Category: Daily Devotionals

Every disciple of God knows that God Most High is eternal, and that His  Word is likewise.  As Psalm 119 declares, “Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations.” It is because God and His Word is eternal that we can expect Him to be who He says He is forever. Moreover, God’s kingdom and ways do not ebb and flow but grow and multiply, for the Word also says, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.” Therefore, what God’s Word says about God and His ways in the past, we should expect to see echoed in the future, even in an exaggerated way. This is exactly what we see happening in the New Testament.

In 2Kings chapter 4 we read of the miracle of Elisha feeding a hundred men with only twenty loaves of bread and a few grains of barley. For Elisha had predicted, “… this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” So it came to be, “Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.” It cannot be overlooked that what Elisha did builds on what Elijha had done in providing for the widow and her son in 1Kings 17 with the unending jar of flour and jug of oil. Elijha fed a small family, Elisha feeds a small army. Indeed, Elisha does at least twice as many miracles as Elijha. 

But then along comes Jesus. As Elisha overshadowed Elijha in works, so Jesus overshadows both. In Matthew 14 we read of Jesus telling His disciples to feed the large crowd in the wilderness; “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.  “Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.” 

It is an astonishing miracle. Yet even feeding five thousand with more than enough from only a few loaves of bread and two fish pales in comparison to feeding a number of people too great to count with every good and wonderful food they could wish for. As Isaiah prophesied, “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines.” So it will yet come to pass, as John saw in his vision, “Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” A wedding supper is not just a meal. It is a huge feast, usually over multiple days. In that day God will provide for us forever, for His Word says, “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.”  

This is our anticipation. This is our blessed hope!

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

King David (from Ps 36:7-8)

APPLICATION: Worship

Praise God for His abundant and everlasting provision!

“Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave  thanks and  broke the loaves.”

We tend to think of saying grace before meals as something the Lord instituted at the Last Supper. But saying thanks to God for the food we are about to eat is something all Jews did. “The actions—looking up to heaven, thanking God, and breaking the loaves—are normal for any head of a Jewish household.” Yet Matthew is writing his Gospel with a very clear intention. That intention is that the reader might know that Jesus is Messiah. To that point the style of Matthew’s writing, where in the storyline He puts the various memories of his time with Jesus and even the words he choses to use are all tools toward this purpose. This intention comes to the forefront at various times in Matthew’s Gospel account, but perhaps especially so here. 

In the account of the feeding of the 5000 – and again later in the feeding of the 4000 – Matthew uses language that connects with how he will describe the last supper and the institution of the Eucharist. “At the end of the day Matthew … wants to insist that, in relation to appreciating who Jesus is, the feeding has a kindred significance to the Last Supper and via that to the church’s Eucharist.” Matthew is being very deliberate in how he writes the story of this miracle – just as what Jesus was doing was highly intentional, so also what Matthew is doing is also highly intentional. 

Saying grace before a meal is an intentional remembrance of who God is and who we are in relationship to Him. Likewise, participating in the Eucharist is as intentional as administering it. It takes thought and deliberate action to accept the new covenant as God’s people, and it takes thought and deliberate action for God’s people to remember the new covenant. Just as it takes thought and deliberate action on God’s part to provide both food for the day and the sacrifice of His Son to institute the new covenant.

We tend to forget that almost all of the important components to life and ministry are intentional. What you do at your job is intentional (for the vast majority of it, anyway). For that matter, even what job you take on is intentional. Where you move is intentional – when you go on a date is intentional. Marriage is intentional. Buying a home or renting an apartment is intentional. Participating to a larger degree in one sport or another is intentional. Intentionality is what adds impact to an event, because it brings with it anticipation of what results from that event. 

Although it contains random events, life does not mostly consist of random events. It consists of intentional events and anticipated outcomes. Likewise ministry. It does have some rather random or unexpected moments, but for the most part it is as highly intentional as writing a book. It is our intentionality that provides for the anticipation of what God will yet do, and it is our intentionality that allows us to participate in what God is doing. 

To live without intentionality is to live with only the past in mind, forgetting that God is the one who was, AND the one who is, AND the one who is to come.

Growing in faith is learning to recognize the signs of God’s work all around us. This takes intentionality and practice.

Mike Erre

APPLICATION: Intentionality

What is God doing to grow your faith in Him this week? How are you intentionally cooperating with Him? 

Matthew is recounting the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. He notes that in
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash on Unsplash
347 the evening, the disciples noted that the large crowd would find nothing to eat anywhere nearby. Jesus replies that they should feed the crowd, but the disciples protest,““We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.” This fact does not faze Jesus. “Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass.”

