This chapter of Matthew is one of Jesus’ teaching chapters, in which he begins with a parable and then answers three questions asked by various religious authorities before offering a question of his own to one of the groups of authorities.
The parable tells the story of a king who gives a wedding feast for his son. At the time the feast is to begin, none of the guests was willing to attend, so the king punished the guests, after which he sent his servants to bring all of the people they could find to the banquet. When one of the newly-brought guests was not dressed appropriately, the king had him punished. We will look at this parable in further detail later in the week.
Jesus then engages in answering a series of three questions posed by two different Jewish sects: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were the ancestors of the modern rabbis and mostly came from backgrounds that were not part of the hereditary priestly class. They sought to understand God’s desire for the Jewish people by making the Law accessible to all people. The Pharisees’ roots were grounded in a desire to truly return the Israelites to lives of holiness and righteousness, which could only be accomplished by fully following the Law. They understood themselves to be separate from the nations of the Gentiles. The Sadducees were descended from the ancestral line of Aaron, the first high priest of the Israelites, and were of the priestly class. They believed that the way to holiness lay in continuing to maintain the traditions of the temple sacrificial system that had been the center of worship for Israel since their arrival in the Promised Land following the Exodus.
These two groups disagreed more than they agreed with one another, though both sects saw Jesus and his teachings as threats to their authority. Their questions to Jesus were phrased to support their particular perspectives on the proper way to understand (and therefore to worship) God, while also having aspects that sought to show their superiority above the other group.
This chapter concludes with Jesus taking a turn questioning the Pharisees. As is often the case, Jesus further shapes their answer by posing a question to them based on the words of Psalm 110.