WALKING TO SILENCE OUR OPPONENTS

   Time and again, religious leaders and scholars will ask Jesus tough questions to trap Him, so they could bring Him to their court for heresy. But the moment has come that Jesus will silence His opponents by the very means they have been using – hard facts and hard questions. By citing explicit truth from the scriptures, Jesus allowed the profundity and paradox of God’s word to bring them to a pause and think (Ps. 110:1). And by asking them one deductive question, Jesus has silenced their pretentious questioning. They did not want to risk another humiliation like when they questioned Jesus on healing a demon possessed girl on a Sabbath (Matt. 22:41-46, Mark 12:35-37 & Luke 20:41-44).

   Jesus outwitted the intelligence of those who oppose Him with a higher form of knowledge – the wisdom of God. He did not engage them by going down to their level of folly but led them to a level to which they perceive to have already achieved.

   There are men with seeming intellectual superiority who engages us in a conversation, whether they are conscious or unconscious of their own words, push their ideas or suggestions as if it is the only logical choice. And for them to go against what they say is foolishness. Deep inside us, we develop a certain degree of annoyance that we just want to walkout. But the challenge of our Lord Jesus is for us to be “shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16),” and with this we cannot simply walk away.

How will you show grace when you are made to look ignorant or foolish? What will you do to bring the conversation to a higher level of wisdom?

MEMORY VERSE
    But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. (1Corintians 1:30)

by Pastor Dennis Mongoso
Breadcom Discipleship Pastor

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