serna Bible Blog

Mark 1:9–15

2012-01-13T17:10:00.002-05:00

Mark 1:9–15 (ESV): The Baptism of Jesus, The Temptation of Jesus, and Jesus Begins His Ministry

Synopsis

Mark’s gospel is a very fast-paced one; things are always happening “immediately.” There is a chance that my own writing will take on a Mark-like characteristic and I’ll be tossing off blog posts quickly; we’ll have to see how things go. Here we’ll look at three events that Mark reports on in quick succession.

First, in verses 9–11 (ESV), is Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. As opposed to, say, the account in Matthew, Mark gives us only the bare details: Jesus comes from Nazareth to where John the Baptist is baptizing people in the Jordan River, and is baptized. As he is coming out of the water he sees the Spirit descending on him like a dove, and hears a voice from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (verse 11 (ESV)).

After his baptism the Spirit “immediately” drives him into the wilderness where he stays for forty days, being tempted by Satan and being ministered to by angels.

After the forty days—and after John the Baptist is arrested—Jesus goes into Galilee and starts proclaiming “the gospel of God” (verse 14 (ESV)), and saying that the time is fulfilled, and now it is time to repent and start believing in that gospel.

Thoughts

Baptism is a symbol of something that has happened to us: when we are baptised it is a symbol that we have died to our old natures (going under the water being a symbol of dying), and raised anew to new life (coming up out of the water). Not that I’m looking to have an argument about full-submission baptism vs. sprinkling; that’s not my point. The water used in baptism is also a symbol of God cleansing us from our sins. None of this, however, applies to Jesus, who had no sins to be cleansed of, who had no sinful nature to die to, and who had no need to raise again to a new life since his life was holy in the first place. However, the ESV Study Bible (credit where credit is due) points out that Jesus underwent baptism as a way of identifying with the sins of his people.

In this passage Mark indicates that Jesus is tempted for forty days by Satan; this means that the accounts given to us in Matthew and Luke are only a summary of the interaction between Jesus and the devil, not a full account. We are being given only what we need to know, not a full blow-by-blow of the minutiae of Jesus’ life. In fact Mark decides to tell us nothing about the temptations at all; the fact that Satan tempted Jesus for forty days is all that’s important, the actual words used by Satan aren’t (for Mark).

Notice the wording in verses 14–15, when Mark talks about Jesus preaching the gospel:

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (verses 14–15 (ESV), emphasis added)

That “and saying” is important, because it means that what Jesus says next isn’t the gospel, it’s something additional. He proclaimed the gospel and he told people that the kingdom of God is at hand and instructed them to repent and believe. I only mention this because the day before I wrote this post I’d heard a sermon where a preacher was mentioning that many people don’t know what the gospel is, and a casual reader might gloss over the “and” in this passage and think that telling people the kingdom is at hand and people need to repent is the gospel. The gospel is more than that; this is another case (even more obvious this time) where we are not given everything that Jesus said, we are only given the tail end of it.

Which means that now I probably have to say what the gospel is, don’t I? A very high level summary might go something like this: God created the universe and everything in it, and therefore has the right to do whatever He wishes with all of it. His “crowning achievement” in creation was us, humans, who bear His image. When He created us He laid down a standard of living for us, which, although these words are not recorded as being given to Adam and Eve, could probably be summed up with the phrase “be holy as I am holy.” God, being a righteous and holy God, will not stand sin to be in His presence, so this standard of living is actually vitally important to having a relationship with Him. However, humans did not live up to the standard and sin entered the world, breaking the relationship between God and His people. In fact the nature of humanity was fundamentally changed to the point that humans are now intrinsically sinful; we are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. This introduced a problem because God is a loving God and wants a relationship with His people, but is also a Holy God and therefore can’t allow sin to come into His presence, but is also a just God and so can’t just let the sin go unpunished—it has to be paid for somehow. He solved this problem, and still adhered to all three of these aspects of His character, by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to earth as a human; the only human who ever lived a sinless life, and who therefore didn’t deserve to be punished. Jesus, however, allowed himself to be punished anyway, taking upon Himself the punishment for sins that others had committed, making those people “clean” and solving the problem: the sins they committed were removed from them, allowing them into a relationship with God; God’s love for them is no longer hindered by this “sin problem;” and because the sins were punished, God is not being unjust and simply letting the sin go. (This last part is probably the hardest to understand in our modern ears; the idea of sin being important is completely foreign to us. Our inclination would be to say to God that He should simply ignore the sin and forget about it. Even a casual reading of the Bible should indicate to us that this isn’t possible, that sin is remarkably important, but we don’t read our Bibles as we should—even the Christians.)

Mark 1:1–8

2012-01-12T10:49:00.001-05:00

Mark 1:1–8 (ESV): John the Baptist Prepares the Way

Synopsis

Mark’s Gospel begins with John the Baptist, dressed in clothes made out of camel hair and wearing a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey, and “baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (verse 4 (ESV)).

John also foretells Jesus’ imminent arrival:

And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (verses 7–8 (ESV))

Mark tells us that this is fulfilling something told of by Isaiah (though he then quotes both Isaiah and Malachi—see the Thoughts section):

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 3:1 (ESV))

A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3 (ESV))

Thoughts

When I read the description of John the Baptist’s clothing I wonder to myself why Mark makes a point of mentioning that his belt is made out of leather. Was that uncommon in John’s day? It’s very common in my day—most belts are made out of leather—so it’s odd to see it being specifically mentioned by Mark. Aside from that cultural issue, though, the ESV Study Bible points out that John the Baptist’s clothing corresponds to that of other desert preachers. On the other hand, we tend to think it odd that he was eating locusts and wild honey, whereas the study notes tell us:

Locusts and wild honey were not an unusual source of food for people living in the desert (on locusts, see Dead Sea Scrolls, Damascus Document 12.14–15). The desert locust (Gk. akris) is a large grasshopper, still eaten today by poorer people in the Middle East and Africa. (part of an ESV Study Bible note from Matthew 3:4)

The Study Bible also explains why Mark only says he’s quoting Isaiah when he’s also quoting from Malachi:

Isaiah the prophet is named because he was more prominent and more of the quoted material comes from him. When the text is expounded in the following verses, Mark refers only to the Isaiah citation. (part of an ESV Study Bible note on verses 2–3)

500 Posts

2011-12-22T10:46:00.002-05:00

I recently passed a milestone on this blog: My post about Matthew 28:16–20 was my 500^th post. (I probably should have posted this “milestone” post one post ago, except I figured I’d rather put up the Matthew Summary first.)

It’s kind of odd to me that my Bible Blog has now reached 500 posts while my “main blog” has become practically dormant. I guess I just don’t have much to say these days—and what I do have to say I’m saying on Google+ or Twitter or Yammer or LinkedIn—whereas this Bible Blog is much more targeted, and therefore leads itself to sustained use. (Well… except for a long period of almost a year where I posted close to nothing…)

I never mentioned it at the time, but I first started this blog in response to a series on Slate. David Plotz decided to work his way through the Bible and blog about it piece by piece. (I forget if he was doing it chapter by chapter, book by book, or on some other schedule; I lost track of his series after a few posts. There is a link in Slate to the series which doesn’t work, but Plotz’ summary can be found here. I believe he was only going through what Christians call the Old Testament, though, not the New Testament.) Plotz was purposely approaching the Bible as “a hopeful, but indifferent, agnostic” (his words), rather than as a believing Christian or a believing Jew. In the end, Plotz decided that everyone should read the Bible—although, from my perspective, for the wrong reasons. You see, the Bible has been at the center of Western thought since it was written, and so much of the way we think and even the phrases we use come straight from the Bible; Plotz argues that reading the Bible will help us to understand where these things come from. He gives a bunch of examples in that summary post, things like “the writing on the wall,” or the first person to put a dummy in a bed to fool people into thinking a person was there, or who Jezebel was and why her name has become a byword for “bad women” in our culture.

But as for belief, Plotz says this:

You notice that I haven’t said anything about belief. I began the Bible as a hopeful, but indifferent, agnostic. I wished for a God, but I didn’t really care. I leave the Bible as a hopeless and angry agnostic. I’m brokenhearted about God.
After reading about the genocides, the plagues, the murders, the mass enslavements, the ruthless vengeance for minor sins (or none at all), and all that smiting—every bit of it directly performed, authorized, or approved by God—I can only conclude that the God of the Hebrew Bible, if He existed, was awful, cruel, and capricious. He gives us moments of beauty—such sublime beauty and grace!—but taken as a whole, He is no God I want to obey and no God I can love.

So Plotz approached the Bible as a non-believer, and left the Bible still a non-believer.

When I first saw Plotz’ posts about blogging through the Bible, I thought that a believing Christian should do the same. Someone who could go through the Bible not just looking at the literary merits or cultural significance, but at the spiritual significance of the events unfolding throughout the book (from a Christian perspective). I didn’t envision this as a response to Plot’ series; I wasn’t thinking of trying to argue against Plotz or anything. And I’m not trying to argue against him here, either; as a non-believer of course he’d have a different perspective on his biblical readings from a believing Jew, who in turn would have a very different perspective from a believing Christian. I simply envisioned this blog (or maybe wiki—that was my first idea, at the time) as a resource by Christians for Christians.

I personally wasn’t going to do it, however, because I don’t know enough about the Bible. I’m no biblical scholar, and without resources like the ESV Study Bible or the NIV New Student Bible or other online commentaries I know nothing more than what is on the page in front of me. So I surely wasn’t going to write something that would be an authoritative resource for other Christians. Not that I think you have to be a scholar to write about the Bible, of course, but I think there is a big difference between a non-believer blogging through the Bible vs. a person who believes that the Bible is the divine Word of God—a person who bases his/her very belief on this book. I think if you’re going to write a resource for others on a book which you consider to be a central source of truth, you should know what you’re talking about. (After all, if you believe the book is true, and then you misinterpret part of it, wouldn’t you be leading people astray?)

And then I just decided to go ahead and blog through the Bible for myself. After all, I’m a Christian, so I should be reading this book on a regular basis anyway. Why not create a diary of what I’ve read? And we all know that writing down what we study and giving it some structure helps us to understand it better, so blogging my way through the Bible would be especially useful to me. So the word “diary” is an important one; this is simply a chronicle of my journey through the Bible, not an authoritative source for others to come and get wisdom. I may be getting things wrong, occasionally. (Hopefully not often!) That being said, the vast majority of comments that come to this blog are of the “thanks for your resource” variety, so if people are getting use out of it, I’m glad.

Like Plotz, when I first started reading my plan was to go through cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation. I got as far as I Samuel and started to get very bogged down; as a Christian, I need to sprinkle some New Testament readings into my Old Testament readings. So I decided to follow a reading plan that came with my old NIV New Student Bible, which had a three year plan for reading through the Bible alternating between Old and New Testaments. (Obviously it would take me longer than three years to get through it; it took me over a year just to get through Matthew!) So I’m currently playing catch up; I just finished Matthew, and I need to get all the way through John before I go back to alternating between Old and New Testaments. (I still haven’t figured out how I want to tackle Psalms or Proverbs; I used to worry about that, but it’ll be years before I get there anyway so I’ve still got lots of time to think about the format for those posts.)

So I’ll continue blogging my way through until I’m called home or I finish. (And if I finish, I’ll have to decide if I want to start over and do it again…)

Again, though, let me stress that I have nothing against David Plotz, nor against his idea of blogging his way through the Bible. Quite the opposite, I applaud his effort. I’m writing about him because he was the original catalyst for starting this blog, but not because I want to “call him out” or argue these points with him. I would very much expect any non-believer to disagree with me (or Christians in general) on interpretation of many passages in the Bible, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that Plotz sees God as “awful, cruel, and capricious” from his point of view. Obviously I disagree with that, and my reading of the Old Testament through a Christian’s eyes is a large part of why I disagree with him. He says that he sees moments of “sublime beauty and grace,” and “Grace”—the Christian definition of Grace—is exactly why we disagree on interpretation of the Bible, especially the Old Testament.

Matthew Summary

2011-12-21T15:32:00.001-05:00

The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the story of God and of the Son, Jesus Christ, but obviously the New Testament is more directly about Jesus than the Old Testament. It’s in the New Testament that He is born, and then gives his life for us and raises himself from the dead; the event which completely changes God’s relationship with His people. The religion of the Old Testament, on the surface, seems like every other religion in the world: Do what God says and He will reward you, don’t do what He says and He will punish you. To the casual reader it really seems like a “works” religion like any other; you “earn” your favour with God by keeping His commandments. But then Jesus arrives and shows us explicitly what was only implicit in the Old Testament: We can’t keep God’s demands perfectly (which is how He demands them to be kept), which means that no matter how hard we try we are all in danger of God’s wrath. And then Jesus solves the problem for us by dying on our behalf, taking the punishment and wrath that was due to be lavished out on us, paying our way into God’s presence. This is called God’s Grace: we didn’t deserve it, but He did it for us anyway. Of course Jesus also shows us that this Grace was required even in the Old Testament, and God’s people back then couldn’t buy their way into His favour any more than we can.

The books which are the most directly about Jesus, of course, are the four Gospels, which tell of Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Since it’s the first book of the New Testament, Matthew may very well be one of the more commonly read books of the Bible, and it’s definitely not a bad place to start because Matthew includes a lot of details about Jesus’ life, miracles, and teachings. (According to a comparison chart I found online it looks like Matthew is probably the most complete Gospel—followed closely by Luke—although it’s hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison like that since each of the Gospels picks and chooses which episodes from Jesus’ life to chronicle.)

If I were more of a biblical scholar (or one at all) I’d probably be able to write about how Matthew differs from the authors of the other three Gospels, but I’m afraid my knowledge is not that deep. One post I found summed it up as well as any other; my paraphrasing would be:

Matthew: Focuses on Jesus as King, fulfilling the promises in the Old Testament regarding the Messiah
Mark: Action-packed version of the Gospel story, telling of Jesus the servant—willing to suffer and die for the sake of others
Luke: Focuses on the human side of Jesus, a man who was willing to make time for anyone, regardless of their state or stature in society
John: Focuses on Jesus as God, “written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31 (ESV))

That being said, because the four authors of the Gospels had four different perspectives, and even four different specific reasons for writing their books, one finds that different aspects of Jesus’ story are told in the four different books, and sometimes even the same story will have a different slant from book to book. Therefore it’s usually helpful to look at the notes in your Bible to find the same story in the other three Gospels, and read it in the different versions. (I think most Bibles have these types of linkages; at the very least study Bibles do.)

1:1–17: The Genealogy of Jesus
1:18–25: The Birth of Jesus Christ
2:1–12: The Visit of the Wise Men
2:13–15: The Flight to Egypt
2:16–18: Herod Kills the Children
2:19–23: The Return to Nazareth
3:1–12: John the Baptist Prepares the Way
3:13–17: The Baptism of Jesus
4:1–11: The Temptation of Jesus
4:12–17: Jesus Begins His Ministry
4:18–22: Jesus Calls the First Disciples
4:23–25: Jesus Ministers to Great Crowds
5:1–12: The Beatitudes
5:13–16: Salt and Light
5:17–20: Christ Came to Fulfill the Law
5:21–26: Anger
5:27–30: Lust
31–32: Divorce
5:33–37: Oaths
5:38–42: Retaliation
5:43–48: Love Your Enemies
6:1–4: Don’t do good deeds just to be seen by others
6:5–15: The Lord’s Prayer
6:16–18: Fasting
6:19–24: Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
6:25–34: Do Not Be Anxious
7:1–6: Judging Others
7:7–11: Ask, and It Will Be Given
7:12–14: The Golden Rule
7:15–20: Knowing a tree by its fruit
7:21–23: I Never Knew You
7:24–27: Build Your House on the Rock
7:28–8:4: Jesus Cleanses a Leper
8:5–13: The Faith of a Centurion
8:14–17: Jesus Heals Many
8:18–22: The Cost of Following Jesus
8:23–27: Jesus Calms a Storm
8:28–34: Jesus Heals Two Men with Demons
9:1–8: Jesus forgives a man’s sins, and then heals him
9:9–13: Jesus Calls Matthew
9:14–17: A Question About Fasting
9:18–26: A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed
9:27–31: Jesus Heals Two Blind Men
9:32–34: Jesus Heals a Man Unable to Speak
9:35–38: The Harvest Is Plentiful, the Laborers Few
10:1–4: The Twelve Apostles
10:5–15: Jesus Sends Out the Twelve Apostles
10:16–25: Persecution Will Come
10:26–33: Have No Fear
10:34–39: Not Peace, but a Sword
10:40–42: Rewards
11:1–19: Messengers from John the Baptist
11:20–24: Woe to Unrepentant Cities
11:25–30: Come to Me, and I Will Give You Rest
12:1–8: Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath
12:9–14: A Man with a Withered Hand
12:15–21: God’s Chosen Servant
12:22–32: Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit
12:33–37: A Tree Is Known By Its Fruit
12:38–50: The Sign of Jonah, Return of an Unclean Spirit, Jesus’ Mother and Brothers
13:1–23: The Parable of the Sower
13:24–30: The Parable of the Weeds
13:31–33: The Mustard Seed and the Leaven
13:34–35: Prophecy and Parables
13:36–43: The Parable of the Weeds Explained

13:44–46: The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Value
13:47–50: The Parable of the Net
13:51–52: New and Old Treasures
13:53–58: Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
14:1–12: The Death of John the Baptist
14:13–21: Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
14:22–33: Jesus Walks on the Water
14:34–36: Jesus Heals the Sick in Gennesaret
15:1–9: Traditions and Commandments
15:10–20: What Defiles a Person
15:21–28: The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
15:29–31: Jesus Heals Many
15:32–39: Jesus feeds four thousand men (plus women and children)
16:1–4: The Pharisees and Sadducees Demand Signs
16:5–12: The Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees
16:13–20: Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ
16:21–23: Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection
16:24–28: Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus
17:1–13: The Transfiguration
17:14–20 (and 21?): Jesus Heals a Boy with a Demon
17:22–23: Jesus Again Foretells Death, Resurrection
17:24–27: The Temple Tax
18:1–6: Who is the Greatest?
18:7–9: Temptations to Sin
18:10–14: The Parable of the Lost Sheep
18:15–20: If Your Brother Sins Against You
18:21–35: The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
19:1–12: Teaching About Divorce
19:13–15: Let the Children Come to Me
19:16–30: The Rich Young Man, and then further thoughts on the same passage
20:1–16: Laborers in the Vineyard
20:17–19: Jesus Foretells His Death a Third Time
20:20–28: A Mother’s Request
20:29–34: Jesus Heals Two Blind Men
21:1–11: The Triumphal Entry
21:12–17: Jesus Cleanses the Temple
21:18–22: Jesus Curses the Fig Tree
21:23–46: Jesus speaks to the religious leaders
22:1–14: The Parable of the Wedding Feast
22:15–22: Paying Taxes to Caesar
22:23–33: Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection
22:24–46: Jesus talks to the Pharisees again
23: Woes to the scribes and Pharisees, and Jesus’ lament
24: The end
25: Further discussion of the end
26:1–5: The Plot to Kill Jesus
26:6–13: Jesus Anointed at Bethany
26:14–16: Judas to Betray Jesus
26:17–25: The Passover With the Disciples
26:26–29: Institution of the Lord’s Supper
26:30–35: Jesus Foretells Peter’s Denial
26:36–46: Jesus Prays in Gethsemane
26:47–56: Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus
26:57–68: Jesus Before Caiaphas and the Council
26:69–75: Peter Denies Jesus
27:1–10: Jesus Delivered to Pilate, and Judas Hangs Himself
27:11–31: Jesus’ trial before the Romans
27:32–44: The Crucifixion
27:45–56: The Death of Jesus
27:57–66: Jesus’ burial
28:1–10: The Resurrection
28:11–15: The Report of the Guard
28:16–20: The Great Commission

Matthew 28:16–20

2011-12-20T12:16:00.002-05:00

Matthew 28:16–20 (ESV): The Great Commission

Synopsis

Jesus has now risen from the dead, and appeared to Mary and Mary, who were instructed to tell the disciples that they would see Jesus again in Galilee. Apparently the message was more complex than that, though, because in this passage we are told that Jesus told the disciples to go to a particular mountain, which is where they have now gone.

When they see Jesus they worship him, although “some” doubt (verse 17 (ESV)). Jesus then gives them what we now call “the great commission”:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (verses 18–20 (ESV))

Thoughts

When we read in verse 17 (ESV) that “some doubted,” of course we all think of Thomas. I don’t know if Matthew is specifically thinking of Thomas here or if there were other, less vocal doubters as well.

The “great commission” is a pretty famous passage, so I don’t know that I’ll say anything here that hasn’t been said a thousand times before, but here are the thoughts that jump out at me when reading this:

First of all, Jesus tells the disciples that all authority has been given to him, and then says therefore we should go and make disciples of all nations. Why should we go and make disciples? Because all authority has been given to him! Some thoughts just on this piece:

The whole reason we’re giving the gospel in the first place is that God deserves to be worshiped, because He is Lord and Master over all. If Jesus didn’t have “all authority in heaven and on earth” then He wouldn’t be worth worshipping, and we wouldn’t bother to make disciples. Like everything else we try to make giving the gospel about us instead of about God, but we’re simply tools, He is the reason we’re giving the gospel in the first place.

He is also the one who saves people, not us. Don’t be fooled by the phrasing in verse 19 where he tells us to go and “make disciples,” we give the gospel, we plant the seeds, but it’s Him who saves. Some of the seeds we sow will land on hard ground, some will start to grow but get choked by the worries of life, and others will take root and grow into real, saving faith; when it does, it’s not because we caused it, it’s because He did. We are “making disciples” in the sense that when someone is saved, we are to be training them how to live as Christians, who God is and who we are in relation to Him, etc. Remember that “disciple” loosely means “follower” or “student” so “making disciples” is more than just giving them the Gospel; it’s also training them in the faith once they have believed in God.

The first point gives us a reason to spread the gospel, and the second point should take some of the pressure off of us; since it’s His power that saves, not our gospel presentation or amazing oratory skills, it means that we just need to do our best and leave it up to Him. The greatest evangelists of all time have given the gospel to people who rejected it, and people who’ve had no skills at all have given the gospel—however falteringly, however stutteringly—to people who have received it with great joy and been saved. Not that I’m saying that we can “slack off,” and not put any thought into our gospel presentations, if there are things we can work at of course we should work at them, and try to do better, just like anything else. But we should also do so without undue pressure; just like anything else we do for God, we do the legwork and then allow Him to accomplish His purposes.

Matthew 28:11–15

2011-12-01T10:51:00.001-05:00

Matthew 28:11–15 (ESV): The Report of the Guard

Synopsis

In a previous passage the religious leaders had worried that someone might steal Jesus’ body and fraudulently claim that he’d risen from the dead, so they took steps to have the tomb sealed and put a contingent of guards there to guard it and prevent that from happening. However, as we know, Jesus actually did rise from the dead, and his body really is gone from the tomb.

So in this passage some of the guards go and report to the religious leaders what has happened. At this point the religious leaders decide to double down: they bribe the guards, and tell them that if anyone asks, the guards should tell them that his disciples really did come and steal Jesus’ body. They also let the guards know that if the governor hears about it the religious leaders will keep the guards out of trouble.

The guards take the money and do as they’re told, and, “… this story has been spread among the Jews to this day” (verse 15 (ESV)—and these days I’d say it’s not just among the Jews, but probably all people).

Thoughts

When the guards went to the Jewish religious leaders and told them what had happened, I have to assume that they told them the entire story; that there was an angel, and that Jesus had walked out of the tomb in person. Maybe they might have downplayed how scared they were at the sight of the angel, that would be human nature, but they’d have to be able to explain how Jesus’ body got past them. So this just makes me wonder all the more: What were the religious leaders thinking when they made this plan? And I don’t mean “what were they thinking” in the metaphorical “they’re so stupid” way we use that phrase today; I mean literally, what were they thinking? Did they assume the guards were lying? If so, then how did they think the body got past the guards, without, at the very least, a battle happening? (These were Roman soldiers, after all.) And if they thought that the guards were telling the truth, and that Jesus really did rise from the dead, then what did they expect to accomplish by attempting this cover-up? I know this probably isn’t the expected Christian response to passages like this, but I sometimes get caught up in the logistics of the situation more than the morality; it seems self-evident that it was wrong for them to lie about this, but I’m more concerned with what they hoped to accomplish by doing it…

The ESV Study Bible points out that the guards would have been in danger of execution for dereliction of duty, and says that this was the guards’ motivation for going along with the religious leaders. I’m not so convinced, though; if they go along with the religious leaders’ story, wouldn’t that make them more in dereliction of their duty? They couldn’t even stop a couple of measly disciples of Jesus?!? What kind of soldiers were these? But I guess the story about being confronted by a heavenly being wouldn’t go over that much better; people would assume that they were lying. In either event, it’s win-win to go along with the religious leaders’ plan: there is the promise of intervention with the governor—so no execution—and the bribe money on top of that.

As for the fact that the story has spread “to this day” (technically, to the “day” that Matthew wrote this book, but I’m sure it’s still believed), it doesn’t surprise me at all that a story like this would spread because it just seems to make more sense than the truth. Imagine that a controversial figure died, and then a few days later you started hearing two conflicting stories:

He rose from the dead! But he’s not here anymore, he went to heaven, so you can’t see him.
Some of his followers stole the body, and claimed he rose from the dead.

I’d believe the second one, and I’m sure most of my readers would too. Anyone who isn’t saved who reads this passage would probably think that the story that was spread was actually more realistic than what Matthew claims really happened; they might even think that Christians are foolish for believing this, when a more believable story is given us right there in the passage.

Jesus rising from the dead was an unusual event, and we’re sometimes in danger of forgetting how incredible this story is because we’re simply too used to it; at the very least we hear about it every year (at Easter), and many of us probably read it more often than that in our own devotional time. Just like we can get too used to the fact that Jesus came to earth in the first place, because we hear about it over and over at Christmas, but we start to lose sight of the fact that this is God, come to earth as a human. The birth of Jesus and the death (and resurrection) of Jesus are probably the two most amazing events that have ever happened, or will ever happen, in the history of… of history! We should not let these stories wash over us, and lose their impact.

For similar reasons, I don’t necessarily blame people who are not Christians for disbelieving these stories. They are incredible stories—that is, they’re stories that are not credible. They’re outside the realm of what’s actually possible in the physical universe; only God could cause such things (and other miracles in the Bible) to happen, and one has to believe in a God who is bigger than physics to believe such stories are true. If you are confronted with people who don’t believe these stories are true, try not to get worked up about it; I understand your frustration, but I also very much understand where those people are coming from. So instead of—or in addition to—trying to convince people that these stories are real, let us also live lives that are so pleasing to God that people will start to ask us how or why we’re living the way that we do. Let’s set examples for people, and spread the Gospel through not only our words, but also our deeds.

Let us, in other words, be Christians.

Matthew 28:1–10

2011-11-28T10:51:00.001-05:00

Matthew 28:1–10 (ESV): The Resurrection

Synopsis

In the last passage Jesus died, but in this passage he rises again from the dead.

It begins with Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (verse 1 (ESV)) going to see the tomb, but when they get there they instead find an angel sitting on the stone, which he has rolled away from the tomb with a great earthquake. (It’s unclear from verses 1–2 (ESV)—at least it’s unclear to me—if the two Marys are there when the earthquake happens, or whether they approach to find the angel already sitting there waiting for them.) The guards are still there, too, but they’re so afraid of the angel that they have become “like dead men” (verse 4 (ESV)).

However, the women don’t need to be afraid, and the angel tells them so. He tells them that Jesus has risen, and invites them into the tomb to see the spot where his body had been lying. They are then to go and tell the disciples that Jesus has risen, and that they will see him again in Galilee.

So they leave the tomb “with fear and great joy” (verse 8 (ESV)), but before they even reach the disciples Jesus meets and greets them. They come up to Jesus and, taking hold of his feet, worship him. He tells them again that they should not be afraid, and re-instructs them to go and tell his brothers to go to Galilee where they will see him.

Thoughts

One thing I notice about this passage is the multiple times the two Marys are told not to be afraid; the first time it’s obvious why they would be afraid—pretty much any time anyone in the Bible sees an angel they’re filled with fear—but especially interesting is the second time, once they’ve left the angel and are now seeing—and touching!—Jesus personally. Yet, he still tells them not to be afraid, which is a pretty clear indicator that they probably are. I don’t know what, exactly, they’re still afraid of, though. Is this residual fear, from seeing the angel? Is it residual fear from not knowing what happened to Jesus, or what would happen to his disciples? Is it simple fear at seeing a man who had recently been dead?

Speaking of which, when Jesus raises from the dead the Gospels make sure to mention him being touched by various people; this is not the ghost of Jesus they’re seeing, it’s actually him. He is no longer dead, he’s alive—and always well be.

