Tag Archives: Matthew

Matthew 4

As is often the case after a spiritual high (Jesus’ baptism) there comes trickier times. Perhaps (more than likely) Jesus was empowered and led by the Holy Spirit into what’s referred to as the wilderness.

God was not putting Jesus to the test, he knew Jesus. What happened was that Satan was directly challenged by Jesus. We have this account so we can know that Jesus conquered Satan, not just then but for all time on the cross.

Once again we have an account of direct dealing with Satan. In Genesis he came off better against Adam and Eve, but against Jesus, the second Adam, he was defeated. The constant though, is Satan. He used the same trick on Jesus as he had to great effect on Adam and Eve. This time it failed. Satan distorted God’s word by omitting parts and lifting parts out of context (something which is done frequently by cult-members, datesetters and others who have an agenda to be served by twisting God’s word). This skill of Satan’s shows how well he knows the Bible; and therefore how well we need to know the Bible in order to be able to use it in our defence.

It is interesting to compare these two meetings; Adam met Satan in a garden, Jesus met him in the wilderness. Adam had everything and lost everything, Jesus had fasted for 40 days and gained the world. In this experience, Jesus showed us how to deal with the devil. Jesus could have performed a miracle here, but instead he showed by example what we are to do.

There is power in the Bible. Satan knows the Bible well, but yet so can we. For Satan to use the Bible as a weapon is often quite successful, but against a mature believer this is futile. What Satan uses as a weapon can better be used as a defence against him. The Bible was written for us, not for him. Satan’s first claim was that clearly God did not care about Jesus’ well-being. He suggested that God could not be relied upon and that Jesus would have to act to cover up God’s shortcomings. This has at its base, a challenge to the faith in God’s power. We see this in apostate churches today; those that deny the Virign Birth or the resurrection, or the miracles of Christ, or Creation. It boils down to; if God is all-powerful, he can achieve all of this and more. If we do not accept this, then we’re saying that either God lies or hasn’t spoken – and we are lost forever unless we are able to save ourselves. Of course this itself is the lie, but many are quite happy to believe it. Were Jesus to fall for this trick, we would all have been lost, doomed to trying to gain, but not achieving God’s salvation.

Notice in each temptation Jesus defended himself with Scripture. That’s where the answers are. Jesus shows us that physical food is not the only type of food; we need God’s word as food to nourish our soul. A withered, shrivelled soul signifies a spiritual, eternal death which is worse than the physical death of a starved body.

The second temptation was designed to test Jesus’ obedience to the Scriptures he knew so well. This is Satan lifting parts of the Bible out of context. Jesus answered him again with Scripture. Here is is clear, the Bible is the perfect defensive weapon for spiritual attack – but we need to know all of it. To pick and choose what we study renders us defenceless. The third way Satan tempted Jesus was by claiming he could offer all that God was offering, but without the pain, suffering, heartache and inconvenience – all he had to do was the most minor trifle, he wheedled, he had to worship Satan. Jesus made the right choice. If Jesus had slipped up even once in the wilderness, all would have been lost. Believers are to follow his path. Taking what looks like it could be a shortcut is not what Jesus did. The path is a straight one, therefore by definition there can be no shortcut. Shortcuts and compromise have been a characteristic of the visible church for millennia. Shortcuts and compromises have often led to people attempting to justify a course of action. It is evident here therefore it is not enough to know the word of God, we have to obey it too.

The three temptations follow in sequence; we are to trust God we are to know the Bible.We are to obey God’s word. This is the key to the straight path. If we do this; we cannot go wrong. Satan is behind all idolatry. Idolatry is worshipping the created being rather than the Creator. Satan would prefer it was he himself who was worshipped, but as long as he is in some way able to take away God’s worship, he is happy.

Idolatry can be in the form of worshipping false gods or following false religions, or it can be as simple as having something in prime position in your life that is not God. It doesn’t even have to be a sinful thing. If it eclipses God in your life, you have an unhealthy imbalance. Satan in this event, was defeated. He left, only to come back later, this time in a garden. Here we learn that the devil must be treated with respect, as Jesus did. However we have to recognise the devil’s work and be prepared. Jesus passed this challenge, which qualified him to embark on his ministry.

Jesus brings light to the Gentiles in this chapter. How? By preaching the good news of how to be saved, and by healing. What was the healing for? Well first of all healing was for healing’s sake – Jesus came to relieve suffering, not only this though, Jesus had to heal to show he was the Messiah (Isaiah 42:7). Many people were attracted to Jesus more because of what he did than what he said. And this is the same today. More people will be able to point to Jesus as being a healer, than quote one statement he made. The people who merely followed for his miracles are similar to those people today who say ‘I think Jesus was a great teacher/healer/holy man, but I don’t believe he was God’. Such people are trying to appear rigourous without doing the research. Frankly if Jesus was just this, then we are all eternally stuffed. The fact is God gave us all the information we need in order to find out for outselves who he really is. Some people need more information, some need less, but for everyone there is enough. We just have to be interested enough. Most people aren’t.

