Watch Jesus Handle the Bible (Matthew 22:31-32)

Matthew 22:31-32 – “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
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When Jesus used the scriptures here to deflect a tricky argument from the Sadducees, he did something that many of our modern church members cannot do and that some movements want to stop altogether. Jesus used a simple grammatical analysis of the text in order to determine the facts about God. He exercised no postmodern interpretive method. He had no conversation with the text. He simply looked at the words of scripture, saw the words and their meaning, and drew a very logical and biblically faithful conclusion.

Why do I say that many people want to put a stop to such a thing as Jesus did? Watch those who are attempting to call the church to interact with the Bible in a postmodern way. The acceptance of post-modernity involves a basic rejection of the notion that the text has a clear and particular meaning to which we must submit ourselves. But if you watch Jesus, he very clearly is calling the Sadducees to submit themselves to the clearly intended meaning of the text in its perfect inspiration. One cannot use postmodern logic and faithfully do what Jesus did.

Why do I say that many in our churches today cannot do what Jesus did? Quiz your church members. How many of them are so committed to the study of the text that they would notice the tense of the verb in an Old Testament statement by God, much less apply that concept to draw a faithful conclusion about the fact that the dead live in God’s presence? Many of our own people would not be able to do what Jesus did, not because of a postmodern interpretation, but simply because of a lack of the kind of blood and sweat inducing study that will so help us to know God’s word as to be able to faithfully handle it.

What shall we do? Let us commit ourselves to handle the scripture in a faithful way. We know that the Bible is inspired by God and has an intended meaning. Let us commit ourselves to so study the word of God as to learn what the divine Author intended us to learn from it.