Exit Church Teachings

Forrest Brown preaches on this passage as Jesus now asks the religious leaders a challenging theological question. But unlike the religious leaders, Jesus doesn't ask out of insecurity, his desire is to prove that he is the Messiah, and he is worthy to prase and to trust with their lives.

In this text, the Sadducees take a theological swing at Jesus, only to come up short (just like the chief priests and and teachers of the law before them). The difference was that the Sadducees held a liberal view of the Old Testament text, which skewed their view of reality. Jesus corrects their thinking by using an Old Testament Scripture that they did respect. Amazingly, Jesus' argument was based upon the verb tense of Exodus 3:6, which means that not only is the story of Scripture true, but even the verb tense is inspired by God. In this way, we see the brilliance of Jesus and the necessity to treasure every piece of Scripture, even down to the details and verb tenses.

When religious leaders bait Jesus into a trap, pitting him between the Romans and the Old Testament law, Jesus threads the needle perfectly. He effortlessly responds to them in perfect wisdom while also challenging them to reconsider their own relationship with government and political power. This timeless teaching also weighs on us today in significant ways.

Paul is at the end of his life and writing a letter to his disciple, Timothy. In it, Paul exhorts Timothy to keep the faith, be on mission, prize & preach the Word, and live for what matters on Judgment Day. This message is particularly pertinent to those that we send out of our midst into the world, as a community with a large portion of college students.

The religious leaders question Jesus' authority, and Jesus, as he often does, answers them with a question of his own. Forrest Brown exegetes this passage, focusing on the authority of Jesus, the conflict with Jesus, and what we do with him.