In Jesus’ time, most people were quite happy to follow him, be healed by him, entertained by him, even fed by him, but many were not interested in who he was. Many passed up on the opportunity of a lifetime. And many still do today. Jesus called pretty ordinary people to be his followers you might think. Actually Jesus called fishermen who were used to working diligently, and with great hardship and danger to themselves. He chose a tax collector, one who was shrewd and knew how to make the best of a situation, he chose a zealot, someone who was later to be filled with zeal for the Lord, he chose brothers because the church was to become a family. He chose people who could see something more than the average person who was rather too wrapped up in their lives to see what was really going on.

 

With thanks to my spiritual uncles: Uncle Warren Wiersbe, Uncle Chuck Missler, Uncle Matthew Henry, Uncle Jacob Prasch and Uncle Arnold Fruchtenbaum.

Matthew 3

Between the Old Testament and the New Testament, there’s a gap of about 400 years where the Jews were in a spiritual wilderness with no prophets of God. However, you can argue that John the Baptist belongs to the Old Testament rather than the New as he does predate Jesus and the new covenant which defines the New Testament.

John’s call was for people to repent. This call did bring about a revivial; repentance is serious business – you can’t pretend to do it, nor can you do it half-heartedly. It’s a big thing. Repentance is a complete change of mind, heart and position, and it is a steadfast commitment to a principe that is in opposition to your previous behaviour and beliefs. It is a conviction. Much of the apostate church today tries to jolly people along, refusing to challenge or offend people when they clearly are in the wrong. This is not love. Love is not allowing people to indulge in dangerous behaviour for fear of upsetting them. Love is correcting, by whatever means necessary to help that person be the person they were designed to be. John knew in this case that gentle persuasion wasn’t going to work, he had to shock them into looking at themselves and realising that against God’s standards tey didn’t measure up. Repentance, as mentioned, required action. And action required fruits. The difference between a nominal or a carnal Christian and a solid believer is spiritual fruit. True believers grow and develop and fruit is almost a side effect of a life lived in pursuit of a closer relationship with God. Carnal Christians are not interested much in God; they made an initial commitment to him but other than that they are wrapped up in the immediacy of their own lives, whereas nominal Christians are those who call themselves Chrsitians but don’t really know why, have not made a commitment to God, don’t realise they need to and therefore are not believers at all. The apostate church today specialises in the ear-tickling of such people. Its members are not made into disciples of Chrsit, nor do they mature. They attend church to be entertained and to feel good, therefore it’s almost that they become inoculated against the true message of salvation. Not only this, church becomes somewhere to go, a place rather than a true fellowship of believers akin to a family, as it was designed to be by God.

As is often the case, many of the people who responded were not those of high status, they were the people who were looked down on. The rich people, the rulers, the priests, for the most part weren’t interested in repentance because they had too much to lose. It’s the camel going through the eye of a needle. Such people couldn’t let go of what they perceived ot be their own righteousness but that God recognised as pride and self-deception.

The Pharisees were the ‘experts’ in Jewish law, the Sadduccees were the ruling party. Despite their differences, they both got it wrong about God. Both became adversaries of him because they were against jesus. It’s the age old problem, people try to impress God with their righteouness, trying to buy his favour, but this isn’t possible for anyone who has sinned. God’s standards are higher than earthly standards.

With John’s baptism there was revival. Many repented and were baptised but it is unclear how many of these maintained this conviction and developed into mature believers, and how many returned to their unenlightened lives.

John’s message was an urgent one. Not only was he preaching the need for individual repentance but, in the way of the Old Testament,  he was preaching the necessity of national repentance. The Jews had unique access to prophecies regarding when the Messiah would appear (Daniel 9:24-27). They knew the time was now and so the call for repentance was all the more urgent. To reject God now would be disastrous. As John said; ‘The axe is already laid at the root of the trees,’ (verse 10) and Jesus later told the parable of the fig tree, describing the disaster that was coming to Israel if wshe were to reject her Messiah.

John’s baptism was of water; it symbolised God cleaning away the sins of those who repented.

There is sometimes confusion over who John was. Malachi prophesied that Elijah would come back. And it is clear that John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah but was not Elijah himself.

John’s practice of baptising Jews was guaranteed to provoke a reaction. Jews weren’t baptised; gentiles were. This would have offended many. John was clearly saying that following Jewish law was not enough. By baptising, John was helping people to realise this and was therefore preparing the way for the Messiah. John mentions two other baptisms; one by spirit (which came first in Acts 2 at Pentecost and occurs for every believer) and another by fire, which is judgment.

