Mission 66 (English podcast)
Matthew 15 & 16 From Galilee to the World
(upbeat music) - Jesus did call Simon Barjona Peter, which means rock. But what did Jesus mean by rock here? That is the question. - Today, we continue our focus on the gospels. Mission 66 originates from the ministry of Bible teacher and pastor, Dr. Louise Seow, and is produced and heard in multiple languages around the world in partnership with Transworld Radio. Let me remind you to download your free study guide of the gospels. You'll be able to go deeper into God's word and follow along with each day's program. It's a great companion resource of the audio teaching of John Matthews and Esther Susullo. To get your free study guide of the gospels, visit mission66.org. That's mission66.org. John Matthews is our teacher. His co-host, Esther Susullo, gets us started today. This is Mission 66, a radio program where we embark on a journey through the 66 books of the Bible, the world's best-selling book whose pages have lifted so many out of the depths of sin into the golden streets of heaven. I'm your host, Esther, and this is the series of studies on the gospels of the New Testament, the life of Jesus Christ. Now, today, our speaker, John Matthews, will be looking at Matthew chapter 15 and 16 on the theme from Galilee to the world. Hi, John. Good to be with you today. Hi, Esther. Great to be with you. And a very warm welcome to you listening as well, wherever you are today. Thank you for being with us. It's great to have your company on Mission 66. And as we've been reading in Matthew, Jesus, the Messiah, the King, is focusing his earthly ministry around the region of Galilee, isn't he? In northern Israel, up to the north there. And this was very close to the town of Nazareth, where he was brought up. And Jesus is being rejected and despised by the religious elite of the time, the scribes who were entrusted with the copying and the maintenance of the Old Testament law and the Pharisees who considered themselves the highest up in the religious circles of the day. They were very strict when it came to interpreting the law of Moses. Now, the scribes and the Pharisees were usually opposite, actually, in their opinions. But there was no doubt that the one thing they were now united in was their hatred of Jesus, their growing hatred of Jesus. But in these next few chapters, what we're gonna see is how Jesus will be recognized as the Messiah and appreciated by common people and outsiders. Chapter 15 begins verse one by saying, "Then Pharisees and the scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, and they said, 'Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders, for they do not wash their hands when they eat?' And Jesus answered them. And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles their father or mother must surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother, what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites. Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain to they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' That was from Isaiah chapter 29. Now obviously we shouldn't wash our hands, shouldn't we, before we eat. There's pretty good healthy practice. They're pretty much well known that. But these Pharisees had turned what was a tradition handed down from their forefathers into a commandment. And some might say, 'Well, pretty petty, but what they were looking to do was discredit Jesus in front of people.' See, look at him. Doesn't wash his hands, neither do his disciples. And Jesus always knew exactly how to answer them. Watch how he handles the accusation. Jesus doesn't even answer the question directly. Instead, he accuses them of paying more attention to their tradition than to the law itself, to the word of God. For example, Jesus said that the law says, 'On your father and mother.' Yet instead, they said, 'You don't have to help your parents in their old age if you give that money to the temple.' So Jesus says that by doing this, they're nullifying the word of God for the sake of their own traditions. The common people hearing Jesus' re-talk, must have been pretty amused, actually, because they knew there was something that was just right about him who dared to argue with these Pharisees. - Yeah, you're not going through this. I realized a very good question. What really causes a person to be defiled in the eyes of God, John? - Yeah, good question, Esther. The Pharisees' concern with ceremony details was so great that it ended up being a complete distraction from the true ethical and moral responsibilities that all men have before God. And as we read on, it says in verse 11, 'It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person.' Then the disciples came and they said to Jesus, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they hid this saying?' And Jesus answered, 'Every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.' Peter though said to him, 'Explain the parable to us.' Jesus said, 'Are you still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But 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, that doesn't defile anyone. So begs the question, doesn't it? What's the real problem? And the answer is, it is the human heart. The prophet Jeremiah wrote the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? And often we are our own worst enemies. Evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are the things that defile a person and ought to cause us to look at ourselves and take an account of our own hearts, our own lives, humble ourselves, seek to be forgiven, cleansed from the things that we've done. And moving on, Jesus decides then to leave the region and goes to a nearby