Lesson 19 – The King’s Judgment Challenged
Read Matthew 19 – www.bible.com/bible/59/mat.19 

The religious leaders understood Jesus’ words about His kingdom very well! But they had not challenged Him based on the most personal elements of the people’s lives, again planning to pull the people away from Jesus with answers they hoped to get from Him, answers they would be able to twist in their favor. Their first question was about divorce, and they thought they could twist what He would say either way.

However, Jesus used Godly wisdom to answer them in such a way they couldn’t argue with Him at all – He used God’s words. From the beginning God had designed one man and one woman to be a family unit in which children could be raised with love and security. People’s sin caused God’s mercy to give them one alternative – which the leaders had weakened even further to allow for their own selfishness. Even the disciples were intimidated by Jesus’ application of God’s standards! They objected that under this kind of rule it would be better never to get married. But Jesus chided them gently by saying not everyone can live a life without the love and companionship of marriage.


The disciples, probably without thinking about what they were doing, then tried to keep children away from Jesus, because children were often seen as a nuisance to adults. Jesus again gently scolded His disciples by reminding them His kingdom was made up of those who accepted Him like children would.

Beginning in verse 16, another challenge was made to Jesus’ statements about His kingdom. Again, this was probably intended to get Jesus to set a priority in the laws so they could charge Him with making one more important than another. “What one thing do I have to do to get into Your kingdom?”

Again, Jesus’ wisdom was too much for them. First, He concentrated all the Law they had memorized from childhood into only two laws – love God with all you are and all you have, and love your neighbor as yourself. There wasn’t a single law on their books that wouldn’t fit under one of these two main laws!

The young man, perhaps in pride or arrogance, said he’d kept all the laws since he was a child. But Jesus’ next statement showed this young man how he had broken the very first law – “you shall have no other gods before Me!” Jesus said he should give away all he had and come follow Him. The young man couldn’t do that, because his wealth was more important to him than his relationship with Jesus.

*What do you spend most of your time or energy or money on?