60-75 min Read the wedding banquet with attention to invitation, refusal, judgment, and appropriate response. Understand Jesus' tax answer without turning it into a simplistic separation of religion and public life. See love of God and neighbor as the interpretive center Jesus names for the Law and Prophets. Matthew 22 is a chapter of questions, most of them designed as traps. Jesus is asked about taxes, resurrection, and the greatest commandment before asking a question of his own about David's son. He refuses the narrow choices offered to him and repeatedly drives the conversation back to God's ownership, covenant faithfulness, and Scripture. God's invitation demands a fitting response, every human claim sits beneath God's greater ownership, resurrection hope rests in God's living covenant faithfulness, and the whole scriptural life is ordered around love of God and neighbor. 22:1-14: The Wedding Banquet Invited guests refuse the king's summons, some violently, and the invitation then fills the hall with people gathered from the roads. The troubling final scene of the wedding garment insists that accepting invitation is not the same as treating the king's feast casually; grace calls for a fitting response. 22:15-22: Caesar's Coin and God's Claim Asked whether to pay the imperial tax, Jesus asks for the coin and points to Caesar's image. 'Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's' does not divide life into a secular half and a sacred half. Humans themselves bear God's image, making God's claim more comprehensive. 22:23-33: God of the Living Sadducees pose a resurrection puzzle using levirate marriage. Jesus rejects the assumption that resurrection life merely repeats present social arrangements and grounds hope in God's covenant identity: God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is God of the living. 22:34-40: Love Holds the Whole Story Together Jesus joins Deuteronomy 6:5 with Leviticus 19:18: wholehearted love for God and love for neighbor. All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commands. Love is not a replacement for Scripture but the faithful orientation of obedience. 22:41-46: David's Son and David's Lord Jesus uses Psalm 110 to press beyond a merely biological understanding of Messiah. Son of David is true, but it is not large enough by itself to explain Jesus' identity and authority. Image The likeness stamped on Caesar's coin; the saying invites comparison with humans bearing God's image. Resurrection God's raising of the dead into transformed life, not simply continuation of present arrangements. Greatest commandments Love of God and neighbor, which Jesus identifies as the framework on which the Law and Prophets hang. Ask not only what belongs to government but what in your life bears God's image and therefore belongs first to him. Let resurrection hope expand beyond simply extending present conditions forever. Use love of God and neighbor as a test of interpretations that may be technically clever but relationally destructive. What does Jesus avoid by refusing the trap about the tax? How does the resurrection answer challenge assumptions in the Sadducees' question? What does it mean that the Law and Prophets 'hang' on love? Avoid turning the tax saying into a modern partisan political slogan. Explain Sadducees and Pharisees as distinct Jewish movements without caricature. Let Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19 be read in context. R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 22. Craig S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 22. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21-28. Wedding banquet, tribute, resurrection, greatest commandment, and David's son Read Matthew 22 slowly in two translations and mark repeated words, quotations, and narrative transitions. Read the nearest Old Testament texts echoed by the chapter and compare the Synoptic parallels where available. Render to Caesar Jesus refuses the trap while relativizing Caesar under God's prior claim. The saying is not a complete political theology and has been read differently across Christian traditions. Resurrection debate Jesus argues from Torah and challenges Sadducean assumptions about resurrected life. The chapter distinguishes resurrection from mere continuation of present social arrangements. What principle governs Jesus' answer about Caesar? Give Caesar what bears Caesar's claim, but give God what belongs to God, placing political claims under divine sovereignty. How does Jesus answer the Sadducees? He corrects their assumptions about resurrected life and argues from God's covenant identity as God of the living. What two commands summarize the Law and Prophets? Love God wholly and love your neighbor as yourself. The Wedding Banquet, Caesar, and the Greatest Commandment Write 700 to 900 words on the four dialogues of Matthew 22: the Parable of the Wedding Feast, paying taxes to Caesar, the Sadducees and the resurrection, and the Great Commandment, concluding with the question of David's Son in Psalm 110. Analyze the Parable of the Wedding Banquet (22:1-14) and the sober significance of the guest without wedding clothes. Examine the question of the tribute coin, explaining how Jesus distinguishes what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God. Unpack the defense of the bodily resurrection given by Jesus against the Sadducees using Exodus 3:6. Explain the dual commandment of love for God (Deuteronomy 6:5) and love for neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) as the foundation of the Law and Prophets. Displays clear understanding of Sadducees, Pharisees, and early Jewish interpretive methods. Read Matthew 22 as part of the Gospel's developing narrative rather than as an isolated chapter. Where Synoptic parallels exist, differences in wording or placement can illuminate Matthew's theological emphasis without assuming contradiction. R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, discussion of Matthew 22. Donald A. Hagner, Matthew (WBC), relevant section. Focus every interaction this week through the lens of the two greatest commandments: 'Does this response express wholehearted love for God, and does it genuinely love my neighbor as myself?' Living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you are not the God of the dead but of the living. Ground our lives in resurrection hope, and write your two great commands upon our hearts, that we may love you with all our being and love our neighbors as ourselves. Amen.