Jesus continues His condemnation of hypocritical religious leaders. It would be easy to say that Jesus is pointing at someone else when He says all of this, but we should look at how what Jesus says applies to ourselves. He condemns them for doing things solely for the purpose of gaining respect and being viewed as righteous. I don’t know about you, but I want people to view me as a good person who does good for others. However, what Jesus says here makes me want to BE a good person more than I want to be viewed as a good person. We all have a tendency to create rules which we use to define what it means to be a good person that are easier for us to follow than those given to us by God. We think that if we convince others to follow our rules that will make our rules the ones that matter.
Jesus tells several parables in today’s passage which all have similar themes. In a way, that theme begins with Jesus’ driving the money changers and other merchants out of the Temple. Then when the religious leaders asked Him what authority He had for doing so, He asked them to say whether or not John the Baptist had authority from heaven. When they said that they did not know, Jesus declined to answer their question. They were unwilling to say that John had authority from heaven because they were unwilling to put his teachings into practice. On the other hand, they were unwilling to say that he only had human authority because they were afraid of the crowds who believed in John. However, that was not why Jesus asked them this question. Jesus asked because if they accepted that John had authority from heaven, He could show how John had testified to His own calling by God. On the other hand, if they said that John had only human authority it would reveal to the people that they did not have the righteousness they claimed. I have worded that poorly, but I think as I discuss the parables it will give a clearer understanding of what I was trying to say.
From there Jesus starts telling some parables. The first parable shows us that saying we want to do God’s will is less important than actually doing it. In fact, there are those who verbally reject God who do His will. From there Jesus goes on to tell parables about people who present themselves as righteous, but actually attempt to usurp God’s place. God will replace those people with those who know they are not in God’s presence because of their own merit, but solely because of God’s grace. However, the ending of the wedding banquet parable shows us that we have to allow God to change us.
Today’s passage contains many elements which are worth discussion: child-like faith, God’s desire that all be saved, how to approach those who sin, forgiving others, wealth, reward for a righteous life, and more. After Jesus tells us that in order to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven we need to be like a child, He warns us against tempting the simple to sin. We would be better off dying a horrible death than causing someone to sin. Further, we should go to extreme lengths to avoid things which cause us to sin. There are two things Jesus emphasizes here. We should avoid leading others to sin, and we should avoid anything which leads us to sin. Do not invite others into situations where they may be tempted to sin. If you know someone has trouble resisting the urge to drink to excess, do not invite them out for a drink. If someone struggles with temptation for sexual sin, do not bring them into situations where that temptation will be strengthened. On the other hand, if you struggle with a particular sin, avoid those places, situations, and people who tempt you to commit that sin.
The other point I want to focus on is Jesus’ discussion about marriage and divorce. Really, He is teaching about human sexuality. When asked about divorce, Jesus responds that from the beginning God created humans as male and female. The result of God’s act of creation is that a man leaves his parents and becomes joined to his wife. The two become one and once joined by God, no one should separate them (see the above about causing others to sin). So, Jesus says that divorce is only acceptable in the most extreme, special case scenarios (basically, when one partner in the marriage has already separated themselves from the other). I find the response of Jesus’ disciples to this teaching interesting, “If you can’t get divorced, it would be better to never get married.” And Jesus does not correct them on that. Instead He tells them that they are right, but not everyone can handle remaining single. We need to make note of how He phrases that as well. Those who choose not to get married are choosing not to have sex. Not only is living a celibate life and never getting married an acceptable choice for Christ’s followers, it should be the first choice. Getting married is for those who cannot handle being celibate.
When the Pharisees confront Jesus over the failure of His disciples to follow their traditions, He points out how traditions often en up being used as an excuse to not follow Go’s commands. Then a little later in the passage, Jesus compares such traditions to yeast. It just takes a small seemingly harmless tradition but which can be used to avoid taking responsibility for doing God’s will to undermine the good intentions of people. One other important point regarding this: what we say influences whether we do God’s will, while what we eat does not. Therefor we should put more effort into choosing our words than we do into choosing what we eat and how we prepare it.
I cannot cover all of the things Jesus says in today’s passage that I think we should take to heart. So, I will focus on just a few things. One of the things which I often hear from those who do not want to impose discipline in the Church is, “We need unity in the Church. We need peace.” There is truth to that, and we should strive for unity and peace with those who also seek to follow and serve Christ. However, Jesus tells us that He did not come to bring peace. If we do not love Him more than we love peace, we are not worthy of being His. On the one hand there are those who lack humility and bring about conflict because they will not accept that others may follow Christ and see things differently. On the other hand, there are those who will do anything to avoid conflict. We need to be willing to draw others’ attention to the acts they commit which harm themselves and others even if this leads to confrontation.
I would like to make a nice neat segue between the previous paragraph and this one, but I am not really sure how to do that. When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the Messiah, Jesus did not give them a direct answer. Instead He told them to go back to John and tell him what they had seen and heard. In the same way, we should not have to tell people that we serve and follow Christ. They should know by looking at what we do and by what others say about us. Yes, we need to spend time telling people what Jesus expects of those who follow Him, but if they wander about our faith they should be able to see it by our actions.
