The extra bit
This week is on Mark 12:18-27:
The theologians were having a debate with Jesus. It was one of those "Can God make a rock he can't lift" kind of things, designed to trap him and show that he doesn't know how the world works. The thing is, they were the ones who were wrong.
Jesus answers them with a whole different perspective than they were expecting. His answer is outside of their world view. That happens a lot more than we realize. Without considering that God is infinite, we often convince ourselves that things are impossible, when really the answer is just something we hadn't ever considered before.
A friend of mine asked me recently why I believe in a God I can't prove. I answered her that a lot of my faith comes from finding that unexpected answer or seeing that things aren't as I imagined them to be. Random coincidences aren't necessarily random or coincidences. God is bigger than we can imagine, so our relationship often finds us in the same situation as these theologians, receiving a new perspective on things from outside our experience and preexisting beliefs.
God is so awesome. We can have our views corrected, just like the Sadducees did, simply by having a relationship with him. God improves us and teaches us. He intervenes in our lives with stuff that we never could have imagined. Instead of living a short life based on misconceptions, we can live an eternal life exposed to truth.
Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"
Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"
The theologians were having a debate with Jesus. It was one of those "Can God make a rock he can't lift" kind of things, designed to trap him and show that he doesn't know how the world works. The thing is, they were the ones who were wrong.
Jesus answers them with a whole different perspective than they were expecting. His answer is outside of their world view. That happens a lot more than we realize. Without considering that God is infinite, we often convince ourselves that things are impossible, when really the answer is just something we hadn't ever considered before.
A friend of mine asked me recently why I believe in a God I can't prove. I answered her that a lot of my faith comes from finding that unexpected answer or seeing that things aren't as I imagined them to be. Random coincidences aren't necessarily random or coincidences. God is bigger than we can imagine, so our relationship often finds us in the same situation as these theologians, receiving a new perspective on things from outside our experience and preexisting beliefs.
God is so awesome. We can have our views corrected, just like the Sadducees did, simply by having a relationship with him. God improves us and teaches us. He intervenes in our lives with stuff that we never could have imagined. Instead of living a short life based on misconceptions, we can live an eternal life exposed to truth.
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