Reading Matthew with Missional Eyes

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be   bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Peter, to whom this sentence was originally spoken, would later preach to the Jews. The Jews are arguably the most resistant people group on the planet in terms of their internal resistance to turning to Jesus for salvation. But at Pentecost, as the Spirit of God fell, Peter preached to them that they should repent and turn to Jesus for salvation. Then, “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”  

Peter would go on from there to preach to the Samaritans at the request of the church in Jerusalem. The Samaritans had already come to Christ under Philip’s preaching, but they had not received the Spirit. “Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” 

Peter moved on from there to preach at Cornelius’ house (a Gentile home) by personal request at the homeowner. Scripture records, “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.” 

Peter literally opened the door to the Kingdom of God for the Jews, for the Samaritans and for the Gentiles. In this respect, what Jesus said literally came to pass. Peter had the keys to the Kingdom of God for others. Full of the Spirit of God, Peter opened the way for people of other cultures to hear the Gospel. 

But Peter is hardly unique. Peter might have been the first true Christian – the first to publicly confess that Jesus is Christ, the Son of the Living God – but Peter is not the only one to confess that. Each of us who confess the same thing also have the keys to the Kingdom for other people. Each of us who confess Jesus as Christ, the Son of the Living God are to follow Peter’s example. We have keys to the Kingdom of God for other people, and like Peter, we must use them! 

There are people in your circles of influence who do not yet know Christ. They may be of your own culture (like the Jews were for Peter). They may be of the same country, but a different culture (as the Samaritans were for Peter). They may even be of a completely different culture and country (as the Gentiles were for Peter). But they are made in God’s image also, and they are lost. 

They are lost until you use the keys God gave you. Until you – full of the Spirit of God – seize the opportunity clearly given to you to preach Jesus as Christ, the Son of the Living God. Then they will hear the Good News, and they will respond. They will come to Christ, and the Kingdom of God will expand right before your eyes.

This is the heritage of all who are part of Christ’s ekklesia. We each have a part to play. For some it is a small part – to reach just one soul. For others it is a large mandate – to reach many thousands. To each is given a mandate appropriate to our circumstance and gifting, but whether small or large, this is our common call. This is our mission mandate! 

May we all prayerfully and humbly do our part.

If Yahweh alone is God and if Jesus alone is Lord, and if it is God’s will (as it manifestly is in the Bible) that these truths be known throughout the whole creation, then there is a missional mandate intrinsic to such convictions.

Chris Wright

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Do you know who God gave you the keys to His Kingdom for? 

Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church.”  

It is notable that Jesus did not say, “On this rock I will build my synagogue.” Though synagogues were already widely in use, and although Jesus had visited many of them, Jesus did not mean to model His church after the synagogue. If He would’ve meant that He would’ve said it. Rather, He specifically said, “On this rock I will build my ἐκκλησίαν”. 

The word transliterated to English is “ekklesia.” 

Interestingly, Jesus didn’t need to define that word for His disciples. They clearly knew exactly what He was talking about. “Ekklēsia (“assembly”) was the term applied to many types of public gatherings in the ancient Roman world, whether civil or religious. In Scripture, ekklēsia can refer both to assemblies of people in a nonreligious setting and to organized gatherings of the followers of Christ. For example, ekklēsia was used to designate a confused mob opposed to Paul’s message in Ephesus (Acts 19:32, 41). The same term was used to describe a regularly constituted legal assembly of the city (Acts 19:39). Elsewhere in Acts the word is used in the sense of “the people of God” or “the church,” both universally (e.g., Acts 8:3; 9:31) and locally (e.g., Acts 5:11; 8:1).”

In Roman and Greek thinking, ekklesia was a group of people who represented the people of the community. The term would’ve brought to mind the ‘movers and shakers’ of the community – or perhaps the town council. It wasn’t just a group of random people. The ekklesia was a group that had gravitas in the community. In other words, the ekklesia were the well-off who had the capacity and ability to create jobs and alter the community in significant ways. The mob at Ephesus in Acts 19 were the silversmiths and craftsmen of the town (see Acts 19:24–25) – they were an ekklesia. In Acts 8 and 9, the word refers to the house churches in homes. Those homes would’ve been larger (suitable for gatherings), and the owners would be people of significant wealth – we see that in Acts 5, when the early church included those who were selling off property. 

