There are all kinds of obstacles to ministry. Resource obstacles, like a lack of needed financial resources. External obstacles, like governmental regulations. People are sometimes obstacles, too. Sometimes those are the hardest obstacles to overcome.
Especially when the people who are an obstacle are those closest to us.
Jesus had to face that kind of obstacle in his ministry. Jesus had to make some choices about how to deal with those obstacles, and get on with his ministry.
“What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” – Mark 1:27
The people who heard Jesus and saw what he was doing asked this question. As Mark shares the question with us in his gospel, he raises the same question for his readers – both those in the first century, and those of us who read it now.
The things Jesus taught, and the things Jesus did – what is this? Who is this?
Are you frustrated with your ministry, your calling, witnessing to others, or even just with living the Christian life? Are you concerned about your effectiveness in those roles?
If you answered, “yes”, Matthew Chapter 13 has a special meaning for you.
It is important to understand Jesus’ teaching in Chapter 13 in the context of what we saw happening in Chapter 12. Despite the chapter break, this all happened on the same day, and the teaching is directly related to the events earlier in the day. So is the change in Jesus’ teaching style.
The change in what Jesus’ teaches and how he teaches it is different enough to cause the disciples to come to Jesus and ask him why he’s made the change. To this point, Jesus has been openly teaching that the kingdom is at hand and what that kingdom looks like. The heart that he expects, the behavior that’s expected. He’s used examples to clarify the teaching, but that’s much different from the parables that become part of his teaching now.
We usually think of parables as clarifying Jesus’ teaching, and certainly some of them do. That perspective is largely due to our being on this side of Jesus’ ministry, though, and 2000+ years of people talking about their meaning. To the disciples and the crowds on that day, Jesus’ meaning on those parables was anything but clear, prompting them to ask him repeatedly to explain the meaning.
There was a reason for that. Jesus had taught pretty clearly to this point. If you look back to the events earlier in that day, you see where that has gotten him. He has huge crowds following him, and obviously many are very interested in what he has to say. I wonder, though, if more of them aren’t primarily interested in what he can do for them – the healing, for example – and the spectacle that they get to see. There’s another response as well, and it’s a much more negative response: the opposition to and rejection of what he is teaching and doing, primarily from the religious leaders. It has reached the point that he’s accused of being in league with the devil and the leaders are plotting to destroy him. They truly do not understand at all.
That’s the reason for the abrupt change in teaching style. Jesus recalls the book of Isaiah, as the prophet began his ministry. Willing to carry God’s message to the people, no doubt Isaiah’s hope was that all would hear his words and respond. God tells him (to paraphrase): don’t get your hopes up. God’s message to Isaiah, which Jesus quotes part of, was that many of the people would hear, but not understand. They’re unwilling to understand. Their hearts have become so corrupt they’re unable to understand. That’s what Jesus is experiencing now too. Count how many times in this chapter Jesus talks about hearing and understanding – it’s truly what he’s struggling with.
Problem is, he still has a lot of teaching to do, especially with the disciples. It’s likely to get him into more and more trouble. He has secrets of the kingdom that he needs to tell the disciples, and he tells them so; things that they need to know and understand even if nobody else does. That’s where the parables come in. They’re being given a gift – an opportunity to learn secrets about the kingdom that nobody else has known or will understand, at least for now. They have the blessing of being able to hear, and understand… though sometimes they need a little help. The parables allow Jesus to share these secrets with them, while obscuring the teaching from those that won’t understand anyway.
The secrets he teaches them on this day through the parables he presents are ones directly related to the opposition he’s encountering. Let’s take a look at some of them.
The first secret is that not everybody is going to accept Jesus’ teaching and use it to bear fruit. I’ve often wondered what the disciples really expected from Jesus and his ministry. It’s clear that there is a lot they didn’t understand about the nature of the kingdom and what would happen to its King. From what they did understand, what did they expect? Given the words of the Old Testament prophesies they knew, I think at least part of what they expected was a universal acceptance of the Messiah and his inescapable reign – and destruction for those that refused to accept it. Jesus teaches them that it isn’t going to be that way. In the parable of the sower, Jesus describes four kinds of reactions to his teaching. Those that hear, but don’t understand (there’s that theme again) and Satan comes and snatches away the word that was planted in them. Those that hear and respond positively to the word at first, but are so shallow in that they immediately fall away when the first trial occurs. Those that allow the cares of the world and the desire for material things to take priority over the word, until it is choked down to the point of not being useful. Finally, the fourth reaction is to hear, understand, and be fruitful – though, interestingly, in different measures from one person to the next. While I don’t think that Jesus was teaching that exactly one-fourth of the people who hear the word are the only ones that will receive it, one thing is clear: the last group of people are the ones on the “narrow way”, and a lot of people will end up on the path that leads to destruction instead.
