Todays readings.. 1 kings 12, Jeremiah 38, Mark 12
The words above were spoken by Jesus to the Sadducees and are found in Mark 12 v.24. This religious group, who were separate from the Pharisees, “say that there is no resurrection.” [v.18]. They came to Jesus and put a question to him about a woman who had had 7 husbands, one after another but left no offspring.
Their question is, “In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”[v.23]. Jesus’ reply is instructive to us about the nature of life in the kingdom; he told them, “you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels…” [v.24,25]
Our minds then went to the passage Paul quoted to the Corinthians (1st Epistle 2 v.9] “… no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
Let us make sure we “love him” – love that is shown by actions, not just words. Our love must be in response to God’s love for us! How deeply the words of John, in his 1st Epistle cause us to meditate on this! He wrote, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”[ch. 3 v.2,3]
Let us “know … the Scriptures” and through them more clearly sense “the power of God” and every day purify our thinking – and resultant actions – being ready, as much as we can, for that wondrous day when, by his grace, we become “like angels.”