place to modern day Lebanon near the cities of Tyre and Sidon, ancient lands of Phoenicia. And there, he encounters a Canaanite woman with a problem who cries for mercy. Lord, son of David, she cries. Now it's interesting that the scribes and the Pharisees did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, but this foreign woman and outsider, well, she knew. Because when people came up to Jesus and called him the son of David, that means that they understood the prophecies. And she'd heard that the Messiah would be from David's line and would be known as the son of David. And so she pleads, have mercy on me, oh Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. But Jesus did not answer her a word and his disciples came and begged him saying, send her away for she's crying out after us. And he answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but she came and she knelt before him saying, Lord, help me. And he answered, it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Now, you know, if she were proud and arrogant, she would have gone, wouldn't she? She would have walked straight away, indignant perhaps saying, you can't talk to me that way. But look what she does, the woman replies, yes, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. And Jesus then commends this woman for her humble attitude and says, woman, you have great faith, your request is granted. And her daughter was healed at that very moment. You know, John, I'm just preemptively thinking, but I think that there might be some who are listening right now who think, well, why on earth did Jesus call this woman a dog? What exactly did he mean by that statement that he made? - Yeah, it's a point that crosses your mind when you read it, isn't it? And he's not here calling her a dog, but it was an object lesson pointing out that God sent Messiah first to the Jews and Jesus may well have been testing her to see if she was willing to submit to God's way. You know, this is the state of any person who's not right before God, who's a sinner. You know, we have to come empty-handed and undeserving, asking for mercy. It was not a problem for Jesus to cast the devil out even at a distance or a demon in this instance. He speaks the word and it was done. Well, none of us have any merit by which we earn Jesus's help, but if we're willing to ask humbly, we may see God graciously grant our requests and this woman represents you and me friends and many Gentiles from the nations of the world who are willing to humbly come undeserving to Jesus and be healed of our sin. Now, while this rejection of Jesus only grows among the scribes and the Pharisees, in Matthew we're seeing that Jesus ends up leaving the region of Galilean, heads out to the other regions, the rest of the world, if you like, the Gentiles who had no place in the Old Covenant, but they're now gonna be included in this new covenant of grace in Christ. And they begin to show up and demonstrate their faith, recognizing Jesus as the Messiah. And this becomes clear in the second multiplication of the loaves of bread and fish. This is verse 29, Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee and he went up on the mountain and he sat down there and great crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others and they put them at his feet and he healed them so that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking and the blind seeing and they glorified the God of Israel. You see the crippled, the blind, the lame, the sick, the outsiders, the wider world is starting to believe in the author of Truth and Love before their very eyes, the good, the compassionate Jesus. And we see more evidence then of his power in multiplying resources in verse 32, then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion on the crowd "because they have been with me now three days "and have nothing to eat "and I'm unwilling to send them away hungry lest "they faint on the way." And the disciples said him, "Well, where are we "to get enough bread in such a desolate place "to feed so greater crowd?" And Jesus said to them, "Well, how many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven and a few small fish." And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground he took the seven loaves and the fish and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds and they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of broken pieces left over. Those who ate were 4,000 men plus women and children. And after sending away the crowds, Jesus got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan. This is the second time when the crowd, this time 4,000 plus, has been following him for three days without anything to eat. And all of a sudden he's able to feed everybody. It's a symbolic miracle this one. Remember after his crucifixion Christ, the bread of life is laying for three days in the tomb and the disciples were hungry and scattered. But suddenly he reappears, risen from the dead and everyone can eat. From this bread of life. (upbeat music) - You're listening to Mission 66 and our teacher John Matthews is bringing us a lesson from Matthew chapter 15 on our theme from Galilee to the world. Now it's at this point in Jesus's earthly ministry when not only old Israel, but also the Gentile world were beginning to learn that with Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, there is always enough to go around for everybody. - Yeah, Esther, that's right. And as we continue in Matthew chapter 16, this is what it says, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees came and to test him, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. And he answered them saying, "When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be