Month: April 2021

By the time we get to Matthew chapter 14, Jesus has been ministering for some period of time. He’s called His disciples, trained them and sent them out on their first short term experience. He’s healed many, delivered many and taught a great number of people. He is becoming famous – at least on a regional scale. So it ought not to surprise us that eventually, the political powers would hear about Him. Matthew duly records, “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus.”

Of course, Matthew has already written of Jesus catching the attention of a certain Herod back in chapter 2, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.” But this isn’t the same matter. In the past it was the Magi that alerted the king, not Jesus’ activity. And this isn’t even the same Herod; “On the death of the Herod of the infancy materials the realm was divided and the present Herod, Antipas (one of the previous Herod’s sons), became ruler over Galilee and Perea. […] None of the rulers of the divided territory was allowed by Rome to term himself king. Instead the title ‘tetrarch’ was used. This is literally ‘ruler of a quarter’, but it was used in the NT period more generally for the role of minor princes.”

Getting noticed by King Herod almost cost Jesus His life. It may be that Herod the tetrarch was a lessor force (being a tetrarch instead of a king) and perhaps a more stable personality mental-health wise, but getting noticed by Herod Antipas was still problematic for Jesus. Every political figure who can have people arbitrarily imprisoned and executed is someone you want to avoid interactions with, especially when they’ve already imprisoned your cousin! (see v3). But Herod represented a more unique problem, because Herod was superstitious and prone to jump to his own conclusions: “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.””  

Herod’s superstitious beliefs could have taken Jesus’ ministry in a wildly different direction. He could have spread word that Jesus was not who He said He was, but rather was John the Baptist, resurrected. That might actually be popular with the uneducated crowd, and with the civic ruler’s respect would’ve gone far in allowing Jesus certain freedoms in movement and speech. However, Jesus did not value notoriety at all, He only valued the work His Father assigned to Him. 

To that point, Jesus was not about to risk the confusion, “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.”

It is always better to follow God’s leading than to pursue prominence! 

Alas! Men burn away their lives for the approbation of fellow-creatures.

W. Harvey Jellie

APPLICATION: Intentionality

God’s good and gracious direction is always more profitable to us than the easy path forward. 

For most people, faith is like a long- atrophied muscle. It lies dormant, and on account of its weakness is not used at all, or very rarely used to very limited extent. But our faith is not something we should ignore. It is   something we should feed and something we should practice because faith is the key to the kingdom of God. 

Faith is what allows us to enter His kingdom to start with. As Romans 3 says, “…righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe,” and as Ephesians notes, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.” In fact, no one can even approach God apart from faith, for the Word says, “…without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  

Faith is the doorway to God and the path to His kingdom. Faith is the means by which we live the abundant life, and the means by which we acquire all the eternal things God means to for us to have. Faith is the means by which we glorify God, and the one thing God seeks for us have more than anything else. As Peter would later testify to the struggling and persecuted churches, “These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 

To that end Jesus always started making disciples by encouraging their faith. If He found some faith already there, He would fan it into flame by healing or a miracle work. He did this with the woman who was subject to bleeding, “Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment,” and He did this with the one leper who came back to say thanks, “Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.””

If He did not find faith already in the people He came across, He would speak the truth of God (the Word of God) so that it might birth faith in those who heard, for “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

We must do likewise. Exercise our faith in being fully obedient to Word and Spirit – as Jesus was – and speak the truth of the Word of God to those who do not yet have faith – as Jesus did. In these ways we find our own faith growing to the praise, glory and honor of our Lord, and to the very great joy of our own souls! Amen.

It is of the first and last importance that we should search ourselves whether we be in the faith, and whether, being in the faith, our graces are growing, our faith increasing, and our love deepening.

Charles Spurgeon

APPLICATION: Intentionality

How do you know when your faith is deepening? How can you cooperate with God in stretching it?

We can know that Jesus would’ve known the Word of God on account of His Jewishness  . In fact, we know He had great respect for the Word because Scripture records how He said, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” 

We can also know that Jesus was baptized by the Spirit of God, for the Gospel says, “Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” To have the Spirit descend upon you is to have the Spirit fill you, so we know Jesus was baptized in water and in Spirit at the same time. 

These facts tell us how Jesus came to have the wisdom and power He so obviously exercised: Being aligned with the Word and filled with the Spirit, He simply had to walk in obedience to the Word of God and obediently respond to the Spirit’s promptings (speaking or acting accordingly). 

He did that. So one might think that Jesus could do all manner of miracles wherever and whenever He felt like. Yet Jesus did not always heal, and Jesus did not always perform miracles. There were times and places He did, but for much of His ministry life He only taught. This was certainly true in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. Matthew writes, “Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”

You cannot create a miracle. Even Jesus – the embodiment of the Word of God and full of the Holy Spirit – did not do miracles at will. As He 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.” One could say that Jesus did not ‘do’ miracles, He just cooperated with the Spirit of God in the Father’s accomplishment of miracles. 

In His hometown, Jesus continued to operate according to Spirit and Word, but found Himself restricted to speaking instead of working miracles on account of the lack of faith He found in the villagers. For God can always work, but He purposefully chooses to work only with the faith He finds. Even then, Jesus only spoke in agreement with the Spirit and Word, for He Himself testified, “I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.” 

That truth teaches us that if our faith is too small for a great work of the Spirit, the Lord starts by merely speaking truth. 

We should not look down at that and take offence. 

It is after all, a start! Amen. 

The effective minister of the Word uses words the way a craftsman uses tools—the right word for the right job.

Warren Wiersbe

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Jesus knew when to use words and when to cooperate with the Spirit in a miracle because He was always listening to the Father’s voice. How is God guiding you today?