Reading Matthew with Missional Eyes

Matthew 14 describes the feeding of the 5000 just outside Jesus’  hometown. In that  instance, Jesus had withdrawn to a solitary place by boat. When the disciples were told to feed the large crowd that gathered, they replied, “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish.” That would’ve been about one basketful – the loaves being little more than large buns. Jesus miraculously transforms that small supply to enough to feed the whole crowd, enough to have twelve basketfuls left over. 

Matthew 15 describes the feeding of the 4000 in Decapolis. In that instance, Jesus had gone up on a mountainside. When the disciples were told that He wanted to feed the large crowd that gathered, they reported their supply as being only seven loaves and a few fish. Again, Jesus miraculously transforms that into enough to feed the whole crowd, enough to have seven basketfuls left over.

Now Jesus has again withdrawn and crossed the lake. Matthew 16 includes, “When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.” This is unusual, because the last two occurrences inform us that they had obviously been bringing something to eat pretty much everywhere they went. It is even more unusual because by now they’re learning that Jesus loves to be hospitable – to the point of expecting to feed very large groups of people with little to no preparation. The fact that Matthew mentions that they ‘forgot’ to take bread with them at all is yet another attention flag, because to this point there has been no mention of what provisions the band typically carried. 

In light of these three facts, one can see that the issue is probably not that the disciples assumed Jesus would again want to feed a large crowd and had erroneously assumed the other would bring the meager supply, but that they had deliberately forgotten the bread to see if Jesus could feed the next large crowd without a starting point at all. 

It is always error to presume upon God. Jesus had Himself proved that when Satan tried to temp Him the second time. One recalls what Matthew had said earlier; “Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 

To presume is to expect another to overcome your own lack. It is to test the goodwill of the other, and as such it is not merely a demonstration of lack of faith, but a form of betrayal. For it betrays your perception of your relationship as nothing more than a source of supply. Jesus is more than that to us – at least, He ought to be. The Father is not someone or something to be milked. He is our King and our God. He is to be honored by us, not to be presumed upon. 

Not even for helpful miracles and wonders. 

There is no sense in not appreciating things, and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

G.K. Chesterton

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Let us give thanks for God’s provision without forgetting our responsibility.

It is certainly true that God is very great – so much so that we can say with  confidence  that His power, majesty and glory are beyond what out limited minds can comprehend. Job even wrote, “How great is God—beyond our understanding!” Being repeated throughout the Bible, the truth of the greatness of God is one of the motifs of Scripture – and the same is true for His mercy, compassion and love. As David said, “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great.” “Your compassion is great, O Lord.” “For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” 

The same can be said for all of His character – including His patience. As Paul noted, “What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?” 

Yet though it is great, God’s patience, mixed with His great love and mercy and compassion – does reach a conclusion in the face of protracted disobedience. The Scripture plainly teaches us that when the people He made only entertained evil thought and action for generation after generation, the Father purposed to destroy the whole lot of them – saving only obedient Noah and his family. Likewise, Ezekiel tells us that when Israel’s leadership refused to repent time and time again, His presence left them as a people and they were scattered in exile. God’s Spirit leaves individual people too; His Spirit departed from King Saul when Saul refused to obey the Lord in all things, and David begged God not to take His Spirit from him when he committed murder and adultery. 

It is no wonder that God the Son acts the same way. The reader of Matthew’s Gospel sees that by chapter 16, the Pharisees have been harassing Jesus in one form or another since they’ve known about Him. In spite of so many who were healed, delivered and taught, they asked Him for a sign. When He refused (giving them only the sign of Jonah), they ignored His harsh judgment of their behavior and simply waited – while Jesus continued to heal, deliver and teach – and then asked Him again for a sign from heaven. 

At this Jesus has had enough. He again alludes to the sign of Jonah, and then Matthew records, “Jesus then left them and went away.” 

Watching someone who can heal all diseases, deliver from the most horrific of demonic possession and teach the deep things of God so wonderfully walk away ought to have filled the Pharisees with godly sorrow and regret. But there was none of that, because there was nothing godly in them to start with. 