Jesus directs the people to sit down on the grass. Mark notes the same fact, “Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass.” As does Luke, “But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” The disciples did so, and everybody sat down.”

While sitting is a simple act, it would’ve taken a while – not only because the crowd was large, but because people were being ministered to, waiting to be ministered to and no doubt rejoicing in the miracle of their healing. There would have been lines and groups or people, some shouting, some whispering, some watching intently to know when their turn would come. Perhaps not everyone would’ve heard the direction, so Jesus backs up His instruction by charging the disciples to get the crowd to sit down. Of course, those in the crowd would likely want to do that in family groups, so the direction is to be in groups that roughly equate to the size of an extended family. The crowd’s attention is now turned to finding family and a spot to sit down.

But why sit at all? Sitting was the position in which one was to eat. The crowd would’ve innately understood that. This means Jesus wanted the crowd to be in anticipation for the miracle. If Jesus was in our present culture, He might just have well have directed everyone to go to the dinner table.

When God is going to do a miracle in your life, you have to participate in it. You cannot command the miracle and you cannot cause the miracle. But you can participate in it by acting in faith. When God did the miracle of the manna for the first time, the manna appeared on the desert floor. In order to participate in the miracle and be fed, the Israelites had to first gather it. They could not cause the miracle or manipulate it, but they could participate in it by a simple act of faith. As Moses recorded, “When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs.’”

The crowd in Jesus’ day does likewise – they participate in the miracle by acting in faith through the simple motion of sitting down. We must do likewise when God is moving in power in our lives. Act in faith. Not strenuous activity. Not exertion. Not forcing it in any way. But all the same, acting in anticipation!

Christ is calling us all to participate in the miracle of reconciliation with the Father. He is calling us all to participate in the miracle His body, alive on earth. He is calling us all to participate in the miracle of everlasting life. Participation in the miracles of God is a normal and route aspect of living the Christ-life.

Marcus Verbrugge

APPLICATION: Intentionality

When the Spirit leads, co-operate!

Jesus has just told His disciples to feed the large crowd in the remote place  He is  ministering in. The disciples are flummoxed, having not had made any advance preparation for excursions beyond town. “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.” They do not even have enough food for themselves, let alone a crowd of people. But Jesus is quite aware of that fact, as John’s Gospel makes clear;

“Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”” 

In 2Kings 4, we read the story of Elisha’s miracle of the feeding of a hundred. It reads, “A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said. “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked. But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’ ” Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.”  

Asking five men to share a single loaf of barley bread and a few raw grains is asking them to go hungry. It would seem like they had been given little more than an appetizer. Yet as the prophet Elisha predicted, this large group ate and had some left over. This fact – the fact that the Father had done this before – is more than enough to give Jesus confidence that He can do it again (remember how Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”). Except in Jesus’ case it is not twenty loaves of bread that He will use to feed a hundred men. It is five loaves (or ‘a few’) and a couple of fish that He will use to feed five thousand men, plus their wives and children. 

Like Elisha, Jesus starts with what He is given, and as with Elisha, a miraculous multiplication of resources takes place. The increase in order of magnitude is a reflection of the glory Christ brings to the Father compared to the glory Elisha brought. Both did the work of God, but the sinless nature of Christ allows a much greater miracle!  

A rabbinic tradition interprets Exodus 14:22 to mean that only after the Israelites had gone into the sea up to their nostrils did the waters divide and expose dry ground (Exod. Rab. 21:10). This interpretation accurately captures what faith is all about. It does not wait to see if the waters will divide and then step out. It steps out, trusting God to do what is needed.

David E. Garland

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Knowing God, listening to God and hearing His voice are of little help unless we act in faith on what He says. 

Jesus has traveled by boat to a solitary place. The only reason someone would do that   would be to find some peace and quiet. John’s Gospel tells us that when He got there, He went to a mountainside and spent the day with His disciples. Yet the crowd of people who He had taught earlier have sought Him out. They arrive, expecting Jesus to minister to them. Astonishingly, the Scripture does not say that Jesus was disappointed or discouraged with that outcome, even though He had moved to get some time away. Instead it says, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” Jesus sees their faith and effort to get or stay close to Him and lets His compassion rule His heart. He acts, ministering in the power of the Spirit and healing the sick. 

Time passes and the day grows long. Jesus’ disciples recognize that in that place there was no kitchen, no pantry and no store. Many hours had passed, and the people (especially the sick), would need food to make it back to where they lived. “As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.””