The second secret, revealed to them in the parable of the weeds (or tares), is that Satan is actively working to “pollute” the kingdom, and it’s going to be hard to tell who is in and who is out. Just as Jesus and his disciples are working to produce children of the King, Satan is actively planting weeds in the midst of the field – sons of Satan – purposely put there to mess things up. They’ll be hard to identify, and even harder to root up – in the parable, the master of the house says that to do so would uproot some of his good crop, and to leave them to the end. Jesus says that at the end of the age, at the time of the harvest, he’ll send forth his angels to destroy them. One of the things I ponder as I read this, is that patience with the weeds’ growth in the midst of the good crop. In his explanation of the parable, he describes the field as the “world”; as he began the parable he’s specifically teaching about the nature of this kingdom. Sure, there are “sons of the evil one in the world”… how many of them are mixed in among us in the church? I don’t think this passage is telling us to completely ignore the possibility of weeds being mixed in among us – he warned in Chapter 7 for the disciples to be on the lookout for false prophets and we have similar warnings elsewhere in scripture – but it also seems clear that God isn’t trying to remove every “weed” from among us right now . This teaching lends an interesting perspective on the oft-pondered question of why the wicked aren’t punished and even seem to prosper around us.
There are five other kingdom parables in the chapter, each shorter than these two. It’s amazing how many opinions there are about the details of these short parables among people today (remember the discussion about parables not necessarily being for making things clear?). Without trying to parse every nuance, taking into account the context of the day, and sticking with the high-level meaning that can be taken from them, I think we can take away these additional insights into the kingdom – more “secrets” he was sharing with the disciples.
Seven parables with secrets of the kingdom. Parables that Jesus used to teach the disciples some realistic expectations for his ministry, and for theirs. They won’t reach everyone. Not everyone will respond. There will be people actively working to mess up their efforts. Their efforts will be worth it, though. Some will respond, and will bear fruit, and the kingdom will grow large enough to influence the entire world. The kingdom is worth more than anything, and worth giving everything else up for. In the end, there will be a tremendous harvest, and the Lord and his angels will sort out the good from the bad – they don’t have to take care of that.
Those things are worth considering as we live the kingdom life and work to produce a harvest too. In our ministry, as we serve as ambassadors for Christ, the same “secrets” apply to us. Do we know them, remember them, and rely on them? If you’re frustrated in your labor for the kingdom, this is these are the secrets that bring peace.
The Pharisees were extremely knowledgeable about the Law. They were extremely concerned with following the Law themselves, and with others following the Law. They made rules that were even stricter than the Law – as long as you followed the rules, there was no chance of breaking the Law. They were men of great stature and power in society, men with a certain image and reputation to protect.
What they failed to understand, was that there was something greater.
That failing immediately put them at odds with the Teacher, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Matthew Chapter 12. It plays out in three scenes.
In the first, Jesus and his disciples are headed to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They’re hungry. Passing through the grain fields on the way, they pluck a few heads of grain to have something to eat – something that was allowed under the Law. The problem was, this was the Sabbath, and the Pharisees had rules for that. The Law said to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy – do no work. The Pharisees had decided that plucking a head of grain to eat was the same thing as harvesting the whole field would be – it was work. It was “not lawful”. They confronted Jesus.
Jesus used two examples to illustrate the inconsistency and hypocrisy evident in how the Pharisees applied the Law. One was a situation in which one of their heroes clearly broke the Law: the time when David lied to the priest to obtain bread that only the priests were allowed to eat, so that he and his men could eat while on the run from King Saul. The priest, in turn, “bent” the Law, by offering the bread to David. The Pharisees had no criticism of David. The other example he gave was of the Priests, who in doing their priestly duty did do work on the Sabbath – preparing and offering sacrifices in the Temple. That work on the Sabbath, however, was commanded of the priests in the Law, and they were guiltless.
Jesus packs a lot of teaching into the next couple of verses. “There is something greater than the temple here” – if the priests can break the Law without guilt for the sake of the worship in the temple, the disciples could break the rules of the Pharisees for “something greater than the temple” – the Lord himself. He’s the Lord of the Sabbath, and Jesus tells them exactly that. He tells them something else that is greater than their rules – something he told them, or some other Pharisees in Chapter 9 – something he’s been teaching ever since the Sermon on the Mount in Chapter 5. God said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. People are the most important things. How we deal with each other is more important than the rules we follow. Their rules did not equal the Law, but the Pharisees put them ahead of people in need. Jesus declares the disciple guiltless.
