Matthew 21:23-27
Then he was back in the Temple, teaching. The high priests and leaders of the people came up and demanded, “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to teach here?”Jesus responded, “First let me ask you a question. You answer my question and I’ll answer yours. About the baptism of John—who authorized it: heaven or humans?”
They were on the spot and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, “If we say ‘heaven,’ he’ll ask us why we didn’t believe him; if we say ‘humans,’ we’re up against it with the people because they all hold John up as a prophet.” They decided to concede that round to Jesus. “We don’t know,” they answered.
Jesus said, “Then neither will I answer your question.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I love this. Jesus has gone back into the temple having chucked tables everywhere and pointed out the hypocrisy of the teachers…he’s had a go a a fig tree…(i normally hit something soft like a pillow!)…and then he has come back and calmly and graciously fought fire with fire!
I find it really interesting, that the teachers didn’t respond with a tit-for-tat
arguement along the lines of, ‘No, answer our question first and then we’ll answer yours”. To me that shows that they must have seen some authority in Jesus and also they would have been seen to be shown up in front of the crowd Jesus was teaching….they were actually religious teachers without the authority to teach……they were teaching about their ‘religious club’. But the crowd wanted Godly teaching about how He valued, accepted and loved them and how the fulfillment of the scriptures allowed them freedom and forgiveness not being bound down with controlling ‘religious’ rules.
March 17th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Just an aside - it is ok not to know the answer to everything. Some of the questions non-Christians ask me are the hardest. Fact is, none of us knows all the answers (apart from God) and sometimes one has to trust God even when we don’t understand.