Jesus' Authority Questioned

Matthew 21:23-32 tells the story of the chief priests and scribes and elders confronting Jesus about His ministry. They are trying to get the everyday people (Joe six pack types) to see that Jesus is not from God because He is taking all the wind out of their sails. The people are now beginning to see Jesus as a man of authority and power and they are beginning to see through the shallowness of the religious leaders of the day. I will tell the story in my own words.

One day as Jesus was teaching in the temple some of the high falutin muckity mucks confronted Him and demanded to know where Jesus got the chutzpah to talk to everybody like this. They said, “Yo dude, where do you get off telling everybody what to do? “Who died and made you God?” Jesus said, “I will tell you the answer to that question if you would be so kind as to answer a question of mine.” They said, “Fire away.” Then Jesus said, “You remember John the Baptist right?” They all shake their heads yes. Jesus says, “Well tell me now was that ministry from God, or from man?” What Jesus meant was did God call John to baptize everybody, or did John decide to do that on his own without any call from heaven.

The religious leaders start to confer with one another and reason with the question. They said to each other, “If we say John’s ministry was from man then the people here will be really steamed because they all believed John was called of God to do what he did. “If we say that John’s ministry was from God the people will be happy we said that but, then Jesus will ask us why we didn’t get baptized and we won’t have an answer.” So they told Jesus that they didn’t know the answer. Now Jesus was no fool and He was well aware of why they wouldn’t answer the question, so He said to them that He wouldn’t answer their question either.

Then Jesus told them a parable. “A man had two sons and he came to the first and said, “I need you to work in the field today. The son answered, ‘I will sir’; but he did not go. “Then the man said to the second son the same thing. That son said, ‘I will not go’ but later regretted that he was disobedient and went out and worked in the field.” Which one did what the father had asked?” The leaders said, “The second one because he actually went and did the work.” Jesus said, “You are correct and that is why the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into heaven before you.”

“John’s ministry was honored by the people you look down upon, but you had no interest in that ministry.”Now I come telling everyone about God’s love and once again the tax collectors and prostitutes are willing to listen and repent, but you are not. “How is it that you see God working in their lives and yet do not understand His compassion toward them?”

Once again Jesus was trying to get the leaders of that day to understand that God loved everybody not just the ones with long robes. Yet, it was the ones in long robes who rejected that thinking and saw themselves as Godly and everybody else as unrighteous.

How many of us wear long robes?