Jesus’ response to the common sense suggestion of His disciples is telling. One commentator notes, “To send the crowds away, as suggested by the disciples, would achieve the isolation which had been sought [earlier]. But instead Jesus challenges the disciples themselves to show compassion to the crowds, as Jesus has been doing.”

It likely never even occurred to the disciples that feeding the crowd would become their responsibility. After all, it was clear to them that Jesus was in charge. He was the one who told them to take a boat. He was the one who told them where to land the boat. He was the one who began to minister to the crowd. Subsequently, He was the one they asked to dismiss the crowd. It is clear from their actions (or lack thereof) that they were merely following. But Jesus’ terse response to them gives the reader the impression that He expected His followers to be more than mere groupies. 

Following Jesus involves participation in what God is doing. That participation is not limited to what seems possible. No doubt Jesus would’ve expected His disciples to be praying while He was ministering, and no doubt that if they had done that, they would’ve heard the Father tell them what to do just as the Father was speaking to Jesus about what to do. For Jesus Himself testified, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” 

Christ followers are supposed to hear God direct them, and they are supposed to act on that direction in the power of the Spirit, just as Jesus did. This is what it means to be a disciple. This is what Jesus expects of us. 

All true Christian spiritual formation is for the glory of God, for the abundance of our own lives and for the sake of others, or it is not Christian spiritual formation. For this we toil and struggle with all the energy that God so powerfully inspires within us.

Ruth Haley Barton

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Today the Spirit of God will speak to you. How is your listening? 

The Lord always has compassion on those who truly need Him. He always responds to   the extraordinary measures we take to follow Him. We can count on this fact. He meets us when we chase after Him, because He plans to meet us even before we start ourselves, and He knows where we are going. 

Matthew writes, “Jesus […] withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”

We cannot read the above statement and fail to realize that Jesus healed the sick among the crowd on account of two things: His compassion, and their willingness to chase hard after Him. Whenever these two realities meet, we see a work of God. 

The good news is that God is always compassionate. He exists apart from time, so His compassion is upon those He made even when His anger is aroused on account of their foolishness. The result is that no matter what our state before Him, God’s compassion is one hundred percent reliable. Likewise, His power is also completely reliable. We constantly witness His power at work all around us – we see the sun rise and the seasons change, and we know that He sustains all He created, moment by moment. So we can bank on the fact that God is powerful all the time, and that God is compassionate all the time. This means that God is always able and always open to ministering to us.

But what is not at all reliable is our own effort to chase hard after Him. We do that in seasons, but the effort to get up early and seek His face in prayer is easily set aside by the need for sleep or the laziness of the morning hours. The effort to open the Scriptures and really look for Him in studying its treasure is easily misplaced by the urgency of the day’s activity. The effort to worship Him with passion is often offset by the want to have a day of family sport. The effort to call on Him at the close of the day is easily replaced by the mindlessness of television. Even the smallest effort to remember Him – at the start of every meal – is easily lost to the aroma of the food in the face of our hunger. 

Chasing hard after God takes real intentionality. It takes willfulness and self-determination. In this respect, it is a lot like physical exercise; difficult to establish as a routine, easy to let slip. It is entirely our responsibility, and it is the one thing about our relationship with God that is not reliable at all. 

The really good news is that we can change that at will. We can make a decision to look for God with more determination. We can intentionally get back into the habits of communing with Him in the morning, talking to Him throughout the day, worshipping Him with passion every week and remembering His grace at every meal. 

That we can do, and when we do that, we absolutely can count on God to respond. PTL.

In the words of Hans Küng: God’s immutability “must be understood as essential fidelity to himself in all his active vitality.” God’s being is indestructible, his plan and purpose are unalterable. His love is unfailing and inexorable. His grace is irreversible and persevering. This is the biblical picture of God’s unchangeableness.

Donald G. Bloesch

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

Thank God that He is unchangeable in His determination to be found by His people!

The Lord did not make most shorelines straight and square. Nor did He  make most lakes  totally round – most lakes and shorelines are quite convoluted. Depending on the shape of the shoreline and number of bays and inlets, getting to the other side can be a long and arduous journey even if the straight-line distance between the two points is relatively short. Unless of course you have a boat! So when we read Matthew’s account of how the people responded to Jesus’ travel by boat, we are taken aback by their determination, “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns.” 