Scripture teaches how the Lord has a lifetime of patience for those who are part of the lineage of the godly, but yet comes to the end of His patience with those who reject Him at the end of that lineage. It is a sobering reminder of the devastating folly of taking God’s patience for granted. And sadly, it is something else the Pharisees failed to take note of, though they claimed to truly know God’s Word.

The primary notion of a responsible being is one blessed with privilege, and able to use or abuse it at will. But men are constituted so as to derive much wisdom from experience, and hence failure in the use of privilege, in a few instances, may possibly create an experience that will constrain to a more careful observance of duty when newly imposed. Life is full of helps to obedience as well as of hindrances. But as time is required for the development of responsibility, so it is obvious that the possession of privilege involves a limit to the period for use or abuse. Government without a reckoning would be no government. Everlasting patience is inconsistent with responsibility attendant on privilege.

Henry D.M.S. Jones

APPLICATION: Worship

“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment.” – King David (from Psalm 2:12)

After taking a short break in the vicinity of Magadan from ministry in the Decapolis, Jesus’ fame catches up with Him again. People have heard that He traveled there, and the Pharisees and Sadducees once again show up, “The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.”

The Pharisees had asked Him for a miraculous sign before. After the demon-possessed man who was blind and mute had been healed, Matthew recorded, “Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” In that case as in this one, Jesus only promises them the sign of Jonah. But this time He answers in the form of a riddle:

“He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.” 

Jesus’ response is cryptic yet more than understandable. He reminds them of the ancient childhood saying, “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.” He points out that while they can understand such basics, they cannot understand who He is, why He is there at that season in Israel’s history, or what is happening all around them – even though they read Scripture all day long and claim to be the only ones who can interpret it correctly. He is cleverly insulting them, implying that they are able to grasp childish riddles, but not the things they claim fame for. 

At the same time onlookers can see Jesus as a new Solomon, who is able to address the most difficult of questions and solve the most problematic of riddles with the wisdom of God. Jesus refers to Jonah – a book that opens with God speaking and closes with God speaking. Those seeking God find the Lord speaking all through its verses. But those with closed minds find nothing more than a fishy story. 

To allude to Jonah is the ultimate comeback to those who are so close-minded they demand a sign just for themselves instead of looking at the obvious results of Jesus’ ministry. Everyone who looks at Jesus with an open mind finds God through Jesus. Just as the Queen of Sheba walked away from Solomon saying, “Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you,” so also Matthew notes of the people Jesus had just ministered to, “The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.” 

It is clear that even a child could see and perceive that God was working powerfully through Jesus. There was no need to ask for a sign, only a need to look at the signs already given! 

There is much instruction in our Lord’s lack of response to a desire for the spectacular, for all too often we seem to say, “If God will only give me a sign, I will do wonderful things for Him!”

M.S. Mills

APPLICATION: Intentionality

When the King gives you a gift, you do not ask Him to also give you another gift to prove that it was He who gave you the first one. 

Matthew chapter 16 opens with, “The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.”

This is not the first time the Pharisees have shown up to make Jesus’ life uncomfortable. They saw Him at Matthew’s house and questioned His disciples. They saw the possessed mute man healed and attributed it to Jesus working under Satan’s power. They directly confronted Jesus at the synagogue when they saw His disciples picking grain on the Sabbath. They plotted to kill Him when He healed a man’s hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath. They accused Him of being Satan’s minion when He rescued the blind mute from demon possession. Over and over again the Pharisees – sometimes alone, sometimes with the teachers of the law and sometimes with the Sadducees -come to Jesus with doubts, snide comments and foolish accusations. 

A life in service to God will have pros and cons. The pros are obvious – you get to enjoy and be a conduit of God’s peace, presence and power. You are privileged to see His Kingdom grow all around you, even as His joy grows inside you. You know His love for you and you are confident of your identity in Him. 

