Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

June 21, 2021

6/21/2021

"Must" Means Necessary

        Then Jesus began to teach his disciples: "The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will rise to life." Mark 8:31, TEV.

    Must" means necessary. Jesus was telling His disciples that He "must...be put to death." From His perspective, the cross was not an option but mandatory. He had come to earth not only to live a sinless life as our example, but "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45, RSV). "This is my blood of the covenant," He told His disciples at the Last Supper, "which is poured out for many" (Mark 14:24, RSV).

    Christ's death was central to the plan of salvation. Without His substitutionary death there would be no salvation at all. Because of that necessity He began to teach the disciples plainly. But as the events related to His first attempt make plain, it would be a difficult task.

    Why? Because everything in the disciples' background went against it. Their understanding of Messiahship taught plainly that the Messiah would "arise from the posterity of David" to "deliver in mercy the remnant" of God's people and at the same time destroy their enemies (4 Ezra 12:32-34). He would come "to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter's jar; to shatter all their substance with an iron rod; to destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth" (Ps. of Sol. 17:23, 24).

    The Jews knew nothing of a suffering Messiah. As a result, Jesus' proclamation that He must suffer and die caught the disciples totally off guard. No line of reasoning could have led them to conclude that Jesus must die. A suffering Messiah was an impossibility. They were not ready for a Messiah who would perish to save them from their sins. They expected one who would rescue them from their Roman oppressors.

    And not understanding the role of the Messiah, they certainly were in no position to capture the meaning of His resurrection--a lack that would later cause them great anguish.

    The preconceived ideas they had brought to Scripture blinded the earliest disciples. The same dynamic threatens all of us.

    Help us, Lord, to have eyes to see and hearts to believe.

June 20, 2021

6/20/2021

The Meaning of Messiahship

        From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Matt. 16:21, RSV.

    By now it had become evident that Israel as a corporate body was not going to accept Jesus as the Messiah. That left a major task for Jesus to accomplish: to prepare the disciples for His death.

    Matthew 16:21 is the first explicit announcement of that fact. We should be aware of each of its elements. He
        1. "must go to Jerusalem,"
        2. "Suffer many things from the elders and chief priests,"
        3. "be killed,"
        4. "and on the third day be raised."

    It wasn't as if He hadn't alluded to some of those events before. But now it was time for straight talk. Thus the significance of "Jesus began." He must teach those things openly and explicitly.

    And why, we need to ask, did Jesus choose this precise time to set forth such important teachings? Because Peter's confession that He was the divine Christ indicated that he and the other disciples had begun to gain insight. They now knew who Jesus was. But it was one thing for them to confess that Jesus was the Messiah, but quite another for them to understand the nature of that Messiahship. The disciples had visions of glory and triumph in their heads, but Jesus knew that His end would be death and rejection. As He saw the plotting of the religious powers, He realized that it was vital to instruct His followers on the true reality of His mission.

    Why the urgent necessity? Without the knowledge of His forthcoming death, it would have completely shattered their faith. And even with it their faith bordered on being wiped out. But He told them before it came to pass, so that when it did they might believe (John 13:19).

    Earlier on, Jesus could not have given such information. Had He done so, because of the universal conception the Jews had of a kingly Messiah, the disciples would have rejected Him outright. They would have refused to believe because, as far as they were concerned, Jesus didn't even know what Messiahship was all about. But now, because they knew who He was, He could explain to them what His mission was.

June 19, 2021

6/19/2021

The Keys of the Kingdom

        I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Matt. 16:19, NASB.

    Here we have another verse that has ripped through Christian history. Just what is it that Jesus promised Peter? What are the keys and the binding power of the church?

    A key is an obvious metaphor for admitting people through a door. A hint to understanding the "key" symbol appears in Luke 11:52, in which Jesus condemns the scribes for misusing "the key of knowledge" and thereby hindering people from "entering" the kingdom. In Matthew 23:13 we find Him berating the scribes and Pharisees because they "shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces" and refuse to "let those enter who are trying to" (NIV). We should couple those verses with Jesus' saying in John 17:3 that to know Him is eternal life.

