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Showdown! Smart Religious Leaders vs Son of the Almighty God 🤔

By Jonah P

As Jesus continued His ministry, the things he said and did were drawing some serious heat from the religious big shots, so they plotted to trap Jesus with their great intellect. (Yeah, good luck with that).

Ding, ding, ding - fight! As He often does, Jesus jumps into a parable to confront the Pharisees’ wrong thinking.

Don’t miss how subtly sharp this parable really is - as Jesus explains:

The owner of the vineyard (God) sends His servants (the Prophets) to the tenants (the religious leaders of Israel), and they’re mistreated and killed. Then when the owner sends His own son (Jesus), they kill him too! (A foreshadowing of His crucifixion).

Then to salt the wound, Jesus quotes the Psalms to them, implicating himself in the scriptures as ‘The Stone the builders rejected’.

They continued to press Him about issues of tax and overcomplicated marriage law riddles, but Jesus undid every trap they set for Him.

Then one teacher sets him up for the ultimate knock-out punch by asking which is the greatest commandment - and so Jesus reveals one of the most significant core ideas of His teachings: Above all else - love God and love others.

The Pharisees, and every part of this chapter, serve as a reminder of the fact that Jesus isn’t just looking at our actions, but at our hearts.

The OLD covenant was only about outward obedience to the law, black and white, but Jesus was changing this.

The NEW covenant He was ushering in was one of inner transformation of the heart, from which our good deeds would then flow.

Don’t be like those hyper-religious zealots - caught up in how ‘right’ they were by their strict obedience to the law, because Jesus criticized their hearts.

Just as the small offering of the widow was considered greater - it’s our genuine, humble obedience to God, resulting from a real love for Him and for others, that pleases Him.