But there are also cons – negative aspects of a life in service to God. There is the occasional direct spiritual attack, and there is the constant sniping of the enemy through those who believe his lies. For Jesus, the Pharisees are part of the latter. They come to Him in selfishness and ask questions with unclean motives. His answer is almost irrelevant to their cause, because they are not actually seeking to affirm His identity as God’s Son by means of the witness of a miracle. They are disregarding all He has done so far and selfishly insisting that they alone are the judges of just who is approved of God and who is not. And in so doing, they are acting out the enemies plan to ensnare Jesus by prompting Him to do something for His own glory. 

Ironically, by this point Jesus has already judged them. In fact, back in chapter 12 Matthew recorded, “Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Jesus then went on at some length to clearly lay out the urgent need of the wicked to repent. 

Since then, Jesus has taught the parables of the sower, the weeds, the mustard seed, the hidden treasure and the net. He has fed the 5000 and the 4000, walked on water and both delivered and healed the Canaanites’ daughter! The evidence of who He is has been profound and sustained.

That the Pharisees would come back to Jesus with a different group of supporters for their cause and ask exactly the same question is both insulting and wearisome. But the called must be persistent, because the dogged determination of the enemy to try to grind down your joy and stall your life purpose does not go away until the day you open your eyes in glory. 

Jesus emphasizes […] the value of persistence not simply in challenging injustice, but also in exercising expectant faith that divine providence assures the final reign of justice.

Carl C.F. Henry

APPLICATION: Intentionality

As God persists in bringing sun and rain on all year after year, so also His people must persist in demonstrating His grace upon all. 

There are some things in each book of Scripture that get repeated again and  again. Not  all of them are seemingly profound. One of the more mundane things Matthew repeats is the primary method of Jesus’ transport. At the close of Matthew 15 we again read, “he [Jesus] got into the boat.”

Matthew 8:23 says, “Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him.” Matthew 9:1 says, “Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.” Matthew 14:13 reads in part, “he [Jesus] withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.”

As every student of history knows, until the advent of the locomotive and airplane, the waterways were the highways of the world. That was just as true of the middle east in 30AD as it was of Canada in the 1800’s. The boat in Christ’s time was as the car and bus is to ours. People could get to various places other ways of course. Most would walk. If you had one, sometimes you could ride an animal, and the very powerful & rich could use a chariot for greater land speed. But to move significant distance in good time – and especially with multiple people – there was no faster and more convenient way than by boat. 

Of course, a fishing boat wasn’t very fast. But faster boats meant sails and/or large crews. That was for the military, who could afford and value single-purpose equipment. The ordinary people who could afford one wouldn’t want that. They would want simple boats that were designed for long service life, a minimum crew of one and multiple purposes. They needed fishing boats with stability and cargo capacity. In Jesus’ time, fishing boats and oxen were tools of the middle and upper-middle class world over, just as ordinary cars and computers are in our time. 

Ministry depends on the ordinary and mundane tools and methods that the whole world uses. Ministry depends on transportation to the people we minister to. That transportation needs to be reliable and routes need to be free of obstruction. Most of all, it needs to be affordable. Ministry in Jesus’ time therefore demanded a fishing boat. In our time it often demands a car. 

Ministry also depends on meetings in spaces where people can gather. Ministry depends on short meetings over refreshments like coffee and longer meetings like sitting down to a meal. Ministry is about relationship, and the tools of relationship are common to the whole globe – which is really saying that ministry needs the simple and ordinary just as much as it needs the holy.

God might not give you a media platform, a large building or a private jet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be involved or be helpful to His mission in hugely impactful ways. After all, when we apply the ordinary and mundane to the divine purpose, wonderful things happen!

“Deep spiritual reform is usually not flashy.

John Folmar

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Samson used a donkey’s jawbone. Moses used a wooden rod. Use what is in your hand to use. God put it there. 

Jesus has taken the disciples on a mission trip to the Gentiles. There, He  healed a deaf  mute, caused the lame to walk and restored the sight of the blind. Many were healed. To top it all off, four thousand men – besides women and children – were miraculously fed with just seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. To say that it was an eventful and successful trip would be an understatement. Best of all, as a result of this ministry trip, people “praised the God of Israel.” 

Now that the trip is over, Matthew records, “After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.”