    In tier work, the scribes and Pharisees have been misusing the key and blocking people from knowledge of Jesus. Peter, by contrast, is to open the way. That is exactly what we find him doing in Acts 2 and 3, in which his preaching brings many Jews into the kingdom, and in Acts 10, in which he opens the door for Gentiles to enter. That role, of course, is not restricted to Peter. All true disciples proclaim the central key: that Jesus is the divine Christ. In Matthew 28:18-20 we find Him commanding all disciples to carry His message to the ends of the earth through the use of the teaching key so that many can come to a knowledge of Him and be baptized.

    Peter's blessing also includes binding and loosing--a responsibility extended to all the disciples in Mathew 18:18. Most translations seem to infer that whatever the church decides on earth will get ratified in heaven. But that is not what Jesus said. The Greek verb tenses make it clear that the church on earth will carry out heaven's decisions, rather than heaven confirming the church's decisions.

    With Matthew 16:16 and Peter's confession that Jesus is the divine Christ, we have come to a turning point in the gospel story. The disciples at last know who Jesus is, but not what that means. The what will provide the thread we need to follow as we turn our eyes upon Jesus as He moves toward the cross.

July 6, 2021

6/19/2021

July 6                                The Limits of Forgiveness, Part 2 Again

        But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, "Pay what you owe." So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you." He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. Matt. 18:28-30, RSV.

    Scene two in the parable moves the action from the divine-human perspective of scene one to that of the relationship between two human beings. And it is at this level that we Peters get into trouble.

    Let's catch the dynamics. Having just gotten off my knees and left my place of prayer, I am truly in a good mood in the full assurance of God's forgiveness. So far, so good.

    But 10 minutes later I run across a jerk who has been avoiding me for weeks. And for good reason. He owes me money, and I am the last person he wants to see.

    And it is no small amount. After all, 100 days' pay, approximately a third of a year's salary. Even at the modest minimum of $7.50 per hour for 100 eight-hour days the amount equals $6,000. That is a significant part of my yearly budget. I want my money, and I want it now. So I grab him by the throat and order him to pay up or else.

    And what is the response? A falling on the knees and a request to have patience and a promise to pay what he owes.

    That's not good enough for me. I have had to deal with this slick dude long enough. Now is the time for justice and to make things right. Gracious too long with this shifty character, I will give him exactly what he deserves.

    In act two of Christ's parable on forgiveness we find the human perspective. This person has used up the quota of forgiveness. Having reached the limits of forgiveness, I can at last cut loose with my righteous fury. It is time for me to hand out the legal punishment.

    Completely overlooked is the fact that his request for mercy from me almost exactly echoes my recent prayer to God on the same topic. Also, conveniently, I have "forgotten" that the money owed to me is really a part of my debt to God.

    But why remember such technicalities when I am right and others are wrong? It is only just that I give them what they deserve. Or is it?

June 19, 2021

6/19/2021

The Keys of the Kingdom

        I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Matt. 16:19, NASB.

    Here we have another verse that has ripped through Christian history. Just what is it that Jesus promised Peter? What are the keys and the binding power of the church?

    A key is an obvious metaphor for admitting people through a door. A hint to understanding the "key" symbol appears in Luke 11:52, in which Jesus condemns the scribes for misusing "the key of knowledge" and thereby hindering people from "entering" the kingdom. In Matthew 23:13 we find Him berating the scribes and Pharisees because they "shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces" and refuse to "let those enter who are trying to" (NIV). We should couple those verses with Jesus' saying in John 17:3 that to know Him is eternal life.

    In their work, the scribes and Pharisees have been misusing the key and blocking people from knowledge of Jesus. Peter, by contrast, is to open the way. That is exactly what we find him doing in Acts 2 and 3, in which his preaching brings many Jews into the kingdom, and in Acts 10, in which he opens the door for Gentiles to enter. That role, of course, is not restricted to Peter. All true disciples proclaim the central key: that Jesus is the divine Christ. In Matthew 28:18-20 we find Him commanding all disciples to carry His message to the ends of the earth through the use of the teaching key so that many can come to a knowledge of Him and be baptized.

    Peter's blessing also includes binding and loosing--a responsibility extended to all the disciples in Matthew 18:18. Most translations seem to infer that whatever the church decides on earth will get ratified in heaven. But that is not what Jesus said. The Greek verb tenses make it clear that the church on earth will carry out heaven's decisions, rather than heaven confirming the church's decisions.