Jesus’ ekklesia is purposed to be similar to the Roman ekklesia, except instead of primarily wielding mere financial and political power, Jesus’ ekklesia wields spiritual power. 

In fact, to His ekklesia Jesus gives tremendous spiritual power, for the very next sentence out of His lips is, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus is effectively saying His ekklesia has the power to control the spiritual well-being of the community. 

After all, they are God’s representatives in the community. They are the ones who have relationship with Him. They are the ones who can call on Him for mercy over their community, which otherwise sits under judgment for its sin. They are the ones whose prayers are heard. So they can bind spiritual forces of wickedness, and they can loose spiritual forces of blessing and peace. 

We who are the church are far from helpless. We are an advance group of Jesus’ coming worldwide government. What we say matters. What we do matters! Not only to us, but to all spiritual beings and to our Father in glory. 

[God’s] intent [is] that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

Jamie Dunlop

APPLICATION: Intentionality

How is your church displaying the wisdom of God by the power of God to the rest of creation? 

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter  answered, “You  are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

Jesus here takes Simon Peter’s name and shortens it to just “Peter”. He notes that Peter has been changed by a revelation of God. Who he was before (“Simon”) is different than who he is now (“Peter”).  There is clearly a relationship between these two terms, because in Greek, Peter is “Πέτρος”, and rock is “πέτρα”.  As one commentator notes, “Jesus gave the name ‘Peter’ to Simon not as an affectionate nickname nor […] as an alternative name, but rather as a means of marking destiny in some manner.”

The words Jesus uses in the Scripture demonstrate that He was fond of word plays. By tying Simon’s middle name to the confession of Jesus as Christ, He both affirms Simon’s confession as the foundation of what it means to be part of the Church He is building, and also affirms Simon as the first member of said Church. Jesus is saying that Simon is the first true convert. Peter is the first one of His followers to grasp the reality that Jesus is not merely a great man, prophet and wonder-worker sent by God, but God’s own beloved Son, sent to earth. From this point forward, Simon is no longer a Jew who sees value in following Jesus. He is now a Christian, committed to following Jesus because the change toward Christ-likeness has now begun. 

The journey of faith that every professing Christian ultimately looks back upon has within it a tipping point. Like the journey from childhood to adulthood, the journey is experienced through mile-markers and seasons, but it is only when one looks back that the definitive transition point from one to the other becomes clear. 

At that point they have moved from being interested in Jesus – even interested enough to follow Him – to being truly changed by Him. They have moved to the line that separates nonbelievers from believers, and then crossed over that line. They are no longer just followers. They are now partners in ministry. They may be still immature partners, but they are qualitatively different than who and what they were before. 

Being qualitatively changed and becoming ministry partners with God doesn’t mean that Christians are by any means perfect. Peter – as Matthew will soon demonstrate to us – still sins. In fact, in a very short time Jesus will call out Peter for allowing Satan to work through him (v23 of this same chapter)! But it does mean that as Christians, we can know that the strongholds of wrong thinking in our minds have no chance of standing against the reality God has revealed to us. Every wrong thought pattern will eventually succumb. 

Christ is our savior. He will save us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. He is able to, because He is the Son of the Living God. Not a man, but God. This much we know, and on this we will rely until made perfect, we stand before Him and see His face.

Make sure of your commitment to Jesus Christ, and seek to follow Him every day. Don’t be swayed by the false values and goals of this world, but put Christ and His will first in everything you do.

Billy Graham

APPLICATION: Intentionality

What has Jesus most recently saved you from?

Jesus has asked His disciples the question, “Who do you say I am?” Matthew  records the  conversation, “Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”

To call Jesus the Messiah – the anointed one of God, savior of God’s people and Son of the Living God – is a hallmark of every Christ follower, and arguably the first significant step of faith that any Christian takes. It is not a small step. Many trip over it, finding it too much of a hurdle. That’s because recognizing Jesus as the Son of God is a step of faith. It means we have overcome our resistance to God being alive and actively working in our world. It means we have overcome our resistance to God being so concerned about us and the separation between fallen humankind and Himself that He was willing to go to the point of incarnation to reconcile us. Moreover, it means that God is not a single personality. 