It’s interesting that the empty tomb, and proof that Jesus is alive, is first discovered by the two Marys—a couple of women. At the time women would not have been considered to be reliable witnesses, and some people take this as further proof of the truth of the story in the Gospels; that if Matthew were making this up, he wouldn’t have written the story such that Jesus was discovered by a couple of women, he would have had the discovery made by men. I don’t consider that an extremely compelling argument on its own, but it is an interesting point nonetheless and combined with other evidence for the truth of the Word, it is one more piece of evidence.

Matthew 27:57–66

2011-11-25T10:53:00.001-05:00

Matthew 27:57–66 (ESV): Jesus’ burial

Synopsis

In the last passage Jesus died on the cross and the temple curtain was torn in two. This passage begins that evening, when one of Jesus’ disciples—Joseph of Arimathea—comes to Pilate to request Jesus’ body. Pilate has it handed over to Joseph, who places it in is own, new tomb, over which he places a large stone. Joseph then goes away.

However, at this point the religious leaders start to second guess themselves; they remember how Jesus had mentioned that he would rise three days after his death, and they are now afraid that someone will come and steal the body and claim that this has happened. So they want Pilate to make the tomb secure, to prevent the body from being stolen, and Pilate gives them some soldiers to guard the tomb and make it secure. They do this, even going so far as to put a seal on the tomb.

Thoughts

I don’t really have much to say about this passage. It has a taste of irony to it since the religious leaders are so afraid of someone stealing Jesus’ body and claiming that he’s risen from the dead, whereas in the next passage Jesus is going to actually rise from the dead—no stealing is necessary.

Matthew 27:45–56

2011-11-24T16:07:00.001-05:00

Matthew 27:45–56 (ESV): The Death of Jesus

Synopsis

This account gives a fairly straightforward telling of Jesus’ death on the cross. It starts with a period of darkness that comes over the land, from noon until three in the afternoon. At that point Jesus calls out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which Matthew tells us means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The ESV Study Bible notes point out that the last two words were Aramaic (the language Jesus would have spoken normally), but they don’t know the language of the first two words; evidently some of the people around don’t know the language, either, because they assume that Jesus is calling Elijah.

One of them gets some “sour wine,” fills a sponge with it, and uses a stick to hand it to Jesus to drink. (Don’t worry about the name “sour wine,” it’s not as bad as it sounds. The ESV Study Bible notes indicate that sour wine was simply cheaper than “regular” wine, and quenched thirst better.) The bystanders then stand by to see if Elijah will come to save Jesus—which is what they’re assuming Jesus would have called Elijah for—but Jesus cries out one last time and then dies, and the whole earth seems to feel that death:

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (verses 51–54 (ESV))

We are told that there are also some women at the scene, looking on from a distance, who had been following Jesus.

Thoughts

The ESV Study Bible notes point out that the darkness which fell over the land during Jesus’ crucifixion could not have been a solar eclipse, since Passover took place during a full moon and a solar eclipse only takes place during a new moon, so this must have been a supernatural event.

One of the mysteries of the Bible which we can’t fully or properly understand is how Jesus could be fully God but also fully man. We’ve already seen instances where God knew information that Jesus didn’t have (such as in Chapter 24 when Jesus says that the Father knows when the end will be but that He, the Son, does not), which always blows me away—the idea of Jesus not knowing something is a mind-bender—and now we see something happen to Jesus that has never happened to anyone else: God forsakes Him. A lot of people forsake God, and a lot of people say that they don’t sense or feel Him being close, but whether they sense it or not God is always there, always with us, always present. Nobody has ever lived this life, or even part of it, outside the presence of God, whether they recognize it or not. But for these three hours, Jesus did. While the Father poured His wrath out on the Son, He turned His back on Jesus, and was absent from Jesus in a way that He has never been absent from anyone else. (In this life; I don’t pretend to know what it’s like when someone who is not saved dies.)

The simple absence of God would have been enough to make Jesus suffer, but unfortunately that wasn’t the extent of his suffering on the cross; the main torture for Jesus was the suffering of being punished for untold sins for untold Christians, the Father’s wrath being poured out on Him instead of the people who deserved them.

When Jesus dies a number of dramatic things happen—earthquakes and the dead rising—but one is very interesting: the curtain in the temple tears in two. Some background:

Within the temple there is a section called the Holy Place, which has some rules on who is allowed to enter and under what conditions, and within that is a section called the Most Holy Place, which is even more restrictive: nobody is ever allowed to enter the Most Holy Place except for the high priest, and even he is only allowed to enter on one particular day of the year—the Day of Atonement—to offer a specific sacrifice. It is, quite literally, the most holy place: It represents the actual dwelling place of God. If the temple is God’s house, then the Most Holy Place is where He is actually sitting; it’s where you would go to see Him face to face. We know that God isn’t physically restricted to that physical place, He is everywhere, but in a symbolic sense that place is where God is.

At least… that’s how it was in the Old Covenant world, but the curtain which tears in two in this passage is the curtain which separates the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. This is symbolic, and very important, for the Christian: it signifies that we no longer have separation from God. Jesus’ death on the cross hasn’t just saved us from punishment, it’s done even more than that: it’s made it possible for us to enter into God’s presence in a way that Old Testament Israelites never could have. (The ESV Study Bible suggests that we look at Hebrews 9:11–10:22 (ESV) for an in-depth explanation of what is happening here.)

After this passage Jesus is going to be dead for three days, and is then going to rise. I do not even pretend to know what’s going on during that three days while Jesus is dead, what is happening or what its significance is. (It’s details like this that made me hesitate before starting a Bible blog in the first place; I’m sure someone who’s been to preacher school would know things like this…)

Matthew 27:32–44

2011-11-17T12:19:00.001-05:00

Matthew 27:32–44 (ESV): The Crucifixion

Synopsis

In the last passage Jesus was tried, and, although not actually found guilty, sentenced for execution anyway, on the basis of the crowd’s reaction. (Comparisons to American Idol anyone?)

The soldiers now take Jesus for his crucifixion, and, coming across a man named Simon, have him carry Jesus’ cross (probably because Jesus is no longer in any kind of shape to do it himself, having been scourged and then beaten some more). Later on they offer him some wine mixed with gall to drink (probably another form of mockery, since the ESV Study Bible notes indicate that “gall” is “a bitter herb that could even be poisonous”), but after a taste Jesus refuses to drink it.

They then crucify Jesus, along with two robbers, writing out his charge (“This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (verse 37 (ESV)) over his head, and then cast lots (probably similar to tossing dice) for his clothes, and then sit down to keep watch over him.

Then the mocking gets back underway; people walking by start to deride Jesus, saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (verse 40 (ESV)), meaning that obviously word of Jesus’ trial has gotten out. The religious leaders also mock Jesus in a similar way, although the wording is particular interesting:

So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (verses 41–43 (ESV))

Even the robbers crucified with Jesus get in on the act, and mock him with the others.

Thoughts

In a way, along with the actual crucifixion of Jesus, a main theme of this passage is the continuation of the mocking that he had been enduring in the last passages; everyone is mocking Jesus at this point. “He calls himself the Messiah, and there he is hanging on a cross! Some Messiah!” And in a sense, I understand where they’re coming from; they’re judging Jesus based on their own misunderstandings of who the Messiah would be, and what he would do. They expected the Messiah to be a political leader who would free them from the Romans; by that yardstick, obviously Jesus seemed like a huge disappointment. I’d like to think that his disciples were starting to get the idea that Jesus’ ministry was different from the political one people had been expecting, but even they are confused by this turn of events; seeing Jesus on the cross wasn’t what they expected either.

If you follow along with your bible’s footnotes, you’ll see lots of references to the Old Testament in this passage, since a number of the things that happen here are fulfillments of prophecies that were made earlier. i.e.:

Giving him wine mixed with gall to drink can be compared to Psalm 69:21 (ESV)
Dividing his clothes amongst themselves can be compared to Psalm 22:18 (ESV)
When the soldiers sit down to watch over Jesus, the ESV footnote points to Psalm 22:17 (ESV)
When people who are passing by start mocking Jesus, the ESV footnote points to Psalm 22:7 (ESV), Psalm 109:25 (ESV), and Lamentations 1:12 (ESV)
Part of the religious leaders’ mockery of Jesus is a quote from Psalm 22:8 (ESV)

There are also a couple more instances in this passage of Matthew giving only the facts which he considers relevant, while other Gospel writers give more detail. For example, in John 19:19–22 (ESV) we are told that it was actually Pilate who wrote the inscription to go above Jesus’ head (and that the religious leaders weren’t happy about it), and in Luke 23:39–43 (ESV) we are told that only one of the robbers crucified with Jesus was mocking him; although John lumps them together, in Luke we are told that one of the robbers actually stands up for Jesus—and is saved from his sins! (Obviously deathbed confessions leading to salvation are possible, although I don’t recommend anyone counts on it; by that point, for most people, it’s much too late. If you’re going to repent, do it now.)

Matthew 27:11–31

2011-11-16T16:42:00.001-05:00

Matthew 27:11–31 (ESV): Jesus’ trial before the Romans

Synopsis

This post is once again combining a few ESV section headings together, since they seem to go together.

Jesus has had his trial before the Jewish religious leaders and been found guilty of blasphemy. He is now brought before the Romans, with the religious leaders hoping that the Romans will back them up and have Jesus executed.

However, Jesus doesn’t act as the Roman governor, Pilate, expects him to act; as the religious leaders make accusations against him he doesn’t answer any of them, not even to protest his innocence. The only question he answers is when Pilate asks him if he is the King of the Jews, to which he replies, “You have said so” (verse 11 (ESV)), a phrase which we’ve seen before in 26:25 (ESV) and which essentially deflects the question back onto the asker.

The passage doesn’t tell us, however, whether Pilate judges Jesus to be innocent or guilty, or even if he makes a judgement at all. Frankly, it seems that he wants to bypass this tough decision altogether, and let the crowd decide. There is a custom that has formed where every year Pilate will release one prisoner, and the crowd gets to choose which prisoner is released. Pilate knows that the religious leaders have only brought Jesus out of envy, and his wife has told him that she has had a dream about him and wants Pilate to have nothing to do with him, so he presents the crowd with a choice of releasing either Jesus or a man named Barabbas, who is a “notorious prisoner” (verse 16 (ESV)), presumably assuming that the crowd would choose to have Jesus released.

However, the religious leaders are a step ahead of Pilate, and they persuade the crowd to ask for Barabbas instead of Jesus. Pilate tries again (and again):

The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” (verses 21–23 (ESV))

Pilate now realizes that he’s not getting anywhere—and, in fact, a riot might be starting—so get gets some water and washes his hands in front of the crowd, signifying that he wants no part of this; this is obviously where the phrase “washing my hands of this” comes from. He tells them, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves” (verse 24 (ESV)), and then the crowd gives a chilling response: “His blood be on us and on our children!” (verse 25 (ESV)). So Pilate gives up, has Jesus “scourged” (see below), and then delivers him for crucifixion.

However, before they get to the actual crucifixion, the soldiers want to have some cruel fun at Jesus’ expense. They take him back inside, strip him down, and then place a scarlet robe on him, along with a crown made out of thorns and a reed for him to hold (as if it were a king’s sceptre). They then mock him by sarcastically paying tribute to him as the “King of the Jews.” Then then spit on him, and take the reed back out of his hand to beat him with it. Finally, they put his own clothes back on him, and lead him away for crucifixion.

Thoughts

The question Pilate asks Jesus is, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (verse 11 (ESV)). I think this is because the religious leaders have changed the charges, slightly, before bringing Jesus before the Romans. Internally, in their own deliberations, the question was one of blasphemy, but for Jesus to question the Jewish religious leaders’ authority, or even to claim he was the Son of God, probably wouldn’t have bothered the Romans much. It’s a religious issue, who cares? But if Jesus were threatening political upheaval—claiming to be a king—then that would be treason against the Romans, and that would be worthy of execution. So I believe this is how the Jews are framing things in bringing Jesus to the Romans; “this guy is threatening your authority, so you’d better take care of him.”

In that light, it’s even more interesting that this is the only question Jesus deigns to answer.

It looks like Pilate is trying to get out of judging Jesus by passing off the responsibility to the crowd; he’s hoping that they’ll ask for Jesus’ release, and then he won’t have to make this judgement at all. Obviously that’s not what happens, and he ends up having a man that he seems to believe to be innocent crucified. His “washing his hands” of the affair simply doesn’t wash (if you’ll pardon the pun); just because he says he’s got no part of it, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t—he clearly does. It’s his decision to judge Jesus guilty, regardless of what the crowd says. He should have judged Jesus innocent before even bringing him to the crowd.

Oh, and as for the word “scourged,” this is an especially nasty form of having someone whipped. From the ESV Study Bible notes:

Roman flogging was a horrifically cruel punishment. Those condemned to it were tied to a post and beaten with a leather whip that was interwoven with pieces of bone and metal, which tore through skin and tissue, often exposing bones and intestines. In many cases, the flogging itself was fatal. The Romans scourged Jesus nearly to death so that he would not remain alive on the cross after sundown.

Finally, the soldiers are adding insult to injury; after having scourged Jesus—meaning that he’s probably already somewhat close to being dead—they mock him and then beat him some more. The irony here is dark and obvious; Jesus really is the king of the Jews. He is, in fact, ruler of the universe; eventually, all of the soldiers who were there mocking Jesus eventually died, and ended up standing before him, learning much too late who it was that they had mocked.

And it continues to this day; Jesus is mocked all the time, by people who will one day learn who is is they are mocking—but, again, too late. I’m not sure what the proper Christian response should be; outrage? Well, yes, we probably should be outraged that our Lord and Saviour is being made light of, although I don’t know that responding with outrage will be all that helpful. Sadness? In a sense, yes, we should be of course be sad about people not understanding who God is, and their relation to Him, but I also don’t know that sadness is enough; there should be some righteous indignation to go along with it, shouldn’t there? I don’t have answers to these questions, they’re just questions in my mind, which is why when I hear Jesus being mocked, my response is usually just to get uncomfortable, and not know what to do.

Matthew 27:1–10

2011-11-14T16:58:00.001-05:00

Matthew 27:1–10 (ESV): Jesus Delivered to Pilate, and Judas Hangs Himself

Synopsis

Jesus has now been “captured” by the religious leaders, and been found guilty of blasphemy. However, as previously mentioned, under Roman law the Jews don’t have the right to execute anyone; that has to be handled by the Roman officials. So they hand Jesus over to Pilate, the governor. In a future passage we will get to Jesus’s trial, but before that happens we find out Judas’ fate.

In fact, Judas has a change of heart. When he sees that the religious leaders have condemned Jesus as a blasphemer, he changes his mind about his betrayal and tries to give them back the thirty pieces of silver that they’d paid him for his betrayal. He tells them that he has sinned by betraying innocent blood, but they’re not exactly feelin’ his pain on this one: “They said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself’” (verse 4 (ESV)). So Judas goes and throws the silver into the temple, and then hangs himself.

However, the religious leaders decide that they can’t put this silver into the treasury since it is “blood money,” and apparently there is a law against using blood money in this manner. So instead they use the money to buy a field to be used as a burial place for strangers, and because of the origins of the money the field takes on the name “Field of Blood.” This fulfils a shockingly accurate prediction made in Jeremiah:

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.” (verses 9–10 (ESV))

Thoughts

In an earlier passage I’d wondered about Judas’ motives in trying to keep his betrayal secret from Jesus, and one of my hypotheses was that perhaps he hadn’t expected Jesus to be found guilty—or, if he was found guilty, that it wouldn’t be of anything that deserved death. This passage might lend some credence to that hypothesis; when Judas sees that Jesus has been condemned, he has second thoughts; is it possible that it was simply, purely about the money? That he figured he could make a quick and easy thirty pieces of silver, causing only some minor aggravation to Jesus in having to be tried on some trumped up crime, and then have things go back to the way they were (except with Judas’ pocket being more full)? Or is it just that the reality of Jesus being sentenced to death hit Judas harder than he’d thought it would?

In any event, he is obviously remorseful over what he’s done—but I’ve never read a single commentary that claimed he was so remorseful that he sought God’s forgiveness, and I’ve never read anyone who thought that Judas is saved, and in heaven. The unanimous consensus seems to be that Judas died condemned for his sins, even if he did feel some remorse. Which is an interesting spiritual lesson for us: a person can be so remorseful for their actions that they can’t go on living—and yet still not go to God for forgiveness and salvation. Being remorseful for one’s sins is “difficult;” it’s not something we’re naturally prone to do. We’re proud, and arrogant; to admit we’ve done wrong—that we’re short of the standards God has set for us—is anathema to us. But apparently it’s even harder to ask God for help, even after one has made that step. (I say “apparently” as I don’t typically pull these two concepts apart, in my thinking, so I don’t really do any thinking on which one might be more difficult.)

Incidentally, Acts 1:12–26 (ESV) gives some additional (and gory) details on Judas’ death. Matthew gives only the necessary details that Judas was remorseful and committed suicide.

I’ve probably commented many times in this blog about the religious leaders being overzealous in some things, and underzealous in others. To me, the greatest irony in this passage is when they decide they can’t put Judas’ thirty pieces of silver into the treasury, since it’s “blood money”—and that would be against the rules! They’ve just had a sham trial and falsely accused a man of blasphemy, sentencing him to death, but putting tainted money into the treasury offends their delicate sensibilities.

And as usual, I have to ask the same question of modern-day Christians: Are there big sins we commit, and small sins we abhor? I’m reminded of an anecdote my wife once told me, the details of which I don’t remember (and a quick Google search didn’t help): A pastor was giving a sermon and talking about the poor and the needy, and he said, “it’s a f**king tragedy. And the real tragedy is that many of you listening now are more shocked and appalled that I just used the f-word than you are about the state of the poor in this country.” Again, my memory is bad so that isn’t the actual quote, it’s just an approximation. We all know people who would be absolutely scandalized for a pastor to use the f-word in a sermon—I even starred it out here, so as to try to avoid readers missing the larger point from the shock of seeing that word—and yet don’t give a second thought to the poor and the needy. They can read passage after passage after passage in the Old Testament prophets of God condemning His people for not caring for the poor, and yet not care themselves; but to hear the f-word, well that’s just terrible!

I don’t know if that’s a good example, but I’m trying to get us to think about our own hearts, and the sins we consider terrible vs. the sins that we simply don’t care about. If we compare our priorities to God’s priorities, will they be the same or will they be different?

Matthew 26:69–75

2011-11-08T10:39:00.002-05:00

Matthew 26:69–75 (ESV): Peter Denies Jesus

Synopsis

This passage fulfils a prophecy Jesus made back in verses 30–35; Jesus had told the disciples they were about to abandon him, and Peter said that this might be true of the rest of the disciples, but he would never abandon Jesus, to which Jesus made it even more specific: not only would Peter deny Jesus, he would do it three times this very night.

Sometimes I don’t even bother to do a “synopsis,” and now I’m redoing synopses even for previous passages. I’m nothing if not inconsistent…

Recall that in the last passage when Jesus was arrested Peter had followed him at a distance, and was sitting in the courtyard with the guards, to see what would happen. In this passage a servant girl comes up to him, and, recognizing him, says that he was with Jesus, but Peter says “I do not know what you mean” (verse 70 (ESV)). He then moves to a different spot (possibly to get away from her), but another servant girl sees and recognizes him, and tells the people around them that Peter was with Jesus. Peter again denies it, saying with an oath that “I do not know the man” (verse 72 (ESV)).

But then some bystanders come and confront Peter, because his accent gives him away; certainly he must be “one of them” (verse 73 (ESV)). (The reason Peter’s accent gave him away is that he sounded Galilean, and, as the ESV Study Bible notes point out, “Jesus’ disciples (except Judas) were from Galilee, and Judeans in Jerusalem looked down on Galileans for their regional pronunciations.”) Peter denies it even more vehemently this time, invoking a curse on himself and swearing that “I do not know the man” (verse 74 (ESV)). At this point the rooster crows, which reminds Peter about Jesus’ prediction.

Peter now goes out and weeps bitterly.

Thoughts

I don’t know what I can add to this other than what everyone says about this passage. Peter, who had so strongly argued to Jesus that he would never betray his Lord, does exactly what Jesus said he would do: deny him, over and over again. Obviously Jesus’ prediction was not at all on Peter’s mind as he kept denying him—more and more strongly each time—until the rooster crowed, which reminded him of Jesus’ words.

Peter should probably get some credit for following Jesus as far as he did—none of the other disciples did—but I don’t know that he should get much credit, as he still did it secretly, from a distance, and he denied Jesus repeatedly.

Matthew 26:57–68

2011-11-07T11:24:00.000-05:00

Matthew 26:57–68 (ESV): Jesus Before Caiaphas and the Council

Synopsis

In this chapter the crowd that has seized Jesus brings him to the Jewish leaders, including Caiaphas, the high priest. (Peter is also following—at a distance—and goes as far as the outside courtyard where he sits with the guards “to see the end” (verse 58 (ESV)).)

The religious leaders begin a trial of Jesus, “seeking false testimony” about him so that they can put him to death (verse 59 (ESV)). Strangely, they can’t find any, even though “many false witnesses” are coming forward (verse 60 (ESV)), until finally two people come forward and claim that Jesus said he could destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.

This, to me, sounds… patently absurd. If I claim that I can destroy any building and then rebuild it again in three days, it’s just nonsense. (It also brings up the question about why Jesus would desire to destroy any building just to rebuild it again.) However, Caiaphas doesn’t really seem to have anything else to work with, at this point, so he confronts Jesus with this accusation:

And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” (verse 62 (ESV))

Jesus, however, doesn’t respond. So Caiaphas goes at it the direct way, demanding, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (verse 63 (ESV)), to which Jesus gives probably the clearest statement he gives as to his divinity:

Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (verse 64 (ESV))

The “you have said so” part, according to the ESV Study Bible notes, is a “Greek expression that deflects responsibility back upon the one asking a question.” This is enough for Caiaphas, who tears his robes because he says this is blasphemy. He asks the other leaders for their judgement, and they answer that Jesus deserves death.

They then start spitting in Jesus’ face, and striking and slapping him, and mockingly telling him to prophesy and tell them who’s hitting him. (Essentially they’re saying, “if you’re such a prophet, tell us where that slap came from.”)

Thoughts

The Jews had some ability to self-regulate under the legal system in Rome but there were some things they couldn’t do, and one of them was to sentence a person to death as a punishment for their crimes. For that they’d have to hand the person over to the Roman authorities. However, Jewish law demands the death penalty for blasphemy, which is what the Jewish leaders are accusing Jesus of—or trying to accuse him of, anyway.

It’s interesting, though, that as soon as they get Jesus in front of them, they immediately start looking for “false testimony”—it seems they already know, before even starting, that they’re not going to find real evidence against Jesus. And yet they’re determined to have him sentenced to death for blasphemy, regardless of any real proof they have. I’ve mentioned before that I sometimes have some sympathy for the Jewish leaders, who in part probably really believe that Jesus is blaspheming and/or worthy of death and leading his followers astray, but this is an obvious case where I can’t have sympathy for them. If they were really trying to uphold Jewish law, and not just railroad Jesus into the death penalty, then they’d be having a real trial, and looking for real evidence. If they do care about the Jewish law, and about the wellbeing of their people, it’s of much less concern to them than getting rid of a rival. (And to be clear, as Chapter 23 makes obvious, even aside from getting rid of Jesus the religious leaders’ concern for their people was never foremost in their minds, even if it was sometimes a secondary concern.)

I’m not sure what else to say about this “trial” of Jesus. It’s only the first—as mentioned, the Jews will now have to bring Jesus to the Romans if they want to have him put to death—and it’s obviously a sham trial, to get Jesus out of the way regardless of any evidence. Which means that this trial—and (to a lesser extent) the one to come—is not fair, which is an important thing to note: God is a God of justice, and a God who punishes the unjust and rewards the just, but there is one huge, glaring, obvious exception, which is when He punished Jesus instead of His children, and let Jesus take what we deserved. The trials of Jesus weren’t just, Jesus’ death on the cross wasn’t just, and Jesus being punished for my sins wasn’t just. It was gracious.

Matthew 26:47–56

2011-11-04T11:28:00.003-04:00

Matthew 26:47–56 (ESV): Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus

Synopsis

In the last passage Jesus had prayed to the Father because of his anguish at what was about to come; it ended with him telling the disciples that his betrayer was at hand, and this passage begins at that point. As Jesus is still speaking to the disciples Judas approaches, along with a “a great crowd with swords and clubs” (verse 47 (ESV)).

Judas has prearranged a signal with the crowd; he will kiss Jesus, to signal to the crowd who it is they’re looking for, so that they can seize him. Although it’s not clear in the text, it seems that Judas leaves the crowd behind so that they’re either hidden or at least not obviously with him, and goes up and kisses Jesus, but of course Jesus knows what’s happening.

Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” (verse 50a (ESV))

At this point the crowd surges forward and seizes Jesus, and in an attempt to save him one of the disciples draws his sword and rushes to his defense, cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest. (In John 18:3–11 (ESV) we are told that the disciple who drew his sword was Peter, and in Luke 22:47–53 (ESV) we are told that Jesus immediately heals the servant’s ear.) But Jesus tells Peter to put his sword away; after all, Jesus reasons, if he really wanted to be protected from this crowd, do the disciples not realize that the Father could send twelve legions of angels to do it? (A “legion” was 6,000 soldiers, so twelve legions would be 72,000 angels.) But this “must be so,” to fulfil the Scriptures (verses 52–54 (ESV)).

He then turns to the crowd, and what he says to them next seems to me to be somewhat of a taunt; he has been in the temple every day, in public, teaching the people, and yet nobody seized him; now the crowd is coming to get him with swords and clubs, as if he’s some kind of robber?

And at this point, the disciples flee Jesus, fulfilling part of what he told them would happen. (The specific denials of Peter are still to come.)

Thoughts

I think I mentioned this in a previous post, too, but I don’t get the logistics of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. The whole betrayal seems to amount to him simply pointing Jesus out to the crowd; after all this time, they don’t actually know who Jesus is, or what he looks like? There’s nobody in the crowd who’s actually seen Jesus before? Obviously this is before the day of television, so regardless of Jesus’ fame there would be lots of people who would never have actually seen him, but in sending this large crowd they really couldn’t find anyone other than Judas who had actually seen Jesus before?

The other thing I don’t get, logistic-wise, is why Judas is keeping up his pretense with Jesus. Why this thing about going up and kissing him, as a sign to the crowd; why not just show up with the crowd, point to Jesus, and say, “That’s the guy. He’s the one you’re looking for.” Does Judas really not want Jesus to know who it was who betrayed him? Does he perhaps not realize that the Jewish leaders are looking to have Jesus executed, and is he hoping to still be one of Jesus’ disciples once Jesus gets out of their clutches? I don’t know.

What we do see in this passage, though, is Peter’s idea of never abandoning Jesus. “They’re coming for Jesus?” he thinks. “Then I’ll protect him!” He might even have been willing to give his life for Jesus; I really do think that Peter meant it, in verses 30–35, when he told Jesus that he would never fall away, and that he would die with Jesus. But his problem is that it’s on his terms; it’s according to his understanding of how things are going to work. I think the disciples have probably been waiting for Jesus to take on political leadership, and especially to smite the Romans, for a long time now; Peter could very well think that this is the beginning of Jesus’ earthly kingship, and believe that he’s beginning Jesus’ battle for the rule of Israel. But Jesus’ plan is a lot different, and even though he’s tried to explain that to the disciples, on numerous occasions, it hasn’t sunk in. When things aren’t working out the way Peter had expected them to, he abandons Jesus just like all of the other disciples. (Well… not just like them; as we’ll see in a later passage, he does at least follow Jesus and his captors from a distance…)

As mentioned above, it seems like Jesus is taunting the crowd that has come to capture him. It’s almost like he’s mocking them, saying, “Are you sure you have enough swords to capture one single man—a man who’s a teacher, not some kind of ruffian?” Obviously this great crowd is overkill to capture one man and perhaps fend off his eleven disciples, but even aside from that there is something that nobody expected—not the crowd, not the Jewish leaders, and especially not the disciples: Jesus has no intention of resisting them. This is all going according to the Father’s plan. He’s not going to resist the crowd; he’s not even going to argue against the accusations that the Jewish leaders are going to bring against him. He’s going to let them do what they came to do.

Matthew 26:36–46

2011-11-03T15:59:00.001-04:00

Matthew 26:36–46 (ESV): Jesus Prays in Gethsemane

Synopsis

This passage continues the story of Jesus’ last night. He brings the disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and asks them to wait while he goes to pray. He then takes Peter and “the two sons of Zebedee” (verse 37 (ESV), referring to James and John), and brings them with him when he goes to pray.

He tells the three disciples that he’s pulled aside that his soul is “very sorrowful, even to death” (verse 38 (ESV)), and then falls to his face to pray to the Father, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (verse 39 (ESV)).

After his prayer he goes back to the disciples, and finds them asleep, and calls Peter on it.

