Matthew 22:41-46

Matthew 22:41-46
In the last week prior to His death, Jesus answered every question the Jews threw at Him. Repeatedly they tested Him and tried to catch Him in His words, but to no avail. Now it was Jesus’ turn. The typical Jewish way of teaching was to ask questions. Jesus therefore asked the Pharisees a question: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” This was an easy question and the Pharisees quickly responded that the Messiah was the son of David. With a follow up question, Jesus then asked, “Since that is true, why would David call his son ‘Lord?’ A father would not refer to his son by this title.”
For the Pharisees to answer correctly they would have had to realize that the Christ would not only come through the physical lineage of David, but would also be God since he would have preceded David. Only a person who was before David would qualify to have David call Him “Lord.” Thus the Christ would be both God and man.
However, none of the Jews had ever recognized that the Messiah would be God Himself. They thought the Messiah would be a mere man like one of the prophets. Therefore, the Pharisees had no answer, and as a result no one ever asked Him a question again.
Did you notice that Jesus did not give them the answer? Why would the Lord have left them hanging? This was a common teaching method for Jesus and leaves us with a great lesson. Jesus is looking for those who are truly seeking God. True seekers would have gone away and studied carefully the question of Jesus until they found the answer. And when they found it, they would have turned to Jesus as their Lord and God. So what about us? Are we the kind of people who would have diligently sought an answer to Jesus’ question? Or, would we, like the Pharisees, have remained satisfied with what we have always believed?
Berry Kercheville