Just Words

The whole 20 Chapter of Luke is taken up with Jesus confounding the scribes, the Sadducees and Pharisees as they each try to trip him with one “gottcha” question after another. Like the Wiley Coyote in pursuit of the Road Runner, they are confident that their next clever trap will surely snare Jesus, only to fall flat on their faces over and over. But this game is not cartoon fun or even harmless intellectual sparring. It is deadly serious. Whether it is a question of church and state, as in rendering to Caesar… or the existence of an afterlife, as in the much married widow… or by what authority Jesus preaches, the objective of these questions is not to gain knowledge. It is to charge Christ with a capital crime. Blasphemy, treason or rebellion; any one will do...