Latest / The Bible Study Podcast / #956 - Luke 20:27-47 – Resurrection and Marriage

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#956 - Luke 20:27-47 – Resurrection and Marriage · The Bible Study Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio The Bible Study Podcast, Episode nine fifty six. Today,
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  Speaker 1: The Bible Study Podcast continues the study of the Gospel
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  Speaker 1: of Luke as we wrap up chapter twenty. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Bible Study Podcast. I'm your host Chris Christensen. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to wrap up chapter twenty and possibly start chapter
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  Speaker 1: twenty one here, but first a word from this sponsor.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty we left off in verse twenty six. Verse
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven starts with the resurrection and marriage. Some of
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  Speaker 1: the sadducees, who say there is no resurrection came to
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  Speaker 1: Jesus with a question. Teacher, they said, Moses wrote for
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  Speaker 1: us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a
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  Speaker 1: wife but no children, the man must marry the widow
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  Speaker 1: and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were
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  Speaker 1: seven brothers. The first married a woman and died childless.
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  Speaker 1: The second and then the third married her, and the
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  Speaker 1: same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the
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  Speaker 1: woman died too. Now, then at the resurrection, whose wife
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  Speaker 1: will she be since the seven were married to her.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus replied, the people of this age mary and are
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  Speaker 1: given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy of
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  Speaker 1: taking part in the age to come, and in the
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  Speaker 1: resurrection from the dead, will neither marry nor be given
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  Speaker 1: in marriage. And they can no longer die, for they
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  Speaker 1: are like the angels. They are God's children, since they
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  Speaker 1: are children of the resurrection. But in the account of
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  Speaker 1: the Burning Bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise,
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  Speaker 1: for he called the Lord the God of Abraham and
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  Speaker 1: the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He
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  Speaker 1: is not the God of the dead, but of the living,
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  Speaker 1: for to him all are alive. Some of the teachers
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  Speaker 1: of the law responded, well, said teacher, and no one
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  Speaker 1: dared to ask him any more questions. So a couple
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  Speaker 1: things that we see here. One that last verse at
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  Speaker 1: the end gives you a hint that there is some
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  Speaker 1: disagreement between the major let's call them political parties. That's
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  Speaker 1: not quite true, religious parties in Judah at this time.
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  Speaker 1: They are the Pharisees, who we've dealt with a lot,
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  Speaker 1: who are basically lay teachers and the ancestors of modern
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  Speaker 1: day rabbis. And then there's the Sadducees who died out
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  Speaker 1: when the temple was destroyed, and they're the priestly party,
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  Speaker 1: and one of the reasons they don't believe in the resurrection.
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  Speaker 1: Is the only part of the Old Testament that they
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  Speaker 1: use is the first five books, the Books of Moses,
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  Speaker 1: and so they have the Law, and they have Exodus,
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  Speaker 1: and they have Genesis, but they don't have any of
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  Speaker 1: the prophets or the history or any of that. And
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  Speaker 1: they certainly don't have the Talmud, which the Pharisees also studied,
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  Speaker 1: which was the interpretation of the rest of the what
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  Speaker 1: we call the Old Testament. And so because they didn't
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  Speaker 1: see resurrection mentioned in those first five books, they don't
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  Speaker 1: include it. They don't believe it. Now, the Sadducees tended
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  Speaker 1: to be the priestly party, tended to be a little richer.
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  Speaker 1: Things were going okay for them in life, and so
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  Speaker 1: they didn't really need to preach resurrection of the dead.
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  Speaker 1: So they were more grab all you can while you're here,
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  Speaker 1: because you only go around once kind of people. And
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  Speaker 1: so they come up with this scenario here for Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: That's a little bit like you know, how many angels
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  Speaker 1: can dance on the head of a pan. It's very contrived.