    With Matthew 16:16 and Peter's confession that Jesus is the divine Christ, we have come to a turning point in the gospel story. The disciples at last know who Jesus is, but not what that means. The what will provide the thread we need to follow as we turn our eyes upon Jesus as He moves toward the cross.

June 18, 2021

6/18/2021

Two Rocks

        Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of earth shall not prevail against it." Matt. 16:17, 18, RSV.

    Peter's sensitive ears must have been overjoyed to hear such a promise coming from Jesus. A real blessing indeed. Simon Bar-Jona translates as Simon son of Jona, Peter's formal name. And Jesus has no doubt that the Father through the Holy Spirit had revealed Jesus' true identity to His disciple.

    At that point the blessing moves into one of the most contentious passages in Christian history: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it."

    The question is, who or what is the rock that forms the foundation of the church? Was it Peter the man or Peter's confession that Jesus is truly the Christ?

    In beginning to answer we need to realize that the text makes a play on words in the rock statement. The Greek text reads, "you are petros, and upon this petra I will build My church." Josephus uses petra to describe the massive stone blocks in the towers of Jerusalem (Wars 6.140). Petros, on the other hand, represents an ordinary rock that one can carry. That understanding lines up with Ephesians 2:20, in which Paul describes Christ as the "corner stone" and the prophets and apostles forming the rest of the foundation of the church.

    Then again, if Jesus had made Peter the chief disciple, that would have put an end to the ongoing argument about which of them was the greatest. That may have been what Peter wanted to hear, but as we shall soon see, Peter wanted to hear a whole lot of things that Christ never intended.

    What he did hear is that his confession that Jesus is the divine Christ is the very foundation on which the Christian church is built.

    And even the powers of death would not be able to stop Christ's church. His power over death in the Resurrection (first introduced in Matt. 16:21) would make even shaky little rocks strong as they realized that as long as they were with God, people could do nothing to harm them. They (and we) have nothing to fear. We serve a risen Lord.

June 17, 2021

6/17/2021

Crisis Point

        When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jerimiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Matt. 16:13-16, NKJV.

    With these verses we have come to what is in many ways the most critical episode in the life of Jesus. As William Barclay points out, it occurs at "the crisis of Jesus' life. Whatever His disciples might be thinking, He knew for certain that ahead there lay an inescapable cross. Things could not go on much longer. The opposition was gathering itself to strike. Now the problem and the question confronting Jesus was this--had He had any effect at all? Had He achieved anything? Or, to put it another way, had anyone discovered who He really was?"

    The only way to find out was to ask those closest to Him, those who would soon, unbeknownst to them, take over His movement as true apostles. The question at this point was whether they had learned the basic thing they needed to know as disciples, since without the understanding that Jesus had sought to give them as disciples they could never be apostles.

    Jesus really didn't care what others thought of Him, but He desperately needed to know the opinion of the disciples. He had reached the critical point of His ministry.

    So He asked them the fundamental question that underlies everything: "Who do you say that I am?" Everything rode on their answer. With relief Jesus heard Peter respond, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." At that point He knew that He had not failed. The eyes of the disciples had at last opened.

    But while they understood who Jesus was, they had no idea of what that meant. As a result, we find Jesus commanding the disciples that they should "tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ" (verse 20, NKJV). That seems like a strange command, but it was a necessary one, since Peter and the other disciples did not yet understand what His true office was. They still had the conquering-king perspective. And that is normal, since there is no evidence in pre-Christian times that any Jews thought of a suffering Messiah.

    Sometimes we have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Balanced understanding is crucial before we open our mouths too wide.

June 16, 2021

6/16/2021

Whose Leaven?

        When His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." Matt. 16:5, 6, NKJV.

    Somebody is always messing up. This time no one had brought any bread. That worried the disciples greatly, and Jesus knew it. So while they had their minds on bread, He told them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, referring to their false ideas about true religion, including their erroneous ideas of the mission of the Messiah. After all, all of them were looking for a powerful earthly king rather than a suffering servant. That teaching, as we saw at the feeding of the 5,000 posed a genuine temptation to the disciples. Such thought could easily continue to permeate their minds, much as yeast spreads through dough.

    Yet that view of Messiah's function would soon be shattered as Jesus became the Lamb of God. He needed to implant the true leaven in their minds to prepare them for that event and their own future work.