And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (verses 40b–41 (ESV))

Jesus then goes to pray again, comes back and finds the disciples sleeping again, goes to pray a third time, and comes back to find them still sleeping. (It’s not clear from the text if he woke them up the second time he found them sleeping, or just left them.)

Finally, knowing that things are about to start happening, he wakes the disciples.

Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (verses 45–46 (ESV))

Thoughts

I’m not actually sure how upset Jesus is with the disciples for falling asleep. He doesn’t seem overly angry with them, the way it’s worded here, he seems to be chiding them more than rebuking them when he wakes them up. However upset he is or isn’t, however, this shows us once again that the disciples don’t really understand what is going to happen, or how soon it’s going to happen. I think if they realized Jesus was about to be crucified, they would probably not be able to sleep, and would instead be praying along with Him.

There are a few things I find interesting about the twelve disciples, one of which being the intricate plan God and for including Judas in the group, and another being the special relationship Jesus seemed to have with Peter, James, and John. I think this is an example of the human side of Jesus’ nature; even though he loved all eleven of the disciples (who didn’t betray him), he seemed to have a special relationship with these three, and most of us can surely relate to that. In any group of friends there will be some who will be closer than others. It may have nothing to do with this, though; it may simply be that Jesus knows that these three will form more of a core leadership role in the new Church which is about to form, and is taking special steps to prepare them for it.

But, although I find that interesting, it’s not the core plot of this particular passage. Jesus is about to give his life for… well, for us. For me. He’s about to do the very thing he came to the world to do; his death on the cross in a few hours, and his resurrection a few days later, are the culmination of all that he has been preparing for. We might expect Jesus to be excited that his literal reason for being [human] is about to happen. We might expect him to be overjoyed. We might expect him to be nervous. Instead, he is “sorrowful” and “troubled,” and when he prays to the Father, his prayers amount to: if there’s any other way to accomplish this, then let’s not do it this way. This should give us some small picture of what it was that Jesus had to go through, on the cross; it wasn’t the fact that he was going to die, or the fact that he was going to be tortured beforehand; everyone dies, and millions have been tortured. (I haven’t seen The Passion of the Christ, but I worry if its focus on blood and gore and pain might be misleading to people; Jesus isn’t the only one who has been tortured in that way, and there are people who have been tortured even worse.) But once Jesus got on that cross, he took on the punishment that should have been meted out on every person who will be in the kingdom of heaven.

Think about that: without Jesus, my sin is bad enough that it could never be paid for. If I were to die without Jesus, punishment for all of eternity wouldn’t be enough to wipe that sin away, in order for me to enter God’s presence. But Jesus took that punishment in the few hours that He was on the cross—and not just mine, but every other Christian’s too. All of God’s wrath against all of those people, condensed down into those few hours. That’s what Jesus was anticipating, while praying in the garden; that’s the cup that he didn’t want to drink, but would drink since it was the Father’s will for Him to do so.

However, as much as Jesus isn’t relishing what He is about to do, His prayers reflect His primary goal: doing the will of the Father. The two prayers that we see are:

My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

and

My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.

Now, I think it’s pretty clear that these aren’t word-for-word the entire prayers that Jesus uttered, they’re just summaries. (After all, after his first prayer, when he finds the disciples asleep, he says to Peter, “could you not watch with me one hour”—it wouldn’t take an hour to utter that first prayer!) We’re just given the gist of it. But it’s clear that Jesus is making two points with these prayers:

He would really rather not have to go through with this, if there’s any other way
Doing the will of the Father is more important to Jesus than what He wants for Himself.

Not only is this a lesson for us in where our priorities should lay—it is, after all, the most important commandment—but it also indicates how serious the problem of sin is: There was absolutely no other way for God to handle the sin problem; our sins demanded punishment, and so someone had to be punished. It is the height of arrogance to think that we can earn our own way to God when we read passages like this; if we could earn our own way, through our own actions, Jesus wouldn’t have had to be punished on our behalf. It was obviously not something he wanted to do.

Matthew 26:30–35

2011-11-02T12:35:00.002-04:00

Matthew 26:30–35 (ESV): Jesus Foretells Peter’s Denial

Synopsis

Following the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the last passage, Jesus and the disciples sing a hymn, which would have been part of the Passover ceremony. The ESV Study Bible suggests that it was probably either something called “the Hallel” (Psalms 113–118), or something called “the last great Hallel psalm” (Psalm 136). They then leave and go to the Mount of Olives (a name which always makes me slightly hungry).

Jesus then tells the disciples, point blank, that they are about to desert him, and that they will do it this very night. He says that this is prophesied in the Scriptures:

“For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” (verse 31b (ESV), Jesus speaking)

However, he also tells them that when he is “raised up” (verse 32 (ESV)), he will go before them into Galilee.

Peter, however, doesn’t believe that he’ll betray Jesus. He tells Jesus that even if all of the other disciples fall away, he won’t. Jesus tells Peter that yes, he will do so this very night, that before the rooster crows (i.e., before sunrise) he will deny Jesus three times. But no, Peter tells Jesus that even if they have to die together, Peter will not deny him. The other disciples say the same.

Thoughts

This passage is poignant for us mostly because we already know what is going to happen: before we get to the end of Chapter 26 Jesus will be arrested, the disciples will scatter, and Peter will follow at a distance, only to deny Jesus, just as Jesus said he would. We can’t help but read the heavy irony in Peter’s words, when he tells Jesus that “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” (verse 35 (ESV)). It’s a very sad passage, and all the more so because I can’t look down my nose at Peter or the other disciples; would I have fared better, had I been there? I think not. I don’t even handle normal, day-to-day tests of my faith consistently well, so how can I assume that had I been a disciple, with my world crashing around me and the seeming end of Jesus’ ministry (according to my understanding), I would have stuck by Jesus?

I think there is a lesson in here for us, though, as well. It’s more than just keeping our pride in check, by comparing how we might have done to how the disciples did. But pride is the key to this lesson: Why did Peter fall away, and deny Jesus? For that matter, why did he argue with Jesus in the first place, telling him that he’d never do what Jesus was saying he’d do? Because Peter was self confident, instead of being confident in Jesus. In Peter’s mind, he was such a great disciple that his loyalty to Jesus could never be shaken—so much so that when Jesus tried to tell Peter what was going to happen, Peter disbelieved him. Peter knew better than Jesus how he would handle things… except he didn’t know better than Jesus, and we know how this story turned out.

If we’re reading our Bibles and are warned about particular activities or dangers we should avoid, we need to heed what the Scriptures are telling us. We should never think to ourselves, “Well, that might be a problem for other Christians,” (by which we typically mean Christians who are “weaker” than ourselves), “but that would never be a problem for me!” Instead we should take these warnings seriously, and be careful. To cite some examples that might be of immediate relevance to 21^st Century Christians (and which I probably mention on a regular basis, for that reason):

When the Bible tells us that money is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:3–10 (ESV), especially verse 10 (ESV)), or when we are told that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, do we take it seriously? Do we truly and seriously give ourselves to self examination, and see if or how the love of money has taken root, and might be impacting our relationship with God? Do we make serious efforts to curb our lust for money?
When we are told to avoid sexual immorality—when we are told that even crude joking should be avoided (Ephesians 5:1–21 (ESV), especially verses 3–5 (ESV)), do we examine whether there are any sexual issues in our lives? Are we giving in to the lust that is promoted all around us? (Try to watch TV for more than twenty minutes without seeing at least one commercial that uses sex to sell you things—not to mention what might be happening in between the commercials!) Are we having sex, or inappropriate sexual activities, outside of marriage? Maybe not all-out adultery, but for those of us who are single, are we going further than we should with our partners? Are we giving mental headspace to the idea of doing so?

It’s very true that different sins tempt different Christians, and what I have a problem with you might not have a problem with, but I may be fine with the sins that tempt you. But to take that too far, and assume that there are areas of our lives where we don’t need to guard against temptation, is simply inviting disaster. It’s only through God’s Grace that I can avoid any sins; believing I can do anything on my own, or that I don’t need to worry about certain things, is to deny that I’m relying on Him for any good that I do, or evil that I avoid.

Matthew 26:26–29

2011-11-01T15:35:00.001-04:00

Matthew 26:26–29 (ESV): Institution of the Lord’s Supper

Synopsis

In another short passage—so short that I won’t even bother to give a synopsis, since you can read it from the source quicker—Jesus introduces the ceremony called the Lord’s Supper (among many other names, such as the Lord’s Table, Communion, Holy Communion, Eucharist, Sacrament of the Altar, Blessed Sacrament, and probably others).

Thoughts

The Lord’s Supper is an interesting ceremony, in that it quite poignantly reminds us of how Jesus paid the price for our sins: by shedding his blood and having his body broken on our behalf. Taking part in the ceremony is a symbolic statement that Jesus is, literally, in you. The bread doesn’t literally become Jesus’ body, nor the blood literally become His blood, those aspects are symbolic, but Jesus is literally in us—if we have accepted the gift He offers to us, and allowed Him to take our punishment.

If you haven’t, then taking part in the Lord’s Supper is just bringing more condemnation on yourself (as they state in my church whenever we do the Lord’s Supper), as you’re essentially lying: if you haven’t received what Jesus offers then He is not in you, He hasn’t shed his blood or broken His body on your behalf, and you are not able to celebrate what the Christians around you are celebrating. It is, after all, a ceremony commemorating something that has already happened; the act of eating and drinking mean nothing on their own, they only have significance if they are celebrating a salvation which has already occurred. Of course, since His gift is free, you can have what He offers, and then participate in the Lord’s Supper feeling the same joy and gratitude that other Christians feel.

Matthew 26:17–25

2011-10-31T11:48:00.002-04:00

Matthew 26:17–25 (ESV): The Passover With the Disciples

Synopsis

This passage gives us some details about the Last Supper Jesus had with his disciples, which was, appropriately enough, the Passover meal. (If you’re not sure why that’s so appropriate, see below.) The Last Supper—a significant enough event that it’s usually capitalized like that—is probably most remembered for the institution of the Lord’s Table—also known as the Lord’s Supper, Communion, Holy Communion, Eucharist, Sacrament of the Altar, Blessed Sacrament, and probably numerous other titles—but that doesn’t come until the next passage. In this passage, Jesus’ disciples prepare the location for the meal, and Jesus begins it with them.

First, Jesus’ disciples come and ask him where he’d like to have Passover, and he tells them to go and find a “certain man” and have it at his place:

He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” (verse 18 (ESV))

So they do, and prepare it as instructed. That evening, as they’re eating, Jesus says something that, to me, seemed shockingly blunt: “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me” (verse 21 (ESV)). The disciples get very sad at this, and one by one (presumably excluding Judas), they ask him, “Is it I, Lord?” (verse 22 (ESV)).

He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” (verses 23–24 (ESV))

Then Judas asks him, “Is it I, Rabbi?”, to which Jesus answers, “You have said so” (verse 25 (ESV)). (The ESV Study Bible says that “you have said so” is “A Greek expression that deflects responsibility back upon the one asking a question,” so this is essentially Jesus’ way of saying yes to Judas’ question.)

Thoughts

If you’re not familiar with the Jewish custom of Passover then the fact that Jesus’ last meal with his disciples was the Passover meal might not seem significant to you. Passover was initiated in Exodus 12, when God was sending the ten plagues against the Egyptians. For the tenth plague God told the Israelites that He was going to kill the firstborn male child in every Egyptian household, but that He was going to spare the Israelites. He had previously sent plagues which only impacted the Egyptians and not the Israelites, but this time He gives the Israelites some instructions: they are to slaughter a lamb and sprinkle some of that lamb’s blood on the doorframes of their houses. When the LORD went through Egypt slaughtering first-born children, He would “pass over” any house that had this blood on the doorframe. The Israelites were also to eat the lamb, once it had been slaughtered, and some specific instructions are given on how to eat it.

For the Christian, there are obvious parallels between the manner in which God saved the Israelites from His wrath and the manner in which Jesus saves us from our sins: because of Jesus’ sacrifice, God “passes over us” when He is doling out His wrath. The New Testament often talks about Jesus’ blood being on us, and about us being saved by the blood of Jesus; the original Passover, which God instituted with the Israelites, is a picture of what Jesus has done for us. The fact that Jesus is next going to introduce Communion (or whatever you call it at your church) to his disciples, in the next passage, makes this even more like the original Passover: we are eating the lamb (metaphorically) when we celebrate Communion.

So it is very significant that this is the last meal Jesus has with his disciples: celebrating a Jewish ceremony which is intended to be a picture of exactly what Jesus is about to do for the world, and then (in the next passage) extending that ceremony with one of his own, in which we celebrate not what Jesus is going to do but what He has done. This is Jesus’ last night on earth as a human; you could view it as the turning point between the celebration of Passover and the celebration of Communion. (Assuming that Communion was intended to replace Passover, and not just supplement it; Christians don’t seem to celebrate Passover—I don’t know of any denominations who do, although I don’t study such things—so it seems that over the years this is the consensus that Christians have reached, although I don’t see that it was strictly stated anywhere that we shouldn’t celebrate Passover.)

The reason I find Jesus’ prediction of his betrayal so blunt is that I expect there to be a lot more mystery around the whole thing than there seems to be. Why, at this point, didn’t the other disciples try to stop Judas? Did they not hear Jesus’ interaction with him? Or did they not think it was coming as quickly as it did (that very night)? It’s especially interesting to compare this passage to John 13:21–30 (ESV); in that telling of the story Jesus explicitly tells John that Judas is the one who will betray him, and we are also told that when Jesus tells Judas, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (John 13:27 (ESV)), the other disciples don’t seem to know what he’s talking about. So it seems that there is either enough privacy for Jesus to talk to Judas semi-privately, or something else is capturing the disciples’ attention enough that they don’t realize Judas is the one who is about to betray Jesus (except for John, who is told explicitly—but even he doesn’t try to do anything to stop it). It’s also interesting that Judas goes through the charade of asking Jesus “Is it I?” just like the other disciples did. I don’t know if he’s assuming that Jesus won’t actually know it’s him (if he’s decided that Jesus isn’t really the Son of God), or if he’s just trying to brazen it out until the end, or if he simply has to ask the question along with everyone else so as not to make himself stand out.

Matthew 26:14–16

2011-10-27T15:26:00.002-04:00

Matthew 26:14–16 (ESV): Judas to Betray Jesus

Synopsis

This is a very short passage, but in terms of the “plotline” of the Gospels it’s a very important one: Judas Iscariot goes to the chief priests and offers to betray Jesus to them, for a price. They pay him thirty pieces of silver, and from this point on Judas is looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus into their hands.

Thoughts

The story of Judas betraying Jesus—of which this is only the first act—is so well known that to this day we call someone a “Judas” if they betray someone, and if someone receives payment for a betrayal we call it their “thirty pieces of silver.” And with good reason; there hasn’t been a bigger betrayal in the history of the world: a man who was never guilty of any wrong-doing toward anyone is going to be given up to the authorities for a punishment he doesn’t deserve. It is, however, the reason Jesus came to earth in the first place, so in a sense this is actually a good thing; this is the means of accomplishing what needed to be accomplished for the salvation of every Christian in the world. It’s probably the reason Jesus chose Judas to be a disciple in the first place. (I have a hard time attributing hard-and-fast cause and effect when it comes to the actions of God, especially when it comes to Jesus the man since there are some things he actually doesn’t know, but at the same time we can never forget that God is in control of everything—nothing happens by chance, from His perspective.)

There are some things about Judas’ betrayal I don’t understand, however. For example, why did he do it? Is it because he was upset with Jesus about that anointing business we read about in the last passage? Is he disappointed with Jesus, having expected a military leader (as everyone else did)? Has he decided that Jesus is a fraud? Is it literally just for the thirty pieces of silver? I don’t get Judas’ motives here, but mostly because I’m assuming that it’s about more than just the money.

The other thing I don’t understand about Judas’ betrayal is the manner in which he betrays Jesus: when the time comes he doesn’t actually seem to do anything except walk up to Jesus, and then the people who’ve come to take him… take him. It makes it seem like the people going to capture Jesus don’t know what he looks like, and so they need Judas to point him out to them, which doesn’t make much sense to me. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as we haven’t gotten to that part of the story yet…

Matthew 26:6–13

2011-10-27T15:05:00.002-04:00

Matthew 26:6–13 (ESV): Jesus Anointed at Bethany

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus goes to the home of a man named Simon. (Verse 6 (ESV) says “Simon the leper,” but presumably Jesus has healed Simon, making him a former leper.) As he is reclining at the table a woman comes up to him and pours a very expensive flask of ointment over his head. (In the version of this story in John 12:1–8 (ESV) we are told that the woman is Lazarus’ sister Mary. The story is also told in Mark 14:3–9 (ESV), and there is a similar story in Luke 7:36–50 (ESV), but that seems to be a different incident, rather than a retelling of this one.)

When the disciples see what has happened they get indignant, since the ointment could have been sold for a large sum of money, and the proceeds given to the poor. But Jesus stops them from “troubling” the woman:

But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” (verses 10–13 (ESV))

Thoughts

Although it’s not important to the passage, I’ll include this little tidbit anyway: The New Testament often talks about people “reclining” at the table, and whenever I used to read that phrase I was always picturing someone sitting in a chair and leaning back on the back legs (like the cool kids do, until their parents stop them for fear of them falling over backwards). But the ESV Study Bible notes indicate that they’re literally reclining: that the custom of the day was to have couches around the table, that people would recline on to eat.

In the version of this story in John 12:1–8 (ESV) we are told that it was specifically Judas who objected to this waste, and are further told that the reason for his objection is that he had a habit of dipping into the funds—so if they’d decided to sell the ointment to give the money to the poor, he could have enriched himself further. However, based on Jesus’ reaction, it seems that the other disciples agreed with Judas, since he addresses them all.

For me, the central phrase in this passage comes in verse 11 (ESV):

“For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”

This is one of those verses that both “conservatives” and “liberals” tend to get wrong, for opposite reasons. (Whereas I, of course, have it right. Look at how smart I am (he said ironically)…) When “conservatives” see this verse, for some reason they have mangled the meaning to a point where it means something along the lines of, “because you’ll always have the poor with you, you shouldn’t bother trying to help them.” Or maybe it’s more like, “God is more important than the poor, so anything you give to the poor you’re stealing from God.” “Liberals,” on the other hand, tend to only remember the “you will always have the poor with you” part, and use it to remember that we need to help them, but sometimes forget about the “you will not always have me” part. I think both extremes are taking this one verse out of context.

What is the context? Jesus is about to die, and the disciples won’t have him with them for much longer. Although the Bible is constantly showing God’s concern for the poor, the “conservatives” are close to being right when they say that we should care even more for God than we do for the poor; the most important commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and the second most important commandment is to love our neighbour. When we consider that Jesus is Lord God Almighty, in the flesh, it is appropriate to spend money on anointing Him instead of spending it on the poor. Although He came to make Himself a servant, and rarely allowed people to treat him like a king (the only other example I can think of is the triumphal entry back in Chapter 21, though there might be others that are not occurring to me at the moment), that doesn’t mean that He wasn’t a king. He was. So it’s not inappropriate to spend lavishly on Him.

But while it might have been appropriate for the woman to spend this huge amount of money on anointing Jesus like this, we should also remember that He is not physically with us anymore, and that means that we aren’t going to have the same types of opportunities to “anoint” him as she did. Although it’s true that God is more important than anything/anyone else, in a practical, day-to-day sense that will rarely be something that we actually need to take into account—any time that we might be presenting ourselves with a choice between helping the poor and helping or honouring God it’s probably a false choice. Especially since helping the poor does honour Him. There are probably examples of choices people might have to make between helping the poor and honouring God, but I sat here for a bit in front of the keyboard trying to think of some, and I didn’t come up with any. Most of the examples people would come up with would probably involve a pool of money that one has, and a choice between spending it on the poor or spending it on the church/Church, but in many cases my answer to that would probably be: spend it on the church/Church, and then take some of your own money—the money you had allocated for food or entertainment or your savings or something—and spend that on the poor.

If you’re so poor yourself that all you have left in the world is $10, and have to decide between spending that on your fellow poor or spending it on God, then you might have hit on a valid scenario—in which case I have no advice for you, and whichever decision you make I’ll support. (If you’re so poor that you only have $10 and decide to spend it on food for yourself, I’ll support that, too. In fact if I were to give advice, that might be the advice that I’d give—but I wouldn’t presume to do so, in this case.)

Matthew 26:1–5

2011-10-25T14:51:00.000-04:00

Matthew 26:1–5 (ESV): The Plot to Kill Jesus

Synopsis

In Chapter 24 and Chapter 25 Jesus has been talking about “the end”—that is, the end of the world. He now turns to his disciples and gives them yet another very clear message about what is about to happen:

“You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” (verse 2 (ESV))

I’m not sure whether he is alone when he says this to his disciples or whether the religious leaders are still there, but after this the religious leaders meet together in the palace of the high priest (Caiaphas) and plot to kill Jesus—but to do it quietly, and not during the upcoming feast, because they don’t want an “uproar among the people” (verse 5 (ESV)).

Thoughts

Unlike the time when Jesus predicted his death in Chapter 16, no response is recorded from the disciples this time. There have been one or two other times that he predicted his death since Chapter 16, and they’ve remained silent, so they seem to have learned their lesson after Peter’s rebuke.

In some ways I give the religious leaders of Jesus day some credit; there are obviously bad motives for the things they do, but there are also some good motives, too, I think. To be specific, when Jesus claims to be the Son of God, I firmly believe that they really do believe that he’s blaspheming, which would be worthy of the death penalty. (Of course, to be sure about their motives we’d have to know whether they ever went after anyone else for blasphemy, or whether they just focused on Jesus, since he was starting to usurp their authority.) Passages like this make me think that I do give them too much credit, though; if they really, truly cared about the Law, and about punishing blasphemy, would they actually be so afraid of public opinion? Yet we find them in this passage skulking in Caiaphas’ palace, not wanting the people to know that they’re trying to get rid of Jesus. It’s possible that there are still some good motives—that they’re doing what they really believe is right for the people, and think the people just don’t know what’s good for them—but it really doesn’t seem likely.

Regardless whether there are some good motives behind their actions or whether all of their motives are bad, it’s clear that they are mostly acting out of bad motives. If a small portion of their motives were good it would be a small comfort.

Matthew 25

2011-10-24T14:04:00.001-04:00

Matthew 25 (ESV): Further discussion of the end

Synopsis

I’m continuing my recent trend of doing an entire chapter, encompassing more than one ESV heading. (At this rate I’ll be through Matthew in no time…) In this passage Jesus continues to talk about the end; specifically, he’s continuing the theme that ended the last passage: we don’t know when the end will come, so we should be ready at any moment.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins (verses 1–13 (ESV))
Jesus begins with a parable of ten virgins who are waiting for the arrival of their bridegroom, five of whom are wise and five of whom are foolish. Why? Because the five wise virgins brought extra oil for their lamps, just in case, while the five foolish virgins did not; when the bridegroom ended up being delayed, the foolish virgins ran out of oil, and the wise virgins didn’t. The foolish virgins tried to get some oil from the wise virgins, but the wise virgins couldn’t/wouldn’t give them any, for fear of running out themselves. So the foolish virgins rushed out to buy some more oil, but while they were gone the bridegroom arrived and everyone went inside and shut the door. The five foolish virgins finally came back and knocked on the door, asking to be let in, but the bridegroom told them that he didn’t know them. “Watch therefore,” Jesus says in verse 13 (ESV), “for you know neither the day nor the hour.” And why will we not know the day or the hour?

The Parable of the Talents (verses 14–30 (ESV))
… because it will be like the next parable Jesus tells, of a man going on a journey. He calls his three servants over before he leaves, and gives each one some talents. (Remember, a “talent” is a unit of money, worth about twenty years’ labour for the average Israelite.) He distributes the talents between the three servants according to their ability; one gets five, one gets two, and the last gets one. The man then leaves for his journey. Once he’s gone the first two servants immediately start putting the money to work, so that the one with five talents earns five more and the one with two talents earns two more. The last servant, however, who’d only received one talent, goes and buries his money in the ground.

After a long time the man comes back from his journey, and settles his accounts with the servants. For each of the first two servants, when he sees that they have doubled his money, he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (verses 21 (ESV) and 23 (ESV)) But when he gets to the third servant, he is told that the servant hasn’t done anything with the money because he was afraid of his master. So he simply gives the master back what was his. But the master gets angry at this, calling the servant “wicked” and “slothful,” and saying that at the very least the servant should have invested the money with bankers, so that it could have earned some interest. He then commands that the third servant’s talent be given to the servant with ten talents:

“For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (verse 29 (ESV))

And finally, he commands that the third servant be cast into “the outer darkness,” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (verse 30 (ESV)).

The Final Judgement (verses 31–46 (ESV))
Jesus now leaves parables aside, and tells his listeners that when he comes in glory all of the nations will come before Him, and he’ll separate them, placing the “sheep” on his right and the “goats” on his left.

He will then speak to the sheep on his right, and invite them to inherit the kingdom prepared for them “from the foundation of the world” (verse 34 (ESV)). And the reason they will join him is that they gave Him food when He was hungry, and drink when He was thirsty, and welcomed Him when He was a stranger, and clothed Him, and visited Him when He was sick and when He was in prison. The sheep, however, are somewhat baffled by this, since they don’t remember ever doing such things for Jesus, but Jesus explains to them that any time they did these things for “the least” of His brothers (verse 40 (ESV)), they were doing it for Him.

He will then talk to the “goats,” calling them cursed, and telling them to depart from Him into “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (verse 41 (ESV)). And why? For the opposite reasons that he gave to the “sheep”: because the “goats” didn’t give Him food when He was hungry, or drink when He was thirsty, or welcom Him when He was a stranger, or clothe Him, or visit Him when He was sick and when He was in prison. The “goats” are just as baffled as the “sheep” were by this, because they don’t remember neglecting Jesus in this way, but they get the same answer: any time they didn’t do these things for the “least” of His brothers, they did not do it for Him.

He sums up by saying:

“And these [the “goats”] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (verse 46 (ESV))

Thoughts

You can see a progression in the three sections in this chapter:

The parable about the ten virgins continues on from where the last passage left off: you don’t know when Jesus is going to come back, so be prepared for it
While you’re waiting, you should use the gifts He has given you—your “talents” (I once read a Bible commentary saying that this is exactly where our current word “talent” comes from)—and do good works in whatever time we have.
Then, when He comes, those who have done good works will be rewarded with an eternal reward, and those who refused will be punished with an eternal punishment.

I don’t know if this needs to be said, it probably doesn’t, but I’ll say it anyway: When Jesus gives a parable about ten virgins awaiting a single bridegroom, his point is not to somehow advocate having multiple wives. This isn’t a pro-polygamy passage.

He is, though, making a point which is related to a point he made in the last passage, in that the “foolish” virgins were only caught out because the bridegroom had taken longer to get there than they’d anticipated. If he hadn’t been running late, they would have been fine. Jesus could come back at any time, and we need to be ready for that to happen—but He also may delay for a long time, so we should also be prepared to do our good works over a long period of time. We should be ready for Him to return at any time, but that doesn’t mean quitting our jobs and going to sit on a mountain top to wait for Him; we should be doing all the good we can until He returns. That means being prepared for Him to return at any moment while at the same time making preparations for our work here on earth as if He will be delayed. We may, for example, set up programs to help the poor and needy, ensuring that they have adequate funds and resources to last for years and years, because if He doesn’t come, those programs will continue to be needed. (If He does come—if we spent all of that time and energy setting something up and then had Him show up before the program saw the fruit of the labour—nobody will consider it to have been wasted effort.)

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this is what the parable about the talents is about: God has given us certain abilities or gifts or resources, and we are now entrusted to use those abilities/gifts/resources for His sake. He hasn’t gifted everyone equally—some have more gifts and some have less; some have more resources and some have less—but we are expected to use as much as He has given us. And let’s be clear: the servant who grew his five talents into ten talents was not praised for accumulating so many talents; notice that he wasn’t given any more praise than the servant who grew his two talents into four. Both of those servants were praised for the same thing: they used what the master had given them, and didn’t squander it. The fact that the first servant was able to gain five talents and the second servant was only able to gain two talents is simply due to how much they started out with—which means, in the end, it was the master who decided which of the two men would end up earning the most. It is the same with us. Some of us have great gifts, and will do amazing things for God, and some of us have small gifts, or have gifts in lesser quantities, and the things we accomplish for God will never make the news or be noticed, even in our local church. But God is not going to reward the people who did great things more than He will reward the people who did small things; it was His decision to give some great gifts and some small gifts. He will not reward people based on how much they have done, He will reward people according to what they did with what He gave them.