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  Speaker 1: You can imagine that they weren't necessarily thinking of a
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  Speaker 1: particular seven brothers and a particular woman. But you know,
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  Speaker 1: they were basically trying to say, is look, this scenario
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  Speaker 1: here that we can come up with here sort of
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  Speaker 1: proves that the resurrection doesn't make sense. And that's why
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  Speaker 1: they are bringing it to Jesus, and they want him
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  Speaker 1: to somehow decide which of these brothers is going to
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  Speaker 1: be the true husband in a resurrection that they don't
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  Speaker 1: believe in, right, So they're just trying to do this
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  Speaker 1: to test Jesus. Jesus' answer to this is the only
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  Speaker 1: place in the scripture that I know of that he
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  Speaker 1: talks about marriage and heaven, even that the subject comes up. Now.
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  Speaker 1: I know that when I got married, I was promising
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  Speaker 1: tell death to us part and so it was part
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  Speaker 1: of the original agreement that we were married in this life,
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  Speaker 1: and that when one of us died, that marriage dissolves.
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  Speaker 1: And so Jesus is saying yes, and not only that,
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  Speaker 1: but when we're in heaven, we don't have a need
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  Speaker 1: for marriage, I think is what he's saying. We won't
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  Speaker 1: be marrying now. I've always wondered if that's because here
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  Speaker 1: it's hard to be that close with just one person,
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  Speaker 1: and there it won't be I don't know why, but
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  Speaker 1: basic marriage is of this life. Thing is how Jesus responds.
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  Speaker 1: And so you know, though we might watch Hallmark channel
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  Speaker 1: and here a thing people talk about forever forever is
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  Speaker 1: not the promise Forever there is not what marriage is about.
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  Speaker 1: It's telled death to us part. But when Jesus starts
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  Speaker 1: talking about Moses and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
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  Speaker 1: which is how God introduces himself to Moses in the
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  Speaker 1: Burning Bush, he is coming back at the Sadducees with
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  Speaker 1: what we might consider proof from those first five books
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  Speaker 1: of the Torah that God is that God does believe
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  Speaker 1: in resurrection, in the sense that he's saying that he
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  Speaker 1: is not the God of the living but of the dead.
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  Speaker 1: He's not saying I was the God of Abraham, I
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  Speaker 1: was the God of Isaac, and I was the God
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  Speaker 1: of Jacob. But I am the God of Abraham, Isaac,
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  Speaker 1: and Jacob, even though clearly when Moses saw the burning bush,
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  Speaker 1: those three had been dead for many years. And so
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  Speaker 1: he's saying to God, the living and the dead, all
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  Speaker 1: our alive. God, because he is timeless, can see past
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  Speaker 1: this current age and this current death into a resurrection,
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  Speaker 1: and so that's why you see some of the teachers
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  Speaker 1: of the law. So the teachers of the Law and
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  Speaker 1: the Pharisees do believe in the resurrection, so they like
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  Speaker 1: this answer, and so they're saying, well said teacher, and
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  Speaker 1: it says, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
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  Speaker 1: So we already had the questions last week, including should
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  Speaker 1: he pay tax as a caesar. That was supposed to
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  Speaker 1: be a trap, and at this point they're kind of
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  Speaker 1: done trying to trap Jesus with rhetorical questions continuing on
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  Speaker 1: whose son is the Messiah? So Jesus goes on. Then
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  Speaker 1: Jesus said to them, why is it said that the
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  Speaker 1: Messiah is the son of David? David himself declares in
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  Speaker 1: the Book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord,
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  Speaker 1: set up my right hand until I make your enemies
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  Speaker 1: a footstool for your feet. David calls him Lord, Then
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  Speaker 1: how can he be his son? And this is more
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  Speaker 1: like a shot across the bow of the religious leaders
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  Speaker 1: and the Pharisees, who again this is from the Book
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  Speaker 1: of Psalms, which would not be included in the scriptures
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  Speaker 1: of the Sadducees. That maybe you don't understand everything you
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  Speaker 1: think you do about Messiah. And then one last section
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  Speaker 1: here warning against the teachers of the law. While all
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  Speaker 1: the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, beware
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  Speaker 1: of the teachers of the law. They like to walk
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  Speaker 1: around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with
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  Speaker 1: respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats
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  Speaker 1: in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.
