When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. -Mark 12:25
One morning, Adrian opened his Bible expecting some practical wisdom for the day ahead. But his brows furrowed when he read the passage above. What is he supposed to think and do with this argument? Recognizing it as one of Scripture's “difficult” passages, he turns to a commentary for an explanation. After a few sentences, he finds himself even more mired in a centuries-old academic debate over the sentence. He needs to get to work and is nowhere near the morning boost he hoped for. With a sigh, he closes the commentary and his Bible, deciding to look into it further tonight if he has the time and energy. Pete is going away spiritually hungry because he forgot to look for the low-hanging fruit.
Getting caught up in a subpoint and missing the passage's main point is a common mistake when we read our Bible. In this case, Adrian got caught up in the passage's “theological” issue. This blinded him to the practical wisdom right in front of him.
A regular practice can remove the scales from our eyes as we read Scripture. Begin, not with a verse, but with the wider context. For example, verse 25 is part of a wider story that begins with verse 18 and ends after verse 27. Determining the context helps us focus on the frame, that is, how the story begins and ends. More often than not, this habit will direct us to the main point of the text. In our case, we need to look at verse 18 and verse 27:
Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.
-Mark 12:18
He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!’
-Mark 12:27
The frame of the story makes no mention of marriage. Instead, it directs us to the theme of life after death. The gospel writer makes it clear that the Sadducees don’t believe in resurrection. Someone else must. The other big religious group in the gospels is the Pharisees. So, if we type in “Pharisees resurrection” in the BibleGateway app, we find that Acts 23:8 confirms our guess. The Pharisees and Sadducees debated whether there is life after death. In our story, then, the key question is, “What did Jesus believe?”
First up is the Sadducees’ argument against resurrection.
‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?’ -Mark 12:19-23
They cleverly appeal to the authority of Moses before launching into a strawman fallacy1 leading to a false dichotomy.2 Jesus rejects both strategies in his rebuttal and concludes by citing Moses himself.
Jesus replied, ‘Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising – have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!’ -Mark 12:24-27
Jesus is clearly siding with the Pharisees. He believes firmly in the resurrection of the dead. So the encouragement Pete needed was right in front of him. He can let the academics argue over an “eternal theology of marriage.” He can trust that whatever happens in heaven, it will be more amazing than we can imagine. For now, no matter what happens to him today, he can take joy in knowing he has eternal life.
Recognizing the low-hanging fruit, even in the “difficult passages” of the Bible, is too important a skill to leave to one post. So, next week we will look at another set of passages that trouble both professional and lay theologians. We will reinforce the lesson of looking for the low-hanging fruit in our Bible reading so we don’t fall into the same trap that Jesus, rather humorously, calls “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel,”3 as the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
A strawman fallacy occurs when someone distorts or exaggerates an opponent’s argument, then attacks that distorted version as if it were the opponent's real claim. This strategy makes the opponent’s argument seem weaker or easier to refute. In doing so, the arguer doesn’t engage with the relevant components of the opponent’s position.
A false dichotomy occurs when an argument presents only two options as if they are the only possible choices when, in reality, there are more options. This fallacy limits choices to create the illusion that one option is clearly better than the other, moving people toward a particular decision.