I think Jesus gave this parable in terms of money because it’s so much easier to quantify things that way. To give a non-quantifiable example, suppose God gives a man a great ability to preach and evangelize, and another woman in the same church is very timid, and not good at talking to people. Because the man has such great gifts, he works half-heartedly at it, and still dozens and dozens of people come to the Lord because of his words. The woman, on the other hand, has to struggle to give the Gospel, but she does so when the opportunities arise, and only two people are ever saved through her actions. According to this parable, she would be rewarded more than the man; more people were saved through his actions, but because he did it half-heartedly—because his great gifts allowed him to “phone it in”—and because she had to struggle to use the little amount of ability that God gave her, she actually did more with less, and the man squandered some of the ability that he could have used.

Really, even if nobody came to the Lord due to the woman’s evangelizing, she would still be rewarded more than the man in my example. Because again, it’s not about how much we accomplish—and we can’t make people come to the Lord anyway, that is His responsibility and His alone—it’s about using what He has given us to the best of our abilities, and letting Him take care of the outcome.

I used the example of evangelism just now, but earlier I used an example of setting up programs to help the poor and needy. I chose the earlier example based on the good works that Jesus himself says people will be judged on:

Feeding and giving drink to the hungry
Welcoming strangers
Clothing those who need clothing
Visiting the sick
Visiting those who are in prison

To borrow a phrase that I keep seeing in Timothy Keller’s books, these are “social justice” ministries. Jesus separates who is going to the kingdom of heaven from those who are going to Hell based on who cared for the needy and who didn’t. This does not mean that we earn our way into heaven by doing social justice; if the New Testament is clear about anything, it’s clear about the fact that we cannot earn our way into God’s book of life by doing things on our own—we need Jesus’ sacrifice for that. That’s the whole reason He came to this planet in the first place: to do for us what we couldn’t do on our own. So what this does mean is that those who have been saved, those who are truly His children, will, as an essential part of their newly cleaned soul, care about these social justice issues. That caring about the poor and the needy is an essential part of what it means to be a Christian. As mentioned earlier, some will have great gifts in this area and some won’t, some will do amazing things and start shelters and take people into their homes etc. etc. and some won’t, but everyone, every Christian, will care about the poor and needy. If you refuse to feed or give drink to those who need it, if you refuse to welcome strangers, if you refuse to give clothing to those who need it, or visit the sick, or visit those who are in prison, if you won’t allow yourself to do such things, then why would you expect to be with the “sheep”? Not having a heart for the poor and needy would be a reason to question whether your faith in God is real—and, if not, to do something about it. (And if it is, ask for His help where you need it.)

Maybe you’ll never have an opportunity to do some of these things. Perhaps you don’t know anyone who’s ever gone to prison, for example, and don’t have a reason or an opportunity to go and visit anyone there. (In fact, in 21^st Century North America, the idea of visiting those who are in prison can be particularly guilt-inducing: we tend to demonize those who have committed crimes. We want to lock them up like animals and forget about them—and, if possible, never let them out. Treating them like humans, and visiting them, and taking care of any needs we can take care of, is not something we’re prone to do. And yet, we have immense incarceration rates in North America—at least, we do in America; Canada is better—which means that, if anything, we should be seeing this immense population of people as being a very large group who have needs that should be taken care of.) But it would be very unlikely that you wouldn’t have a chance to do anything on the list above, and, really, it’s not about what you do, so much as it’s about your attitude toward doing it and your willingness to use what God has given you for the benefit of others.

I hesitated to mention attitude in the last paragraph because that can be dangerous. James teaches us that faith without works is dead (James 2:14–26 (ESV)). Anyone who “wishes the poor well” but doesn’t want to do anything about it is probably not wishing them well at all. For example, as James says:

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:15–17 (ESV))

So when I say that it’s a matter of “attitude” I don’t mean in the way that James is referring to—a “faith” without works! What I mean is simply that when the opportunity arises we are willing to do something, and that if we’re not doing something it’s because of a lack of opportunity, and not because of a lack of desire.

Matthew 24

2011-10-17T12:49:00.001-04:00

Matthew 24 (ESV): The end

Synopsis

This is another instance where I’m combining a few ESV section headings into one post, since they’re all related to one larger point that Jesus is making regarding the end of the world. (Hence my clever, clever title of “the end”.)

Jesus Foretells the Destruction of the Temple (verses 1–2 (ESV))
First, as Jesus and the disciples are leaving the temple the disciples point out to Jesus the buildings of the temple, and Jesus tells them that it is going to be destroyed. That, in fact, not one stone will be left upon another—it will be completely destroyed. Which leads to…

Signs of the Close of the Age (verses 3–14 (ESV))
… when the disciples approach Jesus privately, a little later, and ask him when this is going to happen. And what signs they can look for to indicate his coming and the close of the age.

Jesus’ first answer to them is to warn them not to let anyone lead them astray. Not an idle comment, either, since Jesus tells them that many will be led astray, when people come in His name, claiming to be Him. There will also be wars, and rumours of wars, but Jesus’ followers are still not to be alarmed—these are things that must take place, but it’s still not the end. When nation rises against nation, and when there are famines, and when there are earthquakes, these are all just the beginning of “the birth pains” (verse 8 (ESV)).

And then… it will get even worse.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” (verses 9–12 (ESV), Jesus speaking)

However, those who endure to the end will be saved, and the gospel will be proclaimed to the whole world. Then the end will come.

The Abomination of Desolation (verses 15–28 (ESV))
So when Jesus’ followers see “the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel” standing in “the holy place” (verse 15 (ESV)), they should flee, and they should do it quickly—don’t even stop for your coat! Because when that happens there will be “great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be” (verse 21 (ESV)). In fact, God will have to cut it short for the sake of His children, lest the entire population of the world be wiped out.

If anyone then tells Jesus’ disciples that the Christ has come, they aren’t to believe it. There will be a bunch of “false Christs,” and false prophets, many of whom will even have “signs and wonders” as supposed proof of their divinity, trying to deceive “the elect” (that is, believers) (verse 24 (ESV)). But despite any signs or wonders that these false Christs are displaying, the elect should not believe them—when the Christ comes, it will be plain to everyone that He has come: “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (verse 27 (ESV)).

Then Jesus says something that I don’t understand at all (so as usual I’ll simply quote the ESV Study Bible notes in my Thoughts below):

“Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” (verse 28 (ESV), Jesus speaking)

The Coming of the Son of Man (verses 29–31 (ESV))
The “tribulation” sounds pretty bad, but the good news is that as soon as it’s over the Son of Man will come. The sun and the moon will darken and the stars will fall out of the sky, and He will appear in heaven. All people will mourn, but He will send out His angels to gather the elect from everywhere.

The Lesson of the Fig Tree (verses 32–35 (ESV))
Jesus now uses a metaphor to illustrate how his followers should be able to interpret these events: when a fig tree starts to put out leaves, everyone knows that summer is near. So also, when we see these things—I assume he means the tribulation—we will know that “he” is near—I think referring to himself. And that point is coming soon:

“Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (verses 34–35 (ESV), Jesus speaking)

No One Knows That Day and Hour (verses 36–51 (ESV))
In this final part of the chapter, Jesus addresses the one question that was probably highest on the disciples’ minds: When will all of this happen? And if they were hoping for that answer, they are disappointed: Jesus tells them that no one knows except for the Father. No person, no angel, not even the Son knows when the end is going to come; the Father alone knows. (This was shocking to me the first time I read it, and I don’t claim to have my head around it yet: How does Jesus, who is fully man but also fully God, not know something? How does that work? It doesn’t even seem to make sense to me—but there it is, in the Bible. Jesus doesn’t know when the end will be. Or, if He does, He didn’t at the time that he was speaking to the disciples in this passage.)

Not only does nobody (except for the Father) know, but neither are they going to figure it out. Jesus uses this long-ish passage to illustrate in various ways that when this all happens, it’s going to take everyone by surprise. He also tells a couple of mini parables, to indicate how that fact should impact the way we live our lives:

If a thief was going to break into someone’s house, and that person knew when the thief was going to do it, he wouldn’t have gone to sleep that night: he would have stayed awake to prevent the thief. Similarly we should also be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that we don’t expect.
If a person puts his servant in control of the household and leaves, and then comes back to find that the servant has been properly doing his job while the master was gone, then the servant will be rewarded. Contrarily, if the master comes back to find that the servant was misbehaving, under the assumption that the master would be delayed and he had time to party in the interim, then the master will “cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (verse 51 (ESV)).

Thoughts

Later on, when the Jews are seeking to have Jesus crucified and he is being accused of crimes before the Jewish council, his prediction of the temple being destroyed is combined with his prediction that he is going to die and be raised in three days to become an accusation that he had claimed he was able to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days (see 26:57–68 (ESV)). Jesus’ prediction of dying and raising back to life was fulfilled a short while later; his prediction of the destruction of the temple was fulfilled in A.D. 70.

It’s not surprising that the disciples ask Jesus for the signs of what is to come, and information on when it’s going to happen. We’re pretty much all fascinated by that, aren’t we? Personally, I find myself caring very little about these details about the end of the world—I figure God’s got it in control, and He’ll take care of me through all of that—but even I find myself fascinated with passages like this. But the first thing Jesus says to them is that they shouldn’t let anyone lead them astray. People are going to come claiming to be him; there are going to be a lot of bad things that will happen, that people will assume are signs of the end of the world, there will be persecution of the Church, but through all of this we’re not to give in to thoughts that it’s the end. It’s especially interesting how Jesus does talk about the end:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (verse 14 (ESV))

That’s it. Just… “and then the end will come.” What we’d expect Jesus to say—and, essentially, what the disciples were asking for—was something like, “and then the mountains will shake and the seas will turn to blood, and I will descend from heaven on a cloud,” or something like that. And Jesus does say something along those lines in a few verses. But first, he seems to care very little about telling the disciples what will actually happen when he comes; he’s more interested in telling them not to start making assumptions about the end being imminent because of the things that come before. Something that we’re still very prone to now. Any time a new war breaks out, or there is a large natural disaster, or sometimes even just when New Year’s Eve comes around, there will invariably be people who take it as a sign that the end is coming. Ironically, they will often point to passages like this, where Jesus is explicitly warning us against this constant obsession with the end, as their “proof” that this war/disaster/whatever is the indication of the end, as (they claim) Jesus predicted.

Our main defense against this is to know our Bibles. When a war breaks out, and people claim that it’s a sign of the end, it should sound “off” to us, because of passages like this.

Interestingly, though, after Jesus says this, the next thing he does is talk about “the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel,” and about the tribulation that will take place. So if wars and natural disasters aren’t supposed to lead us to believe that the end is here, how will we be able to recognize this “abomination of desolation”? Two thoughts on that, which may or may not be interrelated:

Perhaps, similar to what Jesus says about the false Christs later, it will just be so stunningly obvious who (or what) the “abomination of desolation” is that we shouldn’t jump at anything supposing it’s the end; when the end does come, it will be evident, rather than hints or clues that we need to piece together.
Or perhaps it just doesn’t matter, and we aren’t supposed to be looking for clues about the end of the world in the first place. As a Christian, when the end of the world does come, how will it impact me? I should still be loving God with all my heart and loving my neighbour as myself. I should still be caring for the poor. (If I have the ability to do so; I don’t know if people will still be working, or have money, or have food to share, or whatever.) I should still be leading a holy life. I don’t think we’re supposed to take Jesus’ comments about fleeing to the mountains to mean that we’re to completely disengage from the world and go and live in our own little worlds; I think he’s just emphasizing to them how bad the tribulation will be. (I could very easily be wrong on that; I’m not going to fight anyone on this point…)

In any event, it’s clear that when Jesus returns there will be no question that it’s Him. There will be lots of false Christs and false prophets, and they’ll deceive some but not all, but when He really does come there won’t be any question in anyone’s mind. That means that if anyone ever tries to convince you that Jesus has returned, and tries to offer proof for it based on some miracles the person has performed, there is a very easy test to determine if it’s Him or not: the very fact that they’re trying to convince you, and you don’t already realize it’s Jesus, is proof that it’s not.

Or put it this way: Imagine that you and I are in a room together. I tell you to close your eyes, and at some point I’m going to punch you in the face. There are also some flies in the room, and every once in a while one brushes against your face; you’re so focused on the fact that I’m going to punch you that everytime a fly hits you you keep wondering… is this it? Is this it? A fly is nothing like a punch in the face, so you’ll quickly realize that oh that was just a fly, but the punch is all that you’re anticipating, so anything that touches your face is going to make you think of it. The longer this goes on, the more you might be tempted to think every fly brushing against your face is it; eventually you might start to wonder if I’m ever going to hit you. If it goes on long enough, you might start to think I had never actually intended to hit you, but that “punching you in the face” was a metaphor for all of the flies that have brushed against you. But when I do finally punch you in the face, it will be quite evident what has happened.

Is this a valid metaphor to use? I guess it depends if you’re a Christian or not. If you’re one of God’s children, then when the end comes it won’t feel so much like a punch in the face—but if you’re not, it will be much, much worse.

As mentioned above, for verse 28 about the vultures, I’ll simply quote the note from the ESV Study Bible note on that verse:

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. It seems best not to “over-interpret” this striking proverbial expression. It probably means simply that, just as people from far away can see vultures circling high in the air, Christ’s return in judgment will be visible and predictable. A similar view is that the vultures suggest the widespread death that will accompany the return of Christ to judge those who have rejected his kingdom. In either case, it will be impossible for people not to see and recognize the return of Christ.

After this metaphor concerning the vultures, Jesus talks about His return, and now we get a taste of what we were expecting Jesus to talk about in the first place: The sun and the moon darkening and the stars falling from the sky, before Jesus comes with power on the clouds. It’s possible that some people might take this language about coming down on clouds to be metaphorical, but in this case I don’t think so simply because of what he said before about his return: when he comes, we’ll know it. There won’t be any question.

As a side note, I’m having trouble being consistent with calling Jesus “he” vs. “He” (i.e. capitalization). Jesus is fully God and fully man; I’ve typically been using “he” when talking about Jesus the man, but using “He” when talking about Jesus as God. Which is a purely arbitrary distinction because He is both. But typically the Gospels are referring to him as “he,” and I have been too—and yet when I think of His return, I just naturally start calling Him “He.” So if there are inconsistencies, that’s why…

I emphasized above, or at least hinted, that we aren’t to start going crazy seeing the end of the world in every war and natural disaster, and that in my oh-so-humble opinion we shouldn’t really be focused on the end of the world at all—let God deal with that. He knows what He’s doing, and what His timetable is. Is that contradicted by Jesus using the metaphor of the fig tree, and being able to understand when the end is coming? And does Jesus then contradict himself, when he says next that no one knows the day and the hour? Not if we take it all in the context of this one larger passage (one reason I’m glad I decided to do this entire chapter, instead of piecing it out part by part). Jesus is saying that when he does come, it will be obvious to one and all that he has come. I am extrapolating a bit, but I think that is also his point about the “abomination that brings desolation”—it will be obvious to one and all when he/it comes. So that means two things:

As mentioned above, if there is any doubt, then it’s not what you think it is. So stop looking for Jesus (or the “abomination that brings desolation”) at every turn.
When it does happen, since it will be painfully obvious to all what is happening, realize that the end is imminent. Once this starts happening, any hopes you had of repenting on your deathbed or something are officially expired—you need to make your peace with God, and it’s your absolute last chance. Unfortunately, as Jesus describes things, it doesn’t sound like people are going to take advantage of their one last chance, which is all the more reason we need to evangelize while people are still able to listen and receive.

And, since we don’t know when this is going to happen, and won’t know ahead of time (but will find out when it actually happens), Jesus says that we simply have to be ready all the time. It could happen right now, or it could be another thousand years, or it could be another six thousand years, or it could be next week, or… you get the idea. Because he emphasizes that it will be a surprise, and nobody knows, and nobody is going to figure it out ahead of time, it leads me to probably go too far the other way, meaning that any time someone predicts the end of the earth on a particular date, I get immediately confident that that will not be the day! I feel like the world could end at any day, minute, hour, or year, except a day when it’s been predicted (such as, for example, the year 2000, when people figured the world was going to end because it was a round number). I don’t think it’s valid for me to make that assumption, either.

That being said… I have heard people argue the flip side of Jesus’ point: Jesus’ makes it quite clear that we won’t know when the end is going to come, but that doesn’t mean we won’t know when it can’t come. What they mean by that is that there are certain things that the Bible says must happen before the end will come, so, ipso facto, until those things have happened it won’t come. My initial reaction is to dismiss that immediately as a way of getting around Jesus’ words. The only thing that gives me pause, and makes me think about it, is that some of the people I’ve heard say that are people I respect and trust when it comes to biblical knowledge. (Not all; some are people who are obsessed with piecing together the mysterious clues they believe are in the Bible to give us this secret information, and who are simply trying to get around Jesus’ clear words in this passage that nobody will figure it out. Those people I dismiss more easily.) However, if it’s true that we can know that the world is not going to end yet because “such and such” hasn’t yet occurred, then it also negates much of Jesus’ point in verses 36–51 (ESV) of this passage. Jesus tells us that we need to be ready at all times because He could come back at any minute, and then we decide that actually, he can’t come back yet, because “such and such” hasn’t happened. (And doesn’t that put us squarely in the position of the wicked servant, who thought his master was delayed?) These people would probably say that Jesus tells us this so that we’ll live as if the end could come at any minute; that even though we “know” He can’t come back yet because these things (whatever they are) haven’t happened yet we should pretend that He could, and live as if He could. That just seems a bit too devious to me; that Jesus is explicitly lying to us to try and get us to live in a particular way, instead of being honest about it and knowing that the Holy Spirit will help us to live right, even if He can’t return just quite yet. (Either that or they believe that Jesus didn’t know that there were preconditions when this passage happened and he said all of these things, and those preconditions were exposed later on after His death—in which case why did God choose to put this passage in the canon of Scripture? Which brings us back to Him lying to us, to trick us into living the way He wants us to.) As is probably evident, even though I respect some of the people who are in the “it can’t happen yet because ‘such and such’ hasn’t happened yet” camp, I think they’re wrong on this one.

This passage makes it clear that there are obvious dangers in trying to predict the end of the world and what’s going to happen when, and I think that applies just as much to saying that it can’t yet happen. But the good news is that I fall back on my default, core, base belief on the end of the world: I don’t need to know because God does, and He is in control. If I’m still alive when the tribulation Jesus is talking about happens, God will see me through it. Or, better yet, it will kill me and I’ll go home to Him.

Matthew 23

2011-10-13T09:35:00.002-04:00

Matthew 23 (ESV): Woes to the scribes and Pharisees, and Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus takes an especially harsh view of the scribes and Pharisees, just in case people weren’t getting the message before. Interestingly, however, before he talks about what they’re doing wrong, he reminds the average Jewish people (i.e. not the religious leaders) of their place: they are to listen to the scribes and Pharisees, and do what they say, because the scribes and Pharisees are the religious leaders—they “sit on Moses’ seat” (verse 2 (ESV)). So even though the scribes and Pharisees aren’t themselves living up to the rules they’re handing down, the people are to listen to what they say, even as they try to avoid what they do (or do not do).

“For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.” (verses 3b–7 (ESV), Jesus speaking)

For those who aren’t familiar with “phylacteries” or why the Jews were wearing “fringes,” I’ll steal the ESV Study Bible note on verse 5:

phylacteries. Small cube-shaped cases made of leather, containing Scripture passages written on parchment. They were worn on the left arm and forehead as a literal way to obey the admonition of Deut. 11:18 (ESV) (cf. Ex. 13:9 (ESV); Deut. 6:8 (ESV)). fringes. Tassels with a blue cord that were attached to the four corners of a man’s garment (Num. 15:37–41 (ESV); Deut. 22:12 (ESV)), reminding the people to obey God’s commandments and to be holy (Num. 15:40 (ESV)).

Back to Jesus’ message…

But the people are not to be called “rabbi,” for the have only one teacher, and they are all brothers. They are to call nobody “father,” for they have only one Father, who is God. They are not to be called “instructors” since their one instructor is Christ. (This leads me to believe that the “one teacher” mentioned is the Spirit, though Jesus doesn’t call Him by name, since their “father” is the Father and their “instructor” is Christ.)

To sum up, Jesus says that, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (verse 12 (ESV)).

Jesus then calls the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, and pronounces seven “woes” on them. Woe to them because:

They shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces—they don’t enter, and they prevent others from entering as well.
They travel the earth (“across sea and land,” verse 15 (ESV)) to convert a single person to Judaism (make him a “proselyte”) and when they do they make him twice as much a “son of hell” as the scribes and Pharisees are themselves (verse 15 (ESV)).
They create complex rules about swearing oaths on the temple, or the gold in the temple, or the altar, or the gifts on the altar, while completely missing the point of all of those things (verses 16–22 (ESV)).
They are so particular about their tithes that they give a tithe even if their spices, yet they neglect justice, mercy, and faithfulness. (Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t tell them that they should have done the latter instead of the former, but that they should have done both.) He likens their behaviour to “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel” (verse 24 (ESV)).
They clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside are full of greed and self indulgence. (I’m guessing this is an allusion to ceremonial washing of cups and plates, but the main intent is obviously a metaphor for the scribes and Pharisees caring about outward appearances but not caring about the heart.)
Similarly, they are like “whitewashed tombs,” appearing beautiful but being full of “dead people’s bones and all uncleanness” (verse 27 (ESV)). They appear to be righteous, but are full of “hypocrisy and lawlessness” (verse 28 (ESV)).
They claim that they would not have spilled the blood of the prophets, whereas they act just like the ones who did—and will suffer the same penalty (verses 29–36 (ESV)).

Jesus then finishes the passage with a seeming change in focus: a lament over the city of Jerusalem:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (verses 37–39 (ESV))

Thoughts

You don’t have to be a biblical scholar to see this passage as one long, scathing indictment of the scribes and Pharisees, mostly because of their hypocrisy. There are teachings which are unbiblical, but that is not Jesus’ focus for this passage; his focus is that even when they are teaching the people to do the right things, they do not do the right things themselves. It’s impossible to miss the harsh language Jesus uses: “hypocrites,” “hypocrites,” “child of hell,” “blind guides,” “blind fools,” “blind men,” “hypocrites,” “blind guides,” “hypocrites,” “blind,” “hypocrites,” “full of hypocrisy and lawlessness,” “hypocrites,” “sons of those who murdered the prophets,” “serpents,” “brood of vipers.”

But, as mentioned, Jesus doesn’t start off by talking to them, he starts off by talking to the “regular” people, who are to listen to their religious leaders, but not to do as they do. The religious leaders are hypocrites, but the people are not to be hypocrites. The religious leaders care more about outward appearances than actual righteousness, but the people are to care about righteousness instead of outward appearances.

There are lessons for the modern-day Christians. Our religious leaders—our pastors and ministers and elders—are to be examples to us, but even if they’re not, we aren’t to follow their example. If a preacher preaches against adultery (for example), and then is caught in adultery himself, the people are to listen to the teaching and avoid adultery, not follow the preacher into adultery themselves. The difference between the Israelites of Jesus’ day and modern-day Christians is that most of us attend churches where preachers can be removed for moral misconduct; the Israelites of Jesus’ day were stuck with their religious leaders, and had the difficult task of listening to their good teachings while ignoring their bad behaviour.

Aside from that, when Jesus tells us that we are not to be called “rabbi” or “instructor,” and that we’re not to call anyone “father” except for God, is he being literal? Though Jesus is the ultimate instructor, and God the ultimate father, are we really not to be called instructors or fathers at all? (“Rabbi” doesn’t seem to be an issue, for Christians.) Even those of us who are fathers, or who are instructors? I’m going to have to assume that Jesus isn’t being 100% literal here, but that he’s talking about a general attitude. If someone is a father then he should remember that God is the ultimate father, and act accordingly; if someone is an instructor—especially a religious instructor—then he should remember that Jesus is the ultimate instructor and act accordingly. I think.

In terms of the woes:

I like the language Jesus uses when he talks of shutting the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. It’s very descriptive; the scribes and Pharisees are so blinded by their own hypocrisy and sin that they can’t enter the kingdom, and they are so zealous to follow their own wrong-minded ways, and force others to do so as well, that they prevent other Israelites from entering the kingdom. Probably—and this is a crucial point—with the very best of intentions. Jesus doesn’t condemn their zeal, as such, he condemns their hypocrisy. If they weren’t hypocrites, and truly followed the spirit of God’s law, and were just and merciful and faithful, their zeal would actually be very good. As it is, since they’re so wrong-headed, their zeal does a lot of damage. Which brings us to…
Since their zeal is so wrong-headed, when they do create a convert to Judaism they make him “twice as much a child of hell” as they themselves are! Considering the harsh terms Jesus used against the scribes and Pharisees, for someone to be twice as bad is… worse.
Jesus’s condemnation of the religious leaders for their byzantine rules regarding swearing on things from the temple is interesting. Or rather, his condemnation is perfectly understandable, but their rules are interesting: If they swear by the temple, or by the altar, their oath is not actually binding, whereas if they swear by the gold in the temple or by the gift on the altar their oath is binding.
- First of all, should they really be creating rules under which you could swear an oath that didn’t mean anything?!? This seems patently dishonest to me. Like codifying in the law that if you cross your fingers behind your back while making a promise it doesn’t count. (I like the Christian approach better anyway: don’t swear at all; simply let your yes be yes and your no be no—in other words, be honest, and when you say you’re going to do something, do it. Build a reputation for being honest, so that people believe you when you speak, rather than relying on oaths to try and “prove” you’re being honest. See James 5:12 (ESV).) However, that aside…
- Even if it were valid to swear by some things and not by others, or that swearing by some things would be binding and swearing by other things would be “nothing” (verses 16 (ESV) and 18 (ESV)), Jesus’ point is that the religious leaders have it backwards. What’s more important, the temple or the gold inside the temple? What’s more important, the altar or the gift on the altar? The religious leaders are more concerned with the things in the temple, whereas Jesus is pointing out that it’s the temple and the altar themselves that are holy, not the things inside the temple. If the gold in the temple is holy it’s because the temple makes it holy; if the gift on the altar is holy it’s because the altar makes it holy. Essentially, it is the same problem Jesus is pointing out in this entire passage: the religious leaders are focusing on superficial things—the gold and the gift—rather than on the intrinsic things, like the holiness of God.
Jesus’ issue with the religious leaders’ tithing is especially interesting, because the action itself isn’t condemned; it’s almost even praised. It is right for them to tithe everything, even down to the smallest amounts of spices that they grow in their little gardens. In fact, it’s possible that they are properly understanding the whole concept of tithing as outlined in the Old Testament, that everything—everything—belongs to God, no matter how big or small. Jesus doesn’t condemn them for tithing, he even says in verse 23 (ESV) that they should be doing what they’re doing.

But, to get back to the heart of their problem, let’s face it: tithing your spices is easy, and it makes you look very holy. It is—or at least it can be—very superficial. But tithing is not enough; as Jesus points out to them, God demands justice, and mercy, and faithfulness. (See, for example, Hosea 6:6 (ESV), which is an example that comes quickly to mind but is only one of many examples of God’s prophets trying to tell the Israelites that God demands justice and mercy from them.) Tithing your mint and dill and cumin is easy; being just and merciful and faithful is difficult. (And again, I love the way Jesus phrases it: “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel” (verse 24 (ESV)).)
As mentioned, when Jesus talks about cleaning the outside of the plate or the cup, and not the inside, he’s probably making a reference to some kind of ceremonial cleaning that they were doing—whether something prescribed by the Old Testament law or something they invented themselves—but it doesn’t matter because it’s obviously a metaphor, and it’s a metaphor for the same issue Jesus has been pointing out for the entire passage: They look good, but inside they’re not.
When Jesus compares them to whitewashed tombs, saying that inside they’re full of hypocrisy and lawlessness, it must be especially stinging to these people—who pride themselves on their adherence to the law! And Jesus is calling them lawless? Who knows the law better than the scribes and Pharisees? (Of course, they have a slight advantage, since they wrote so much of it—but Jesus has that pesky habit of disregarding the laws they made up and only counting the ones from God…)
Finally, for the seven woes, Jesus talks about the religious leaders’ relation to their ancestors, who killed the prophets. They build fancy tombs and monuments for the prophets, and claim that if they’d been alive, back in the day, they never would have killed the prophets—and yet by their actions they show that this is not true at all. They have the same problems that the Israelite leaders had had back in the day of the prophets: despite all of their protestations to the contrary, they simply don’t take the Word of God seriously. They would argue that point—strenuously. Nobody seemed to take the Scriptures more seriously than they did. And yet they consistently missed the point, even as they studied the Scriptures so intensely.

And, of course, they are about to kill Jesus, and will kill further Christians after that as well. So despite their protestations to the contrary, they will be killing God’s prophets. Just like their ancestors before them, they won’t believe that they’ll be killing prophets, but they will be.

