What does Matthew 22:41 mean?
The Pharisees are close to giving up on asking Jesus challenging questions. He defeated their attempts to make Him look bad or get Him arrested. Worse, at least one of their own has started to agree with Jesus (Matthew 22:35–40; Mark 12:32–34). Their mission to "entangle him in his words" (Matthew 22:15) is failing badly. They seem to be huddling together, once again (Matthew 22:34), devising their next move.Jesus, though, has one more question for these Pharisees gathered in the temple. In the following verses, He asks them a hard question that directly relates to His own identity. He will successfully stump them in the way they have attempted to stump Him. However, in this case, the actual answer to His question would tell them everything they really need to know about Jesus.
Matthew 22:41–46 records Jesus reversing the dialogue with the Pharisees, who have been asking Him trick questions. He rhetorically asks them whose son the Messiah is—knowing they will rightly answer that Messiah is the Son of David. Jesus then quotes from the Psalms and asks why King David calls the Christ "my Lord" if the Christ is his son. This raises the issue of Christ's divinity and totally stumps the Pharisees. This incident is also mentioned in Mark 12:35–37 and Luke 20:41–44. In fact, religious leaders completely stop asking Him questions from this moment on.
Continuing a dialogue with hostile religious leaders, Jesus tells a parable comparing the kingdom of heaven to a wedding feast which ends up being attended by those not initially invited. He answers trick questions about taxes, marriage, resurrection, and the Law of Moses. These responses are the source of common English idioms such as "render to Caesar…" and "many are called but few are chosen." Finally, Jesus asks how the Messiah can be both the son of David and the Lord of David. None can answer Him, so they stop challenging Him in public.