    Jesus had a message for them, but all they could think about was their stomachs. That brought forth what may be Jesus' harshest comment on their dullness: "O men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?...How is it that you fail to perceive that I did not speak about bread?" (Matt. 16:8-11, RSV). At that point, they finally realized that He had in mind the leaven of the false teachings that they had grown up with and with which they had filled their minds.

    One significant fact to note is that Jesus links the Pharisees and Sadducees together. They were opponents in Jewish religious and political life, standing for radically different ideas. But in Jesus they had found a common enemy who threatened the status quo. A powerful enemy makes strange bedfellows. Their unity will last up to the Crucifixion.

    As we meditate today, we need to remember the lesson of the leaven and how powerful extra-biblical philosophies are in distorting our beliefs. Above all, we need to keep our eyes turned to Jesus and His Word.

June 15, 2021

6/15/2021

Seeing Beneath the Surface

        His disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." And he answered, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly. Matt. 15:23-28, RSV.

    Northern Galilee wasn't distant enough from Jerusalem. The Pharisees had followed Him that far. Yet Jesus needed time to instruct His disciples in the face of the coming crisis. The only solution was to enter Gentile territory, including Tyre, Sidon, and Caesarea Philippi. That would also put Him beyond the reach of Herod Antipas.

    As we might expect, Jesus soon encountered non-Jews. One was a Canaanite woman who came to Him begging for mercy for her demon-possessed daughter. In response, He does something that seems offensive to us, but which His Jewish disciples certainly expected. He ignores the woman. The disciples, sensing what they perceive to be Jesus' attitude, ask Him to turn her away.

    Jesus responds by telling the woman that He had been sent to the Jews. But, undeterred, she keeps imploring Him for help. He tells her that it is not right to toss the children's food to the dogs. At that point she sees a glimmer of hope, pressing her claim by admitting she is willing to be a dog if she can only receive the blessings of the kingdom.

    Jesus rewards her profusely. Not only does He commend her faith, but He heals her daughter. This unnamed Canaanite woman has grasped what the disciples have failed to understand--that a person must be willing to become nothing in order to enter the kingdom.

    While that is true, Jesus' apparent harshness to the woman still offends most modern readers of the Bible. Here we need to remember that facial expressions and body language accompanied His words. By the twinkle in His eye, in the slight smile at the corner of His mouth, she saw a sign of hope. Ellen White noted that "beneath the apparent refusal of Jesus, she saw a compassion that He could not hide" (The Desire of Ages, p. 401).

    Help me, Father, to be as sensitive to You and desire You as much as the Canaanite woman did.

June 14, 2021

6/14/2021

Jesus on True Religion

        What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. Matt. 15:18-20, ESV.

    The second half of the conflict over uncleanliness finds Jesus turning His back on the Pharisees and speaking first to the crowd, who have apparently been standing out of the line of fire, and then to the disciples.

    He tells the crowd that the Pharisees don't really understand true defilement, and by extension, true religion (Matt. 15:10, 11). Then the disciples come to Jesus, pointing out that He had offended the Pharisees in His teaching on the subject. To which Jesus replied that they were merely blind leaders leading other blind leaders, and that following them would only result in disaster (verses 12-14).

    But Peter, and probably the other disciples, isn't satisfied, so he presses Jesus for more explanation. Apparently the teaching on ceremonial uncleanness was so pervasive in Judaism that even the disciples were having a difficult time understanding Jesus' perspective.

    That explains His exasperated words to them in verses 16 and 17. In essence He says, "How can you be so dull? After all the time you have listened to Me, can't you see what I mean?"

    Jesus continues to explain to His slow-witted disciples that genuine defilement is not a matter of externals--what goes into a person. Rather, it is rooted in the heart (a person's inner being), and it is out of a sinful heart that sinful acts proceed (verses 17-20).

    In short, true religion is not a matter of externals. Rather, it finds its source in an attitude of love toward God and other people. That mind-set becomes the source for all a person's actions. Later Jesus will become even more specific on this point, noting that all of God's commandments are built upon agape (love) to God and other people (Matt. 22:36-40).

    In Matthew 15 we have the very core of Jesus' definition of true religion. What a pity it is that so many of us remain focused on the items of do and don't while missing the real thing. While some of those do's and don't's may be important, they are so only when the heart is right.