One day, some people who were Sadducees came to Jesus with story problem.

“Teacher,” they said. “We want to understand how to apply something that Moses taught.”

According to an interpretation of the law Moses handed down from God, if a man and woman were married and he died without any children, the man’s brother could marry the woman, and the first male child would have all the status and inheritance than the first brother’s son would have received.

In a culture where wealth was attached to property and where women most often did not have land or other economic status, this was a way to provide protection.

For us, it feels strange. But don’t let that distract us from the story that’s unfolding. Because the Sadducees then described a family with seven brothers who each married the same woman and each died.

It sounds like a setup.

And it was.

They said to Jesus, ““In the resurrection therefore, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her.” I’m tempted to explain the question, explain the culture, explain.

But I’m not going to. Because the question that the Sadducees asked was not a real question.

Why? Because the Sadducees didn’t believe there was a resurrection. You live and you die.

The heart of the story is that people who didn’t believe in life after death at all were creating a made-up story about how that life might function. And they were asking the question, but didn’t want to learn the answer. They were hoping to make Jesus look foolish with a hard question.

So Jesus didn’t answer their question about the fictional woman. Instead, he talked to them about a real afterlife.

I’ll talk more about that in a couple days. But here’s the lesson.

What sounds like an important question often isn’t. Jesus answered with what was important to God, not to people trying to build their own power.