Jesus was the master
logician. The learned rabbis continued to unsuccessfully try trap Him in an
inconsistency or a breach of the law. For example, they asked Him if it is
lawful to pay taxes to the hated Caesar. If He answered affirmatively, the
Israelites would hate Him. If Jesus answered against paying taxes, the rabbis
would report Him to Pilate for preaching insurrection. Instead, Jesus cleverly
answered:
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Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought
him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is
this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they
heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away. (Matthew 22:19–22)
He gave them nothing by which they could charge Him. They
also tried to find fault with Jesus for healing on the Sabbath:
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Indignant because Jesus had healed on the
Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for
work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath." The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites!
Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and
lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of
Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the
Sabbath day from what bound her?"
When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated… (Luke 13:14-17)
Hypocritical? Yes! The leaders had criticized Jesus for
working on the Sabbath, but they too worked on the Sabbath to water their
animals. Besides, the woman was worth far more in God’s sight than the animals!
By telling her to return on another day had shown their lack of compassion,
especially since they hadn’t made any arrangements for Jesus to return to heal.
However, Jesus had humiliated the rulers. Where was His love
for them? Sometimes, strong words, producing humiliation, are the very
implements necessary to penetrate our hardened ground to receive His seeds.
No one was ever able to outdo the logic and the Scriptural
understanding of the “unlearned” Jesus. No years of study had equipped them to
deal effectively with such a Man! At their best, the learned were only able to
accuse Jesus of being in league with the devil, a claim easily dismissed by
Jesus’ willing death on the Cross.
Jesus’ parables, although not heart-warming, were pearls of
wisdom to reveal the hard truths about ourselves. In the Parable of the Ten
Minas, a nobleman gave each of his servants 1 mina to invest. Then he
departed to receive his kingdom. After a long period of time, he returned. Even
though his servants hated him, the first two had invested their mina, earned a
sizable return, and were rewarded by the master:
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"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir,
here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid
of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and
reap what you did not sow.' "His
master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You
knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and
reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so
that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?' (Luke 19:20-23)
This servant claimed that he was fearful of his harsh
master. Therefore, he merely buried his mina to return it to the master upon
his return. However, the master, representing the Lord, called him a “wicked
servant.” Had the master failed to show understanding for his fearful servant?
Not at all! Instead, he uncovered the fact that this servant had been lying. If
he had truly been fearful, the servant would have been obedient and invested
the mina to earn interest. Therefore, the master ordered that his mina be taken
away from the lying servant, who could not be trusted, and given to those who
had invested obediently.
Do Jesus’ parables represent supreme wisdom? You might argue
that wisdom is in the eye of the beholder, and there is much truth in that. We
usually measure wisdom according to the degree that it conforms to what we already
regard as wisdom—a highly subjective measure.
For this reason, I hadn’t regarded His parables as wise but
as troubling. Jesus concluded one parable about the nature of faith in a
humanly degrading manner:
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“So you also, when you have done all that you
were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our
duty.’” (Luke 17:10)
“Unworthy servants?” Instead, don’t we need to believe in
our worthiness to feel good about ourselves? I was sure that Jesus must have
been mistaken! However, years later, I began to see the surpassing wisdom of
entrusting all our needs, especially our psychological needs, to Jesus as we
bask in the truth and peace of humility and the abundance of His superior
provisions.
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