Many are those who’ve lived their whole lives with a very strong worldview that God is a single personality. For them, the matter of God having a Son is the largest stumbling block. Those of us who came to Christ from a nominal or secular or pantheistic background might not see that as a problem. But for much of the world it is – especially for Muslims and Jews. Peter’s worldview was that of a Jew. God was and is One. God will always be One. Not two, not three. Just one. In fact, the Jews to this day daily recite the Shema, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”  In that worldview, God could not be both Father and Son, and certainly could not be Father and Son and Spirit. 

Whatever the idea of the Trinity is, it is not Jewish thinking!

Certainly, Jews knew that God had a “son” in created Adam (as Luke 3:38 points out, “…Adam, the son of God”, and has a “son” in Israel as a nation (as Isaiah 63:16 points out, “…you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.” But in the Jewish mind, there could be no such thing as God’s literal Son. So, when Jesus hears Peter call Him the Christ, He knows that this fact did not spring from Peter’s own thinking. 

In fact, knowing that Jesus is the Son of the Living God and is our Messiah (literally, “Anointed One”, meaning savior) is never the result of human thinking. It is always a revelation of God. A human mind might hear the words and think about the idea, but it will remain an idea and will have no more impact than a passing idea until the revelation of God makes it reality in your mind, heart and soul. Then you know. Then reality has broken in. 

Reality changes everything. Like the light of dawn after the darkest night, it changes the landscape of everything we see, and the warmth of that reality breathes new life into our soul. Then you are convinced of, and will always confess, that Jesus is Christ, the Son of the Living God. 

If Jesus is God, then what He says about sin, salvation, judgment, how to live an abundant, joyful life … indeed, everything He said must be true. Our eternal destiny rests on our answer to the question, Is Jesus really God?

Dan Story

APPLICATION: Intentionality

How does the reality that Jesus truly is God in the flesh change how you live your life today?

Jesus has asked His disciples who people think He is. “They replied, “Some  say John the  Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?””

This is the question that is at the very heart of Matthew’s Gospel. Who do WE say Jesus is? 

To this point, Matthew has revealed Jesus as Messiah in a powerful way. He began with the evidence of Jesus’ birth, which started with the Abrahamic line and ended in the virgin birth at Bethlehem – a direct fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2. The heavenly star which guided the Magi to Herod became a matter of international record. Jesus’ early childhood in Egypt fulfilled Hosea 11:1, while the time of His birth sadly fulfilled Jeremiah 31:15. His younger years in Nazareth also affirmed the prophetic record. No preplanning by a criminal mastermind could’ve organized those details. They were divinely given and divinely fulfilled, quite apart from Jesus’ human will. 

And that is not all. Jesus’ prophetic preaching ministry in Galilee fulfilled Isaiah 9:1-2. His healing ministry fulfilled Isaiah 53:4. His reluctance to attract attention fulfilled Isaiah 42:1-4. His teaching in parables, Psalm 78:2. And all this prophetic fulfillment is apart from the evidences of His baptism, the actual miracles of healing and His divinely inspired moral teaching – which still is the very best planet earth has ever heard. 

Then there is the turning of water to wine, the calming of the storm, the walking on water, the raising of the dead and the casting out of the demonic, to the obvious great benefit of both the one rescued, their families and the surrounding townsfolk. Virtually every detail Matthew has given us about Jesus’ life and ministry shouts at us of His divine nature. The evidence so far has been overwhelming!

But evidence can only dictate a verdict where logic and common sense guide the way. The reality is that human beings are highly emotional – so much so that virtually every decision is at some level an emotional decision. This makes our decision-making ability highly personal: Our emotions, past memories and fallen thinking are all involved in addressing the matter at hand, in spite of the obviously objective nature of the question being asked. 

“Who is Jesus” is inseparable from “Who is Jesus to you?”

Ultimately, it is that question that must be asked of each of us. It is a personal question, but not a personal question asked for interest’s sake. It is a question that has the highest possible stakes. For if Jesus is not Messiah, then there is no salvation. If Jesus is not Healer, there is no hope. If Jesus is not Lord, there is no motive for holy living, and no chance His Spirit might fall upon us to enable such living. And if Jesus is not King, then we are all left to fend for ourselves. 