stormy today for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. So he left them and departed. The sign of Jonah there that Jesus references is a reference to the book of Jonah where the reluctant prophet was given this mission and he ran away from it, takes a boat trip far away to try and get away from this mission. But he's thrown overboard and a giant fish swallows him and burps him back onto the land three days later. And Jesus here is saying that just as Jonah was three days in the fish, Jesus will die and stay inside the earth for three days. And then he will rise from the dead. So Jesus rejects the requests of the Pharisees and the Sadducees here. They already had plenty of signs from Jesus if they'd only had eyes to see those signs. What they wanted was to have a sign of their own choosing. Again, it's them wanting to control Jesus, but Jesus is not a circus clown performing tricks for the unbelieving world. We come to him on his terms and not ours. So let's get into what the difference is between a Pharisee and a Sadducee. Okay, well, the Pharisees were like a club for the self-righteous. They were the only ones. They thought who really stuck to the law of Moses. And so they looked down pretty much extra on everyone else who didn't belong to their circle. Then you have the Sadducees who were priests involved with temple worship, festivals and sacrifices. And these groups were often adults with one another. For example, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection. The Sadducees did not. But one thing that they had in common was this growing mutual hatred of Jesus. Verse five says, "When the disciples reached the other side, they'd forgotten to bring any bread." And Jesus said to them, "Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Cycles began discussing this amongst themselves saying, "Well, we brought no bread." But Jesus aware of this discussion said, "Oh, you have little faith. Why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet understand? Do you not remember the five loaves for the 5,000 and how many baskets you gathered or the seven loaves for the 4,000 and how many baskets you gathered? How is it that you failed to understand that it did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Then they understood that he did not tell them to be aware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." - You know, I've noticed that the Bible often talks about yeast or the leaven as something that's bad. Let's talk about it, John, what is so bad about it and why was Jesus giving us this warning? - Well, the yeast is what makes bread dough rise and it spreads through the whole dough. And the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Jesus is talking about that the yeast here is their false teaching, their hypocrisy, which, like bread yeast, if it's allowed to, would spread through the entire loaf. So Jesus is making his messianic mission clearer by the moment proving his divine nature. And at the same time, opposition is growing as well. But now, do you know what now, listen out for this, 'cause we're reaching a very special moment in the middle of chapter 16, love this. Jesus comes up to his own disciples and decides to see whether or not they know who it is that they're dealing with. And in verse 13, it says, "Now when Jesus came "into the district of Caesarea Philippi, "he asked his disciples, "who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Jesus said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, "the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, "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 gates of hell shall not prevail against it. "Who do you say Jesus is, my friend listening now? "Who do you say he is?" You'll get all sorts of answers to that question depending on where you ask it today. Just as there were many answers from people back then, we just heard, didn't we, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, all they'll say, "He was a good man, "great teacher, even one of the great prophets." But my dear listener, at this moment, the apostle Simon Peter, who many times with hasty brash, you might even say, "A rude manner." Act without thinking, and in doing so, what has been a weakness in the past appears as a great strength, because he answers this question with instinctive and great determination by saying, "You are the Messiah, the Christ, "the Son of the Living God." - Oh, that was definitely a response as revealed by the Holy Spirit. Well, you know, John, there's always a question as to what Jesus meant when he called Simon Barjona Peter, which of course means a rock. - Yeah, that's right, Esther. Jesus says, "On this rock, I will build my church." And by the way, this is the first time that the word church is used in the New Testament, and he went on to say that the church would prevail against anything that hell throws at it. But Jesus did call Simon Barjona Peter, which means rock. What did Jesus mean by rock here? That's the question, what did he mean? Well, there are many answers to this question. Some say Jesus was talking about himself as the rock, like the rock of ages. Some say he was giving some special apostolic authority to Peter, above all the others. But many simply believe that Jesus Christ is the head of the church and no human authority overrules him. He is that solid rock, the chief cornerstone. As the Bible says, you know, he will be the final judge and he has final authority. And he does indeed place certain people in positions of church leadership. And Peter was definitely one of the main leaders, you know, an outstanding figure who authored first and second Peter in the New