Jesus goes to a solitary place. Peter will later remark that it is ‘remote’. The crowd therefore had to undertake considerable effort to get to where Jesus was. The astonishing thing is that Matthew is talking about the crowd. He wasn’t speaking of the disciples or even Jesus’ inner circle. We might have suspected those groups to work so hard to follow Him, but the crowd? The crowd was fickle. The crowd was those not fit to hear direct teaching. In fact, Jesus had been using parables on account of that very point. The crowd was those who Matthew obviously felt could not yet be called disciples. Yet they are so enraptured with what Jesus has been teaching that they take the extraordinary measure of walking for most of a day – if not longer – to a remote shoreline so they can get more of Jesus 

It ought not to surprise us that people would do such things. In every town and village are people who God is making into disciples for His Name. They will naturally be drawn to Jesus by His Word, and they will actively work to hear His Word. As Jesus Himself would teach later, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” They follow Jesus. They cannot help but to follow Jesus, no matter where Jesus goes. 

The numbers of people who come to your church may not be a true indicator of how many belong to Christ in your town. They may not come to church because they do not know they will get Jesus’ truth there, or they do not trust that they will get His truth there. But they will respond to Jesus’ truth all the same. We just need to first go to where they are. After they have heard the truth, they will follow. They will even go to extraordinary measure to follow. In fact, this particular crowd goes to such extraordinary measure they actually find their way to the other side before Jesus gets there in the boat, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd…”

The kingdom of God is a very attractive place, because it holds the love, peace, health, blessing, fellowship and joy that we all so desperately want. Likewise, the workers of the kingdom are highly attractive to lost people, because they bring the blessing of God’s kingdom wherever they are. So if our ministry is not drawing lost people, we have to ask if we are doing the work of the kingdom, or if we are doing something else. 

Whatever your thoughts and feelings, seize the moment. Come up, yourself, in the crowd. Come close enough to Jesus so that you can talk together. He will have enough time to listen to you, too. Perhaps he will ask you what you most want him to do for you.

Tom Wright

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

Thank Jesus that He is always close enough to hear us and close enough to touch us, even when we are in the largest crowd or the most remote place. 

Jesus has heard some bad news. Not only that His cousin John was dead – beheaded by   Herod – but that Herod was now convinced Jesus Himself was John, resurrected. In modern vernacular, things in Jesus’ world were getting messed up. The enemy has made some inroads and the threat is obvious. Fortunately, Jesus has a strategy for when things get messed up, “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.”  

Jesus interrupts His ministry to make a change in scenery. He hits pause on His own activity so that He can process what is happening and readjust His strategy as may be needed. A solitary place allows that Jesus can cry out to the Father. Uninterrupted, He can pour out his grief, anger and frustration, knowing that the Father patiently accepts all our emotion, and graciously speaks to our souls in our distress. The Father’s arms are open, and Jesus runs right into them. It should not surprise us that He does that. Just as John’s disciples could run to Jesus after John was killed, Jesus can run to the Father. When we experience those sudden and unexpected turns, turning to God is our best and only true option.

The Psalms model this for us. As a man after God’s own heart, David cried out to God every time he was in distress. In Psalm 31 we read, “Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” 

In Psalm 10 we read, “But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.”

In Psalm 6 David wrote, “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow;”  And in Psalm 119 he cried out, “My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.”

When sorrow or trouble threaten to overwhelm us, we must quickly find a place where we can pray without interruption. A place we can unload our emotional scars and seek God’s face wholeheartedly. Where we can shout if we need to, cry if we need to, kneel or stand or lie prostrate if we need to. A place we can truly be ourselves in all our messiness. God is still God, no matter our emotional state. No matter our hurt or grief or sorrow. God is unfazed by sudden changes in our plans. He is still sovereign. He is able to comfort, to console and to direct and inform us appropriately. If we make Him our priority, He will provide exactly the kind of help we need. The hurting soul is always best to remember Jesus’ words, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness!” Amen. 

It is characteristic of human nature to turn to God only after every other avenue of help has been explored and been found useless. This is one of the many evils which sin has visited upon us—the bent to look everywhere for aid but in the right place, and if we do look in the right place, to look there last.

A.W. Tozer

APPLICATION: Intentionality

God is here, available and welcoming, no matter our state of mind. Let us cry out to Him in prayer. 

John the Baptist has been executed by Herod’s command. It was a  command born of  impulsiveness. A sentence of beheading, handed out after a period of confinement on charge of sedition. And though Herod himself knows that John did not deserve such, he and his government do not even see fit to give John a burial. Rather, the Word meekly records, “John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.”