“Who do you say I am?”

You have only to look at the one asking the question to know the answer. 

The great assertion of the faith that sets a Christian apart from others is this: Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh.

Warren Wiersbe

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,  “Who do  people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”” 

When Jesus asked His disciples who people think He is, He got some answers that are remarkably familiar with things people say in our day about Christ:

Some people believed Jesus was just a really good man. A man who was “in God’s good books” so to speak. But if that’s all He is, He is no more than John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a good man. In fact, Jesus Himself said, “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” But John wasn’t a worker of miracles. In fact, Scripture does not record John the Baptist doing any miracle or participating in any wonder, save the wonder of God’s Voice during Jesus’ baptism. In that regard, John the Baptist isn’t any different than any of us. It was only John’s devout relationship with God that made him qualitatively different than anyone alive today. 

Some believed that Jesus was Elijah. Elijah was a unique prophet, in that he did not physically die, but was taken up to heaven. Through him, God brought about the three-year drought during King Ahab’s time. Elijah even ministered across cultural barriers when God provided through him for the widow of Zarephath with an unending supply of flour and oil during the famine, and later raised her son from the dead. It was Elijah who organized the great show-down against the idolaters at the top of Mount Carmel and prayed fire down from heaven upon the altar and sacrifice. It was Elijah who prayed rain upon the land after that incident, who was fed by angels while on the run for 40 days and nights in the wilderness, and who prayed fire down upon the soldiers sent to take him in – not once, but twice! It would be believable that Jesus was Elijah, except that Jesus did not return down from heaven to Israel before He started His ministry – everyone knew He was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth. 

Some believed that Jesus was Jeremiah or another prophet. Jeremiah was the most misunderstood man of his day. While speaking for God from his youth with a demonstrable passion and intimate relationship with God, Jeremiah failed to mobilize the nation, and is best remembered for his lament over the nation. Yet Jeremiah also was responsible for giving the nation a conscious, by which they persevered though the exile. Perhaps Jesus was simply the same. Certainly, Jesus was prophesying the destruction of the nation on account of their falling away from God just as Jeremiah had done. 

But of course, Jesus is more than any of these. More than John the Baptist, more than Elijah and more than Jeremiah. Jesus is the fulfillment of all three and more. The witness of Himself and His Father was that He was God’s Son, not the reincarnation of a former prophet. 

The disciple of Christ knows that, even if all around the people do not! 

Jesus was God spelling himself out in language humanity could understand.

S.D. Gordon

APPLICATION: Worship

It is impossible to know and meditate on Jesus’ identity without worshipping Him. 

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,  “Who do  people say the Son of Man is?””

Jesus has come with His disciples to the area near Caesarea Philippi. “This city was situated about twenty-five miles north of the sea of Galilee at the foot of Mount Hermon, which was largely pagan territory. One of the sources of the Jordan issues from a cave near this city, and there was an ancient shrine in the cave. When the Greeks came they dedicated the shrine to “Pan and the Nymphs”; they called the cave “Paneion” and the area “Paneas.” In 20 b.c. Augustus gave the district to Herod the Great and built a temple of white marble in honor of the emperor at Paneas. When Herod died in 4 b.c. the area became part of the tetrarchy of Philip, and this man rebuilt the city. He called it Caesarea in honor of the emperor Augustus and added “Philippi” (which distinguished it from Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast and, of course, honored Philip himself).”

Jesus and His disciples are now in an area that not only was completely pagan in origin and name (Pan was the god of shepherds and the outdoors), but in a profound way was made more pagan by the institution of the worship of a human emperor instead of a god, and renamed to not only honor the emperor, but a mere tetrarch. It is a region that was given over to idolatrous and prideful self-declaration – a region that in many ways represented humankind’s worst ambitions in their basest form. 

Knowing exactly where they are and how far along in their discipleship journey those who have followed Him are, Jesus chooses to ask the critical question, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

It is the height of preplanned irony. For it is here and now, in the context of a physical background rooted in prideful self-declaration, that His disciples will have to wrestle with who they will declare Jesus is. Not only that, but in a profound juxtaposition, while standing outside an unholy city dedicated to a man and near a shrine originally built to honor the god of shepherds, Jesus is about to be declared for who He is and about to declare what He came to do, which is to die at a pagan site outside the holy city to become the source of eternal life for all who come to Him, the Great Shepherd. 