Today’s passage begins with Jesus saying, “Do not judge others.” However, just a few verses later He says, “As you can identify a tree by its fruit, you can identify a person by their actions.” Once again we see the sort of paradox to which my college Bible professor referred. Fortunately, we can resolve much of this conflict by looking at context. Just after telling us not to judge others Jesus tells us that we will be judged by the standard we use to judge others. Jesus further clarifies what He means here when He tells us to treat others as we would like them to treat us.
So much of this passage touches me in a way that I want to write more about it, but I only have so much time today. So, I am going to tie together two last pieces (I find it interesting that I so often write about things in two in my blog). First Jesus says that not all who call out “Lord, Lord” to Him will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Then at the end of today’s passage He tells us to pray to the Lord of the Harvest, to God, to send more workers. If we are praying for more workers, it should be because we are doing as much as we can and we can see that there is more work to be done. Of course, even if we are doing as much as we can, there is more to be done. I don’t think I am doing all of the work God has that I could be. So, I pray that God will get me moving.
Today’s passage forms the centerpiece of my understanding of what it means to follow Christ. I want to start with, in my opinion, the central point that Jesus makes about what it means to worship, obey, and seek God: if you look for loopholes in God’s commands, you have missed the point of those commands. What He says about anger and lust show us this. If you allow yourself to get angry enough at someone that you want to kill them, you have allowed anger to override love and broken God’s commands just as badly as if you had actually murdered them. If you look at someone and think about how much you would like to have sex with them you are guilty of sexual immorality. Part and parcel with not seeking to take advantage of perceived loopholes in God’s commands is Jesus instruction to love others, even those we perceive as our enemies. If we truly love others we will seek what is best for them.
I had a Bible professor in college who liked to talk about the paradoxes of Christianity. Things where we answer a question by saying “yes, but no.” We actually have an example of what he was talking about in this passage. Jesus says that we should be like a lamp and put out righteousness up on a stand so that our light can shine for all to see. Then, a little further down, He tells us not to perform our acts of righteousness for others to see. This sounds like a contradiction, and it is a sort of paradox. Jesus tells us that we should not try to hide our faith in Him, nor the fact that we seek to live righteous lives. He also tells us that we should not do good things to get praise from others. In a way, He says that we should be publicly righteous when it will cost us and keep others from seeing our acts of righteousness when it would benefit us to be seen doing good. I am slightly exaggerating. It really comes down to the idea that you should do good things because they are good things and not because it may benefit you.
Matthew starts his account of Jesus’ ministry by establishing the prophetic basis for believing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Chosen One of God. Matthew also makes the case that God revealed Jesus’ Divine mission in other ways (that is the purpose of including the account of the wise men). Actually, all of this passage up until Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness serves the purpose of placing Jesus’ ministry in the context of God’s working at the time. First, Matthew establishes that Jesus is descended from David. Then he shows the divine nature of His birth. He follows that up by showing how God revealed Christ to those who worshiped Him who were not Jewish, and the threat which Jesus was to those in political power. The account of John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism by him ties Jesus to the Jewish religious revival movement of the Essenes (perhaps the only Jewish religious group of the period without a strong hint of hypocrisy about it). There are other things we can learn from what Matthew wrote here, but his primary purpose in including these elements was to thoroughly establish Jesus’ ministry in Jewish religious traditions.
Even Matthew’s account of Jesus calling His first disciples fits into the Jewish religious context of the time. However, as I understand how someone normally became a rabbi’s disciple in First Century Judaism, Matthew is using this to show that Jesus was a different sort of Jewish religious teacher. Normally, someone who wanted to study with a rabbi requested to be taken as his student and the rabbi would accept only the best of the applicants. Jesus, on the other hand, chose His disciples. They did not choose Him.
This is the last Old Testament passage for the year, today on October 2. Until the first time I did this blog using this system I never realized how much of the Bible is the Old Testament. Before I get to my thoughts on the passage I want to point out that Malachi means “messenger”. So, it may be that the writer of this passage was someone named Malachi. Or, it may be that the writer of this book had a different name and styled themselves as God’s messenger, which they were.
Malachi challenges us on two fronts. When we make sacrifices to God, are we truly sacrificing? Or are we just giving what we can spare or don’t really want anyway? And are we faithful in the commitments we make? In particular our commitments to our wives or husbands. When we make offerings to the Lord we should take them out of our earnings up front, not after we have paid all of our bills (especially not after the bills for things which were wants and not needs). When we marry we need to make a lifetime commitment and keep it, even if our wants and desires change. Of course, if we keep to our commitments, our wants and desires will change in accordance with the changes in those to whom we are committed.
There is little in today’s passage which speaks to me today. The main thing I want to focus on is what Zechariah writes about evil shepherds of God’s people. From time to time, God appoints leaders over His people who are evil. Such leaders do not rise to prominence in opposition to God’s will. Rather, God appoints them to lead His people as punishment for their sins. When the people of God are led by wicked, selfish people it is because they have become wicked, selfish people.
However, I want to point out what Zechariah writes a little further on. Yes, when God’s people allow themselves to fall into wickedness He will appoint over them wicked leaders, but in time He will pour out His Spirit on His people and draw them back to righteousness. Revival comes about when each one of us is led by the Spirit to look at our own lives and allow the Spirit to cleanse us of our sins.
