Matthew 22:15 NIV
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.
This chapter began with Jesus telling a parable about wedding guests. In the parable three things are clear. Those that should have interest in the wedding were more interested in their own things. The wedding guests ended up being the less socially acceptable. Not everyone who came to the wedding was allowed to stay. This, Jesus said, is what the Kingdom is like.
There are several truths and applications here that each deserve attention. The Kingdom will not be built on the socially acceptable systems of man. The invitation is out there for everyone. Just because you build a radical ministry reaching the fringe of society does not mean you can abandon truth. And the list goes on. But the primary focus of the chapter is on the response of the socially acceptable religious elite.
First the Pharisees try to trap Jesus by asking about the relationship between church and state. "Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar?" they ask. On the coattails of the Pharisees' failure, the Sadducees try to trap Jesus with a question of marriage and the resurrection. Finally the Pharisees return with a question about the law. Jesus refutes each question avoiding their traps and exposing their faulty thinking.
Matthew 22:46 NIV
No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.
I suppose there is a lesson in there like, don't challenge the author to the meaning of his own work, but there is another principle at work here too. Don't become so locked into your systems that you miss what God is saying. This is really the point of the parable, and the reason for the Pharisees' and Sadducees’ opposition to Jesus. Don't become so locked into your systems that you miss what God is saying.
It is entirely possible that God wants to use you to reach the tattooed biker at the corner bar, or the dealer at the drug house down the street. It is entirely possible that the nice couple who would make great church workers won't come to Christ at all. It is likely that God may call us to a certain level of discomfort in order to break our molds and use us for the Kingdom.
The Pharisees and Sadducees would have none of it, but they were silenced. Father give me eyes to see what you are really up to, a heart willing to follow you wherever that takes me, and a spirit sensitive enough to recognize when I'm becoming a Pharisee.
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