GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:26
Knowing vs. Understanding
A teacher explained that he still used the pencil-and-paper testing method, expecting students to write out their understanding of the subject. In the education realm, technology is constantly encroaching on pedagogical methodology. A student without a personal computer is in the educational dark ages. A toddler recently sat beside his mother, playing a game on a cell phone—a toddler. So, asking students to take a pencil and write on a piece of paper sounds like something from the previous generation. The reasoning behind this methodology, however, requires students to demonstrate their understanding of the concept being explained—not just to know it. One may know the Pythagorean theorem, for instance, but understanding the concept and applying it are entirely different matters. The difference between knowing and understanding was illustrated in Jesus’ conversation with the Sadducees.
The Sadducees represented the religious aristocracy in Jerusalem. Members of that group, emerging during the 2nd century BC and likely taking their name from “Zadok,” the high priest under King Solomon—suggesting their claim to legitimate priestly lineage—accepted only the written Torah, the five books of Moses, as authoritative. They rejected the oral traditions of the Pharisees, denied the resurrection of the dead, rejected the existence of angels and spirits, and denied divine providence, emphasizing human free will and personal responsibility. They wanted to blunt Jesus’ teaching about the resurrection by presenting him with a conundrum—a problem with no easy or obvious solution. They told him about seven brothers who lived together, each dying without an heir, and that the wife was passed to each brother in succession, who, according to Levitical law, was required to marry her and produce an heir. In the end, the woman herself died without producing an heir. So, the Sadducees asked Jesus whose wife she would be in the resurrection, since each brother had married her.
In answer to this apparent conundrum, Jesus said, “Now concerning the dead, that they are raised: have you not read in the Book of Moses, at the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’” (Mark 12:26) The wording of Jesus’ reply expected a positive answer; in other words, Jesus was saying, “You have read…” His point was that they knew the Scripture but did not understand it.
Knowing or reading Scripture as the Sadducees did is important as a first step, just as hearing an explanation of the Pythagorean theorem. However, understanding and applying Scripture—something the Sadducees did not do—is essential to a living relationship with the Father.
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