In the second scene, they’ve made it to the synagogue, with the Pharisees following along. A man with a withered hand is there. The Pharisees see the man, and what they saw was an advantage… an opportunity… a means to an end: to accuse Jesus. They ask Jesus if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Jesus sees a person in need, and again confronts their hypocrisy: they’d take care of their livestock that had fallen in a pit (something else commanded in the Law), even on the Sabbath. Jesus tells them clearly what should have been obvious: people are of greater value than animals (and, of course, their rules). Certainly it is lawful to heal a person in need on the Sabbath! He does so, and instead of rejoicing at the great thing that had been done for this man, they “went out and conspired to destroy him”.
Aware of this, Jesus acts with the gentleness that Isaiah prophesied he would have, and withdraws to another place. The Pharisees are there, too, and thus we have the third scene.
Jesus performs another healing, this time of a man who is blind and mute due to a demon. The people are amazed, and are beginning to put two and two together from the power Jesus is displaying – “could this be the Son of David?” – is he the Messiah? The Pharisees have an answer for that. No, he’s the opposite. Yes, they say he shows power – but it’s only by the power of Beelzebul, the Devil himself, that Jesus drives out demons.
Jesus refutes this with three arguments that make clear how ridiculous that statement is and where the real source of power is coming from, and then warns them of the thin ice they’re skating on.
First, a house divided against itself can’t stand. If Satan was the source of power Jesus was using to cast out demons, it would mean that Satan was using his power to defeat himself. That makes no sense. Second, there are other people who the Pharisees are supportive of – their “sons” – that cast out demons; it doesn’t make sense for the Pharisees to say Jesus does this by Beelzebul but not to apply the same accusation to the others. Third, Jesus says, to rob a strong man you have to first tie up the strong man – be more powerful than him and restrain him. Jesus could only be doing this if he had power over Satan. That power would be the Spirit.
That’s where the warnings begin. You can talk bad about me, he says, and that’s forgivable. Talk bad about the Spirit, though, and that’s unforgivable. What you say shows the evil you have in your hearts, and those words will condemn you – your fruit demonstrates that evil. He uses the language of John the Baptist here (“you brood of vipers”), and what he says has to remind the Pharisees of what John challenged them to do: bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
The Pharisees ask him for a “sign” – do something to prove that what you do comes from the Spirit (like he hasn’t already done enough). Jesus doesn’t fall for the bait-and-switch tactic. He denies them a sign, other than a huge one that will come later: he predicts his death, burial, and resurrection to them, comparing himself in the process to Jonah being in the belly of the fish.
I doubt they understood that at all, but it also gives Jesus a great opportunity to tell them that they’re missing out on “something greater”, and the judgement they’re bringing down on themselves. Nineveh heard Jonah’s preaching and repented; that’s better than the Pharisees and “this generation” have done, even though they’re in the presence of something greater than Jonah. The Queen of the South gives another example: she went to great lengths to hear the wisdom of Solomon; now something greater than Solomon is here, and the Pharisees and “this generation” don’t want to listen.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand, great things are happening, good news is being shared with this generation. This generation, however, is like a man who has a demon cast out (a timely illustration with what has just happened) but sits empty and doesn’t fill himself up with something to take the place of the demon. That gives the demon a change to come back with his friends and take over. This generation that rejects Jesus will end up worse off than they were at the first.
The Pharisees thought themselves great men, and most everyone else did too. They had an unfortunate habit of “majoring on minors and minoring on majors”, though. Their concern for their rules, their position, their power, their control, and their image had caused them to miss out on the “something greater”: Jesus, his teaching, mercy and concern for people. That put them at odds with Jesus: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
The question is whether we, too, miss out on the “something greater”. That’s what we’ve seen all through Matthew: the kingdom heart, the compassion and concern for others, what Jesus lived and taught and wanted for us to be and to have. What gets in our way of seeing that “something greater”? Our concern for the traditions we’ve always followed, the rules we take to be gospel? Our image, our pride, or any of the other things the Pharisees were concerned with? It’s time to choose something greater.
Key Verses
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (v. 35-37)
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (v. 30)
“…whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (v. 50)
Today’s Reading: Matthew Chapter 4
Chapter 4, in a nutshell, tells of Jesus’ temptation, the beginning of his ministry, and the calling of his first disciples.
After his baptism, Jesus is “led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”. That phrase throws me for a loop. It doesn’t say that the Spirit led him someplace to fast and grow closer to God (though I assume he used that 40 days to do just that) – it says he was led there to be tempted by the devil. The Spirit intentionally leads him out to a place specifically for the purpose of being tempted. He’s all alone in a situation where it is easy to be tempted – in the middle of nowhere, having eaten nothing for 40 days and 40 nights.
The devil, of course, takes advantage of the situation, as he always does. All alone, no support? Weak for any reason (in this case hunger)? Satan is always ready to use that situation to strike. While the wise thing for us would be to try and avoid a situation where we know we’d be tempted, this was why Jesus came to this place.