This is the center of Matthew’s Gospel. This is the pivot point. This is the pivotal question, “Who is Jesus to you?” 

One’s answer to that question determines the path of life we take from then on. One’s answer to that question ultimately determines one’s destiny. 

It all comes down to this. If we declare that Jesus is not Messiah but just a man, then we remain trapped in idolatrous ideology. But if we declare that Jesus is Messiah – God our Saviour – then we must bow our knee to Him and His will for us, meaning our lives are forever tied to His; We become His people, and He becomes our God. 

Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God.

Tim Keller

APPLICATION: Worship

Knowing Christ we find we have been grafted into God’s family by covenant. We have become ‘in-Christ’ in the same way as we have in-laws by means of a marriage covenant.  

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do   people say the Son of Man is?””

Prior to this point in Matthew’s narrative, Jesus has used the term “Son of Man” nine times to refer to Himself (Matt 8:20, 9:6, 10:23, 11:19, 12:8, 32, 40, 13:37, 41). This is the 10th time the term comes up, and He will use it twenty more times in this Gospel account. Clearly, Jesus wanted those who follow Him to be aware of who He thought He was, and “Son of Man” was the term He felt best described Himself.

“Son of Man” is an Old Testament scriptural term. It comes up once in Numbers, once in Job and a few times in Psalms. But it comes up 91 times in Ezekiel and twice more in Daniel. Literally “ben-Adam”, Son of Man refers to a male progeny of Adam. In that sense, the term is almost a derogatory one from God’s standpoint. 

Numbers 23:19 uses it in reference to mankind’s unreliability. Job 25:6 uses it in reference to mankind’s inability. The Psalmist first uses it in reference to mankind’s ranking in authority (Ps 8:4). These are all instances where the term is referring to humankind as a whole. But when “Son of Man” refers to God’s servant, it has a very different meaning. In Ezekiel as in Daniel, the connotation becomes one of “the best humankind can get”. The same is true in Psalm 80:17, “Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself.” 

To this point Commentator G. Van Groningen noted, “when used of an individual person, who is spoken of as Yahweh’s agent, it points to humankind created royal, restored to a regal position, and called to serve as Yahweh’s human representative on behalf of human beings.” That is the context in which Jesus uses it of Himself. 

In so doing, He takes upon Himself a term that hints at His Messianic role of redemption: He literally is the one who takes what was fallen and redeems it to God’s original (and highest) purpose. 

Jesus was not only always aware of who He was, He was always aware of His role. His role (who He was sent to be – the one who redeems) and identity (who the Father said He was – God’s Son) were united, allowing Him to minister wholeheartedly from a position of strength and self-awareness. Knowing His disciples would one day need to carry on His ministry, Jesus knew His disciples would likewise need to be firm in their identity and self-awareness. 

That awareness starts with being cognizant of God, and cognizant of God’s calling. So the question He asks is critical. They cannot know who they were and what they were called to be without first knowing who He is and what He had come to be. But rather than ask that question without context, He first asks who others think He is. It is a question that is most appropriate, given the context of where they are –  both geographically and in their discipleship journey!

Essential to understanding Jesus’ identity is recognition of his divine agency.

Andrew T. Lincoln

APPLICATION: Intentionality

The question of our identity can only be rightly answered when we know Christ’s identity. For then and only then can we rightly ascertain who we are in relation to Christ, and our core identity is found not in ourselves by ourselves, but in relationship – and in relationship to God. 

Jesus and His band of disciples are making their way across the lake, having  left the  Pharisees and Sadducees who tested Him behind. Along the way, Jesus is a bit frustrated that His disciples ‘forgot’ to bring bread. It is possible they deliberately forgot, for they had earlier picked up 7 basketfuls after the miracle of the feeding of the crowd. The fact that they had counted them and Matthew wrote down how many basketfuls is testimony to their remembrance of the incident. It is therefore not an unreasonable conclusion that they wanted to see if Jesus could feed the next large crowd without one of their lunches as a starter. Knowing this, Jesus had cryptically said, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 

Of course, the disciples immediately thought He was poking at their lack of bread. But Jesus’ comments make it clear that while He was aware of the matter, His deeper frustration stems from their blindness to the real issue. That is, that their ‘forgetfulness’ comes because they’ve allowed the ‘yeast’ of the Pharisees and Sadducees to permeate their thinking. They thought they could manipulate Christ into doing what they wanted Him to do, just as the Pharisees and Sadducees thought they could when they tested Him just before they left the area by boat.