The Gospel of Mark refers to the same area as Dalmanutha. It is likely that the area had several small villages by various names, and people referred to it by the village they had some personal memory of. Today the towns of Kfar Hitim, Arbel and Hamam are there. “It was […] about three miles N,NW of Tiberias, on the southern end of the great plain of Gennesereth, famous for its fertility and year-round tropical climate.” 

Jesus has deliberately taken His team to a low-key area so they can unwind. 

A well-run short-term mission trip includes times of debrief – especially at the end of the experience. Actually, every intensive ministry experience requires a debrief! Like a Sabbath day at the end of a challenging work week, it is a welcome break from a demanding schedule. It is a time to clear your mind and relax a bit. It is a time to get more physical rest, talk to your friends, and share what impacted you (both positive and negative) so you can fully process all that’s happened. 

Some may think to dismiss such a time as a waste. But we need mental and emotional space to digest all that happens, just as our bodies need a break to recover from physical activity. How much more so a spiritual break when one has been engaged in intensive spiritual activity!

Perhaps it was partly with this in mind that God built a time of rest into every week. He established a rhythm to life so that people might not be overwhelmed with the emotions and stresses of daily life. 

A weekend is supposed to be to the mind what sleep is to the body. Rest and relaxation allow that one can spend significant time in prayer and reflection, which heals our minds and soul as sleep heals the body.  Yet if we see value in a weekend, we ought also to see value in a time of debrief, for the spirit also needs rest!

Rest and debrief are a necessary part of ministry life. They hold great value. Without them you are like a worker being told to do a double-shift. Without them you cannot be as spiritually productive as you need to be, and without them resentment begins to build. 

Team debrief is a time for a team to hear each other, pray for each other and minister to each other. It is rich and meaningful, a most productive use of time. Do not miss it! 

Periodically I debrief a class. I sit down with some students over refreshments and ask what spoke to them, what they understood me to be saying, what questions they have. I’ve found this one of the more productive means of feedback.

Howard Hendricks

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Our quiet times with God are most productive when we listen to Him debrief us on what He’s been doing while we were busy or sleeping. 

Jesus had become acutely aware of the crowd’s hunger. He had compassion  on them,  because He did not want them to experience a physical crisis as they walked back to their homes from the remote place He was ministering in. So Jesus tells the crowd what they should do at this point in their relationship with Him; “He told the crowd to sit down on the ground.” Jesus wants them to nothing more than expectantly wait. He does not ask them to forage for edible plants. He does not ask them to send runners to town. He does not ask them to financially give so that food can be acquired. He simply tells them to sit on the ground.

Sitting in middle eastern culture is the posture of eating. Jesus knows they are hungry, so He tells them to get ready to eat. To do that they needed to do nothing more than position themselves for the answer to their need, and wait. Waiting by and of itself is not a godly strategy. But expectantly waiting – knowing that the Lord is aware of our need and our inability to do something about our need – means He will respond as only He can respond. 

Psalm 5 says in part, “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”

There is something Jesus wants us to do when we are in need of God’s help – something we can do when we cannot do anything ourselves to bring about an answer. That is to wait on Him. He is our Father, and He is good. He will respond. He will answer prayer. 

There are times when our prayers are to be at least partially fulfilled by our own downstream action, and other times when our prayers are fulfilled with nothing more than expectant waiting. It is at such times that waiting is an exercise of faith. It assumes that the one called on will in fact respond, and will in fact respond positively. Waiting is a manifestation – a physical embodiment – of our confidence in His character and our relationship with Him. We sit knowing our need – which is beyond our own effort – is now in God’s hands. 

The Scripture is full of examples and encouragements to wait in faith – especially the Psalms. Psalm 27:6 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 37 verse 7 says, “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him,” and verse 34 says, “Wait for the Lord and keep his way.” Psalm 38:15 says, “I wait for you, O Lord; you will answer, O Lord my God.”  Psalm 130:5-6 says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

If you are right with God and you’ve presented your need to Him and subsequently He says nothing to you – it is time to wait!