John’s disciples would’ve been the first to hear of John’s demise, as they likely attended to him daily while he was in prison. In those days prisoners only ate what family and friends provided. But that day they found that John was not in his cell. He had been summarily executed. There was no trial, no opportunity for John to face a court of his peers. No opportunity for John’s disciples to bear witness of his character. The tetrarch had spoken, and he had the authority of Rome to back him up. His word was final. 

John’s disciples are given the body, and in accordance with Jewish custom, they bury it straight away. They cannot wait until they tell Jesus, because it was (and is) considered a great dishonor to keep a dead person from burial. But once they can honor John the Baptist by means of proper burial, they immediately go and tell Jesus. 

Of course, Jesus was John’s cousin, so that makes sense just from the perspective of family. But Jesus was also the man John the Baptist had identified as Messiah. 

You cannot keep following someone you hold in high esteem if they are dead, but you can move forward in your own life by pursuing what that relationship meant. John’s entire ministry was about getting ready for the kingdom of God, and now John was gone but the king was here. Jesus was the One that John’s disciples knew to follow, because John had told them so. The apostle John makes that clear in his Gospel, “The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.” One of those disciples was Andrew (brother to Simon Peter), so we can also know that Jesus’ group would have some lines of communication with John’s group by means of the friendships Andrew and the other disciple had forged. Therefore, it is possible and even logical that all of John’s disciples knew they would become Jesus’ disciples at some point. John’s untimely death is simply the obvious turning point. From here on they would follow Jesus the Messiah.

Dealing with the loss of a leader is never easy. Dealing with the loss of a family member is never easy, either. But that time of loss is made much more bearable by focusing on Christ. As Christ conquered death, we can morn our loss knowing that the separation will not be permanent. We can allow our grief to sharpen our focus on Christ, drawing near to Him and speaking to Him so His Spirit can comfort our soul. Best of all, we can know that doing so honors the one we’ve lost, because they too depend on Christ in the next life just as much as we depend on Christ in this one.

Death is not the end of the road; it is only a bend in the road. The road winds only through those paths through which Christ Himself has gone. This Travel Agent does not expect us to discover the trail for ourselves. Often we say that Christ will meet us on the other side. That is true, of course, but misleading. Let us never forget that He walks with us on this side of the curtain and then guides us through the opening. We will meet Him there, because we have met Him here

Erwin Lutzer

APPLICATION: Worship

Just as God was with Israel on both sides of the Jordan, our Lord is here with us, on the way with us as we move between worlds and there with us on the other side. 

There are a number of instances in the Word of God that specifically warn us  against  making impromptu grand promises. The account of Jephthah’s foolish vow in Judges 11 is one of them. The grisly account of John (the Baptist)’s death at Herod’s command is another: “On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.”

Proverbs tells us, “It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows.” Herod should have thought twice before making such a foolish oath. Perhaps Herod made that promise when he was abiding in too much wine. Perhaps he thought she would only ask something he could afford her in due time – a position of power or a financial sum. But to Herod’s distress, she asks her mother (Herod’s new wife) what she should get. To this point the story is doubled in impact, because it is not only Herod who makes a foolhardy decision he’ll regret, but the daughter also. In turning to her mother she looses out on her own choice. She could’ve asked for autonomy so she wouldn’t get married off to someone she despises. Or for land ownership so she wouldn’t be risking poverty in later life. She forfeits the opportunity of a lifetime when her mother seizes the opportunity to get revenge at cost of a prophet’s life. 

Proverbs counsels us that being caught by our own foolish promise is like being ensnared – we must do all we can to appeal for forgiveness of the bond we’ve pledged, “My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have struck hands in pledge for another, if you have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth, then do this, my son, to free yourself, since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands: Go and humble yourself; press your plea with your neighbor! Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.” 

Unfortunately for Herod, to follow such advice would’ve mandated a rather significant amount of humility. In full sight of all his guests, he would’ve had to appeal for mercy to his step-daughter. That would be most unbecoming of a political leader – a man that Matthew suddenly refers to as “the king” even though he’s just told us Herod is a tetrarch and not a king. The reader can know that Matthew’s use of the term is meant as sarcasm, given that “the king” is in distress at needing to back out of his foolhardy promise. But like Jephthah, Herod’s foolishness is cemented into public record when he refuses to humble himself and seek forgiveness for saying such a stupid thing. Such is the trap of foolish promises coupled with pride! 

We can’t help being struck by the care and love Jesus had for his friends as they blunder and bluster around, making grand promises they can’t keep while failing to understand the great promises Jesus is making. Just like us, really.

Tom Wright

APPLICATION: Intentionality

God makes grand promises because He can and does keep them. We should not, because we cannot.