Hebrews stresses that what makes Jesus a superior high priest and perfect sacrifice is the fact that he was tempted just as we are, but without sin:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. – Hebrews 4:15
For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. – Hebrews 2:18
This was necessary for him to do, and his purpose for going into the wilderness. He kept the integrity of his ministry and mission intact, by facing just this situation and handling it as he did.
The first and second temptations are a challenge by Satan to Christ to prove he was who he says he was. Yes, the first temptation is in part a strike directly at the physical weakness Jesus is experiencing. He’s not eaten for 40 days and 40 nights, he’s hungry, so Satan tempts him to break his dedication to his fast and make bread to eat. But it’s more than that: if you are who you say you are, this should be easy for you to do. “Prove it”, says Satan.
Jesus turns to scripture for his defense. The scripture he quotes is from the speech Moses gave to the Israelites after their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, just before they entered the promised land – fitting for Jesus as he’s been in the wilderness for 40 days. Even more fitting is the verse choice. In Moses’ original speech, he reminds the Israelites of the time that they went hungry, but then God provided them with manna – he says that this was to teach them the lesson that it isn’t just food that sustains them, but God that sustains them – every word from God’s mouth sustains them. Jesus, hungry from his 40-day fast and tempted by the Devil, draws on this same lesson as he faces Satan.
For the second temptation, the devil displays some power, in whisking Jesus from the wilderness to the highest point of the temple, where he makes essentially the same challenge: prove you are who you say you are. He offers a twist, though: he can quote scripture too. He quotes a verse from the Psalms: if you are who you say you are, God will protect you from harm… throw yourself down and prove you are who you say you are.
Jesus quotes scripture back, from the same speech Moses gave, saying you shouldn’t test God. This is really scary – Satan knows the scripture, and he can and will use it as a strategy to tempt. Jesus knew scripture better, and knew that a verse used in a way that conflicts with other scripture is a verse that’s being twisted and misused. There’s a lesson there for us – we have to be well grounded in scripture, knowing all of it, or at least enough to recognize when a verse on its own is being misused by others or in our own minds to take us down the wrong path.
After failing in the first two attempts, Satan switches tactics. He whisks Jesus away to a high mountain and through an impressive display of power shows Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory”… and offers to turn them over to Jesus if only he’ll fall down and worship Satan. Was this a deceptive promise? Perhaps. There had to be some grain of truth there for it to be a temptation, though.
Still, Jesus is still not to be had. In Moses’ same speech to the Israelites, he warned them of the dangers that would exist in the promised land, including the strange “gods” they worshiped, and how their God was a jealous God. They were only to worship and serve the one true God, no matter how attractive the foreign deities seemed to be and no matter what claims there followers made about their power. Jesus quotes Moses words as he tells Satan to “go away” – “you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve”.
Three temptations, and three consistent answers from Jesus – “it is written…”, “it is written…”, “it is written”. There is a lesson there for our defense in the face of temptation: know the word, turn to the word, wield the word to defeat Satan. It’s no wonder when Paul describes the “armor of God” in Ephesians – the things that we can use to “stand against the devil’s schemes” – that he describes our one and only weapon as being the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God”.
The devil does flee at Jesus command, and Jesus leaves the wilderness. Learning that John has been arrested, he returns to Galilee and goes to Capernaum, fulfilling yet another Old Testament prophecy which Matthew reminds us of. He begins to preach the same thing John had: “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.
Matthew next describes the calling of four disciples, the ones that become Jesus’ inner circle – Peter, Andrew, James and John. At least one of them, Andrew, was a disciple of John the Baptist, and John may have been as well. Jesus speaks to them in a way they can understand – they’re fishermen, working their trade when they’re called. Jesus tells them to follow him, and he’ll make them “fishers of men”. Matthew goes out of his way to stress that each of the four men, having been called, immediately dropped what they were doing and followed him – leaving their nets behind (Peter and Andrew) and their father behind (James and John). They left their businesses, they left family, they immediately followed Jesus.
They got to see incredible things. Matthew closes chapter four describing those early days of Jesus’ ministry, as he moves all around Galilee. He describes three things Jesus was doing – teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news of the Kingdom, and healing every disease. Teaching, preaching, and healing. Really, this was about people, ministering to them, and taking care of their needs. He taught the ones that knew God, he preached to those that needed to know the good news, and he healed those who were hurting. Seems to be a great model for us as well – a focus on people and meeting their needs. Teaching, encouraging, strengthening those who know him. Preaching the good news of the Kingdom to those that don’t. Bringing healing to those that are hurting.
The people certainly responded. According to Matthew, Jesus’ fame spread all over the countryside and huge crowds from both near and far were following him and bringing their sick for healing.
I’ve already touched on some of the obvious applications for me from this passage. It is ripe with application:
Key Verses:
“You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” (verse 10)
“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” (verse 23)