This is, as usual, a lesson for us as well: For those of us who are studying our Bibles diligently, and trying to mine every nugget of theological truth out of the Word, are we still missing the point, sometimes? To cite an example that’s been on my mind a lot lately, I read Timothy Keller’s book Generous Justice a while ago, and am currently listening to another book of his on tape, both of which have helping the poor as their major themes. Generous Justice points out that helping the poor is more than “charity,” it is actually “justice”—and that, therefore, not helping the poor is an injustice. Time and time again in the Old Testament when God sent His prophets to Israel one of their major complaints against His people was that they were neglecting the poor. But we don’t think of helping the poor as being “justice,” we think of it as being charity—an optional thing, that the Christian may or may not do, on top of everything else he does. We certainly, therefore, don’t think of refusing to help the poor as being an injustice; we’d simply see it as being uncharitable. When we read about helping the poor in the Bible, are we sometimes missing the point? When we read about money being the root of all kinds of evil, are we missing the point?

I’m picking examples that would probably prick the conscience of North American Christians because if I have any readers that’s where they probably are. I think it’s safe to say, though, that any Christian, in any part of the world, at any point in history, has got some blind spot when it comes to Biblical teaching; some point that we continually miss, even if we are reading our Bibles as we should.

Also, one quick note on verse 36 (ESV):

“Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” (Jesus speaking)

When Jesus says “this generation,” no commentator I’ve seen has taken this to mean the literal generation of people to whom Jesus was speaking. Most commentators say that we—everyone who lived between Jesus’ death and resurrection until his second coming—are “this generation.”

Finally, though Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem might seem like a bit of a diversion, it fits in perfectly with what he’s just been talking about: He has been talking about the killing of God’s prophets, and surely many of the prophets were killed in Jerusalem; it was usually the leaders (religious or political) who had the prophets killed, and they would have been in Jerusalem.

Matthew 22:34–46

2011-10-11T10:38:00.001-04:00

Matthew 22:34–46 (ESV): Jesus talks to the Pharisees again

Synopsis

Having put the Sadducees in their place in the last passage, the Pharisees decide to take another shot at him—but in person, this time, rather than sending messengers. A lawyer among them asks Jesus which is “the great commandment” in the law, and Jesus responds:

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (verses 37–40 (ESV))

The Pharisees seem content with this answer, since they don’t respond to it. But while they’re still there, Jesus takes the offensive, and asks them whose son the Christ is. They respond that he is the son of David, to which Jesus replies with a question: If the Christ is David’s son, then how is it that David calls him “Lord” in Psalm 110?

The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
(Psalm 110:1 (ESV))

Not only are they not able to answer him, but they don’t dare even ask him any more questions.

Thoughts

The first part of this story can be compared with Luke 10:25–28 (ESV), in which it is told slightly differently. In the Luke passage there are more details given, in that Jesus actually lets the Pharisee answer his own question, and Jesus confirms that he’s got it correct. (Which is then followed by the parable of the good Samaritan.)

In any event, Jesus says—and even the Pharisees seem to agree—that all of the Old Testament laws can be summed up in two rules:

Love God properly
Love your neighbour—i.e. everyone else—properly

And it makes sense. If you were to obey these two rules perfectly, then by necessity you’d also be obeying every single other law or rule that God gave the Israelites. Any violation of any rule or commandment would, at its heart, be a violation of one or both of these overall rules.

On the other hand, from the Christian perspective, these rules also stand to condemn us: Does any of us love God with all of our hearts, and with all of our soul, and with all of our minds? Do we not love other things or people more than we love Him? And even if we mostly do good on this, aren’t there still times when other things take priority over Him? It’s hard to feel self-justified when confronted with two rules such as these.

It’s also important to note the order in which Jesus gives these two “great commandments”: the most important rule to follow is to love God. The second most important rule is to love others. We are sometimes quick to gloss over the first part of this and skip to the second part. And to be sure, there is a lot we can mine from the idea of loving our neighbour as we love ourselves, and a lot of good lessons to learn. But we shouldn’t neglect the fact that Jesus puts loving God as the most important commandment. The “greatest” commandment. Loving God properly is more important than anything else we do; it’s what He created us for. To be sure, it’s not an either/or situation; we don’t have to choose between loving Him and loving others. But our priorities should be set firmly on Him.

Jesus’ question to the Pharisees is an interesting one; from their perspective, the verse quoted from Psalm 110 seems like a paradox. It seems clear from the Scriptures that the Christ will be David’s son, and yet for some reason David calls him “Lord.” Why would David be calling one of his descendants “Lord”? It should be the other way around, with the ancestor being considered greater than the descendant. Knowing what we know now, the verse makes sense to us: Although Jesus is David’s descendant, He is also God—so yes, it definitely makes sense for David to call Him “Lord”! I think Jesus’ point to the Pharisees is that even with all of their learning and studying of the Scriptures, there are still some things they don’t understand.

Matthew 22:23–33

2011-10-06T11:42:00.002-04:00

Matthew 22:23–33 (ESV): Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection

Synopsis

After Jesus’ discussion with the emissaries of the Pharisees in the last passage, he is now approached by a group of Sadducees, a group that denies there’s a resurrection. They ask Jesus a question which, to me, sounds pretty trumped up, but they present it as if it’s a real situation that’s happened: There were seven brothers, one of whom married, but then he died before he’d had any children. According to Old Testament law, when this happens the man’s brother is supposed to marry the widow and any children they have would be counted as if they were children of the first man, so the next brother married her, but he also died before they had any kids. And so on, until the woman has married all seven of the brothers, none of whom produced any children, and then she herself died. So they want to know: at the resurrection, whose wife will the woman actually be? Their point is obviously to try to make the whole concept of resurrection sound silly, but Jesus is having none of it:

But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (verses 29–30 (ESV))

But Jesus continues on from there, and rebukes the Sadducees on their main, underlying belief of there being no resurrection:

“And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (verses 31–32 (ESV))

The crowd, which has been listening to all of this, is astonished at Jesus’ teaching.

Thoughts

This passage takes place the same day as the previous passage, in which Jesus was questioned on paying taxes; he’s certainly having to have a lot of religious/political arguments this day! Not that it’s difficult for him; when you’re perfectly in tune with the Father, it’s easy to see your way through arguments to the heart of the matter. It should be easy for Christians, as well—never as easy as it was for Jesus, but if we’re in tune with the Father, we should have His wisdom, and be able to sift through non-essential matters to get to what’s really important. God’s wisdom isn’t really about being “smart,” it’s about seeing matters as God Himself would see them.

The ESV Study Bible notes give a bit more context about the Sadducees; they apparently only really cling to the books of the Old Testament written by Moses, not so much the later books written by the prophets, which is one reason that they don’t believe in resurrection. This is part of Jesus’ point in saying that they don’t know the Scriptures; they’re only reading the parts they want to read, and then discarding the rest. We have a tendency to do that as well, and it’s a danger we have to be careful of; if we do, we’ll make the same types of doctrinal mistakes that the Sadducees made!

The second part of Jesus’ condemnation of the Sadducees is that they don’t know the power of God. They’re trying to show that the whole idea of resurrection is silly, and they’re doing so by assuming that after the resurrection life will be pretty much the same as it is now. We’ll just sort of pick up and continue on where we left off. If they really knew the power of God, however, they might have assumed that He will resurrect us into a better situation than what we have now. (At least, those of us who belong to Him…)

Matthew 22:15–22

2011-10-05T16:20:00.001-04:00

Matthew 22:15–22 (ESV): Paying Taxes to Caesar

Synopsis

Another fairly short and straightforward passage; rather than summarizing what is already obvious, you can just read it.

Thoughts

There are times when I can almost give the religious leaders of Jesus’ day the benefit of the doubt, and think that maybe, in this instance, they’re really trying to have a discussion, or possibly listening to what Jesus says, even if they do end up ultimately rejecting him. This is obviously not one of those times; the Pharisees are specifically setting out to “entangle [Jesus] in his words” (verse 15 (ESV)), making verse 16 (ESV) even more sleazy, when their emissaries try to butter Jesus up with flattery before asking their question. (Obviously it didn’t work on Jesus. That probably could have gone without saying.)

This is another example where we should keep cultural issues in mind; the Pharisees aren’t engaging Jesus in a religious debate, this is more of a political one. (With some trappings of religion.) They are thinking that no matter what Jesus answers, they can turn it against him:

If he advises the Jews to pay taxes he will lose the support of many of the people, who believe (according to the ESV Study Notes) that paying taxes to their non-Israelite rulers contradicts God’s lordship over His people.
On the other hand, if Jesus says not to pay taxes then he can be accused of treason to the Roman rulers—and undoubtedly the Pharisees would be the first to point out his treason to the Romans.

Obviously Jesus knows what they’re up to, but it’s not important because as is also usual he ignores the surface issues of their question and gets to the heart of the matter: rather than getting embroiled in a political debate with them, he simply tells them to do what is right. Give God what you owe Him; give your government what you owe it; it’s not in this passage, but give your neighbour what you owe her, too.

When some of the Jews of Jesus’ day felt that paying taxes to Rome was contradictory to God’s lordship, how much of that was really religion and how much was that they simply didn’t want to pay taxes? (When the modern-day Tea Party spouts trickle-down economics and talks about the poor pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, how much of that is them wanting to improve their country and how much is that they simply don’t want to pay taxes?) Do the Pharisees really care about Jesus committing treason against Rome? No, they’re just looking for an excuse to get rid of him.

I don’t think it’s the core of Jesus’ point, but a side message of this passage is that taxes aren’t wrong, and it’s not wrong for a government to demand taxes of its citizens. If a government does demand taxes of you, pay them. Give to Caesar what is owed to Caesar.

Matthew 22:1–14

2011-10-04T11:04:00.002-04:00

Matthew 22:1–14 (ESV): The Parable of the Wedding Feast

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus tells another parable, this one about a wedding feast. The salient points in the story:

A king’s son is getting married, so the king gives a wedding feast and invites a bunch of people
He sends his servants to gather the people who are invited, but they refuse to come
He sends another set of servants, but the invitees pay no attention. Worse yet, some of the invited guests actually treat the servants “shamefully” and then kill them (verse 6 (ESV)).
The king is understandably angry at this, and sends his troops to kill the murderous invitees and burn their city
Since the first set of invitees was “not worthy” (verse 8 (ESV)), the king sends his servants out to the main roads, instructing them to simply start inviting anyone they can find, which they do—“both good and bad” (verse 10 (ESV))
Once this is done, the wedding hall is filled with guests
The king arrives at the wedding feast, but when he gets there he sees a man who is not wearing wedding clothes, and asks the man how he got in dressed as he is
The man is speechless (as was I, when I first read this passage)
The king has his servants bind the man and throw him into the “outer darkness,” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (verse 13 (ESV))

The last verse of this passage sums up the message of the parable:

“For many are called, but few are chosen.” (verse 14 (ESV), Jesus speaking)

Thoughts

In some ways the message of this parable, summed up in the last verse, is the easiest part to get. For the rest, there are a number of cultural issues going on, that have to be understood in order to properly understand this parable. Well… to fully understand it. I understood the parable before, but knowing the cultural issues helps me understand it better.

Thanks to the ESV Study Bible (as usual) for pointing out some of these issues:

For guests to refuse an invitation from the king to a wedding feast would be a huge insult. That’s not difficult to understand; you can sort of get the idea if you imagined the President of the United States or the Queen of England inviting you to dinner, and you responding, “No, sorry, I’m busy that day.” (Or the Prime Minister of Canada, although, being Canadian, somehow I don’t think it would be as big of a deal…)

The difference, however, is that in Jesus’ day, if you’d turned down a king like this, it could be hazardous to your health—which explains the king’s actions in having them killed and their city burned.
The idea of a king then deciding to send his servants out into the street extending his invitation to anyone they can find would be unheard of. What king is going to invite the rabble to his son’s wedding feast?

With that in mind, you can see why the Jews would be so reluctant to believe that God was going to start extending His invitation for salvation beyond His chosen people to Gentiles; that would also have been unheard of to Jews.
The part which most confused me, when reading this parable, was about the king throwing out the man who was improperly dressed. It shocked me simply because the king had already extended his invitation out to everyone—to people who hadn’t previous been considered worthy of invitation—so why would the king have then gotten angry at the man’s attire? Some thoughts from the ESV Study Bible:
- The notes indicate that “there is some evidence in the ancient world for a king supplying garments for his guests …” If this is true, then the man would have insulted the king by not wearing the clothes that were provided to him. We can easily see this as an allusion to the pure garments that God metaphorically clothes His righteous children in, when they become saved.
- The other alternative is that when the passage refers to “wedding garments” it simply means clean clothes, rather than a particular outfit (especially one fit for a king’s feast). In this case, the man would have insulted the king by coming without bothering to get clean.
In either case, the point is that even though the person was invited to the king’s feast, that invitation wasn’t good enough. He still had to live up to his end of the bargain, whether by wearing the clothes the king had provided or by cleaning himself off. In either case, we can see these garments as referring to righteousness. You can see how this parable continues on from the lessons Jesus taught in the last passage; being called, and/or calling yourself a Christian, isn’t enough. If you’re not also obeying God, following His commands (as they now pertain to Christians) and doing His good works, then you’re not really a Christian at all.

(Not that I want to push the idea of “cleaning yourself off” too hard; it’s not something we can do on our own, we need the Holy Spirit to do it. However, if we are Christians, He will do it; if He isn’t—if you’re not getting cleaned off—then He isn’t with you, because you’re not saved.)

Which brings us to Jesus’ lesson in this parable: many are called, but few are chosen. The general sense we have in North America (and maybe the West in general?) is one of everyone going to heaven except the really bad people like Hitler or Stalin. That is not the message of the Bible: the Scriptures show very few, relatively speaking, entering God’s kingdom, even though He extends the invitation to everyone.

Matthew 21:23–46

2011-10-03T11:55:00.001-04:00

Matthew 21:23–46 (ESV): Jesus speaks to the religious leaders

Synopsis

For this passage I’m departing from my usual method of going by the ESV headings and lumping a few headings together, since this is all part of one discussion between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders.

In the first passage, verses 23–27 (ESV), Jesus reenters the temple, but this time the chief priests and elders aren’t just going to sit idly by while Jesus starts causing chaos again. They confront him, and ask him by whose authority he’s doing the things he’s doing. But Jesus tells them that he’ll answer their question only if they can answer one of his: where did the baptism of John (the Baptist) come from? From heaven or from men? This puts the religious leaders in a quandary; if they say it came from heaven then Jesus will ask them why they didn’t believe in him, but they’re also afraid of the crowd—who believes that John was a prophet—so they’re afraid to say that his baptism came from men. So they tell Jesus that they don’t know, and likewise he tells them that he won’t tell them where his authority comes from.

But Jesus doesn’t let the conversation rest there, he pushes it further. He gives them a metaphor about a man with two sons: the man tells each to go and work in his vineyard; the first says no, but then ends up going and working there anyway, while the second agrees to go and do the work, but doesn’t. Jesus then asks the religious leaders: which of the sons did the father’s will? They correctly answer that the first son did, and Jesus tells them that this is why the prostitutes and tax collectors are going to enter heaven before they will—John the Baptist came “in the way of righteousness” (verse 32 (ESV)) but the religious leaders didn’t believe him, while the prostitutes and tax collectors did. And then, even when the religious leaders saw this, they still didn’t believe John.

Jesus then takes the conversation even further, with a parable about a man who owns a vineyard and rents it out to tenants (a practice which the ESV Study Bible notes indicate was very common at the time). When the time comes for him to collect from his tenants he sends some servants to do so, but the tenants beat and kill and stone the servants. So the man sends even more servants, and the tenants do the same. So he finally sends his son, thinking that they’ll at least respect him, but instead the tenants decide to kill the son, and take his inheritance, which they do. Jesus then asks the religious leaders, to whom he’s speaking, what they think the landowner will do when he comes himself, and they answer him:

They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” (verse 41 (ESV))

Jesus doesn’t even bother to acknowledge their answer as being right or wrong, he pushes the argument forward:

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

(verse 42 (ESV), quoting Psalm 118:22–23 (ESV))

Jesus continues to say that therefore the kingdom of God will be taken away from the religious leaders and given to “a people producing its fruits” (verse 43 (ESV)), and that anyone falling on the stone will be “broken to pieces,” and anyone the stone falls on will be “crushed” (verse 44 (ESV)).

Of course the religious leaders aren’t stupid, and they realize that Jesus is talking about them, so they would like to arrest him, but the crowds still believe that he is a prophet, so they (the religious leaders) don’t know how to proceed, for fear of the crowds.

Thoughts

For the first section, it’s fairly obvious that the religious leaders don’t believe John’s baptism came from heaven, but they couldn’t say so for fear of the crowd. I guess they assumed the crowd would riot, because other than that they don’t seem to care what the crowd thinks.

But when they ask Jesus where his authority comes from, it’s more than just a test of some kind; they’re looking for a reason to accuse him of blasphemy. If Jesus goes too far over the line into claiming that his powers or his authority come from God, then they will have reason to accuse him of blasphemy—which is quite obviously ironic, in hindsight, since Jesus was the only human who ever lived who could make such claims and not be blaspheming.

The “Parable of the Two Sons” (I’m simply calling it a “metaphor” above, based on the way Jesus is using it in the conversation) nicely illustrates the problem of the religious leaders: They know what to say, but their actions don’t follow. Verbally, the first son in the metaphor disobeys his father while his second son obeys, but in their actions—which is what really matters—the first son doesn’t actually obey, but the second son, despite his words, does. Taken another way, at first glance the first son seemed to be obedient while the second son didn’t—just like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day seemed to be doing God’s will while the prostitutes and tax collectors didn’t—but when it came to actually following through, appearances didn’t matter, it was actions. We can say we follow God all we want, we can say we’re Christians all we want, but if we aren’t living it out then we’re liars and the truth is not in us (see, for example, 1 John 2:1–6 (ESV)).

If there’s anyone who follows this blog regularly then you’ve probably heard over and over again—either explicitly or implicitly—that the Scriptures teach that we’re not saved by our actions. If there was anything we could do ourselves—if we could earn our salvation through our own righteousness—then Jesus wouldn’t have needed to come to the earth and die on our behalf. Salvation is in Christ alone, and the credit is due to Him alone. (See, for example, Ephesians 2:1–10 (ESV).) However, the Scriptures don’t stop there: They also teach that if you are saved, your life will be changed, and you will become more Godly. Not all at once, and it won’t be a straight line—there will be steps forward and steps backward—but over time, your life will become more and more Godly. If there were prostitutes and tax collectors who claimed to believe John’s message but their lives didn’t change, or there was no evidence for it besides their words, they wouldn’t be part of the group that Jesus is praising in this passage. But the ones who did would be directly calling into question the Jewish religious leaders of the day. The ones who studied the law, and should have known how impressive it was for prostitutes and tax collectors—the lowest of the low, when it came to sinners; people had just as big of hangups about prostitutes then as they do now—and yet didn’t believe, despite their advantages in religious study.

For the final parable, when Jesus is talking about the “landowner” sending “servants” who are mistreated, the obvious inference to draw is that he’s alluding to God sending His prophets to Israel over the centuries, and how they were treated by the Israelites. And obviously when he refers to the landowner sending his “son” it’s not much of a tax on the brain to realize that he’s referring to himself. In the context of this parable, however, I find the tenants’ decision to kill the son interesting: How did they expect to receive the son’s inheritance by killing him?!? That’s not how inheritances work! It’s not like the landowner would see that they’d killed his son and then decide to change his will to leave everything to the tenants! But that brings up the same question about the religious leaders of Jesus’ day: Jesus is making the point in this passage that they should have believed in him; they had all the information, they had all of the religious background, they should have seen what was happening in front of their noses. So… what did they expect to gain by killing Jesus? When I look at it from the point of view of them not really understanding that He is who He is, thinking that he was a false prophet, things make a lot of sense; if they did know who He is, then what did they expect to gain by killing him?

This is probably a pretty common piece of knowledge, but just in case it’s not, when Jesus talks about a cornerstone, he’s talking about the core, central stone that’s built into a building’s structure. Wikipedia defines it nicely: “The cornerstone (or foundation stone) concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.” So now look at Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 118 in that light: The “stone” (Jesus) that the “builders” (the Jewish religious leaders) rejected has become the cornerstone—they rejected Jesus, and God made Him the foundation of Christianity, and our relationship with God is built on Jesus and His work. And, needless to say, it is marvelous in our eyes!

Matthew 21:18–22

2011-09-30T11:57:00.001-04:00

Matthew 21:18–22 (ESV): Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus passes by a fig tree, and, being hungry, looks for figs on it, but there is nothing on the tree but leaves. So he curses the tree, saying, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” (verse 19 (ESV)).

The tree immediately withers, and the disciples marvel at it, wondering how it withered so quickly. Jesus’ answer to them is another very familiar passage to most of us:

And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” (verses 21–22 (ESV))

Thoughts

Matthew’s stories are sometimes a bit condensed; other accounts of this story in the Gospels have Jesus and the disciples finding the tree withered the next day, whereas the account in Matthew makes it sound like the withering happens instantly. It doesn’t mean that Matthew’s account is inaccurate; the point is that the tree withered in an unnaturally short period of time, which amazed the disciples. Matthew’s focus is simply on other things, rather than focusing in on the details of how quickly it happened. (A tree withering in one day is “at once.”)

By this point in his ministry Jesus has performed a lot of miracles, so it’s interesting that the disciples “marvel” at this one, where he simply causes a fig tree to wither. I wonder if it’s because this is a curse—something Jesus didn’t do often—and we humans like to see shows of power. Jesus has miraculously healed and fed people, and demonstrated his authority even over demons, but in this instance when he curses something and the curse takes place, it hits home in a unique way because of the way we sometimes view things. I also think of Luke 9:51–56 (ESV), when the Jesus and the disciples face opposition and James and John ask Jesus if he wants them to “tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them”—which, of course, he doesn’t, and you can almost feel the disappointment of James and John.

At the end of this passage Jesus again talks to his disciples about faith, and tells them that whatever they ask in prayer they will receive, if they have faith. That caveat is pretty important. I do not see this passage as promising that we can have anything we desire if we just pray for it—or if we just pray hard enough for it, or if we just believe hard enough that God will do it. “Faith” is not just believing something with all your might. In the Biblical context, faith is inextricably bound up with who God is, and trusting in Him. This verse doesn’t make God into a genie, that will grant us wishes as long as we believe hard enough. It does tell us, however, that if our “faith” is correctly focused we can never go wrong; if I want what God wants, how could I possibly not be satisfied? It’s interesting to also contrast this with 17:14–20.

Matthew 21:12–17

2011-09-28T13:57:00.002-04:00

Matthew 21:12–17 (ESV): Jesus Cleanses the Temple

Synopsis

In the last passage Jesus had been wildly praised and rejoiced over by the crowds on his way into Jerusalem. In this passage Jesus has the city and now enters the temple, where he immediately drives out all who are buying and selling there (the money changers and the ones selling pigeons/animals for sacrifice). And he tells them why:

He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” (verse 13 (ESV))

These are quotes from Isaiah 56:7 (ESV) and Jeremiah 7:11 (ESV).

People then start bringing the blind and the lame to him, still in the temple, and he heals them. And then the children start crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (verse 15 (ESV)). The picture Matthew presents is one almost of chaos, and the chief priests and the scribes don’t much like it. Out of all that’s happening they focus on the children, and ask Jesus if he hears what they’re saying, probably expecting Jesus to correct the children. Instead, however, he reinforces that they’re correct in what they’re saying:

… and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise’?”

(verse 16 (ESV))

After this he leaves Jerusalem and goes to lodge at Bethany (reported in verse 17 (ESV), as any Simpsons fan will know).

Thoughts

One might wonder why there are people buying and selling in the temple in the first place—it sounds crassly commercial even to modern-day ears (and we’re all about crass commercialism)—but I think there was a reason behind it that was at least understandable: Not everyone lived close to the temple, so in order to come to the temple and make the appropriate sacrifices, it wouldn’t have been feasible to bring the appropriate animals with you. So they’d be available for sale closer to the temple. Plus, since people are from many different regions, they wouldn’t all be using the same form of currency, they’d be using currency from wherever they lived, so they would need a way to change their money to the local currency as would be used in Jerusalem, in order to buy the appropriate items for sacrificing. All of this is well and good; I don’t think Jesus would have had an issue with this. However, it’s the profit that people are taking in each of these transactions. “You’ve come from far away? Well then, you’ll need to change your currency to the local currency—and I’ll just take a commission off of that, thankyouverymuch. Now, you need to buy some pigeons for a sacrifice? Well my friend here can sell you some—at a rate that’s not much more than you’d pay elsewhere (depending on your definition of ‘much’).” People are coming to worship God, and are being ripped off and taken advantage of.

We can probably all agree to that. Now here’s an extra credit question: how much profit by these money changers and animal sellers would be too much? Would any profit be acceptable? How does that translate to modern times; how much profit is too much when selling Christian music? (Not just CDs, also sheet music for songs you’ve written for worship.) How about Bibles: how much profit is too much when selling the Word of God? Is it ever right to make a profit off of the Word?

As mentioned above, I get the impression that when the chief priests and scribes point out to Jesus what the children are saying that they’re probably expecting Jesus to correct the children. It is very clear what is being said, when they call Jesus “Son of David”—they’re saying he’s the Messiah. I think the religious leaders are expecting Jesus to tell the children something like, “Now now, I’m just a prophet—don’t confuse me with God, or His Chosen One.” Instead, Jesus reinforces what the children are saying. He’s telling the chief priests and scribes that the children have it right—he is the Son of David!

I always try to put myself in the place of the religious leaders: if Jesus really was a prophet sent by God, then he’d hold God’s Scriptures up very highly. If Jesus were to blaspheme, not only would it be proof that he wasn’t sent by God, it would be just cause to have him stoned to death. If, for example, healing people on the Sabbath had actually been a sin, then when Jesus healed people on the Sabbath it really would have been proof that he wasn’t sent by God. (Maybe not good enough proof on its own—when we look at some of the people God used in the past, they weren’t all perfect—but it would have been at least a piece of evidence.) The Pharisees and chief priests and scribes had it right, in a sense: if Jesus was committing all of these sins—or he committed any sins—then he wasn’t the Son of God, and shouldn’t have been followed. The problem was that their definition of sin didn’t mesh with the way the Scriptures defined sin, and so they thought he was sinning when he actually wasn’t. It is interesting, though, that the religious leaders in this passage try to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt. (At least, from their perspective.) When the children start calling him Son of David, they give him the opportunity to correct the children, which, in their minds, would allow him to avert what they would have considered to be blasphemy. (And, again, for anyone other than Jesus to have taken on that title, it would have been blasphemous.)

Matthew 21:1–11

2011-09-26T13:09:00.001-04:00

Matthew 21:1–11 (ESV): The Triumphal Entry

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus and the disciples are on their way to Jerusalem, and when they get close Jesus sends two of the disciples into a nearby village to get him a donkey and its colt. He tells them that they will see the donkey and its colt as soon as they get to the village, and they are to simply take them—that if anyone questions them on it, they should simply tell them that “the Lord needs them” (verse 3 (ESV)), and the questioner will drop their objections and let the disciples take the animals.

So the two disciples do as Jesus has told them, and when they return with the animals they spread their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. (The passage says that Jesus “sat on them” (verse 7 (ESV)), and based on the context one might think that maybe it means he sat on the two animals, but the ESV Study Bible says that, based on the Greek, the “them” being referred to is the cloaks, not the animals. Even without a working knowledge of Greek, common sense should probably lead us to the same conclusion.)

The crowd takes the disciples’ example, and starts spreading their own cloaks on the road for the animals to walk on, while others do the same with branches from nearby trees. The excitement builds from there:

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” (verses 9–11 (ESV))

Matthew tells us that this is all taking place to fulfill a prophecy given in Zechariah 9:9 (ESV).

Thoughts

We should not think, based on this passage, that all of these people who are rejoicing at Jesus’ arrival are actually his followers. In fact, it’s reasonable to assume that many of these same people will be calling for his crucifixion in a few days—whether because of a change of heart, or because of mob mentality. (In fact, mob mentality probably plays into this scene as well.) Most of those who are giving any thought to this are thinking that Jesus is coming as a political and military leader, who will free the Jews from the Romans; when that turns out not to be the case, they turn on him. With the benefit of hindsight we know that Jesus’ real purpose on this planet was far better than political goals.

However, regardless of the true motives behind this praise and exultation, and regardless of how short-lived it is, it’s also engineered by God. We are told in Luke that even if the people hadn’t cooperated, “the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40 (ESV)). For one brief moment Jesus is being treated as the king he truly is, not because he is tired of serving us—his biggest act of service is still to come—but perhaps as a reminder that he is not just a servant. He is the mighty king, not just of Israel, or the world, but of everything.