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  Speaker 1: They devour widows houses and for a show, make lengthy prayers.
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  Speaker 1: These men will be punished most severely. So the teachers
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  Speaker 1: of the law liked him just a little bit ago,
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  Speaker 1: but now a little less so because he's calling them out,
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  Speaker 1: and he's calling them out for this need to be seen,
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  Speaker 1: as seen and respected. Now this is not something that
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  Speaker 1: is only true of the teachers of the law. We
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  Speaker 1: can get ourselves into trouble when how people perceive us
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  Speaker 1: and how people receive us is so important to us.
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  Speaker 1: And without getting into details, just this weekend, a major
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  Speaker 1: political leader felt snubbed that they didn't get the Nobel
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  Speaker 1: Peace Prize and is moving us in a direction towards
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  Speaker 1: conflict and war because of that feeling of being snubbed.
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  Speaker 1: Now you and I don't have enough power fortunately that
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  Speaker 1: all our petty grievances can turn into war or into conflict,
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  Speaker 1: but we still have sometimes those petty grievances. Did somebody
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  Speaker 1: sit in our seat in Sunday? Did someone greet us wrong?
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  Speaker 1: Did someone say the wrong thing? Even when my wife
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  Speaker 1: worked for a while at our church, she had to
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  Speaker 1: deal with the sometimes I would say, junior high level
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  Speaker 1: emotions of people she was working with that were adults
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  Speaker 1: that so and so looked at me wrong or said
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  Speaker 1: the wrong thing, and people in tears in her office.
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  Speaker 1: This is something that happens to us as well, where
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  Speaker 1: we crave the respect and it matters how people treat us.
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  Speaker 1: And I understand that, but it probably matters more than
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  Speaker 1: it should for us, and it certainly did. Jesus says
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  Speaker 1: for these teachers of the law, and he's saying, they
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  Speaker 1: devour widows houses and for a show make lengthy prayers.
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  Speaker 1: So he's saying they're hypocrites. They are doing things that
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  Speaker 1: God would not approve of, devouring widows houses. What exactly
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  Speaker 1: they're doing there, I'm not sure, but God definitely cares
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  Speaker 1: for the stranger. So the widow the orphan and the
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  Speaker 1: foreigner more so than anyone else brought out in the prophets,
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  Speaker 1: because they are powerless, and so they devour widows houses.
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  Speaker 1: Is they don't care for what God cares for, and
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  Speaker 1: then they make for a show, make lengthy prayers. They're
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  Speaker 1: not doing it because they have a lot to say,
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  Speaker 1: or they're not doing it because those prayers are needed.
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  Speaker 1: They're doing it because they have people's attention. Now, we
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  Speaker 1: live in an attention society where we crave attention, and
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  Speaker 1: where we have politicians, for instance, who actually are in
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  Speaker 1: Congress and pass no legislation but just try and get attention.
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  Speaker 1: That is not what their job is supposed to be.
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  Speaker 1: But we are in a society where we reward that
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  Speaker 1: behavior of attention grabbing, and we too can act that
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  Speaker 1: way in a way that Jesus is not finding very
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  Speaker 1: good here in the Teachers of the Law. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: he says they will be punished. So the two things
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  Speaker 1: we ought to avoid is being overly concerned with getting attention,
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  Speaker 1: and then obviously with are we living a hypocritical life
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  Speaker 1: or are we caring for what God cares for through
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  Speaker 1: our actions as well as our words. I thought we
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  Speaker 1: would get into chapter twenty one, but those last few
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  Speaker 1: verses took me a little longer to explain that I thought.
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  Speaker 1: So we'll do chapter twenty one next week, and with
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  Speaker 1: that we'll end this episode of the Bible Study Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: If you have any questions, send an email to Chris
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  Speaker 1: two x at gmail dot com, or, better yet, leave
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  Speaker 1: a comment on this episode at the Bible Study podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And as always, thanks so much for listening.
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  Speaker 1: I want to take just a second to thank the
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  Speaker 1: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on
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