READ: Matthew 13

BACKGROUND: Jesus explains in this chapter why he teaches in parables so often. Basically he says that, as Isaiah prophesied, people are so spiritual dull that they can’t even grasp the things of God. But those who truly seek him will understand at a deeper level. Also, Jesus speaks in parables because they are illustrations that are real to life and easy to remember. The word “parable” comes from the Greek parabole which means “a placing beside.” Parables use a comparison like “The Kingdom of God is like…” And the hidden meaning in Jesus parables allows him to communicate deep truths to his followers without saying anything that directly violates the laws of the Pharisees and Sadducees so he cannot be arrested and killed before it’s his time. In Matthew 13 he speaks to the large crowds in parable form, and then later explains what he meant to his followers – the ones who understand that the message of God’s Kingdom he’s bringing is that he is the Messiah.

THINK: Read verses 18-23 one more time slowly. Take some time to think about your life story. Take some time to think about your faith journey. Be honest with yourself about where you’re at right now. Read verses 18-23 once more – pausing briefly to consider how each type of soil that Jesus describes relates to you. Maybe some of the soils don’t describe your journey; maybe you relate to only one of them. Maybe you can see times or seasons in your life when different soils have fit your spiritual life.

ASK: What type of soil am I? Is my faith yielding fruit in the lives of others? What specific steps could I take to get to the point where I am the good soil?

READ: Matthew 11-12

BACKGROUND: By Verse –
11:2 – John was about to be killed for preparing the way for Jesus. He shouldn’t have doubted, but he did. He just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t all for nothing. It wasn’t. 🙂
5 – The things Jesus lists here aren’t just his miracles. They are things specifically tied to Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.
14 – Malachi 4:5 prophesied a reappearance of Elijah before the day of the Lord. John the Baptist had denied being Elijah when people asked (John 1:21), but these are different contexts. John wasn’t literally Elijah reincarnate – which is why he answered the specific question he was asked in the manner he did. But he was they Elijah type – the man in the mold of Elijah – that God told Malachi would come.
16-19 – People rejected both John and Jesus. John for living the strictest of rules. Jesus for freely associating with all kinds of people. In the end, though, both were proven righteous by their actions.
25 – “These things” are the particulars of Jesus mission. His humble followers got it (though not entirely). The proud Pharisees and Sadducees didn’t.
29 – When we hear “yoke” we think of the heavy wooden apparatus that binds oxen together as they plow (at least those of us from Iowa who know our agricultural history do). 🙂 This is a good image for understanding what the yoke is all about. Here, though, it means more. The “yoke” of a rabbi – a teacher in ancient Israel – was the collection of his teachings.
12:2 – It wasn’t actually unlawful to do that on the Sabbath. It was just against God’s command to “work” on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day for rest. The Pharisees – in their intense legalism – drew up an impossible number of rules defining what “work” was. This was on their list, not God’s.
3-8 – 1 Samuel 21:1-6
10 – Healing (or even giving medical care) was also prohibited on the Sabbath because it was considered work. They tried to trick Jesus into either ignoring the man who needed healing or violating the law (or their interpretation of it anyways).
16 – Why? Why wouldn’t he want them to tell EVERYBODY who he was? Because he knew they wanted to kill him, and it wasn’t time yet.
25 – Abraham Lincoln quoted this verse in a famous speech while running for president.
25-29 – Jesus basically makes the Pharisees’ logic look stupid.
31 – People get really worked up and confused by Jesus declaration that blasphemy against the Spirit is an unforgivable sin. They worry about what that means. In context, Jesus means attributing to the devil that acts and the providence of God.
40 – Jesus is foreshadowing his death and his resurrection after 3 days.

THINK:  I’m incredibly embarrassed to admit that as a freshman in college at Drake University (majoring in Broadcast News Journalism), I had a radio show on the campus radio station that was all about golf. I called it “Cari the Caddie.” This is embarrassing for a number of reasons. One, it was called “Cari the Caddie.” Two, I am the world’s worst golfer and I thought it would be a good idea to spend an hour every week giving golf advice. Three, I was dating a college golfer at the time and thought this would fool him into thinking I was way more interested in golf than I was.

If you tuned in to “Cari the Caddie,” you would have been impressed with my golf knowledge. I knew it all. However, if you asked me to join you in a round of golf, you would have quickly learned that knowing everything about golf by no means made me an expert golfer. It didn’t even make me a good golfer.

In this passage in Matthew, Jesus tells the Pharisees (in a number of different ways), that their head knowledge of him is so not the point. In fact, he points out that they are completing missing the mark by being rule followers without even trying to know God’s heart in the laws he gave.