And yet… when I read this passage, I don’t usually read it with joy or exultation (though perhaps I should). I read it in more of a melancholy mood, as I contemplate what is about to come. I read it with the realization that the people involved don’t even understand what they’re cheering for—but that if they did, they might cheer all the more. This praise and worship and exultation of Jesus was deserved but short-lived. Hopefully in our Sunday worship services and other events where we corporately worship God we are carrying on this exultation, and doing it with proper motivations in our hearts. We do, after all, have the Holy Spirit, and He will help us to worship God in a way that these people couldn’t have dreamed of.

Matthew 20:29–34

2011-09-20T17:41:00.002-04:00

Matthew 20:29–34 (ESV): Jesus Heals Two Blind Men

Synopsis

Another fairly short—and simple—passage: On his way to Jericho a great crowd is following Jesus, and he passes by two blind men who are sitting by the roadside. When they realize Jesus is passing by they cry out for him to have mercy on them, but the crowd tells them to shut up. They cry out all the more, however, and Jesus asks them what they want. They respond that they want their eyes to be opened, so Jesus takes pity on them and touches their eyes; they immediately receive their site, and follow him.

Thoughts

I don’t know why I did the entire synopsis this time, instead of just advocating that readers follow the link and read the text…

One has to wonder: with such a great crowd following Jesus, how loud did the blind men have to be shouting for the crowd to actually tell them to shut up? (The text says that they told the men to “be silent” (verse 31 (ESV)), but it’s essentially the same thing.) Other than that, there isn’t anything to my eyes that’s remarkable about this particular healing incident which sets it apart from others; Jesus takes pity on two blind men, and heals them.

Matthew 20:20–28

2011-09-19T14:40:00.003-04:00

Matthew 20:20–28 (ESV): A Mother’s Request

Synopsis

In this passage the mother of two of the apostles—James and John—approaches Jesus, and asks him if her two sons can be allowed to sit at his right and his left in his kingdom. He tells her that she doesn’t know what she’s asking, and asks her (I think rhetorically) whether they are able to drink the cup that he is going to drink. They answer Jesus that yes, they are able—and since it says that “they” answer, it means that James and John must have been part of the conversation, it wasn’t just their mother asking this on their behalf, unbeknownst to them. Jesus doesn’t argue this point with them, since it’s true:

He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” (verse 23 (ESV))

Of course the other ten apostles hear about this, and get indignant with James and John. (Probably because they didn’t think of it first, based on Jesus’ response.) But Jesus calls them together, and tells them that even though Gentile rulers lord it over their underlings, and exercise great control, the disciples are not to act like that. Whoever wants to be great should be a servant, and whoever wants to be first should be a slave—just like Jesus came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Thoughts

When Jesus talks about “drinking the cup” that he is going to drink, he’s talking about his fate, or his destiny, as appointed by God. He’s essentially asking James and John if they can follow his fate. When we read this, of course, we immediately think of his death on the cross.

This is another passage that probably just washes right over us, for the most part, because we’ve read it so many times, and it’s now become part of our culture that humility is something to be treasured—under the right circumstances. (We seem to value humility, but we also, contrarily, value forceful leaders.) Perhaps part of our problem, part of the reason this passage doesn’t strike us as maybe it should, is that we tend to forget who Jesus really is—how big, powerful, and awe-inspiring God is. The God who created the universe, and keeps it going in His power. The God who knows all of our thoughts, at all times. The God who can do whatever He pleases, and the idea of trying to stop Him from accomplishing His purposes is… laughable. That God came to earth, as a man, and made himself a servant. Jesus would have been within his right to demand all people everywhere to bow down to him, and he had the power to enforce it if there would have been people who would have refused. Or to simply smite them. Don’t want to bow down to me? Poof, there’s a puff of smoke where once a person was standing. Or maybe a pillar of salt, for more dramatic flair. Jesus is God. But because of His love for us, He came to earth as a servant, and allowed himself the ignominy of death on a cross, in punishment for our sins.

When we consider who Jesus is, and how much He had to lower himself to become our servant, the idea of we ourselves becoming servants for our fellow humans shouldn’t seem like such a big deal. Do I feel it’s a big deal to lower myself to the status of a servant? How much bigger of a deal was it for God Almighty to do so! It’s an insult to Him for me to consider myself too great to be anyone’s servant.

So do you want to be “first”? Then make yourself last. If you want to hear “well done, good and faithful servant” from God, then you have to make yourself a servant—not just to Him (which is difficult enough, since we’re so proud and stiff-necked), but to those around you.

I find it interesting that Jesus tells James and John that they will drink his cup, but that they’re still not going to know their place in the kindgom of heaven. The same could be said of any of us; we know we’re not going to be sitting on the twelve thrones that the apostles will be sitting on, but other than that we don’t know what it’s going to be like in the kingdom of heaven. But it’s not our place to worry about that; we become God’s servants and follow Him, and let Him take care of the details about what the next life will be like.

Matthew 20:17–19

2011-09-19T09:35:00.002-04:00

Matthew 20:17–19 (ESV): Jesus Foretells His Death a Third Time

Synopsis

This is a very short passage, which can be read quicker than giving a synopsis.

Thoughts

I don’t have much to say about this passage, except to note how blunt Jesus is being about his death and resurrection. It’s like the end is coming very soon, so he really wants them to get it. “Look, I’m going to be delivered to the scribes and Pharisees, they’re going to condemn me to death, the Gentiles are going to mock, flog, and crucify me, and on the third day I’m going to rise.” He can’t be more explicit than that.

And interestingly, no reaction is recorded from the disciples. I really wonder how they reacted to this. They were probably hesitant to disagree with him, after Jesus rebuked Peter in 16:21–23, but does that mean they believed Jesus? What did they make of this “rising on the third day” business; did they understand it, or did they think it was metaphorical? It seems so blunt, here, and yet their reaction when he really was delivered over to be crucified indicates that they either didn’t understand after all, or they just plain forgot in the heat of the moment. I’m sort of thinking it was a combination of both; since they didn’t fully understand, they set Jesus’ words aside, but then after the resurrection, when they did start to understand, they started to remember Jesus’ earlier words, which now made more sense. (See, for example, Luke 24:1–12 (ESV).)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We won’t be getting to Jesus’ death and resurrection for a while…

Matthew 20:1–16

2011-09-16T11:34:00.002-04:00

Matthew 20:1–16 (ESV): Laborers in the Vineyard

Synopsis

This passage continues on from the previous one (see below). Jesus tells a parable comparing the kingdom of heaven to a guy who wants to hire labourers for his vineyard. He goes out first thing in the morning (which would be around 6 A.M., if it matters) to hire some, and agrees to pay them a day’s wage (a denarius). He goes out again at 9 A.M. and sees some more labourers there, and hires them to join the first labourers in his vineyard. He goes out yet again at noon, at 3 P.M., and finally at 5 P.M., each time finding more labourers and hiring them to go work in his vineyard.

Then when evening comes he instructs his foreman to pay each labourer his wages, starting with the last ones hired and going up to the first. So he does, and when the people who were hired at the end of the day come forward they’re paid a denarius, which leads the people who were hired at the beginning of the day to expect that they’ll be paid more, since they’ve been there all day, but to their surprise they also receive a denarius.

They don’t take this well, and they start grumbling against the vineyard’s owner; some people had only worked an hour, whereas they worked all day long in the heat of the sun, and yet the ones who were hired last were paid the same wages. The owner, however, defends his actions:

“But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.” (verses 13–16 (ESV))

Thoughts

There’s a very important word at the beginning of this passage: “For.”

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” (verse 1 (ESV))

That means that this passage not only continues on from the previous one, but explains part of it. We should look at it in more context:

… And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. … (verses 19:23–20:1 (ESV))

Why will many who are first become last, and many who are last become first? Because the kingdom of heaven is like a man who hired some labourers to work in his vineyard, and paid them all the same wage regardless of how much work they had done to “earn” it. (I put the word “earn” in quotes for a particular reason, which I’ll get to next.) That’s what the word “for” indicates at the beginning of verse 1. Both of these passages can teach lessons on their own, but only when you read them together will you get Jesus’ full meaning.

Obviously in this passage Jesus is talking about salvation. This is why I put the word “earn” in quotes; in real life, when a labourer agrees on a wage with his boss and then does the agreed upon work the payment of that wage is earned. It’s exactly that: a “wage,” not a “gift.” If the boss didn’t pay the wage he’d be doing something wrong; when the wage is paid, it’s not out of the goodness of the boss’ heart it’s simply what’s owed. But Jesus is using this metaphor to talk about salvation, and that’s when the whole wage concept falls apart: Salvation is not earned, it’s a gift from God. And since we haven’t earned it, but He has simply granted it to us out of the goodness of His own heart, out of His generosity and Grace and love, we don’t exactly have a right to question Him on how He grants it—to us or anyone else.

It’s why the workers in the parable were so perplexed, and it’s why the parable doesn’t make a lot of sense financially speaking—the guy who owned the vineyard would have been smarter to pay the labourers less and less as the day went on:

6 A.M.: a denarius
9 A.M.: 75% of a denarius
Noon: half a denarius
3 P.M.: 25% of a denarius
5 P.M.: 8% of a denarius

And I think that’s why Jesus chose a parable concerning wages to make his point: so that we’d be specifically comparing salvation with wages, and seeing explicitly how they’re not the same. Does it make sense for God to reward people more when He saves them earlier in life, and reward people less when He saves them later in life?

So what if a person comes to Christ at at a young age, spends their whole life living up to His standard as best they can, tries to please Him throughout their whole life, and their neighbour “lives like the devil” his whole life, repenting on his deathbed and coming to Christ a second before he dies… do they both get the same salvation? Enter the same kingdom of heaven? Yes. Is this fair? No—but not for the reasons you might be thinking. It’s not “fair” that either of them are granted salvation. Neither of them earned it; they both deserve to go to Hell. That’s what everyone deserves. But God, in His mercy, sent his Son to die on their behalf, so that even though they earned Hell they are given salvation as a gift. As it says in Romans:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 (ESV), emphasis added)

Is it somehow “more fair” for the person who lived a good life their whole life to be saved than for the “live like the devil” guy? Actually… no. Even the person who lived a good life their whole life only did so as a result of God’s Grace, and through His strength, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. That person still hasn’t “earned” anything; it is all a gift from God. Not just the initial salvation, as outlined in Ephesians 2:1–10 (ESV), but all of the good works done after that are also a result of His work.

In fact, this passage offers a great ray of hope for people who are not saved, regardless of the life they’ve lived and how long they’ve been living it: There’s still hope. As long as they’re still able to make a decision, they could make the right one and choose to accept the gift God is offering them. We never know when Jesus might ask them (quoting verses 6–7 (ESV)), “’Why do you stand here idle all day?”, and have them answer, “Because no one has hired us”—but now we’re ready to do your “work.”

Further Thoughts on Matthew 19:16–30

2011-09-15T09:43:00.001-04:00

After the long diatribe in the post for Matthew 19:16–30 my fingers were too sore to type a post for the next passage. (That’s not true at all, I just didn’t have time over the last couple of days to do a post, but it was fun to say.) Instead, I’ll elongate the diatribe, by mentioning a point I’d kept meaning to mention while I was writing the last post and kept forgetting.

I mentioned a couple of times that one of the reasons wealth is such a hindrance to becoming a Christian (and a hindrance for the Christian to live a godly life) is that we value our wealth more than we value God. But I neglected to mention another reason that wealth hinders (or prevents) our relationship with God: we place too much trust in it. When we’re wealthy we start to lose sight of the fact that we need God; that we depend on Him. We get used to the fact that we can use our wealth to get anything we want, buy ourselves out of any situation, or fix any problem. Do I want something? I’ll buy it. Do I have legal problems? I’ll get a lawyer to get me out of it. We lose any concept of being dependent on God, or, perhaps worse yet (because it’s more insidious), we get an idea that we need God for “big things,” but we can take care of the “little things” ourselves. The more wealthy we are, the more our wealth can do for us, the less we feel we need Him for.

It’s easy to think of the ultra-rich when I give a description like that but it’s all a matter of degree, isn’t it? I think everyone in the “first world” suffers from this, at least to some extent. We may not feel we can buy ourselves out of any situation, but neither are too many of us in danger of starving on a day-to-day basis. We don’t feel utterly dependent on God for our next morsel of food just in order to stay alive. If I were to lose my job today, and not get another one, I’d be okay for quite a while before I’d start to get so desperate that I’d feel I’d need to depend on God just for food to stay alive. As Christians we all know that we’re dependent on Him—that even what we have was given to us by Him—but there is still a deep-rooted part of us, I’m convinced of it, that believes we’re self reliant. There’s a part of me that believes I’ll go home and have dinner tonight because I worked “hard” and earned the money that I used to buy my own food. Oh, and thanks, God, for giving me the talents You gave me that I used to earn my own money to buy my own food that is now mine. (And my wife’s. She can have some too.)

On a related point, much as we claim to believe that everything we have really belongs to Him, I think on a deeper level we really believe that what we have is ours. That when we give our tithes and our offerings on Sunday, or when we give to the poor, that we’re not distributing God’s own money as He wishes, but we’re giving to Him, out of our own generosity.

I think this is why people who are “spoiled” throw tantrums over things that seem so trivial to everyone else. When you can get anything you want, any time you want, it suddenly becomes a big deal if there’s something, anything, you can’t have. It’s hard to process; “What do you mean I can’t have it? I can have anything!” And again, it’s a question of degree. The more you have, the more you’re able to do whatever you want whenever you want, the more strange it will seem to you when there’s something you can’t have. For example, I grew up in an area (and in a time) when there weren’t any 24/7 stores around. If you wanted to buy a snack, you’d do it Monday–Saturday, 9–5, and you’d keep it at home until you needed/wanted it. If you felt like a snack in the “off hours” and didn’t have anything in the house, you’d make a mental note to get something the next time you could. It wasn’t a problem, it’s just the way it was. Now I live in Toronto, and there are stores everywhere that are open 24/7, so I’m used to the idea that at any time of the day or night if I get a craving for something I can go somewhere and get it. However, if I get up and drive to a store and they don’t have the particular thing I had a craving for, I’m in danger of getting annoyed, or even angry. “They don’t have plain Ruffles chips?!? What the f***?!? What kind of lousy management does this store have that they don’t keep plain Ruffles chips in stock??? I am never coming here again! Do you realize that I now have to get in my car and drive another 5 minutes to find another store that has Ruffles?” I’m not saying I immediately go psycho like that, but I am in danger of being annoyed, and it’s because I’ve convinced myself that I can have that thing any time I want; it throws me off when I can’t. I don’t think it’s very Godly to be annoyed because a store doesn’t have the particular snack I have a craving for; there is absolutely no concept in my mind, at that moment, that everything I have comes from God, and that He perhaps doesn’t want me to have a bag of chips right at the moment—or that He simply wants me to drive 5 minutes further along to the next store.

We have an idea in our society that “God helps those who help themselves.” This is so commonly believed that I’m sure many Christians think it comes from the Bible, yet not only is it not from the Bible, is is not really a Christian attitude at all—in fact, it’s the reverse of what the Bible teaches us. We are to be dependent on God. Not when we “have” to, but always, for all things. It is not a failing to do so, it is recognition of the fact that He is in control of everything, big and small. We were created to worship Him, and part of that is recognizing how He delights to care for us, in big things and in small things. The more we try to depend on ourselves, instead of depending on Him, the more it harms our relationship with him.

And the more wealthy we are, the more danger we are in of doing exactly this: trusting in ourselves (and our money) instead of trusting Him.

Matthew 19:16–30

2011-09-12T13:39:00.001-04:00

Matthew 19:16–30 (ESV): The Rich Young Man

Synopsis

In this passage a man approaches Jesus to ask him what “good deed” he must do to have eternal life. Jesus answers with a list of commandments the man must follow:

And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (verses 17–19 (ESV))

But the man isn’t phased by this list of commandments; he tells Jesus that he has kept all of these commands, and asks Jesus what he still lacks. Jesus’ response is pretty familiar to most of us:

Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (verses 21–22 (ESV))

At this point Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them that a rich person can only enter the kingdom of heaven with difficulty. Which is an understatement, because he then then pushes the point even further by saying, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (verse 24 (ESV)). This astonishes the disciples, who wonder who, then, can possibly be saved, if it’s so difficult for a rich person to be saved. He tells them that with man this is impossible, but that all things are possible with God.

Peter then reminds Jesus that the disciples have left everything to follow him, and asks him, “What then will we have?” (verse 27 (ESV)). To me this sounds like Peter trying to curry Jesus’ favour, but Jesus’ response is very heartening:

Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (verses 28–30 (ESV))

Thoughts

The first interesting thing I note about this passage is that the man’s question to Jesus is what “good deed” he must perform in order to have eternal life. Knowing what I know now, if I were reading this passage for the first time I’d expect Jesus to say to him something like, “There is nothing you can do—God demands perfection, and you can’t attain it as a human. Instead, you should simply trust me!” But Jesus seems to go along with the man for a minute, listing out some commandments for the man to follow. Of course Jesus knows what the man’s response is going to be, and this exchange is as much for our benefit as it is for his; he wants the man (and us) to realize that no matter how good, how perfect, we think we are there are still areas of our lives that simply do not live up to God’s standards. In the man’s case it’s his wealth, which he doesn’t feel he can give up—even in exchange for eternal life—while in our cases it might be something different. (Although, in North America, wealth is often going to be a pretty good bet.)

In a sense, though, Jesus does start out with something akin to what I was thinking: “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.” True enough! There is only one who is good—God Himself. Why is the young man thinking about what he has to do, when he should be thinking about whom he should trust? But don’t we all do that? If it weren’t for the intervention of the Holy Spirit, none of us would get past that notion, and none of us would be saved. Thanks be to God!

Interestingly enough, I once had a Jehovah’s Witness try to use this verse about who is “good” as proof that Jesus isn’t God. (Just in case you’re not familiar, one of the beliefs of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is that Jesus is an angel, not God.) When Jesus says, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.” this man was taking that as proof that Jesus is saying that only God is good, whereas he (Jesus) is not good—just like the rest of us. From a Christian standpoint, if this were the case—if Jesus weren’t “good,” the way that God is good—then His death would not have been enough to pay for our sins because He’d have his own sin to pay for, and the human situation would be hopeless; we wouldn’t be able to have a relationship with God because He is too holy, and our sin wouldn’t allow us to be near Him. Jesus had to be sinlessly perfect in order to be an acceptable substitute for us. Perhaps Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus was “sinlessly perfect,” but not “good”—but then I’d have trouble understanding what is meant by the word “good” in this case, as it would have to be something better than sinlessly perfect.

Christians see this verse as a mini presentation of the Gospel: “Why do you ask about what is good?”—if you’re concentrating on what you have to do, then you’re missing the point of the Gospel; “there is only one who is good”—and therefore you need to trust Him in order to be saved.

When the man tells Jesus that he has kept all of these commands, we could probably argue him on the point. Does he really, truly, love his neighbour as he loves himself, for example? To the level that God requires? Probably not, but that’s not Jesus’ point. I think he’s purposely giving the man a list that the man will think he does keep, because the point is what the man asks next: What does he still lack? Even though he sees himself as keeping the commandments, he knows that something is still missing. He knows that there is something deeper that’s not right; he doesn’t know what it is, but he can sense that his relationship with God isn’t yet perfect. As I say, Jesus could have quibbled with the man about whether he really keeps those commandments as well as he thinks he does, but Jesus was more interested in getting to the heart of the matter: Okay, this man feels he’s obeying the commandments, but does he actually have a heart for God, a relationship with God? Does he really value God above anything else? No, the man doesn’t keep the commandments perfectly (even if he thinks he does), nobody does, and that’s why we need to trust in Jesus. The man’s problem is that he values his wealth more than he values God; he’s not going to get into a deeper relationship with God if there is a danger that God is going to require him to give up that wealth!

When Jesus tells his disciples how difficult it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven they are astonished at his teaching; I wonder if we lose sight of how astonishing this teaching really was. After 2,000+ years we’re used to the idea, having had this message from Jesus preached countless times over the millennia. At the time—I think even more so than today—it would have been accepted teaching that people who were rich were so because God had blessed them. Therefore, since He had blessed them so much, it would be natural to assume that they would already be in His good books, and on the inside track for heaven. In fact, it’s probably pretty safe to say that there wouldn’t be much distinction between “blessing” and “reward” (I don’t know that even modern-day Christians would all be able to explain the difference), so people might very well have assumed that rich people were probably very good, and that their riches were a reward from God for their having pleased Him. But then Jesus floors his disciples by telling them that it’s actually harder for a rich person to get into heaven, not easier. And the reason? Well, it’s the same reason this rich young man went away sad: wealth often has an unhealthy hold on us, especially when we already have it and don’t want to give it up. There are definitely those who are not wealthy who are obsessed with becoming wealthy, but as a rule those who have it are much more obsessed with not wanting to lose it. It’s why you’ll find that, as a rule, wealthy churches have less giving than poor churches; as a rule, wealthy people are less generous with their money than poor people; as a rule, wealthy people are less likely to support social assistance programs (preferring instead that people would “pull themselves up by their boot straps”). I know these are all generalizations (that’s why I keep saying “as a rule”), and there will always be exceptions, but I think the exceptions are just that: exceptions.

But it’s not just fear of losing what you have; it’s also where your priorities lay. Which is more important to you—which has a more prominent place in your heart—God, or your possessions? If you’re rich, you will have to be on your guard that your wealth doesn’t get in the way of your relationship with God, and it will make it more difficult for you to have a relationship with Him than if you weren’t rich.

Which brings us to the famous “camel through the eye of a needle” verse:

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (verse 24 (ESV), Jesus speaking)

There is a sort of… I guess “legend,” about this verse, which started around the year 1000 A.D. when some preacher (I have no idea what his name was) gave a sermon, and said that when Jesus said “the eye of a needle,” he was actually referring to a gate in the Jerusalem city wall, called the Needle Gate, which was apparently fairly short, so in order to get a camel through it the camel would have to duck down very low. So according to this legend Jesus wasn’t literally saying that it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven, he was saying that it’s harder for a camel to go through “the Needle Gate” than for a rich person to get into heaven. He (the preacher) then pushed the metaphor a bit further, talking about how we can’t come to God until we get on our knees in humility before Him, similar to how the camel would have to duck down to go through the gate.

As I say, this story is very popular so you may have heard it before, but it’s hogwash. There was no “Needle Gate” in the Jerusalem city wall, and Jesus was really, literally, saying that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into heaven. There are a couple of reasons why this story doesn’t even make sense:

In order for this story to be true, we have to assume that the people who built the wall were so stupid that they didn’t even know to build a gate that was tall enough for a camel to go through. We love thinking that we’re smart and people in ancient times were stupid, but this is just too dumb for words. It’s like someone today building an overpass over a highway and making it tall enough for cars to drive under but not trucks.
If Jesus were simply talking about some gate that camels had to kneel down to go through—if his point was that you have to be humble and kneel to come before God—the disciples’ reaction would make no sense. Look at their reaction in the text:

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” (verses 24–25 (ESV))
That reaction makes sense, to me; Jesus is telling them something that’s essentially impossible, and their reaction matches it. Now imagine that this story about the Needle Gate was correct, and try to match the disciples’ reaction to it:

“Again I tell you, in order to be saved you have to get on your knees. Like how a camel has to sort of duck to get through this gate.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”
Does that reaction make any sense?

Essentially this story tries to minimize Jesus’ point. “It’s difficult for a rich person to enter heaven, but not that difficult.” But Jesus is saying that it’s nearly impossible for a rich person to enter heaven.

“But wait,” someone might say, “isn’t it impossible for anyone to get into heaven? Isn’t that why Grace is required? So don’t rich people rely on the same Grace from God that the rest of us need to get into His presence? If something is already ‘impossible,’ then does it really matter in this situation if it’s somehow ‘more impossible’? And even Jesus himself says, in this passage, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” Ah, well played! It is impossible for anyone to get into heaven on their own—the death of Jesus is required, and the Grace of God is required for us to accept the gift He bestows on us. However, let’s not forget that Jesus is saying something in this passage. (That might seem like an obvious sentence, but in this day and age I don’t think it is.) However hard or even impossible it is for anyone to enter the kingdom of heaven, it’s even harder for a rich person to do so—and based on Jesus’ camel through the eye of a needle metaphor, it’s much harder. We try so hard to make it so that it’s not bad to be rich, or to yearn for riches, and we try so hard to minimize what this passage is actually saying, that we’re in danger of ending up with an interpretation where Jesus doesn’t actually say anything. “When Jesus says that it’s harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, he’s not actually saying that it’s harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Er… then what is he saying, when he says that it’s harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven?!?

I think the reason we react against this passage—the reason why the silly “needle gate” story is so attractive to us—is that we want to be rich. We all want to be rich. I don’t know if it’s even just a North American thing (although I suspect it’s worse here); this might be a universal thing. I know that, personally, when I first read this passage, my thoughts were something along the lines of, “Well, he said it’s really, really hard, but he didn’t say it can’t be done! So you can be rich and still get into the kingdom of heaven.” And it’s true, a rich person can enter the kingdom of heaven. But consider how wrongheaded that approach is: I really want to be rich, so I want to make sure that I can do so and still be a Christian. Perhaps the better way of looking at it would be: Why would I set my heart on anything that would make it more difficult to be a Christian?!? Why would I want anything that would make it harder to have a relationship with God? Why would I want anything that would make it difficult for me to even “get in” in the first place? (And remember, Jesus is saying that it’s harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven—he’s not just talking about our daily struggles, and saying that it will be harder for a saved rich person to live a life pleasing to God, he’s talking about how impossible it is for a rich person to even be saved in the first place.)

Many, many commentators will be quick to point out, when talking about a passage like this, that it doesn’t mean that being rich is sinful. That riches, in and of themselves, aren’t bad, it’s what you do with them—or what you let them do to you—that’s bad. Which is, technically, correct. We immediately start thinking of Old Testament examples of kings who were very wealthy, and how that wealth was blessed to them by God. But my question is this: so what? Okay, so being rich isn’t, in and of itself, sinful. What does that mean for us, practically speaking? Does it mean that we should then ignore everything Jesus warns us about being rich, and chase after it? This passage essentially boils down to Jesus telling us that it’s harder to become a Christian if you’re rich than if you’re not; is our reaction then to say that we’re going to strive after riches anyway, and take our chances? Does that seem rational? Or does it seem like we value something else above God—just like the man in this passage did? There is no being in the universe who knows better what it takes to accomplish salvation, and He is saying to us that it’s vastly more difficult to save a rich person than someone who is not rich; why would we ignore that, and chase after it anyway? Put another way: why is wealth so frigging enticing to us? Because to be clear, I’m not railing against wealth in and of itself, I’m railing against our deep, burning desire to be wealthy, or to hold on to wealth we already have. Why do we want it so badly that we try to explain away passages when Jesus warns us against it?

At the end of the passage Peter takes this to its logical conclusion: if it’s so dangerous to be wealthy, does that mean that God will reward those who give up riches? (He doesn’t use the word “reward,” but it seems to me that that’s essentially what he’s asking Jesus.) And Jesus does indicate to Peter that those who give up riches—along with family, land, etc.—will be rewarded in the next life. I think we have to be somewhat careful, though, not to fall into legalism either. We don’t want to start to think that we can start to earn God’s favour by giving up worldly possessions and living an ascetic life. We shouldn’t be chasing after wealth, but I don’t see an indication in the Scriptures that we should be living as monks either. Unless we have a reason to; if we decide to give it all up and become missionaries in a country or location where we won’t have any wealth of our own, maybe. The point is that we should not let our wealth—or our desire for wealth—own us. Whatever we have is not ours in the first place, it’s God’s, and we should be willing to do with it what He wants us to. That might mean giving some of it away to help others. It might mean giving it all away to help others. Giving it away to try to earn your way into His favour will not work because nothing we do can earn our way into His favour; if anything could, Jesus wouldn’t have been required to die on the cross. But if you are truly His child, if you are truly following Him, then if He tells you to give some or all of it up, for His purposes (whatever they may be), then you will do it willingly and joyfully, because you want to make Him happy more than you want to keep what you have.

Matthew 19:13–15

2011-09-08T11:37:00.001-04:00

Matthew 19:13–15 (ESV): Let the Children Come to Me

Synopsis

In this passage children are brought to Jesus for him to lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples try to rebuke the people, but Jesus tells them to let the children come, for “to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (verse 14 (ESV)). He then lays his hands on them, and goes on his way.

Thoughts

I don’t have too much to say about this passage; children are another example of a group of people who wouldn’t be given too much respect in Jesus’ day (or ours), along with women, so it’s not surprising that the disciples would not want Jesus “bothered” by them (my word, not a quote). Jesus has already told the disciples that they are to be like children, in 18:1–6, but apparently they thought he was just being metaphorical and that they could dismiss actual children.