The hour must come itself, and so it must simply be waited for.

W. Harris

APPLICATION: Intentionality

To do the ‘regular obedience’ while we wait for God’s special instructions is one of the most important spiritual principles a disciple can practice. 

“Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these  people; they  have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”  “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.””

Even though the disciples had just witnessed Jesus feeding 5000 people with only five loaves and two fish, they do not consider feeding 4000 with an incrementally greater supply a possibility. Perhaps that is because they still don’t consider ministry and miracles among Gentiles to be something God willingly does. Instead, they focus on the proportion of food supply vs population and find it so wildly unrealistic they disregard their past experience. Effectively, their focus on the poverty of their supply impoverishes their faith.

One wonders what is going through the minds of the disciples in that moment. 

Perhaps they were ashamed. After all, the last time Jesus fed so large a crowd, it was after a single long day of ministry. But here three days have already past, and Scripture says nothing about the disciples looking for food or doing what they can for the practical needs of the crowd during that time. It appears as though the disciples have neglected obvious felt need, and have now been called out by their Master.

Or it may quite the opposite. Perhaps they were frustrated. It may have been that they did bring a supply of food – at least for themselves and Jesus. In their eyes, Jesus had simply waited too long to think about moving on to the next town, and their food supply had just about run out on account of the length of time the ministry had taken. 

But whatever the circumstance, Jesus does not criticize or belittle the disciples. He does not point out their lack of faith, or their lack of preparation. He simply responds to the fact. The people Jesus cares about are needy, and His group does not have enough supply to meet the need in the moment; “He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was four thousand, besides women and children.”

God’s supply is not limited to our draw of it. If He supplied last time, He can do it again. That doesn’t mean that we should take Him for granted or be flippant about our own responsibility to steward well. Nor should we be frustrated that we need His help so soon after the last time. Nor should we think He will not supply to meet the need of THAT particular people group.

When we are following Christ rightly we can expect Him to supply what we truly need, when we truly need it, to do the ministry He has lead us into. He is faithful, able and willing. We just need to admit our lack, and lean on His capability. 

Christ’s miracles were not the suspension of the natural order but the restoration of the natural order. They were a reminder of what once was prior to the fall and a preview of what will eventually be a universal reality once again–a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict.

Tim Keller

APPLICATION: Worship

Praise the Lord, He is generous and kind!

Jesus has been healing the Gentiles in Decapolis. While Matthew’s account reads as   though it’s just been a long day (similar to the feeding of the 5000 on the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee), Jesus indicates it’s been a much longer event, “Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.””  

It has been three days, not one long day. Three days of ministry. Three days of healing. Each day has produced a crowd as the ministry saw answers to prayer through Jesus’ work. Mark even notes this in introducing Jesus’ concern for the hunger of those present, “During those days another large crowd gathered.”

Mark’s Gospel also reveals what’s been happening during those three days, “Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.””

Jesus has taken His disciples on a healing mission that has quickly become a significant event in the lives of the whole local population. Importantly, they have seen things they have never seen before. As when Jesus delivered and healed the possessed mute man outside Jarius’ place, this amazes everyone. So much so that the event continues for three days without concern for the necessity of food. It is only as the ministry begins to wind down that Jesus – knowing the crowd will soon need to disperse, finds Himself roused with compassion for their physical well-being. He says, “I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” 

God has compassion on those He made in His image. He has compassion for the lost. He has compassion for the suffering. He has compassion for the hungry. Best of all, God’s compassion is more than just a passing emotion. God acts on His compassion. God’s care transcends emotion and changes it into something much more, He transforms compassion into tangible acts of love. 

But before we get to the miracle wee know is about to happen, we do well to pause and reflect: Jesus takes the time necessary to reach lost people. He ministers to the suffering with both touch and prayer. Even our hunger will not escape His notice, or His provision! 

There is no greater comfort than knowing that the Lord continues to show His compassion to us, working miracles of goodness and mercy out of every situation in our lives

Eugene E. Carpenter 

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

God has compassion. He has compassion on you. He has compassion for you, today. Let His compassion for you spill out to those around you.