Jesus said, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”  Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 

The Pharisees and Sadducees had taught that they as human leadership were in charge, and by their response to Christ they had taught that God needs to prove Himself to them. Jesus’ frustration is that His own disciples would pick up on how the Pharisees and Sadducees were acting and start to do likewise. The Lord will have none of it. God is in charge, and He does not need to prove anything to His creation. He will never allow Himself to be manipulated into doing or acting as self-appointed human masters expect. 

This is a profound point that is even more relevant in our day than it was in the disciples’ day. Many are those in a teaching authority who effectively claim they know better than God how He should or must act. Many are those in our day who would and are subtly trying to outsmart God, tricking Him into acting in a way that we personally find satisfying. This is the great folly of both those who preach the “prosperity Gospel” (that God must bless you if you give to their cause), and the great folly of legalism (that God will only like you if you follow a great litany of extra-Biblical rules).  

One must remember that God is a being. He is not a force we can manipulate like electricity. One must remember that God is not just a really smart being, but omniscient King of Kings. He is not a simpleton we can outsmart or an entity we can trifle with. 

It must be beyond frustrating to Him that some nevertheless try to manipulate Him as though He was a six year old child – and all the more when He looks at our frail limitation and knows that our daily sustenance comes directly from His hand.

Unlearned men vainly talk; and such not only show their ignorance in religion, but are also wholly destitute of common sense.

John Calvin

APPLICATION: Intentionality

For us who know Christ, God is ever always Abba, Father. But He is also God Most High and ever and always deserving of great reverence. 

The twelve had been with Jesus when He leaves the vicinity of Magadan by  boat. Just  before they go, Jesus had rather sternly and a bit sarcastically shut down a conversation with the Pharisees and Sadducees who had come to test Him by asking for a sign, saying “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” 

The echo of that statement would be on the disciples’ minds now that they are with Jesus in a boat, crossing a large lake. The image of Jonah and the idea of all Jonah went through – including being tossed off the boat on account of a storm caused by his own foolish disregard for God’s Word – would not easily be dismissed from thought. Especially because the disciples had ‘forgotten’ to bring bread for the journey, in spite of just picking up seven basketfuls of bread from the feeding of the 4000 before they left. And, it’s well possible they deliberately didn’t bring the bread just to see if Jesus could feed the next crowd without a “starter loaf” – making Jesus’ comment about Jonah (a disobedient prophet) all the more poignant. To top it off, Jesus says something that seems to cryptically point at their failure, “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”” 

Jesus’ use of the word “yeast” (in Greek, “zyme” – a key ingredient in making bread) would certainly seem to poke at their own error in not bringing the bread. Sure enough, Matthew writes, “They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.” But the disciples are again in error. Jesus does not mean to passive-aggressively point out their failure. He means to teach them an important principle about fallen human pride, “Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand?””  

All through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had taught that what God meant by His Word had a much higher meaning than we might read by the text only. When a fellow human being says, “Do not murder”, we hear the words and we interpret those words to mean effectively only that – as if they had said, “Do not kill unjustly.” But we must not forget that the person speaking the words adds the weight of their reputation, value and office to the words. So when God says, “Do not murder”, we must hear His Word with the weight of His glory in mind; His command means more than just “Do not kill unjustly”. As Jesus taught, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” The character of God (that is the source of the text), informs the text. 

Knowing this, we see that God’s command, “Do not murder” is much deeper and richer than the text itself might otherwise communicate, as the glory of God is infinitely greater than the glory of man. Likewise when Jesus speaks, for He is God the Son. So, what Jesus meant by “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” was not “You fools, you forgot the bread!” Rather, it is something far deeper. Something far more meaningful, and something far more ironic!  

Every word of Scripture carries the weight of God’s authority.

R.C. Sproul

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Your voice has weight too. Let it be used wisely!