A couple of useful points from the ESV Study Bible notes:

Laying hands is “[a] traditional manner of blessing children in Israel, especially when passing on a blessing from one generation to the next (cf. Gen. 48:14 (ESV); Num. 27:18 (ESV)).”
On children, and expanding the discussion from 18:1–6: “Children serve as a metaphor of the humility necessary for entrance into the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 19:1–12

2011-09-07T10:01:00.003-04:00

Matthew 19:1–12 (ESV): Teaching About Divorce

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus goes to a particular place where he is once again followed by a large crowd, whom he starts healing. The Pharisees then come to test him by asking him if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife “for any cause” (verse 3 (ESV)). Jesus’ answer goes to the heart of the matter (if you’ll pardon the pun):

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (verses 4–6 (ESV))

I think the Pharisees believe they now have Jesus trapped. In verse 7 (ESV) they ask him what I assume is a gotcha question: If that’s the case, then why did Moses “command” one to give a certificate of divorce and “send her away”? (You can almost hear them saying “Aha!”) Jesus tells them that Moses “allowed” divorce because of humans’ hardness of heart, but it was not like that “from the beginning.” He then takes it even farther:

“And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (verse 9 (ESV))

The disciples don’t seem to have been expecting this answer from him, for they respond that in this case it would be better not to marry at all. His answer to them is interesting:

But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” (verses 11–12 (ESV))

See below for thoughts on this last statement.

Thoughts

It’s interesting that the Pharisees would use this particular point of law with which to test Jesus, since there was disagreement even amongst themselves as to if and when divorce was permissible. The ESV Study Bible has a useful note on this point:

There was a significant debate between Pharisaical parties on the correct interpretation of Moses’ divorce regulations (Deut. 24:1 (ESV)), as noted in this excerpt from the Mishnah, Gittin 9.10: “The school of Shammai says: A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her. … And the school of Hillel says: [He may divorce her] even if she spoiled a dish for him. … Rabbi Akiba says, [he may divorce her] even if he found another fairer than she” (see Mishnah, Gittin 9 for an example of a Jewish certificate of divorce and the terms required for remarriage; see also Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 4.253 for the phrase “whatsoever cause”).

So it wouldn’t exactly have been a slam-dunk for them to catch Jesus out in something they disagreed with, since they already disagreed with each other! However, based on the disciples’ shocked reaction to Jesus’ position on divorce, it seems that the prevailing opinion was more toward the idea that a man could divorce his wife very easily, for little cause. When he says that it is not intended that a man should ever divorce his wife, although it is permissible in the case of infidelity, they seem to feel the risk is not worth it—it’s better not to marry at all than to take the chance of being stuck in a lifelong, bad marriage. Perhaps our cultures aren’t so dissimilar in some respects after all; indeed, this seems to be the flip side to the prevailing sentiment in North America in the 21^st Century: marriages don’t last anyway, but it’s okay because if your marriage goes sour you can simply get a divorce and get out of it.

When Jesus takes a hard line on divorce, it seems to me (as stated above) that the Pharisees think they have him: Moses allowed divorce, and Jesus is saying people shouldn’t divorce, so therefore Jesus doesn’t understand the Law, and must not be from God. (And there is a definite logic to that: If Jesus didn’t understand the Law they would be right—he wouldn’t be from God!) He shows, however, that not only does he understand the Law, he also understands what’s underneath the Law, and what is really important vs. what is not. This comes out even in the wording of their questions and his answers; they say “why did Moses command one to get a certificate of divorce,” and Jesus says “Moses allowed divorce.” There’s no command to get a divorce, it’s something that God allows in dire circumstances (i.e. infidelity), because He knows how difficult it is for humans to deal with that kind of betrayal. If your spouse commits adultery and you’re not able to deal with it, then you’re permitted to get a divorce. (The implication being that if you can deal with it, it’s better if you can actually stay in the marriage.) The Pharisees and teachers of the Law have twisted this allowance, for dire circumstances, to be a general thing, allowing divorce much more permissibly, and Jesus is pointing out to them that this is not how God views marriage; in God’s eyes, when two people marry, they become one flesh, and should not be separated.

As an aside, I also find it interesting the way Jesus phrases this: “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives” (verse 8 (ESV), emphasis added). Why is Jesus using the second person here? I don’t think he is referring specifically to the Pharisees, I think he’s talking generally about humanity, because this law was handed down in the time of Moses long before these Pharisees were born. But in this instance he’s not identifying himself with the rest of humanity. I suppose it’s because this really, truly doesn’t apply to Jesus. He can’t say, “because of our hardness of heart,” because Jesus has no sin, so obviously his heart wouldn’t be hard.

The ESV Study Bible notes also point out that this verse about hardness of heart doesn’t indicate that Jesus means only hard-hearted people would ever get a divorce, but rather that it is the hard-hearted rebellion against God that causes the defilement of marriage in the first place. In fact, although it seems clear that it would be better to stay married even in the case of infidelity, I would never take a hard line on that with someone who had been cheated on. If I knew someone who had been cheated on, and they were going to get divorced for that reason, you would not catch me advising that maybe they might want to stay together; I would definitely support them if they wanted to stay together, but I’d understand them not wanting to stay together. Infidelity is so serious that it is the one reason God will permit “one flesh” to be broken apart; He understands how devastating adultery is.

In fact, He understands it very well: considering that marriage is a picture of the relationship between the Church and God, and considering how often He uses adultery as a metaphor when the Old Testament Israelites set Him aside for other gods, it shouldn’t be surprising at all that He understands very well what humans go through when they’ve been cheated on.

When Jesus says “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given,” the ESV Study Bible says that by “this saying” he is probably referring to the disciples’ statement that “it is better not to marry”—in which case his statement makes a lot more sense to me. He is, in fact, correcting them: Only for some particular segments of the population—people who are eunuchs or who have chosen celibacy—is this statement true. Celibacy is a valid alternative to marriage and fidelity, but Jesus indicates that for the majority of people marriage is the right way to go.

Matthew 18:21–35

2011-09-06T11:29:00.001-04:00

Matthew 18:21–35 (ESV): The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

Synopsis

In the last passage Jesus talked about how to handle the situation when a fellow believer sins against you. In this passage, and I assume in response to Jesus’ words, Peter asks him: “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (verse 21 (ESV)). Jesus’ response? Not seven times, but seventy times seven. (The footnote indicates that this could also be translated “seventy seven times,” but the actual number isn’t important, since it’s clear that Jesus is not being literal; he’s essentially saying that when we’re forgiving someone who is sinning against us we shouldn’t be counting the number of times we forgive them.)

He then tells a parable to make the point. He says that “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to” a king who is settling his accounts, and comes across a servant who owes him “ten thousand talents,” which, according to the footnote, would equate to about 200,000 days’ wages for a labourer. (For those who aren’t good at math, assuming that a labourer were working every single day of his life, that would equate to over 500 years’ worth of wages—not including leap years and that type of thing.) The person is not able to pay, so the king orders him to be sold—along with his wife, children, and possessions—to repay the debt. But the servant falls on his knees and begs the king for patience, saying that he’ll repay the debt. The king has pity on him, releases him, and even cancels the debt altogether.

Then, when the servant leaves the king’s presence, he comes across a fellow servant, who owes him a hundred denarii (which is about a hundred days’ wages). The first servant seizes the second servant by the throat and demands payment, and the second servant begs for patience so that he can repay the debt, but the first servant refuses and has the second servant thrown into jail until he is able to pay the debt.

This makes it back to the king:

“Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.” (verses 32–34 (ESV), Jesus speaking)

Jesus sums up by saying:

“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (verse 35 (ESV))

Thoughts

As usual I’m relying on the ESV Study Bible for background material, and they mention that according to Jewish traditions at the time forgiving someone three times was sufficient to show a forgiving spirit. They further mention that these traditions would have been based on passages such as these from the Old Testament:

“Behold, God does all these things,
twice, three times, with a man,
to bring back his soul from the pit,
that he may be lighted with the light of life.”
(Job 33:29–30 (ESV), Elihu speaking)

and

Thus says the LORD:
  “For three transgressions of Damascus,
    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
  because they have threshed Gilead
    with threshing sledges of iron. …”
Amos 1:3 (ESV)

and

Thus says the LORD:
  “For three transgressions of Israel,
    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
  because they sell the righteous for silver,
    and the needy for a pair of sandals …”
Amos 2:6 (ESV)

Therefore, the ESV Study Bible points out, when Peter suggested forgiving his brother seven times, he probably thought this was very forgiving indeed—more than double what would have been considered at the time to be very Godly and forgiving!

However, what Jesus wants us to see in this passage is how much we ourselves have been forgiven by God, and use that as the basis for how forgiving we should be to others. Notice the types of numbers that are being used here; the first servant had a debt to the king that could never possibly be repaid. Over 500 years’ worth of wages required to pay it back? The number is astronomical; there’s no way that a servant would ever be able to pay it back. So the king, out of the goodness of his own heart, forgives the debt. The second servant still owes a large amount, it’s not negligible, but it’s nothing compared to the number that was forgiven of the first servant.

The parallel to the gospel is obvious. We are sinners and God is holy—it would be impossible to ever pay for our sins to His satisfaction, to allow us into His presence. So He “forgave” that “debt”—except that He isn’t just holy, He is also just, so that sin had to be paid for somehow. So His Son, Jesus, takes the punishment that we deserve, our “debt” is paid, and we are allowed into his presence. Something we could never have accomplished on our own, just like the first servant would never have been able to pay back his debt of ten thousand talents to the king.

The application is equally obvious. When we consider all that God has forgiven from us, through no deservedness of our own, forgiving others shouldn’t seem like a big deal. Considering the amounts of money involved, it seems so over-the-top petty for the first servant to be forgiven over 500 years’ worth of wages and not forgive 100 days’ worth of wages, and similarly it should seem petty to us to have been forgiven an entire lifetime’s worth of sin by God, and then not forgive a fellow Christian who sins against us. In fact, verse 35 says that the Heavenly Father will not forgive us if we don’t forgive others from the heart—forgiveness is such an essential aspect of a changed heart that if we are not forgiving it is a sign that we’re not saved at all. If someone claims to be a Christian, yet refuses to forgive, then that person needs to examine their heart and determine if they really are saved or just fooling themselves. Serious stuff!

Does this mean that any time a Christian fails to forgive another Christian it’s proof that they’re going to Hell? No, I don’t think so. We’re still fallen sinners, and we still fail to live up to our calling on a regular basis. But if someone consistently fails to forgive others, it’s not a good sign. It may be that the person hasn’t actually come to grips with how much has been forgiven of them by God—and it may be that the person hasn’t come to grips with that because they haven’t been forgiven at all.

Matthew 18:15–20

2011-09-02T12:01:00.000-04:00

Matthew 18:15–20 (ESV): If Your Brother Sins Against You

Synopsis

This passage continues on with Jesus talking about sin, but he changes the focus now: What if your “brother” (meaning another believer not just your actual biological brother—and not necessarily even male) sins against you? What should you do? Yes, of course, you should forgive him—we all know that—but that’s not Jesus’ focus in this passage, he actually has some very practical advice. (Not that forgiveness is somehow impractical, but modern-day Christians, myself included, have a habit of putting the word “practical” in front of things that we can do, and somehow implying that things we don’t physically do—like when we are to pray and wait for God to act—are somehow not “practical.” Anyway…)

We should go to the person, privately, and tell them their “fault.” If s/he listens, then great! Or, as Jesus says,

“If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” (verse 15b (ESV))
If they don’t listen—i.e. if they refuse to repent, or maybe they are continuing in the sin, whatever it is—then take one or two others with you and talk to the person again. Jesus adds, “… that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (verse 16 (ESV)), which is an allusion to Deuteronomy 19:15 (ESV)—which shows that even though we’re not under Old Testament laws (especially the civil laws handed down to the nation of Israel), many of the principles still apply. If we get to the next step of the process—if the brother or sister being corrected still refuses to listen—this should not become a simple personal disagreement between two people.
If they still don’t listen, then take it to the church. Jesus doesn’t specifically outline how one is to do this, but by the context it seems that the entire church should somehow be involved in telling this person that what they are doing (or what they have done) is wrong, and needs to be repented of.
And finally, if the person still doesn’t listen, they are to be to the church “as a Gentile and a tax collector”—that is, they are to be like an unbeliever, which is to say that it is not to be assumed that they really are a Christian.

Jesus then finishes the passage by telling us why the church has this kind of authority:

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (verses 18–20 (ESV))

Thoughts

The actual text of the passage keeps using the masculine; if your brother sins go talk to him and if he doesn’t repent bring others to talk to him, etc. etc. I’m using gender-neutral wording, not because I’m trying to be politically correct but because I don’t want people getting the impression that this passage only applies to men. (Let’s be honest, there are a lot of strange ideas about gender in the 21^st Century Church.) But it really reads so much easier if we just use the masculine and be done with it…

Let’s go through Jesus’ advice, piece by piece.

First of all, our first action should be to talk to the person directly, one-on-one, and try to sort the matter out privately. Remember, Jesus started out the passage saying “If your brother sins against you,” (verse 15 (ESV), emphasis added)—if at all possible, we should try to fix things privately. This isn’t about getting holier-than-thou, it’s not about making yourself look good in front of others (or making your brother or sister look bad), it’s not about our seemingly endless hunger for gossip. It’s about “winning your brother.” It’s about genuinely caring about the spiritual well being of this brother or sister in Christ, and wanting to help. If we always approached things this way, I’m sure people wouldn’t mind being corrected as much as they do. (They still wouldn’t like it, but it wouldn’t be as bad.)

The next stage in the progression, if the person doesn’t listen, is to bring one or two others with you and try again. Again, we’re trying to keep this as private as possible—we’re not bringing in the whole church (yet)—we’re just trying to get this person to see the error of his or her ways. The ESV Study Bible points out (and it makes sense to me) that the “witnesses” mentioned here are not witnesses to the sin that was (or is being) committed, but witnesses to this confrontation; if things still progress, and the next phase has to occur, it is better to go to the church with these two or three people who can all say together, “we talked to the person, and s/he wouldn’t listen, and refused to repent” or whatever the situation is. Deuteronomy is talking about witnesses in a legal case; according to Old Testament law, the testimony of one witness is not enough evidence to convict someone of a crime, and similarly, if we need to bring things before the church, the testimony of one person is not to be enough for the church to kick that person out. Jesus doesn’t want us to get into situations where one person can decide to get another person kicked out of the church; there has to be evidence. It is, of course, still possible for two or three people to concoct a story to get someone kicked out of a church—we’re fallen people, and even Christians are not above this—but this isn’t meant to be foolproof; it’s a simple guard against one person arbitrarily trying to start calling the shots. In any case, if we are to get to the next step in the progression, the church has to show care, compassion, and fairness, but also take God’s Word seriously; we have to try and ensure that innocent people are not punished, and that guilty people are—or, to put it another way, we are to value justice. (“Justice” in the proper sense of the word, not meaning “vengeance”—we are to be just, as God is just.)

The next stage is to bring the matter before the church. (I keep saying “church,” not “Church” with a capital C, because this is a matter for the local church to handle—it’s not like all believers everywhere are going to weigh in when your brother or sister sins against you.) As mentioned above, Jesus doesn’t say how this is to happen, but somehow the church is to try and get across to this person that sin is being committed, and needs to be repented of. (By the time it gets to this level it seems like an ongoing sin that’s happening, not a one time thing that happened and needs to be repented of.)

Finally, if the person won’t listen to the church, they are to be treated like a non-Christian, which would usually involve removing them from church membership, having them no longer have any kind of leadership role they might have had, and whatever other disciplinary action might be in the local church’s constitution (assuming it has one). In our post-modern society, this might seem harsh—not the part about removing them from church membership, but the part about assuming that they’re not Christians. “Surely people make mistakes,” we think. “Who are we to judge?” But Jesus’ answer would be that yes, people do make mistakes, but if you are truly saved, you will repent of your mistakes. Again, that’s the whole point of this progression: not to put on our executioner’s hats and look down our noses at someone, but to lovingly bring someone to repentance. After all, if sin is being committed, it is damaging that person’s relationship with God, and that needs to be fixed. But if that person doesn’t repent—not after confronted about it, still not after being confronted again by a few people, still not even after having the entire local church tell them that what they’re doing is wrong—then this is no longer a case of “people make mistakes;” this is serious grounds for assuming that this person is not saved at all, because they’re showing evidence to the contrary. Of course the hope is always that the person will repent, and come back.

The last part of the passage, quoted above, takes care of the second part of the hypothetical question I just asked, the “who are we to judge?” part. In short, the answer is that we are the Church of Christ. We are believers, endowed with the Holy Spirit. What we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Jesus takes the words he’d said to Peter in Chapter 16 and expands it to include the entire Church—God has extended His authority to us. We have His Holy Spirit, and are to be attentive to His justice here on earth. To ask “who are we to judge?” is not to be wise, seemingly leaving it up to God to decide—it is, instead, simply being cowardly and shirking our duties as Christians. It may be that we’re sometimes reluctant to get involved in a situation like this because we don’t know our Bibles well enough, and don’t feel competent to judge a matter such as this—but there’s an obvious fix for that problem, too.

Matthew 18:10–14

2011-08-31T13:59:00.002-04:00

Matthew 18:10–14 (ESV): The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Synopsis

This passage continues on with the point Jesus began in the last two passages, and gets back to the point about children (or “little ones”) again: we should not “despise” one of the little ones, because “in heaven their angels always see the face” of God the Father.

Jesus then expands on this thought by telling the parable of the lost sheep: If a man had a hundred sheep and lost one, he’d leave the 99 sheep behind and go searching for the one that was lost, and upon finding it would rejoice over that lost and re-found sheep more than over the 99 who were never lost in the first place. He then concludes:

“So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (verse 14 (ESV))

Thoughts

Frankly, I miss part of the point of this passage simply because I don’t know enough about angels. (Perhaps nobody does; it’s not like the Bible says a lot about them.) Jesus starts off the passage in verse 10 (ESV) by saying:

“"See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

What, exactly, does this mean? If we were to take it very literally, it would mean that when we “despise” children we should be worried about the fact that those children’s angels are able to tell God on us—although I’m wondering why that matters so much, when God Himself knows all that is happening; it’s not like our “despising” of His children happens without His notice, and then when the angels tell Him He gets mad. Not that I’m fully discounting this idea either, however; prayer is a mystery to us—why do we need to pray when God already knows what we need and what we want?—but it’s also quite clear in the Scriptures that it’s something that we can and should do; perhaps there is an importance to the fact that these angels are going to God on the children’s behalf.

Of course, I skipped over an even deeper point: These children have angels. I have no idea how this works. Does each person get assigned an angel? Does an angel have multiple people to look after, sort of like a case worker? What do the angels do for these children? Is it safe to assume that an angel continues to help a person throughout that person’s life? Does this apply only to children of God, or to all children? Jesus doesn’t give any details on this. The ESV Study Bible notes say this on verse 10:

The heavenly Father uses angels to care for his childlike disciples (cf. Heb. 1:14 (ESV)), but their angels does not imply that each disciple has one assigned “guardian angel.” always see the face of my Father. These angels do, however, have continuous and open communication with God.

It’s an interesting verse, to say the least.

Worse than not understanding the parts about angels, I confess to not even understanding how the parable of the lost sheep fits in with Jesus’ point about God loving the “little ones.” And in fact am starting to wonder if Jesus is using the phrase “little one” as a metaphor for someone who doesn’t yet know God, or is on the beginning path to knowing Him. To quote the ESV Study Bible again, they seem to be thinking something along these lines:

little ones should perish. A dangerous yet real possibility is that apparent followers of Jesus may not be true disciples at all but only professing believers (e.g., Judas Iscariot).

If this is the case—if “little ones” is referring to some level of believer who is in danger of losing his or her faith—then the parable makes a lot more sense.

It is at this point that I feel I should probably delete much of what I have written, and rewrite my “thoughts” with this as my base premise. However, I’ll leave the thought process intact…

Matthew 18:7–9

2011-08-30T08:43:00.002-04:00

Matthew 18:7–9 (ESV): Temptations to Sin

Synopsis

It turns out I probably should have included this passage along with the previous passage, since it continues on with the same thought. Funnily enough, it starts with this verse:

“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” (verse 7 (ESV); Jesus speaking)

The reason that’s funny is that I was looking for this verse when I posted the last passage. In trying to find it I was looking for the alternate versions of the last passage in the other Gospels, assuming that this line was in one of them. I didn’t even think to look at the very next verse in Matthew…

Since I’ve already quoted a third of the passage, I’ll quote the rest as my “synopsis:”

“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.” (verses 8–9 (ESV))

Thoughts

As mentioned, the first verse in this passage continues the thought with the previous passage: Yes, it’s true, there are going to be temptations in life—but you don’t want to be the one that caused those temptations!

The second part that I quoted is a very famous passage. (At least to Christians; I don’t know if non-Christians are familiar with this one or not.) Jesus now turns things around: Rather than warning us from causing others to sin, he now warns us to eliminate the things that cause us to sin.

The only “debate” I’ve ever heard about this passage is whether Jesus is being literal or not: does he really mean to gouge out your eye if it causes you to sin, or to cut off your hand or your foot? Or is this hyperbole? It’s probably hyperbole, although I have to admit, the logic holds even in a literal sense: It really would be better to “enter life” and not have a hand or a foot or an eye than to be thrown into hell—however, that depends on a temptation to sin that you could actually get rid of by getting rid of your hand or your foot or your eye. I don’t think that’s likely; I don’t think there’s a sin that you could encounter that you could pluck your eye(s) out, and suddenly you wouldn’t be tempted by it anymore. If there was… well, what would you value more? Your eye(s), or your righteousness? (I’ve never been tempted to cut off any body part in order to eliminate sin, so don’t read this and think that I’m walking around with a cleaver just in case I need to start doing some trimming. As I say, the theoretical situation in which this might actually eliminate a sin is pretty unlikely, in my mind.)

Whether it’s taken literally or not, however, there is an extension to this verse: if Jesus is saying that you’d be better off cutting off a part of your body than letting that part tempt you to sin then we have to ask ourselves: what else do we have in our lives that it might be better to “cut off” rather than be tempted to sin? Are there friends in your life that are always leading you to sin? Is there a place you go regularly, or a show you watch, or a website you go to that tends to lead you to sin? Wouldn’t it be better to cut those activities out of your life, rather than constantly deal with those temptations? Whether you think Jesus is being literal or not in this passage—and I’m sure most people don’t, and I wouldn’t argue with them—he is saying something. We can’t assume that Jesus was simply talking for the sake of talking; there are definitely “things” in our lives that will cause us to sin that we should eliminate. Ask yourself: If Jesus isn’t literally talking about cutting off hands or feet or plucking out eyes, then what is he talking about? Then examine your life and see if any cutting needs to be done. If you’re a human, and haven’t died and gone into His presence yet, then the answer is probably yes…

Matthew 18:1–6

2011-08-29T08:44:00.002-04:00

Matthew 18:1–6 (ESV): Who is the Greatest?

Synopsis

This passage begins with the disciples coming to Jesus to ask him who the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is. As usual, Jesus’ answer probably surprises them: he calls over a child and has him stand in the midst of the disciples, and tells them that they can’t even enter the kingdom of heaven unless they become as humble as a child.

Jesus then takes a bit of a tangent, and tells the disciples that anyone who receives “one such child” in his name receives him (verse 5 (ESV)). More than this, but we should be careful never to cause any child who believes in Jesus to sin—if we do, it would be better to have a millstone fastened around our necks and be drowned in the sea. (A “millstone” is a large stone which was used for grinding grain; the point is that it’s very big and heavy. This would be comparable to us talking about giving someone “cement shoes” and throwing them into water.) Jesus doesn’t say better than what; the implication is that it would be better than dealing with his wrath.

Thoughts

The first thing to notice about this passage is that Jesus doesn’t actually answer the disciples’ question. They ask who is the greatest, and instead he tells them that they can’t even get into heaven unless they humble themselves like a child. He doesn’t proceed to tell them that the more like a child they are the greater they will be, or talk at all about being “more” or “less” great—he simply tells them that they have to be humble in order to get into heaven at all.

Why is humility so important? Why do we have to be humble in order to get into heaven? Because we can’t do it on our own! There is nothing I can do to earn my way into heaven; there is nothing I can do for God that will make entrance into the kingdom of heaven my “right”. I have to rely on the work He has done, on my behalf. I have to admit (to myself and to Him) that I don’t deserve what He has done for me—and ask Him for it anyway. That takes humility. Not to mention the fact that I also have to compare myself with my God; to measure myself up against Him. If anything will make me humble, that will!

I don’t think Jesus’ tangent is specifically about causing children to sin; since he’s just said that we all have to be humble like children in order to get into the kingdom of heaven, I think he’s talking about causing any believer to sin. It would be better to be drowned in the sea than to cause a Christian to sin. Not that we can cause anyone—adult or child—to sin, they choose to sin on their own; but if the temptation to do so comes from us, woe be to us, because God will not be happy with us.

Matthew 17:24–27

2011-08-23T08:56:00.002-04:00

Matthew 17:24–27 (ESV): The Temple Tax

Synopsis

In this passage some tax collectors—the collectors of the “two drachma tax”—come up to Peter and ask him, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” (verse 24 (ESV)). Peter tells them that yes Jesus does pay the tax, and then comes into the house where Jesus is, but before Peter can even say anything, Jesus broaches the subject himself: “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” (verse 25 (ESV)). Peter answers that it’s from others, and Jesus responds that therefore the sons are free from it. But then Jesus says that Peter should pay the tax, so as “not to give offense to them,” and tells him to go and cast a fishing hook into the sea and take the first fish he catches which will have a shekel in its mouth. Peter is then to give that shekel to the tax collectors, to pay for both Jesus’ tax and his own.

Thoughts

I’m not sure why the tax collectors approach Peter in the way that they do; “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” Are they trying to trap Peter (and by extension Jesus) by getting him to say that Jesus won’t pay the tax, and try to get him arrested on tax evasion? Or was there some reason they were assuming he wouldn’t pay? The way the question is worded, it sounds like more than just “we’re here for the money, can we have it?”

I’ve never really been sure whether this passage says anything about Peter. When he answers the tax collectors that yes, Jesus does pay the tax, was it because he was afraid of them, or was he simply answering the question with the obvious truth about the situation? Because Jesus was definitely not against paying taxes, as this passage and 22:15–22 (ESV) indicate. (I wonder if my American readers will get annoyed with that statement…) It may be that I’m overthinking things because of other situations involving Peter, but at the same time, there is something strange (to my eyes) having to do with Peter in this passage. This is one instance where I wish the ESV Study Bible had some insight, but they’re silent on the issue. (Which is always the way with study Bibles, I find; any time there’s a topic I want information about, it’s something they don’t happen to mention. I must be atypical in terms of the type of information I look for…)

Actually, speaking of Americans (or any other people who don’t like taxes), I guess I should say something about the comment that “sons are free” from paying taxes; we can’t take this as a statement by Jesus that taxes are bad, or that people (or Christians, if that’s how you want to interpret “sons”) are free from paying taxes. One main reason we can’t take that stance is the aforementioned text at Matthew 22:15–22 (ESV) (the “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” passage). Jesus isn’t against taxes. What he is saying is that he—Jesus Christ—is God, the ruler of all the universe; it all belongs to him. What applies to us doesn’t really apply to him.

In this case, Matthew’s account doesn’t even bother to tell us the ending of the story, with Peter catching the fish and paying the tax. Not even a simple “… and it happened just as he said,” or something similar. It’s just assumed that things happened the way Jesus said they would.

Matthew 17:22–23

2011-08-22T12:31:00.002-04:00

Matthew 17:22–23 (ESV): Jesus Again Foretells Death, Resurrection

Synopsis

This passage is very short and to the point: Jesus once again tells his disciples that he is going to be delivered into the “hands of men,” who will kill him, and he will then raise on the third day. When the disciples hear this, they are greatly distressed.

Thoughts

The disciples often didn’t understand Jesus when he started to talk about his death and resurrection, so it’s no surprise that he had to sometimes get very blunt with them. I’m guessing that at this point—in fact, probably right up until the “end,” until they saw him resurrected—they were still expecting a political saviour, who would smite the Romans and become the new Jewish king. The idea of him dying didn’t fit in with that at all. But the passage doesn’t tell us anything about what the disciples thought, other than that they were distressed.

Part of my thinking, in assuming that they didn’t “get” what Jesus was saying to them, is based on their reaction when he gets arrested later on. If they’d truly understood this message from Jesus, blunt as it is, then they should not have been surprised at all at his arrest or even his crucifixion. And they especially shouldn’t have been surprised when he rose on the third day. It was all exactly as he had predicted, but it still seemed to take them by surprise.

