Matthew 22:29

My Notes

What Does Matthew 22:29 Mean?

Matthew 22:29 is Jesus' response to the Sadducees, who have just posed a riddle designed to make the resurrection look absurd — a woman married to seven brothers in succession; whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Jesus doesn't engage the puzzle. He goes underneath it: "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God."

Two sources of error. Two things the Sadducees lacked. First, they didn't know the Scriptures — which is ironic, because the Sadducees were the aristocratic priestly class who considered themselves the guardians of the Torah. But knowing the text and knowing what the text reveals are different things. They had the words but missed the meaning. Second, they didn't know the power of God — they had confined God to what their logic could accommodate. If they couldn't imagine how resurrection worked, they concluded it didn't exist. Their theology was limited by their imagination.

Jesus identifies these as the two roots of almost every theological error: insufficient knowledge of Scripture and insufficient belief in God's power. Either you don't know what God has said, or you don't believe He can do what He said. The Sadducees had both problems simultaneously. They read the Torah selectively and then declared that a God who could create the universe from nothing couldn't possibly raise the dead. Jesus' rebuke is gentle in form but devastating in substance.

Reflection Questions

• 1.Which gap is bigger in your life right now — not knowing the Scriptures well enough, or not believing in the power of God?
• 2.Have you ever held a confident opinion about God that turned out to be wrong because you hadn't examined Scripture carefully enough?
• 3.Where have you put a ceiling on what God can do — deciding something is impossible based on logic rather than on what He's actually said?
• 4.What would it look like to grow in both areas simultaneously — deeper in the Word and more open to God's power?

Devotional

"Ye do err." Jesus doesn't say "you have a different interpretation" or "that's an interesting perspective." He says you're wrong. And then He names the two reasons: you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know God's power. That's a diagnosis that still fits most spiritual confusion today.

Think about the questions that keep you up at night — the theological puzzles, the things about God that don't make sense, the doubts that circle back around. How many of them are rooted in one of these two gaps? Either you haven't spent enough time in what God has actually said (not what people say about Him, but what He says about Himself), or you've unconsciously put a ceiling on what you believe He can do. You've decided that certain things are impossible — not because Scripture says so, but because your experience or your logic says so.

The Sadducees were brilliant, educated, and wrong. Education without encounter leads to error. You can study God exhaustively and still not know His power if you've never let Him be bigger than your categories. And you can have dramatic experiences of God's power and still drift into confusion if you're not grounded in His Word. You need both. The Scriptures tell you who God is. His power shows you what He can do. When both are alive in your life, the riddles that trip other people up lose their grip on you.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture