Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Jensen Holt McNair. So my kids have recently discovered Tom and Jerry. Whenever we have screen time, they ask for the cat and mouse one.

I asked Jude why he liked it so much,

and he just said that the mouse was silly and thought up fun ideas. And this was Jude's way of saying

that he liked the creative ways that Jerry outsmarted Tom in his effort to trap and then most likely

consume him. Now, if Jude were 14 and not 4, I think he would like Luke chapter 20, because as I was

reading it, it made me think of an elevated game of cat and mouse, less physical traps, and more

intellectual ones. Chapter 19 closes out with Jesus clearing out the temple and condemning the practices

going on, followed by the

declaration that the Pharisees are actively looking for a way to kill Jesus. Now, as members of

society with more power than Jesus, why not just arrest and kill him? Well, chapter 19 ends by

telling us they could not find any way to do it because all the

people hung on his words. This is where the cat and mouse game comes in. See, chapter 20 chronicles

three touch points that Jesus has with the Pharisees, but they all stem from the same motivation. The Pharisees are

desperate to trap Jesus, to trick him into saying something that would offend the crowds,

opening the door for them to be able to arrest and kill him. But each time we're going to see Jesus

outsmart them. So verses 1 through 8 begin with Jesus teaching in the temple courts about the good news,

the gospel.

And the whole posse of chief priests, teachers of the law, and elder is ask him,

where does he get his authority to clear out the temple and teach?

Now, instead of answering, Jesus asks them a question.

He asks them where they think John the Baptist authority comes from. Was it from heaven or humans?

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