Sadducee Errors!

For Friday, October 10, 2025:

Luke 20:27 NLT: “Next, Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead.”

Apparently, the Sadducees were taking their queue from the Pharisees, trying to coerce Jesus into making a statement that would dethrone him. It’s safe to say that at that time, no one in religious authority had anything good to say about Jesus. They had religion all worked out in their minds. There was orderliness to their sacrificial system, and Jesus was rocking the boat with this New Covenant idea. But trying to trap him was futile. Jesus knew all the right answers!

The Sadducees (who didn’t believe in an afterlife) presented Jesus the following scenario: If a husband died, the custom was for his brother to marry the widow and father a son with her to carry on the deceased brother’s line. In their example, the men kept dying. There were seven brothers in all, so their question was, “In the afterlife, whose wife would she be?” After all, she was legitimately married to all seven, but at different times.

Jesus clarified what things would be like in the life after this life. “Marriage is for people here on earth. But in the age to come, those worthy of being raised from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage.” And one more thing: “They will never die again. In this respect, they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection.”

Jesus wanted the Sadducees to realign their thinking. Believe not what you’ve decided – believe only the truth Jesus taught, truth from the Bible. Christians should already be aligned with their Savior! Christians are God’s children. Jesus said so!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Money Trap!

For Thursday, October 9, 2025:

Luke 20:21-22 NLT, question asked of Jesus: “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you speak and teach what is right and are not influenced by what others think. You teach the way of God truthfully. Now tell us—is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

This whole incident was a trap. The religious leaders were upset that people were leaving the Temple to follow Jesus. Their tithes went with them! So now we know the real reason! This was about power and money. If you want to get to the bottom of a situation, just follow the money! Those religious leaders hoped to trick Jesus into dissing Caesar. Then the Romans would kill him, and they wouldn’t need to do the nasty deed themselves.

God and Jesus had for years taught that killing was wrong, was a sin. And arranging for someone’s death was as bad as killing them yourself. The Messiah came to earth through the Hebrew people, who should have loved him. But now their religious leaders felt a need to eliminate Jesus. The love of money can cause people to do strange things. The bad guys’ actions violated their own value system.

As you might expect, Jesus came up with the perfect answer. There’s plenty of money to go around. It takes money to set up governments and maintain cities and protect them, so Caesar needs some money. God already has thousands of cattle on thousands of hills, so he’s OK, but he wants us to be a part of things. He wants us to have some skin in the game. Jesus simply answered, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”

That’s what we all should do, remembering that the first portion already belongs to God!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Conspiracy!

For Thursday, May 29, 2025:

Luke 11:53-54 NLT: “As Jesus was leaving, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees became hostile and tried to provoke him with many questions. They wanted to trap him into saying something they could use against him.”

Nowadays, we hear a lot of talk about conspiracy theories as a reason for bad things happening. When we see this, realize that something didn’t just accidentally go wrong. There’s always an evil advance plan, a plot designed to bring about the desired result. Today’s scripture describes the conspiracy against God’s Son.

The religious teachers and Pharisees perceived Jesus as a threat to their established religion. Tithes regularly flowed into the Temple, but now some tithes were going to Jesus. These leaders had agreed on false teaching, but this Jesus, the new guy, was rocking the boat, attempting to get his fellow Jews back on track, believing the way God intended. Agreeing with Jesus’ teaching would have meant the Pharisees abandoned their position in the driver’s seat and openly admitted that they were wrong. Mankind doesn’t do that easily!

Rather than welcoming the Son, our scripture says the religious teachers and Pharisees were hostile toward Jesus. They tried to provoke him, to make him angry. That wasn’t in Jesus’ nature. They tried to trap him with questions designed to be used against him. And they would eventually create a scenario that would end with Jesus’ demise. That’s the conspiracy!

But it wasn’t the end! God’s vast eternal plan knew the future. When the Pharisees thought they had won, Jesus would take the sins of the world to the place of the dead. Sin was conquered! Three days later, Jesus would rise from his tomb. Death had been conquered! And in forty days, Jesus would ascend to the Father’s Kingdom to prepare for the arrival of believers! The door had been opened to eternal life!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship