03 February 2004 00:23
my apologies, but i need to economize my time this evening, and that means hyperlinks will be the first to go. never fear, http://bible.gospelcom.net/ will still be on hand, you just have to type them in yourself :)Matthew 1-10: from 0128044.10-11
4.9 so satan's offering Jesus the world on a silver platter, and a very good price, too. i have to wonder, did this actually tempt Jesus? i wonder becuase: eating when you're hungry.. that'd be tempting to me. (tangent, check out verse 2, "after fasting 40 days... he was hungry." no duh). throwing myself off of high places, that in and of itself isn't tempting, but the concept behind it is. but control of the whole world?? no, that honestly doesn't tempt me. at least not in that many words, some of the aspects do, but who in their right mind wants to rule the world? not this boy. i want to rule my 500 square miles of untouched virgin forest somewhere in the northern rockies, but my rule would be simple: "if you ain't invited, git out." and you'd have to worship the devil to do it. that isn't appealing at all. that comes from my personal knowledge of Christ, but the idea of worshipping evil is appalling. i'd kill myself inside of a day just to try and get away from the uncleanliness of it all. if i were in Jesus shoes, even being deity and all, i don't think this would have been much of a temptation. but Jesus was tempted by it because verse 1 says he was "tempted by the devil."
the catch for me comes from reading the last part of Jesus response to the third temptation. "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." if you consider this particular temptation to be doing anything besides serving God only, then oh boy have i ever succumbed. it's enough to make a person memorize deut 6.13.
4.12, tuck this one away, i'll talk about it when we get to chap 16
5.1ff okay do this for me. read this aloud in your head. when you get to verse three what does Jesus sound like?
...
was he soft-spoken, blue-eyed, long blond-haired? was he speaking with a voice calculated to put you to sleep? i think you've been watching too many Jesus films. okay, here's what you do. first get on the internet and look for pictures of the abused, malnuourished children of the world. child prostitutes, child soldiers, babies who's ribs you can see, flies crawling all over their skin, children abandoned and helpless. i want you to get good and ticked off at the world in general, i want you to get absolutely livid. now realize how many of these children are this way because of adults. adults who claim to be christian. adults who claim to want the best for their people while they hoard personal wealth. adults who are hypocrites! now read matthew 12:22-37 out loud. read it like you're incensed, like you've had enough, like you just absolutley cannot take one more hypocritical comment from these brown-nosing, self-righteous, self-serving, think-they-know-it-all, slime in a barrel, snot-head Pharisees. read it out loud and read it strong.
now tell me that Jesus was a blue-eyed, blond-haired, soft-spoken hippie. most people nowadays realize that the stable in bethlehem was probably a cave. most people nowadays realize that Jesus wasn't blue eyed and blond, that he "probably" [5] looked semitic, just like any other Jew. but i still keep coming across this hippie concept, i can't stand it. Jesus is the epitomy of peace and love, yes. he is kindness and compassion in the flesh. but he's the same man who called down curses on people, whole towns, and entire religious sects. he's the same man who kicked the merchants out of the temple. believe me, that required a certain degree of dynamism and violence, to remove dozens if not hundreds of noisy merchants and customers from that place. go into a supermarket and try to kick everybody out with a small whip. you're going to have to make some noise to accomplish it.
Now that you're done reading the Jesus of Matthew 12, let's give Matthew 5 another try. some visualization. first he see's the "crowds". not crowd, but plural. that speaks to me of a Lot of people. so he climbs a mountainside. this is like reverse stadium seating, but it works, everbody can see him at least. so he calls his disciples and begins to teach. not only his disciples, but the crowds as well, (ref 7.28). so let's take the hippie approach, a dimunitive "blessed are the poor in spirit." so his disciples and maybe the first row of people heard him. the rest of the crowd gets restless and wanders off. it takes at least several minutes to read straight through the sermon, stretch it out with normal speaking rates, assume that it's not a 100% transcription (ie, there was more to the sermon than what we have), and you have a time more than long enough for people to leave in droves if they're not hearing anything. now try the martin luther king approach.. "BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT!". we have a Jesus who's hoarse at the end, but we also have a crowd that is amazed at his authority. Martin Luther King spoke with authority. we have no doubt that he had a dream. when he told us that, we believed him immediately, and many of us became fond of his dream. a soft-spoken hippie doesn't quite inspire the same way. dude, whatever. and i picked MLK because he was the first dynamic speaker to come to mind. but there are a good number of black preachers who would fit the description :). the whole idea of speaking forcefully with authority is tempered somewhat by the fact that Jesus was sitting down. if i were to deliver the same sermon, i would most definately have to be standing. still backpedaling (i ahve to cover my bases), a conviction spoken with quiet authority is usually more compelling than one spoken with loud authority. but i argue extremes for emphasis, so i'll let this stand.
7.17-18 read this aloud from the NIV, fairly rapidly if you will, and three times in a row. i don't know if it's the original greek or merely the NIV translators, but does this sound like Dr. Seuss to you? :). it's not the only spot in matthew, either. you can do the same with 10.40-41
8.5-13 some of my favorite stories of Jesus life are these interactions with gentiles, the occasions when Jesus was amazed. look at the compliment he gives the centurion, v10b. 15.21ff is another one, but i'll get to that later. this one of the rare instances in Jesus life on earth where a miracle was done at a distance, without at least physical interaction, usually touch. it was a foreshadowing of today, when I can pray for somebody across the globe in China and God will honor my request and heal them.
ever heard of the "upside down kingdom"? i think it might be a mennonite thing, but i need to do some research. i know there's a book by that title (i don't have an internet connection at the moment, or i'd look it up). it refers to the kingdom of God. the kingdom of God is different in many ways from the world. for starters, it is a spiritual kingdom instead of physical, but forshadowing the future (eternity) where the physical will become secondary to the spiritual, opposite of the way things are now. (that was a careless statement, don't scrutinize it too carefully at the moment.) but the real basis for the idea of an upside down kingdom is Jesus' continual emphasis on "the last shall be first, and the first shall be last." that is NOT the way the secular world works. 8.11-12 the israelites will be cut off, in favor of the incoming gentiles. 9.2,5-6 Jesus' first reaction is to heal the man's soul, not his body. 10.9-10 the disciples were to go without provision, not a normal pracitce of the world. 10.16 "be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." 10.28 "do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." 10.39 "whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." i hope to write more on this subject after i've done some research.
8.28-34 did the demons intend to drown the pigs from the start? i've always assumed they simply preferred the pigs to wandering around with nothing to posess. (tangent: what did Jesus do with the demons he cast out? i get the impression he simply cast them out, he didn't "bind them" or anything like that.. so they were free to go find another human to possess. or did he send them to hades or the like? let's see, 17.18, he "rebuked" the demon, nothing more said. but here the demons ask (back to chapter 8) Jesus whether he is there to torture them ahead of "the appointed time." i have a feeling the demons might have had some misconceptions, but at any rate, it implies that Jesus wasn't really "supposed" to hurt them too badly before the judgement day. whatever. sock it to 'em Jesus.). they were afraid of what Jesus would do, so they decided to make a request to see if he would grant it. a known terror is less terror than an unknown terror. (that's my word of wisdom for the day =) ).
but i never got the whole drowning of the pigs bit. i guess my question is, did they do it on purpose? if they didn't then i simply remain confused. if they did, then that means they probably had the ulterior motive all along of making things hard for Jesus. which i wouldn't put past them, depsite them being a bunch of sniveling cowards. they'd hung around heaven once upon a time, they weren't total idiots (beyond the fact that they made an idiotic choice). so they drowned the pigs to get people to request Jesus' immediate departure. pretty perceptive on the part of the demons if that is the case. this would suggest i need to be a little more alert to the dangers from the demon quarter--"never underestimate your ememy." even if you know he's going to burn in hell in the long run. muahahahahahaha. and a quick plug for C.S. Lewis, the Srewtape Letters. somewhat humourous, sobering, insightful, if nothing else, an interesting take on things. do read. oh, sorry. The Screwtape Letters are a serious of letters written from a demon (Uncle ScrewTape) to his nephew, also a demon, about how to handle the particular human his nephew is assigned to. it's British, if that helps explain anything :). but good. again, do read.
9.38 "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." i'm not sure quite what to make of some of the nuances of these two verses, but i echo the sentiment that we need more workers. this is a good prayer to pray.
10.5-16 i love this concept. it's so black and white. why isn't it used today? paul acknowledge that "the worker is worth his keep," but was a tentmaker regardless. but i will store this passage in the back of my head, perhaps it will come in useful someday. they went only to the israelites, perhaps that makes the difference. we haven't gotten to the passage yet where he sends out the 70 disciples. i'll write more about it then probably.
10.19-20 i've had this happen to me a couple times, where i spoke in ways that i had not thought about before hand, ways that were obviously of the Holy Spirit. this is a very comforting verse to those of us who are afraid to share openly our faith.
10.21 here i am extremely thankful that all of my immediate family is saved. the idea of my brother betraying me to my death is ludicrous. i will logically grant that it is a possibility, but i can still rest quite easy in the knowledge of him and i sharing the same faith. instead of betrayel, if this type of environment were to occur (nazi germany is the easy example to call upon), it could do nothing but bring us closer. "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" -- this is ever in our favor. i feel sorry for those who have unsaved family members.. i cannot really comprehend what that feels like, but i hope they take comfort in knowing that their brother's in Christ will not betray them.
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