Testament. But Peter was fallible, like all of us, and would only be one of many of those original leaders. Now, if you think that was a confusing question, wait until you hear what Jesus says next, because this is verse 19 where he says, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, "and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, "and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." And then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. - Well, I like the fact that you mentioned that, you know, there's yet another confusing question on the way, because I want to ask, what does the phrase will be bound in heaven actually mean? Do the apostles determine what happens on earth as well as what happens all the way up in heaven? - It's impression that Peter and the other apostles sort of determine what will happen, and then an angel or even God would sign the papers, and so it'll be done. But when we read this passage in the original Greek, the idea that we get is this, that whatever you bind on earth would have been bound in heaven. In other words, the apostolic authority is something that comes from Christ, from God, not the other way around. So everything is first determined in heaven, and only then is it made manifest here on earth. And one thing, you know, is certain, and that is the binding and loosing does not mean that we have the power to save or condemn souls. Only God can forgive sins, and we don't have any authority to change or alter the Bible, or indeed the plan of salvation. It merely means that when the church decides something regarding faith and practice, if it's part of God's will, then he honors it. He backs it up, but Jesus begins to talk then as we move through this chapter about his future. Look out now, because he starts to mention about being handed over to the religious leaders and killed, and what does Peter do when he starts to do this? Well, Peter took him aside and begins to rebuke him, saying, "Far, be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you." Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." Whoa, Peter, what a journey he is on in this chapter from being described as the rock. So now this. You remember Peter just being led by the Holy Spirit to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. But now, as incredible as it might seem, he gives way to a satanic suggestion because he does not understand the will of God in regards to Christ's impending suffering. You know, it's hard for some people to accept that being faithful to God may involve suffering. And you know, we're not so different, are we, than Peter, in this way sometimes? 'Cause if we're not careful, we can mistake a satanic suggestion as being from God. We shy away from hard things sometimes, don't we? And yet we see here in verse 24, Jesus telling his disciples clearly, clearly. If anyone would come after me, led him to nigh himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. - Wait, what does that mean, John? To not taste death until? - Yeah, well, lest I think we can interpret it better in the next chapter as we continue reading in chapter 17 and we'll see this actually in our next episode when we'll find Jesus at the mount of transfiguration where he was changed actually into his true glorious heavenly form as he will appear in the kingdom that is coming. That's something to think about, isn't it? Moses and Elijah also show up there as well and Peter, James and John were there as witnesses. So in a sense, they wouldn't have tasted death until they saw the Son of Man coming in his glory. But what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 16 verse 28 will be fulfilled in chapter 17 in our next episode. And I'll tell you what, you don't want to miss that. - Well, absolutely, John. I just want to thank you once again for giving us those wonderful insights but how do we summarize the main points of these two very important chapters, Matthew 15 and 16? - Yeah, let's do that now. Our theme was from Galilee to the world and these two chapters begin to show us how outsiders are now beginning to experience the saving and delivering power of Christ and his kingdom continues to spread into the wide world today. And do you know what Esther and all those listening, great to have you with us today? I cannot think of any better way to wrap up our time together today than to read the final passage of Matthew 16 which says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the son of man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Jesus left Galilee and set out for the world to bring eternal life and salvation to everybody. Let's press on to know him. (upbeat music) - What an encouragement. Thank you so much for that, John. And of course, friend, this has been mission 66 and we've been on a journey through the pages of the Bible. But we'll be back again next time where John Matthews opens up an explosive study to chapter 17 of Matthew. So until then study your word and come back and join us. Goodbye and God bless you. (upbeat music) - As we close today's program, let me remind you to download your free study guide of the Gospels. You'll be able to go deeper into God's word and follow along with each day's program. It's a great companion resource of the audio teaching of John Matthews and Esther Susullo. To get your free study guide of the Gospels, visit mission66.org. That's mission66.org. It's a great resource. You can also support the ministry of mission 66 when you visit the site. You'll help continue the program here and around the world. Mission 66 is a ministry of trans world radio in partnership with Dr. Louise Ciao. I'm Rob Dempsey. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]