Bullets From The Bible 12-13-17

[dddoo7]

Luke 20:1-8 says, “Now it happened on one of those days, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him and spoke to Him, saying, “Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things? Or who is he who gave You this authority?”

But He answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one thing, and answer Me: The baptism of John—was it from heaven or from men?”

And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ “But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” So they answered that they did not know where it was from.

And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

The Jewish leaders hated Jesus and were constantly trying to trip Him up. Many times they confronted Him with questions that were almost impossible to answer so that they would be able to cast fault at Him. This time was no different. They knew the authority that Jesus claimed. They knew that He claimed to be the son of God, but they also knew that if they could get Him to openly say as much that they could cast Him out as a “heretic”.

They however underestimated Jesus. Jesus turns it right around on them with a simple question that they cannot answer. They will either admit that John (and by extension Jesus) was from God, or they would face the mob. When they refused to answer...Jesus did as well.

It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t want the people to know where His authority was from. It wasn’t that He couldn’t answer their question. It was the fact that they already knew the answer and were simply using the question to entrap Him. The wisdom of Christ in these situations is absolutely amazing and is something we can all learn from.