died in her arms?

    27 And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came to push her away. But the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

    Now, the grieving mother pleads to the Prophet:

    28 Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”

    Like Jesus did in Nain, Elisha shows compassion for the woman.

    29 He said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment and take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not reply. And lay my staff on the face of the child.” 30 Then the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he arose and followed her. 31 Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. Therefore he returned to meet him and told him, “The child has not awakened.”

    32 When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. 33 So he went in andshut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord. 34 Then he went up and lay on the child, putting his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. And as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm. 35 Then he got up again and walked once back and forth in the house, and went up and stretched himself upon him. The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36 Then he summoned Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her. And when she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” 37 She came and fell at his feet, bowing to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

    This is but one demonstration of God’s power over life and death (the only one through the great Prophet Elisha). It is one of many demonstrations of God’s miraculous power to heal, even unto life. Jesus would, in addition to His own later resurrection after three days, raise a man from the dead as beloved to Him as this woman’s family must have been to Elisha: Lazarus.

    Later, Jesus is challenged by the Sadducees of the Temple of Herod about the resurrection. The witness of the Shunammite family at the time of Elisha was certainly recorded in their own Bibles! The evidence of Jesus’ miracles must certainly have been in evidence by many witnesses to all; yet they did not believe.

    Oh, you of little faith…

    Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

    How is your faith? Do you believe in life through Christ Jesus? Is He your Lord by faith?

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. –

    1 Peter 1:3-4

     

     

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