Why did Jesus get baptised? First of all to show John had divine approval, but also for Jesus to die for people’s sins, he had to be identified as one of them. The Passover lamb that was slaughtered for each family group in Exodus 12 was first resident with that family for two weeks before being killed.

The baptism of Jesus shows us the Trinity. As he is baptised God the Father speaks of his pleasure in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit descends on him, assuring Jesus that God’s power is in him.

Wiersbe mentions a possible significance of the dove; that Jonah, who was a type of Jesus, means ‘dove’, possibly thereby showing Jesus’ identification with the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39-41), that is, the death, burial and resurrection in three days. God’s approval of Jesus at this point shows that Jesus had served God well in the hidden 30 years before his baptism.

 

With thanks to my spiritual uncles: Uncle Warren Wiersbe, Uncle Chuck Missler, Uncle Matthew Henry, Uncle Jacob Prasch and Uncle Arnold Fruchtenbaum.

Matthew 2

The magi were ‘wise men’ who studied the stars; it is possible they were astrologers considering they were from Babylon. However, it is also possible they were something else; if we think back to the book of Daniel, the Babylonian kings were always surrounded by wise men and advisers. When Nebuchadnezzar had a dream he didn’t understand he summoned his advisers to tell him the meaning. He was aware that at least some of them were crooks, so to prove they knew what they were talking about they had to tell the king what he had dreamt before explaining the dream’s meaning. Because they couldn’t do this, the king sentenced them to death, but Daniel was able, by the power of God to tell Nebuchadnezzar not only the full dream, but its meaning as well. The magi then, could be wise men of this type – Babylonian astrologers, or they could be more like Daniel. Could it be that rather than being merely pagan astrologers, they were descended from either the Jews who had stayed behind in Babylon after the exile had ended, or could they be Gentiles descended from those advisers of Nebuchadnezzar’s time who had studied the prophecies of the God who Daniel belonged to? In Jewish tradition, the stars and their constellations tell the story of the gospel starting with Virgo, the virgin and ending with Leo, the Lion of Judah. This is known as the mazzaroth and it existed well before it was corrupted at Babylon and became the zodiac we recognise today with all reference to the God of the Bible removed. So perhaps the magi were Babylonian Jews who were descended from those of the Jewish nobility who stayed behind after the exile was ended; perhaps they were Gentiles descended from the king’s advisers, perhaps they were pagan astrologers or perhaps they studied the prophecies of God through the Hebrew scriptures and the mazzaroth. We don’t know for sure. God sent them a star to follow. I am inclined to believe that they knew what the star meant because they were familiar with the messianic timetable in Daniel, so I think it makes most sense that Gentile or Jew regardless, they were keen students of the Hebrew scriptures, they knew where they were on God’s prophetic timescale and they were looking for the imminent arrival of their Redeemer. This seems particularly likely given the gifts they brought Jesus. The significance is generally lost on people until they look closer;

  • Gold represented royalty and kingship
  • Frankincense symbolised the priesthood and priestly duties
  • Myrrh was a spice used in embalming corpses.

Obviously none of these are particularly suitable gifts for a small child – but the magi knew what they were doing. They knew that Jesus would be a king and that he was descended from the royal line of Judah. They knew also that although Jesus was not descended from the priestly line of Levi that he would be the High Priest to end all high priests, that that was part of his role despite the fact that the kingly role and the priestly role had never been combined. Finally, they were familiar with the writings of the Messianic prophet Isaiah. The myrrh signified the Messiah’s role of suffering servant and sacrificial lamb (Isaiah 52-53). They knew that Jesus had come to die.

Herod clearly was a nasty man. He held on to power at any cost, even if it meant murdering members of his own family. So when he heard an enormous caravan of travellers had arrived in Jerusalem searching for the baby Messiah, he lost it and killed any boy found to be under two years old. Interesting isn’t it, how desperate he was to hold on to power? Herod by this point was getting old; a young whippersnapper of two years or less was never going to threaten the status quo in Herod’s lifetime – but Herod was not logical, he would sooner kill than think. Possibly part of Herod’s insecurity stemmed from the fact of his being an Idumean, not a Jew, and perhaps therefore it terrified him that this baby had more right to the title ‘King of the Jews’ than he himself did.

It’s interesting at this point to reflect that these magi were willing to travel far to pay tribute to the King, yet the priests in the Temple who must have known the scriptures as well as the magi were more intent on appeasing Herod than going 5 miles down the road to worship the King.

Throughout the Old Testament we get little glimpses of Jesus the Messiah; as mentioned, one of these was Jesus’ namesake Joshua. Another is Moses. Both Jesus and Moses left Egypt to minister to God’s people. Both Moses and Jesus’ family had to step out in faith, relying fully on God.

