Who Is This Man?Sýnishorn

He's really smart. Where is that coming from?

When I started reading the Gospels for myself, as an adult and an atheist, one of the first things I noticed was how smart Jesus was. Constantly challenged by religious leaders who felt threatened by him, Jesus masterfully handled those conversations, often with powerful comebacks that left his opponents stunned and silent. When the Pharisees challenged him on the payment of taxes, with a catch-22 dilemma—pay taxes and thereby fund the oppression of God’s people, or don’t pay taxes and thereby promote an insurrection against the Roman emperor—Jesus gave his famous reply: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Brilliant!

When the Sadducees (who didn’t believe in resurrection of the dead) tried to trap Jesus with a question about who would ultimately be the husband of a woman who was married and widowed several times, he challenged their false assumption, saying, “You don’t know the Scriptures . . . for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:29-30). And then he underscored the veracity of the resurrection of the dead: “[God] is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). “And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching” (Matthew 22:33).

Jesus was a master at exposing hypocrisy. When asked by what authority he did everything that he did, Jesus replied that he would answer the question only if the religious leaders would answer one first: “Did John’s baptism come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” (Matthew 21:25). When the leaders saw that Jesus was setting a trap for them, they pretended not to know the answer to the question—and Jesus didn’t answer their question either.

When Jesus was still a child and Mary and Joseph found him in the Temple in Jerusalem sitting among the teachers, “all those who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:47). When, as an adult, Jesus taught in the Temple, “the Jews were amazed and said, ‘How is this man so learned, since he hasn’t been trained?’” (John 7:14-15).

So, where did this wisdom come from? As Jesus himself explained: “My teaching isn’t mine but is from the one who sent me” (John 7:16).

All this means that we are not being asked to place our faith in someone we cannot look up to intellectually. As an atheist who was terrified of committing intellectual suicide by becoming a believer, this was very helpful. Whatever else people might think of Christians, they can’t look at Jesus and think, I’m too smart for this.