Has anyone ever tried to trap you with words? They want to catch you saying something that they can use against you. I have found that people do this when they think they are smart and better than you. Instead of being embarrassed at their lame attempt to trick you, they think you don’t know what they are doing. The amount of arrogance is off the charts. Clearly, they do not have your best interests at heart.
There is nothing new under the sun. People act the same way now, as they did with Jesus. People tried to trick Jesus into saying something incriminating, and He is perfect, because He is God.
History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.
—Ecclesiastes 1:9
You can’t trap God.
The Pharisees behaved with arrogance. They actually thought they could trick Jesus and get Him arrested. I love Jesus. His answers always sent the doubters away shaking their heads in disbelief at how their attempt to trick the Son of God was foiled again. Jesus told them to love the Lord your God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.
If the Pharisees really listened to the answer, their hearts could have changed. Instead of trying to trap Jesus in His words, they could have loved Him. Instead of trying to get people arrested, they could have loved their neighbors.
Through this attempt to trick Jesus, He was calm. When others try to get a reaction out of you, remain calm and let the Holy Spirit guide your response. God can’t be tricked.
The Most Important Commandment
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind’. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
—Matthew 22:34-40 (NLT)
