Week 11, Day 1: The Unanswerable Question
Today’s Reading: Mark 13:1-14:72
Some thoughts from Friday’s reading…
In Mark 12:18-27, we have an account of some of the Sadducees who came to Jesus to question Him. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, and decided that they would prove their position by asking a question that Jesus could not answer. After all, if they could stump the Master Teacher, then they must be right! So they developed a scenario that they thought was unanswerable. A man had a wife, and then died. She had no children, so she was to become the second brother’s wife. This continued through 7 brothers, without the woman ever having a child. Their question was: In the resurrection, whose wife would she be? They thought this proved there was no resurrection, because she would have 7 husbands in the resurrection, and that would be unlawful!
Jesus, of course, was able to answer their question. They did not understand the scriptures. They did not understand the power of God. He showed in Mark 12:26-27 that God is the God of the living, not the dead. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were spoken of as being alive, even though they had died hundreds of years earlier! They still existed! If these Sadducees had known the scriptures better, they would have understood this principle.
How often is the same pattern followed today? Many times, when a controversial subject is discussed, one side or the other decides that they can prove their point by asking some “unanswerable question.” They believe if they can just stump the other side with a “trick question” then they must be right! But, that is not the case any more today than it was in Jesus’ day. Let me give you a modern example of this type of thinking. How often have you heard someone argue against the necessity of baptism based on a question such as: “What about the person who is on their way to be baptized, and has a car wreck in which they are killed? Are they still going to be lost?” Such a person is convinced that they have asked an unanswerable question. They believe it proves that baptism is truly not necessary for salvation. In reality, God is saying, “You do not understand the scriptures or the power of God.” You see, this question has absolutely nothing to do with what the scriptures teach. We can only teach what has been revealed to us. I am not the judge who determines the fate of the person in the hypothetical situation given above. But, I certainly can not base my teaching on my suppositions about what God will choose to do in such a situation. I certainly cannot change the plain teaching of scripture, and teach that baptism is not necessary when God so plainly says that it is (1 Peter 3:21).
Many in the Lord’s church take the same approach when discussing what have become “controversial subjects.” Instead of looking at the scriptures carefully, and trying to study together to come to agreement, many just try to come up with what they perceive to be an “unanswerable question.” They believe that if they can just come up with that one question that can’t be answered (at least to their satisfaction) then they have won the argument. But, we shouldn’t be looking to just “win the argument,” but rather trying to find the truth. So, lets make sure we understand the scriptures and the power of God, instead of just trying to defeat others in some debate!
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