Today we witness an ancient military war tactic at work—attack in waves, leaving no time for the enemy to recover from the first shot. First came the chief priests, scribes, and elders with their religious question to trap Jesus Christ.[1] They were defeated by Jesus, and they knew it. But it wasn’t over. The scheming conspirators then sent the unlikely alliance of the Pharisees and the Herodians to throw a political net over the Savior, but they failed. Now, in an unrelenting attack, comes a rather oddball group—the pseudo-intellectual Sadducees, a rather elite, politically powerful, highly educated, well placed group of priests. What the ritualistic Pharisees could not do, the rationalistic Sadducees hoped to do—trap Jesus with His own teaching.

But the way to God in not through rituali…