Passages like this make me wonder: what passages of the Bible are we missing? What teachings of Jesus—whether in the Gospels, the rest of the New Testament, or the Old Testament—are we not seeing, even though they’re clearly expressed? Is this something that doesn’t happen to modern-day Christians, since we have the Holy Spirit, or are there still parts of Scripture that are clearly there for us to see, but we miss them anyway? In this passage Jesus clearly told the disciples:

I’m going to be captured
The people who capture me are going to kill me
After three days I’ll rise again

He couldn’t have been more clear, and yet when each of those three things happened the disciples were so surprised it was as if Jesus had never said anything to them at all. So again I wonder: are there things that God has said to us in the Scriptures—things He has said to me—that we simply miss, or don’t understand? (If I had examples I’d give them, but this is the type of thing where if I had examples, it would no longer be the case…) When we get to heaven, what teachings will we suddenly understand, and then wonder, “How did I not understand this before?!? It’s so clear!”

All I can suggest is that we pray for understanding when reading the Word, and pray that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes when they need to be opened.

Matthew 17:14–20 (and 21?)

2011-08-19T13:42:00.002-04:00

Matthew 17:14–20 (ESV): Jesus Heals a Boy with a Demon

Synopsis

In this passage a man comes to Jesus because he has an epileptic son, and he wants Jesus to heal the boy. The problem is that the man brought the boy to Jesus’ disciples, and they weren’t able to heal him. Jesus’ answer surprised me, when I first read it:

And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” (verse 17 (ESV))

He then rebukes the demon which immediately comes out of the boy, who is healed instantly. When the disciples ask Jesus why they weren’t able to cast out the demon, he makes clear the reason for his earlier outburst:

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (verse 20 (ESV))

The ESV footnote says that in some manuscripts this is followed by a verse 21, which says:

But this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting.

Although you’ll notice that if you search Bible Gateway for Matthew 17:21 (ESV) you won’t get any results, so obviously the ESV editors didn’t consider the manuscripts which include verse 21 to be reliable enough for inclusion.

Thoughts

The first thing I find interesting about this passage is that the man comes to Jesus with a complaint that his son is an epileptic (verse 15 (ESV)), but then the passage goes on to talk about Jesus casting out a demon, and the fact that his disciples were unable to cast the demon out. So which is it? Demon possession, or epilepsy? Or was it epilepsy that was blamed on demon possession—and, if so, how many other “demon possessions” in the Gospels were really epilepsy? Some were obviously demons, since they talked to Jesus, but were there others, perhaps, that weren’t demons?

It gets even more interesting when you compare this verse to other translations, for example the NIV:

“Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.” (verse 15 (NIV))

Comparing it to other versions I see that the most common translation is to use the word “epileptic” (e.g. ESV, GNT, NKJV), some use seizures (e.g. NIV, GW), some say that the boy is “a lunatic” (e.g. NASB, KJV).

I consider this a purely theoretical question, since either way the result is the same: Jesus healed the boy, whether he was healing him of demon possession, epilepsy (or lunacy!), or all of the above.

All of that for what is not even the point of the passage: Why couldn’t the disciples heal the boy? Jesus lambastes them in this passage; “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” These are his disciples he’s talking about. And let’s be clear: Jesus isn’t telling his disciples that they have lots of faith but just not quite enough for this particular case; later in the passage he goes on to say that if the disciples have faith as small as a mustard seed they could tell a mountain to move itself and it would—in other words, they have no faith. Or rather, when they tried to heal the boy, they had no faith that the healing would work.

But maybe we should stop to talk about the word “faith.” Reading this passage in isolation might make “faith” sound like something you have to muster up; like the force in the Star Wars movies. People read this passage as if Jesus is saying to the disciples, “if you can build up enough ‘faith’ you can do anything you set your mind to do.” But what is “faith”? I’ll give a definition here that will probably not go nearly far enough for some people, but I’ll give it anyway: Faith is believing that God can and will do what He said he would do. It’s believing that He is who He said He is. It’s trusting Him to do what is right. The word “faith” has no meaning on its own, in isolation—you have to have faith in something. It combines the concepts of believing (but what do you believe?) and trust (but who or what are you trusting?).

When Jesus said that the disciples that they couldn’t heal the boy because of their “little faith,” he means that they didn’t actually, truly, trust God to heal the boy. They might have had some faith; they probably approached the boy with confidence that he’d soon be healed. I don’t know how the situation went down from there; maybe God didn’t heal the boy as quickly as they’d expected, or maybe they simply tried to do it on their own, instead of trusting in God. In any event, when the boy didn’t get healed they obviously gave up. “Oh well,” they thought, “I guess this one can’t be healed!” This isn’t a case of God choosing not to heal the boy—which does sometimes happen; it’s not always in His will to heal everyone who asks for healing—this is a case of the disciples not having faith that it could be done.

We should also not get too carried away by the part about telling a mountain to go and move itself if we have enough faith; again, we’re tempted to think of “faith” in this instance as if it’s magic. If you screw yourself up hard enough to believe that it will happen, then you can make it happen. But faith, in the Bible, is always in the context of faith in God. Do you truly believe that God wants to move that mountain? Is it consistent with who He reveals Himself to be in the Scriptures? Has He said that He would do it? We’re talking about faith here; the disciples couldn’t have healed that boy, but God could have. I can’t move that mountain, but God can—if it’s in His will. (To me, however, it doesn’t seem like it’s in line with His character, as revealed in the Bible; I, for one, will never ask Him to do it. I’m too busy asking Him to help me with every other aspect of my life…)

Matthew 17:1–13

2011-08-18T08:53:00.002-04:00

Matthew 17:1–13 (ESV): The Transfiguration

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus takes three of his disciples—Peter, James, and John—up onto a high mountain, where he is “transfigured” before them. That is, they were able to see him in his glory, not just as a human man, as they’d been used to seeing him. Then, while he was transfigured, Moses and Elijah appeared with him, and talked to him.

The disciples don’t even know what to say; Peter offers to set up three tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. (It doesn’t say so in Matthew, but in the parallel passage in Mark 9:2–8 (ESV) it’s made clear that Peter was terrified.) But even while Peter is still speaking a voice comes from above, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (verse 5 (ESV)).

This is too much for the disciples who fall down on their faces in terror, but Jesus comes and touches them and tells them to have no fear and to get up. When they do, he’s alone, and looking like a human again.

They go back down the mountain, and Jesus commands them not to tell anyone what they’ve seen until he is raised from the dead. The disciples then ask Jesus a religious question: why do the scribes say that Elijah has to come first? Jesus answers that Elijah did come, but they didn’t recognize him and “did to him whatever they pleased”—and that he will also certainly suffer (verse 12 (ESV)). The disciples understand that when Jesus said Elijah already came he was talking about John the Baptist.

Thoughts

This is an interesting passage partially because of how extraordinary it is. Jesus is transfigured into his Godly appearance, Moses and Elijah appear (the ESV Study Bible points out that Moses and Elijah would have represented the law and the prophets, respectively), and once again Jesus commands his disciples not to tell anyone what they’ve seen.

When Peter offers to set up three tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, he wasn’t just saying any random thing that came to his mind (as I’d always thought he was), he was offering to make some kind of a memorial for the occasion. At least that’s what the good ol’ ESV Study Bible says; I assume there’s some Jewish tradition behind this.

In this passage Jesus again mentions his resurrection from the dead, but this time the disciples don’t question him on it. They do, however, go off on a tangent, asking about Elijah; I wonder if they’re trying to change the subject. They prove by their actions later on that they still don’t understand that Jesus has to die and be raised from the dead, but Peter was rebuked pretty harshly when he tried to argue against Jesus on this, so I wonder if the disciples still doubt the idea of Jesus dying (let alone being raised from the dead), and are instead just trying to avoid the topic.

Matthew 16:24–28

2011-08-17T10:01:00.002-04:00

Matthew 16:24–28 (ESV): Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

Synopsis

In the last passage Jesus rebuked Peter because Peter didn’t believe Jesus’ claim that he was going to die. In this passage he takes it further; not only was Jesus going to die, but all of his followers have to die, too.

He says the following:

Verse 24 (ESV): Anyone who wants to follow him must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow him. In other words, follow him to the cross.
Verse 25 (ESV): Paradoxically, he says that anyone who would save his life will actually lose it, whereas anyone who loses his life for Jesus’ sake will find it. (At least, it seems paradoxical.)
Verse 26 (ESV): All of this is because a person’s soul is more important than anything else; what good would it do a person to “gain the whole world” and lose their soul, or what could you possibly give in return for it?
Verse 27 (ESV): And that’s important because Jesus is going to come back (with the angels, in the glory of the Father), and repay each person according to what they have done.

After this—and maybe a bit unconnected from the progression above, although it highlights the urgency of what he is saying—Jesus says that some who are standing with him will not taste death until they see him coming in his kingdom.

Thoughts

This passage builds logically verse by verse; if you go back and read the passage again in its entirety, notice the word “for” in front of most verses. It might be easier to understand if you substitute the word “because”:

Anyone who would follow Jesus has to take up his cross and follow him …
… because anyone who would save his life would lose it, and anyone who would lose his life will gain it …
… because the soul is more important than anything else …
… because the Son of Man is coming back to judge us for what we’ve done, and all we’ll have at that point is our soul

I’m sure this has been said many times before, and it’s somewhat obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: the cross was an implementation of execution in Jesus’ day. When Jesus says “take up your cross and follow me” it’s analogous to someone saying “take up your electric chair and follow me,” or “take up your hanging noose and follow me.” In Jesus’ time the person being executed was made to carry their own cross to the place where they’d be nailed to it, thus the “take up” part; we lose this part of the metaphor a little bit, in modern times, because we don’t do the same—a person being electrocuted doesn’t carry the electric chair anywhere, or a person being hung wouldn’t carry the noose to the gallows. But we get the essential point: Jesus was on his way to be executed, and his followers—all of them—are to follow in his footsteps and go be executed as well.

I’m sure many people tend to think of this in terms of martyrdom; you have to be willing to die for Jesus. In my day I’ve heard many people phrase it that you have to be “willing to take up your cross and follow Jesus”—but Jesus doesn’t say to be “willing” to take up your cross, he says that anyone who would come after him must take up their cross and follow him. I see this playing out in a few ways:

The most obvious way is in a general way: when we become Christians we kill the old, human nature in us, and are resurrected into new life with Him. We have to be willing to let that old nature die—and, since that sinful nature is inextricable from the rest of our soul, we have to be willing to die. This is what we celebrate/signify when we are baptised; our sinful nature dying and being buried (under the water), and the new creation in Christ being raised up (out of the water).
- Not that this is an argument that baptism has to be full submersion to be a valid Christian baptism; that’s not an argument I want to get into. However you do it, it’s a symbol—we aren’t saved through baptism, baptism signifies a salvation that has already happened.
In a more specific way, there is the day-to-day death of sin that must occur in us. Even after we have been saved, unfortunately that old sinful nature is still there, tempting us with the allure of sin. It’s as good as dead, once we are saved—we know that it will one day be gone (although not this side of Paradise)—which is why we can celebrate its death with our baptisms, but unfortunately it still hangs on and causes us problems. (Paul gives an eloquent description of this in Romans 7:7–25 (ESV).) This is what I think of when Jesus says that we have to “deny” ourselves, although I guess this could also apply to the larger sense of letting ourselves die.
Finally, I don’t want to fully discount the notion of martyrdom being part of this. Some people will be called to die for their faith, and because they count their lives as nothing compared to what God has given them they are willing to do so. This is the most extreme case of the first point, and although not all Christians will be called to martyrdom—in fact most won’t—it’s not invalid to say that we have to be “willing” to literally die for God in this way. We just can’t claim that this is the only meaning behind Jesus’ words, because the text won’t allow that—it says that we all have to take up our cross and follow him. People who are martyred will die twice for Jesus: their sinful natures will die, and then they will literally give their life.

For verse 25 (ESV) (“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”), this sounds paradoxical (and I even called it such above), but in fact Jesus is using the word “life” in two different ways, with two different meanings: there is our human, earthly, sinful lives, and there is true Life that comes from the Holy Spirit. (I’m just capitalizing “Life” in this instance to make a point, it’s not usually capitalized like that.) If we are willing to give up our human, earthly, sinful life for Jesus’ sake, then we’ll be granted true Life with God; if we are not willing to give up our human, earthly, sinful life, than we will not be granted Life—we will “lose” out on the opportunity to have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10 (ESV)).

I don’t know that I even need to say anything about our soul being more important than anything else. I think the point is an obvious one, although we sometimes might forget it in the moment, when we’re in the mode of building our acquisitions. Even if we were to gain “the whole world” (an obvious exaggeration), it still wouldn’t be worth giving up our souls for. Of course, most of us who give up our souls do it for much, much less. If we think of it in terms of eternity, even assuming we live to be 200, and have all the riches and wealth and power that we can possibly get, we still have to die eventually, and then we have eternity ahead of us. The fact that we used to be rich and powerful when we were alive won’t mean so much then.

None of this might seem important if we don’t believe in an afterlife, or in the judgement of God. However, Jesus tells us explicitly that he’s going to come back and “repay” us for our actions. This should fill us with fear; the only reason it doesn’t fill the Christian with fear is that Jesus has already been repaid for our actions. When he “repays” me, he’ll actually be repaying me for his own actions, because I will be judged as if Christ’s righteousness was my own. Doesn’t that blow your mind? He’s coming back to repay us for our actions, but will end up repaying me for his own actions. God is good!

The last verse, in which Jesus states that some who are with him will not taste death before they see him come back in his kingdom, has a few interpretations. According to the ESV Study Bible notes, some of those possible interpretations are:

Jesus is referring to his transfiguration (coming up in the next passage, which might lend some weight to this interpretation)
Jesus is referring to his resurrection
Jesus is referring to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost
Jesus is referring to the spread of the kingdom through the preaching of the word in the early church
Jesus is referring to the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 (to me this seems like a stretch—the ESV Study Bible notes for Matthew seem obsessed with the destruction of the temple, as they keep referring to it over and over—but I’m not a biblical scholar)
Jesus is referring to the actual second coming and final establishment of the kingdom

The note goes on to say that the last option probably isn’t the right one, because it would imply that Jesus was mistaken about the time of his return. (i.e. that he actually thought he was coming back within the next decade or two.) However, I think they’re missing an option, which to my mind actually points to the last interpretation: Perhaps Jesus was referring to the vision(s) that John would see when he wrote the book of Revelation, and was actually given a glimpse of Jesus’ second coming. Again I’m not a biblical scholar, so maybe there’s some reason this couldn’t be it, but… it’s how I’ve interpreted this passage for a long time. (It wasn’t until reading the note that it even occurred to me that Jesus might have been talking about the transfiguration, which comes next; when he talks about his second coming, I just naturally think of Revelation.)

Matthew 16:21–23

2011-08-16T11:32:00.000-04:00

Matthew 16:21–23 (ESV): Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

Synopsis

The ESV heading for this passage is “Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection,” but it could just as well be “Jesus Rebukes Peter,” because I’m sure that’s how most people think of this passage. (After all, that’s how I think of it, so surely everyone else does too…)

The passage starts off with Jesus explaining to his disciples all that has to happen; that he will suffer at the hands of the religious leaders, and be killed, but then be raised on the third day. This doesn’t sit well with Peter, however, to takes Jesus aside and tries to tell Jesus that this will never happen. (Verse 22 (ESV) says that Peter was actually trying to “rebuke” Jesus.) Jesus’ response to Peter is pretty well known:

But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (verse 23 (ESV))

Thoughts

It’s interesting to me that Peter would even try to correct Jesus in the first place. In fact not just correct him, but rebuke him. But I’ve always seen this as Peter trying to demonstrate his loyalty to, and faith in, Jesus. I imagine Peter was still riding pretty high from the immensely good words received from Jesus in the last passage about how blessed Peter was, and maybe saw this as another opportunity to garner some more good words from his teacher.

The thing which really stands out in this passage, though, is obviously Jesus’ “Get behind me Satan!” response to Peter in verse 23 (ESV). And of course Jesus is right, Peter does have his mind on the things of man, rather than the things of God; dying is what Jesus came to Earth for. For Peter to tell Jesus that he would not die in this way shows a profound lack of understanding by Peter on Jesus’ role. (Not that I necessarily blame Peter; I can’t claim that I would have understood things any better. It’s only in retrospect that things seem so clear.)

But I wonder if there is also an aspect of Jesus being fully man and fully God. As much as Jesus never sinned, he was a human, and I think the human part of him was sometimes at odds with his godly nature. (At least, as much as it could be without crossing the line into sin!) I think, for example, of the prayer in Gethsemane when he prayed “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (See Matthew 26:36–46 (ESV).) Jesus came to us for one main reason, to die on the cross and be punished for our sins on our behalf, but that doesn’t mean that he, as a man, was always happy about it. I need to be careful how I phrase this, because I don’t think there’s any respect in which Jesus was going to the cross against his will, but it seems that there was also, from time to time, an attitude sort of along the lines of “if only there were another way.” (The fact that there wasn’t another way—that the only way for us to have a relationship with God was for the Son to take our punishment on our behalf—shows us again how serious the problem of sin really is.)

It may be that this is why Jesus’ response to Peter is so harsh in this instance. Is it possible that it was tempting for Jesus the human to not do what he came here to do? I don’t mean “tempting” in the sense of actually crossing over the line into sin; I just mean that a temptation was placed in front of Jesus, which he had to resist.

Matthew 16:13–20

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Matthew 16:13–20 (ESV): Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ

Synopsis

This passage starts off with Jesus asking his disciples who people say that he is. They respond by listing some of the ideas that people have about him: John the Baptist; Elijah; Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He then follows up with another question: so who do the disciples think that Jesus is? Peter answers, and his response is famous (in Christian circles):

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (verse 16 (ESV))

Jesus is very pleased by Peter’s answer, and tells him so:

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (verses 17–19 (ESV))

The passage ends with Jesus commanding the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Christ.

Thoughts

This is a very interesting passage, and (in my mind at least) inextricably linked with the next passage in verses 21–23 (ESV) when Jesus rebukes Peter. Jesus starts in a roundabout way, by asking the disciples what others think of him before asking them what they think of him, showing the contrast between the confused opinions of the masses and the… slightly less confused opinions of the disciples.

I guess I should point out, for those who haven’t read this over and over again, that the word “Christ” means “Messiah” or “Anointed One.” (I’m not a biblical scholar, and don’t know ancient Greek, but I think we could also use the word “saviour.”) The disciples didn’t fully understand Jesus’ role—like most other people of their day they probably expected a political saviour; someone who would save the Jews from the Romans and become their new king, like King David—but they did understand that he was the one prophesied in the Old Testament. And they did understand that he is the ‘Son of the living God” (verse 16 (ESV)), so they know that he’s more than just a human man.

We should note that Jesus isn’t, strictly speaking, praising Peter for his response, so much as he’s joyously calling out the fact that God the Father has revealed this truth to him. Notice that he doesn’t say “good work, Peter!” he tells Peter that he’s blessed. God has given this knowledge to Peter, for which Jesus is rejoicing.

Now… I never really read much into this, until reading the ESV Study Bible notes, but apparently verse 18 (ESV) is “one of the most controversial and debated passages in all of Scripture.” Let’s look at it again:

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

The reason for the controversy is the difference in interpretation between Catholics and Protestants; Catholics say that this verse indicates that Peter was the first pope. Protestants, of course, don’t believe in popes, so obviously they would disagree with that assertion. I don’t have the learning or the knowledge to argue for or against this position; however, the ESV Study Bible notes do point out some interesting facts:

… Protestants generally have thought that it refers to Peter in his role of confessing Jesus as the Messiah, and that the other disciples would share in that role as they made a similar confession (see Eph. 2:20 (ESV), where the church is built on all the apostles; cf. Rev. 21:14 (ESV)). Jesus’ statement did not mean that Peter would have greater authority than the other apostles (indeed, Paul corrects him publicly in Gal. 2:11–14 (ESV)), nor did it mean that he would be infallible in his teaching (Jesus rebukes him in Matt. 16:23 (ESV)), nor did it imply anything about a special office for Peter or successors to such an office. Certainly in the first half of Acts Peter appears as the spokesman and leader of the Jerusalem church, but he is still “sent” by other apostles to Samaria (Acts 8:14 (ESV)), and he has to give an account of his actions to the Jerusalem church (Acts 11:1–18 (ESV)). Peter is presented as having only one voice at the Jerusalem council, and James has the decisive final word (Acts 15:7–21 (ESV)). And, though Peter certainly has a central role in the establishment of the church, he disappears from the Acts narrative after Acts 16 (ESV). … (Part of the ESV Study Bible note on verse 18, emphasis in the original, with links to Bible verses (on Bible Gateway) added.)

The author of this note is giving the Protestant view, and then using the examples quoted from Scripture to show that in the early Church Peter didn’t seem to have any greater authority than the other Apostles.

I’m guessing that the idea of Saint Peter standing at the “pearly gates,” granting people admission into Heaven, probably comes from Jesus telling Peter in verse 19 (ESV) that he is giving him the “keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Of course I think this is much too literal of an interpretation of Jesus’ words to Peter; that decision—as to who “gets in” and who doesn’t—belongs to God the Father, and Him alone. (I suppose that’s why Saint Peter is always pictured as checking in a book, to see who is allowed in; I guess God would have written the names in that book, and Peter is simply informing people what God has already decided.) Although I think this notion of Peter standing at the gate as a heavenly bouncer is nonsense, that doesn’t mean I properly understand what Jesus is saying to Peter; the ESV Study Bible talks of Peter being given the authority to admit entrance through the preaching of the Gospel, and then goes on to say that this same authority is granted to anyone who preaches the Gospel (not just Peter), but to me that seems like a bit of a stretch of Jesus’ words. In this passage Jesus is talking to Peter, and there seems to be a specific meaning for him. It seems to me that Jesus is talking about the leadership role that Peter will take in giving the Gospel to people in the beginning days of the Church; not in a pope-like role, as the Catholics believe—the passages mentioned above show Peter having now more authoritative role than the other Apostles—but in the sense that he seems to lead the way. And he definitely does seem to be the boldest proclaimer of the Gospel in the early chapters of the book of Acts, at least until the focus is shifted to Paul.

Finally, at the end of the passage Jesus commands his disciples not to tell anyone that he’s the Christ. That always confused me, in my early days as a Christian; wasn’t the whole point of Jesus coming to the world to tell everyone that he was the Christ?!? Why is he hiding it? I mentioned above that the disciples were probably confused about the actual role of the Christ/Messiah/Anointed One, and were probably expecting more of a political saviour than a spiritual one, and if they were confused the general public would definitely be confused; the ESV Study Bible points out that Jesus was probably thinking of this confusion of the role of the Christ when he told the disciples not to tell anyone. Why confuse the situation with people thinking that Jesus was going to claim the throne of Israel, which would muddy the spiritual message(s) he was trying to convey? Added to this, I think it also simply wasn’t yet time for Jesus to go to the cross. There are numerous passages in the Gospels where Jesus tells his disciples that it’s not yet his time, and I’m thinking this might be another instance of that.

Matthew 16:5–12

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Matthew 16:5–12 (ESV): The Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees

Synopsis

In this passage Jesus warns the disciples to avoid the “leaven” of the the Pharisees and the Sadducees (verse 6 (ESV)). Because the disciples have forgotten to bring any bread (and seem to have food on their minds), they talk amongst themselves and come to the group conclusion that Jesus is probably being literal—that he’s warning them not to use any leaven given to them from the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Jesus, however, has no patience for the disciples in this instance:

But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” (verses 8–11 (ESV))

At this point the disciples realize that Jesus is not talking about physical leaven, but about the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Thoughts

When Jesus fed the 4,000 men (plus women and children), I commented that although I thought the disciples were being a bit… er… dense, Jesus didn’t really get exasperated with them. So I might have been judging them too harshly. However, in this passage he does.

But we should also notice that Jesus isn’t calling them slow, or dumb, or ignorant. He calls them “you of little faith.” (One of my pastors once mentioned that Jesus uses this phrase so often that it’s practically a nickname for the disciples—“Little Faith.”) This isn’t an issue of them not understanding what Jesus is saying so much as it is an issue of them not having faith. They really are focused on bread! Even though they were present when Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 men (plus women and children), and again when he miraculously fed 4,000 men (plus women and children), they are so focused right now on the fact that they don’t have any bread that they can’t pay attention to Jesus’ teachings. After seeing those two miracles, do the disciples really think that they’re going to starve?

But as usual I try not to judge the disciples too harshly unless I’m judging myself even more harshly. How often do we doubt God’s promises to us? Even though He has promised to take care of us, how often do we think that this is the one exception in all of history—the one instance where He will be powerless to take care of us, despite the fact that He has never been powerless before? Of course we don’t think of it in those terms, any more than the disciples were consciously thinking that Jesus was going to let them starve; it’s an attitude in our hearts, which, while we don’t consciously think about it, still drives our actions. Even if the only action that it drives is to cause us to worry, that’s still enough for us to be judged lacking by God; we should never worry. It is a matter of faith; it’s a matter of believing—not just in our minds, but also in our hearts—that God is in control, and that He will take care of us. He has promised to do so, and the situation we’re currently going through is not the one exception in all of history when He will not live up to His promises.

Matthew 16:1–4

2011-08-10T12:03:00.002-04:00

Matthew 16:1–4 (ESV): The Pharisees and Sadducees Demand Signs

Synopsis

In this passage the Pharisees and Sadducees approach Jesus and ask him for a sign from heaven, to test him. But Jesus doesn’t even bother with them:

He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed. (verses 2–4 (ESV))

Short, and to the point!

Thoughts

As stated in verse 1 (ESV)—when it says that they are “testing” Jesus—the Pharisees and Sadducees are not actually looking for proof that Jesus is who he claims to be; they’ve already made up their minds that he’s not, and are simply looking for evidence to back up their claims. Jesus doesn’t bother to give them one, but he does tell them that they should already have enough evidence as it is; they are simply not able (or not willing) to interpret “the signs of the times” (verse 3 (ESV)).

On “the sign of Jonah,” I’ll be lazy and simply quote the ESV Study Bible rather than putting it in my own words:

Jonah’s being rescued by God was a sign to the people of Nineveh that his message was from God. Jesus’ death and resurrection (see 12:40 (ESV)) will likewise be God’s sign to the present generation.

Matthew 15:32–39

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Matthew 15:32–39 (ESV): Jesus feeds four thousand men (plus women and children)

Synopsis

In 14:13–21, a very famous incident, Jesus fed 5,000 men (plus women and children). In this passage he repeats the miracle, and the scene is very similar to what happened in the previous passage:

Jesus tells his disciples that he has compassion on the crowd, and doesn’t want to send them away “lest they faint on the way” (verse 32 (ESV))
The disciples ask him where they could possibly get enough bread to feed the crowd
Jesus finds out how much bread and fish they have (seven loaves and two small fish), gives thanks, and distributes it to the disciples who in turn distribute it to the crowd, which eats and everyone is satisfied
We are told that there are 4,000 men present (plus women and children)

Thoughts

A lot of Christians don’t read through the Bible in a straight path, they get led hither and thither on the whims of their devotional books. That’s great for getting into various parts of the Bible, but it tends to make you miss certain story points; this particular one is a point that I’d missed, when first starting to read the Bible—I didn’t realize for a long while that there were two feedings, one of 5,000 men (plus women and children), and then this second feeding of 4,000 men (plus women and children). Frankly, I thought this was one of those “inconsistencies” that people are sometimes talking about—sometimes the Word says the feeding was 5,000 men (plus women and children), and sometimes it says 4,000. But if you read through Matthew from beginning to end, you come across both feedings.

Which makes the reaction of the disciples kind of baffling, when you get to the second feeding. Jesus has already performed this miracle once. In fact, not only has he already performed it, he performed it by feeding more people, with less food. When Jesus tells the disciples that he has compassion on the crowd because they’re hungry, I’m thinking that the disciples’ reaction should have been something like, “Good idea, Jesus, we’ll get the bread and fish and you can help us distribute it to the people!” Instead, the reaction is:

And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?” (verse 33 (ESV))

I’ve always been baffled by the disciples’ reaction in this situation, after having already been present at the feeding of the 5,000 men (plus women and children), however, I also notice that there is no record of Jesus getting exasperated with them, so I might be judging them too harshly.

Matthew 15:29–31

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Matthew 15:29–31 (ESV): Jesus Heals Many

Synopsis

The title pretty much says it all, on this one. Jesus moves on to a particular region where there is a mountain and sits down, and “great crowds” come to him, bringing people who need to be healed, whom he does indeed heal, “so that the crowd wondered…. And they glorified the God of Israel” (verse 31 (ESV)).

Thoughts

There’s really so little to say about this passage. There are many instances of Jesus healing people in the Gospels, and to me this is just one more. I’m sure it’s probably part of a larger story arc that Matthew is weaving about the path Jesus’ ministry took, but I’m afraid all I see is another instance of Jesus displaying his power.

Not that one should ever get blassé about Jesus’ power! Nobody else who lived could have done this—or, if they could, they’d simply be doing it in Jesus’ name, not of their own power—so this was a spectacular event. I just don’t have any deep insights about what it means, other than that Jesus is God, and can do what He pleases. What he pleases, in this passage, is to help people, alleviate suffering, and cure diseases/ailments.