In Matthew 12:6-8, Jesus says , “There is far more at stake here than religion. If you had any idea what this Scripture meant—’I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual’—you wouldn’t be nitpicking like this. The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath; he’s in charge.” (The Message)

Jesus had to reiterate to the Pharisees that following Him is about having a heart like His heart. All the knowledge in the world is meaningless if we don’t know the heart of Jesus and can’t actually walk in His ways. When we consider how to obey Jesus, we can think about following the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. The letter of the law follows the literal interpretation of the words of the law; whereas following the spirit of the law means we stop to consider the intent of the one who gave us the law. We have to know Jesus to understand how to obey him.

All throughout chapter 11, Jesus points out that despite His ministry and the ministry of John the Baptist and the miracles that were performed; many refused to acknowledge Him. In chapter 12, He corrects the Pharisees for talking like they know Him, but refusing to walk in His ways. If we are truly pursuing a relationship with Jesus, we will know Him and be able to live the lives he calls us to.

I knew a lot about golf, but since I hadn’t taken the time to practice, I could hardly even play the game. All that golf research was meaningless because it was never put in to practice on the course. I don’t want to be guilty of the same in my relationship with Jesus. I want to know Him. I want to have his heart.

ASK: Do you know Jesus or do you just know all about Jesus? Does your heart for others look like Jesus’ heart? Is your head knowledge of God impacting your heart and hands?

By: Cari Widdel

READ: Matthew 10

BACKGROUND: This is a cool passage where Jesus sends out his Disciples to be his hands and feet in the world, equipping them to do the things that he does so that people will be drawn to him. It’s also a challenging passage, though, because Jesus promises that truly following after him and being his hands and feet in the world means that we’ll be persecuted and we’ll have to give up everything.
By Verse:
5 – The gospel was to be proclaimed to the Jews first. After Jesus died he commanded that it be taken to all nations. But while he was alive, there was an order and a plan and that meant the God’s chosen people first.
12 – Giving the greeting was also pronouncing a blessing. The greeting was “Shalom” which meant peace.
14 – Shaking the dust off your feet was a cultural practice – particularly of Pharisees when leaving unclean Gentile areas – symbolizing a desire to have nothing to do with the place you left. This is a solemn warning.
19 – How liberating! So often, I think, we avoid sharing the gospel because we feel like we don’t know what to say. God promises that he’ll give us the words if we’re faithful, no matter what the circumstance.
22 – This is a sobering warning to us. The message of the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing and people who don’t know truth tend to dislike it when they hear it.
28-31 – I think so much of what we do (or don’t do) is motivated by fear. We allow it to dominate our lives. What if we took these words to heart?

THINK: It’s really easy to get desensitized toward things that are familiar – things that we see or experience regularly. They just don’t hit us the same way or make the same impact when we’re used to them. This happens with big things (like politicians telling lies) and small things (like me not even being bothered by the smell of poopy baby diapers because I’ve changed approximately 1.5 million of them in the last 4 months). I think that as Christians it is sometimes easy to become desensitized toward the word “cross.” It’s been such a major part of the church culture we grew up in that we just forget the absolute horror of it all. We forget how powerful and terrifying that word and that imagery would have been for a person living in the Roman Empire in the first century. It was a savage punishment and a brutal way to die.

Matthew 10:38 is actually the first mention of the word “cross” in the New Testament. Jesus says, “Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” It’s easy to gloss over that and read the imagery and reality of the cross of Jesus back onto that statement – as though all of his disciples and the other people who heard him were thinking, “Oh yeah, well, of course, he got crucified and stuff so maybe we’re gonna have to suffer just a little tiny bit possibly…” Not at all! Jesus hadn’t suffered yet. They didn’t even know he was going to die. In their hopeful moments – the ones where they really believed he was the Messiah – they thought he would overthrow Rome, not be killed by them. And then, with this hopeful backdrop shaping their thoughts, Jesus throws out the word “cross.” And not just that, he says “If you wanna follow me then you gotta take up your cross!” This is huge! Shocking! Terrifying! Try for just a moment to put yourself in the position of that original audience. I can’ even imagine the thoughts that were running through their heads. Jesus basically laid it all out before them and said, “Either I’m everything to you, or I’m nothing to you.” I once heard it put this way – by David Shaw to a congregation in McAllen, Texas – It’s not about making Jesus the number one thing; it’s about making Jesus the only thing!

ASK: Is Jesus the driving motivation of my life? Am I willing to take up my cross and suffer for him? If I’m not, then really what am I giving my life to – is it to things that really matter?