It is at this point that two apparently contradictory prophecies are fulfilled in such a way that they make sense when taken together. Micah 5:2 tells us that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But Matthew 2:23 mentions that the people recognised that their Messiah would be a Nazarene. At first we see they appear to be contradictory, but then we see that yes, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but when Jesus’ family came out of Egypt, they settled in Nazareth where Jesus grew up. And the irony is that in the gospels we see people disbelieving in Jesus precisely because he’s a Nazarene! (see John 1:46, Matthew 21:11, Mark 14:67 and John 18:5-7).

Warren Wiersbe notes that the term ‘Nazarene’ appears to be connected with ‘netzer’ which means ‘shoot’ or ‘branch’. Two words used by the prophets to refer to the Messiah (Isaiah 4:2, 53:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15, Zechariah 3:8, 6:12-13).

With thanks to my spiritual uncles: Uncle Warren Wiersbe, Uncle Chuck Missler, Uncle Matthew Henry, Uncle Jacob Prasch and Uncle Arnold Fruchtenbaum.

Matthew 1

The genealogy not only joins the Old Testament with the New Testament, it is also there to prove from the outset that Jesus has the right descent in order to qualify as the Messiah. Obviously there were far more stringent requirements than this, but the Jews needed to know that this man who worked miracles was descended form the right line. The genealogy is also clear that Joseph was the husband of Mary rather than the father of Jesus.

Some have tried to gain a name for themselves by claiming that Mary was not a virgin, but merely a young woman. However, for this to be the case you would need to twist the text. The Greek word translated ‘virgin’ always means ‘virgin’ and never ‘young woman’. The genealogy also shows that Jesus fulfils various Old Testament prophecies of being descended from Abraham (Genesis 22:18), Judah (Genesis 49:10), David (II Samuel 7:12-13). What is particularly significant is that proving the descent of the Messiah was vital. Matthew was writing at a time when his claims could quite easily be disproved if he made stuff up. In AD70, however, the genealogical records of the Jews were destroyed by fire as Jerusalem and its temple were razed. This means that the Messiah, in order to prove he fulfilled certain Old Testament prophecies would need to have appeared prior to AD70.

Mary was engaged to Joseph. In Jewish culture, engagement was serious business. If Mary had had an affair, it would have been considered adultery, and it would have been as serious as divorce. Joseph would have been within his rights, on finding his betrothed to be pregnant, to publicly shame her. She would never have been able to marry anyone else, and may even have been cut off from her family. This would have almost been a death sentence – how would a single woman survive?

Jesus’ name ‘Yeshua’ in Hebrew is the same as ‘Joshua’ which means ‘Jehovah saves’. Clearly that’s significant, but what is also significant is the Joshua of the Old Testament, he is a type of Christ (there are lots of them in the Old Testament), it was he who led the Hebrews out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land. Get the symbolism?

With thanks to my spiritual uncles: Uncle Warren Wiersbe, Uncle Chuck Missler, Uncle Matthew Henry, Uncle Jacob Prasch and Uncle Arnold Fruchtenbaum.

Matthew

The gospel account of Matthew was written about 30 years after Jesus ascended into heaven. It was written by one of Jesus’ disciples.

The New Testament begins with Matthew which begins by linking the Old Testament with the New Testament with the genealogy of Jesus Christ. It’s the perfect place to start and shows Jesus fulfilling his destiny as the Lion of Judah. According to Warren Wiersbe, the word ‘fulfil’ is used 15 times in Matthew showing that this is a key theme. Jesus fulfilled far more of the Old Testament prophecies than could ever be dismissed as coincidence.

There is a pattern to the book of Matthew; there are five narrative sections which are then followed by five teaching sections, at the end there is the narrative of the trials, crucifixion and resurrection.

Matthew is the only gospel account to mention the Church explicitly. Although Matthew was writing predominantly for the Jews he made it clear that the Church would be made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers, rather than Jewish with a few Gentile converts.

With thanks to my spiritual uncles: Uncle Warren Wiersbe, Uncle Chuck Missler, Uncle Matthew Henry, Uncle Jacob Prasch and Uncle Arnold Fruchtenbaum.

The Heptadic Nature of Matthew’s Genealogy

Dr Ivan Panin was the first to notice the heptadic pattern in the original Greek of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. Amongst the things he noticed were:

  • The number of words used is divisible by seven
  • The number of letters used is divisible by seven
  • The number of vowels used is divisible by seven
  • The number of words used which begin with a vowel is divisible by seven
  • The number of words that occur more than once is divisible by seven
  • The number of words occurring in more than one form is divisible by seven
  • The number of nouns is divisible by seven
  • The number of names is divisible by seven. Only 7 other types of nouns are permitted
  • The number of male names is divisible by seven
  • The number of generations is divisible by seven

Thanks to Chuck Missler for this.