Life Project Blog

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

“Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”

“From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

Matthew 17:24-27

Considering what is going on in this section where Jesus is trying to teach the disciples about His mission as Messiah, a subject that leads to His death on the cross, one might think of Matthew’s inclusion of this little anecdote as being rather odd; it doesn’t seem to “belong” at this point in the narrative.

Or does it?

So far, Jesus has predicted His own death at the hands of the authorities twice. Yet in each case, He has included reference to the resurrection and the disciples seem to have missed it. He has been alluding to the redemption of Mankind, but they haven’t followed up with questions about that yet. His identity is known to them, and three of them are aware that He is the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, and they have heard that directly from the Father. Yet there is another element to His mission, an element that on the one hand makes its completion possible, and on the other hand is one that should mark the life of a disciple; that element is the denial of self. After all, would anyone claim that allowing Himself to be nailed to a cross was a self-centered thing to do on a Friday morning?

In our text, notice two things: First, that Jesus makes a pretty good case that He does not need to pay temple tax; He is God’s Son for heaven’s sake! Nevertheless, there really isn’t any point to making a big deal about it; it’s a trivial matter… and this is the second point… a needless argument to “get out of it” would be a distraction from His mission, and so He sends Peter the fisherman out to fish.

Over the years, I’ve listened as quite a few Christians go on about how nobody is going to take advantage of them, about how they “don’t have to” do this or that. Often they had valid points, but in no case were they making disciples or building up the Body of Christ while they were busy asserting their “rights”, and it would appear that Jesus didn’t waste His time with such things, for He was on a mission.

When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief.

Matthew 17:22-23

Jesus is determined to make His disciples understand His mission, which is to die for the redemption of Mankind, a concept that would have been a hard one for the disciples to grasp. Jewish men were not accustomed to thinking of their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as a God who would want to redeem the Gentiles, for this went against the customs and traditions of their culture and community. To put it in modern terms, it was “radical”.

It was radical for another reason: Jesus was the Son of God; how could He be killed by mere men? How could God allow such a thing? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that this is the reason Jesus kept on bringing it up; it was hard for the disciples to fathom, especially for Peter, James and John would had witnessed the transfiguration.

Just think about it; the Son of God, the long awaited Messiah, the one whose supremacy was demonstrated so dramatically on the mountain by none other than Almighty God Himself, the one who had done all the miracles, the one who has the faith that can move mountains was going to be delivered into the hands of men who will kill Him… how can that be?

The disciples were filled with grief… as well they should be.

Do you see what they were missing?

Yes, that’s right; they were filled with grief because Jesus would be killed. They were apparently so filled with grief (and shock) that they weren’t listening to “and on the third day he will be raised to life” They were not yet ready to realize that Jesus was going to the cross, but that was not a sign of weakness, it was a sign of faith that moves mountains. It was not a defeat, but the victory that would change the entire cosmos forever.

When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Matthew 17:14-21

There are many parallels between Matthew’s account of the transfiguration and Moses’ account of his encounter with God on Mt. Sinai, and this scene following the return of Jesus and the three disciples from their mountaintop experience is one of them that may remind us of what Moses found after his return to the camp when he came down from Sinai in Exodus 32. Moses found a rebellious and idolatrous people; Jesus found an “unbelieving and perverse generation”.

He was approached by a man who was begging for deliverance for his poor son who as it turns out, was possessed by a demon. The disciples had attempted to deal with the demon, possibly the nine who did not accompany Jesus up the mountain, Matthew doesn’t make this clear, but in any case, they had been unable to deal with it.

Jesus drove out the demon immediately.

Previously I’ve pointed out that in this section, the disciples are the ones who Jesus is teaching, certainly they are His principle focus, and we see that clearly in this passage. In verse 11 He addressed the people around Him in general terms, maybe even showing a slight amount of frustration, but the real lesson isn’t His rebuke of the demon or of His generalized remarks in verse 11, but what follows in private with His disciples beginning in verse 20. That scene is set by the disciples’ question in 17:19: Why couldn’t they drive that demon out?

Fair question, they’ve been handling demons for some time now.

Jesus responds in very simple terms: “because you have so little faith.”

He goes on to add that if they have faith as small as a mustard seed, they can order a mountain to move, and it will move, for with a little faith, nothing will be impossible. You know what everyone says at this point: Mustard seeds are the smallest of seeds and they produce the largest of plants, so if you only have a little faith, you can do great things; Jesus has made that point earlier in Matthew’s narrative, and yet, here we are again; can the disciples be so dull, or is there something we have missed?

This is the point where we must make a shift in our focus, a shift from systematic theology into applied theology (if you like the academic terms). Are you ready?

First, here’s a question: Are you a follower of Jesus Christ?

If your answer is “yes” then here’s the next question: Are you His disciple?

(Hint: if you answered “yes” to the first question, then your answer to the second needs to be “yes” as well.)

So, if you are His follower, then you are His disciple, and like the original 12, you (and I) are in training, “at the feet of the Master” so to speak. Take verse 20 out of the abstract and historical (i.e. Jesus once said this to the Twelve) and think of it as Jesus sitting there with you saying this same thing to YOU. So, let’s look at the verse again: Here we are you, me and Jesus sitting around the kitchen table. We ask the question (verse 19) and He says:

“Don and (your name), it’s because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Does it look different now?

Have you ever prayed for someone’s healing, for example, and had a little voice in the back of your mind saying something like “he’s not going to be healed”? If so, may I be the one to point that that isn’t “little faith”, that is NO faith at all.

You, and I right along with you, may well wonder how we get past that little voice of doubt in the back of our minds….

Well, stay tuned, because we are now in school with Matthew, Andrew, Thomas and the whole gang, as Jesus teaches us how to follow Him and truly become His disciple, and from this point on, we are in the crucial part of that instruction.

Matthew 17:1-13

Just a few days after Peter’s confession that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” and Jesus’ prediction of His death, we have a scene that is unusual to say the least when Jesus takes three disciples, Peter, James and John up a “high mountain” where a conference of sorts is about to take place. I think I’ll let others argue about why Jesus only took these three with Him that day, and I’ll let others speculate on which mountain they ascended; I’ll assume that since Matthew didn’t tell us, that it probably doesn’t matter. What Matthew did tell us is quite enough to keep us busy…

There they were at the top of the mountain when suddenly Jesus was revealed in His transcendent glory, and was joined by two other figures that Matthew identifies as Moses and Elijah. As the three of them spoke, Peter offers to build shelters for each of them, a sign of high respect. In a sense, this would seem to equate them as equals, but note that he said “if you wish” which would seem to indicate Peter’s recognition that of the three, Jesus was the greatest.

But Jesus was not the one who responded, for suddenly there was a “bright cloud” that covered them and the voice of Almighty God spoke:

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (17:5)

Later, Jesus would say that the Law and the Prophets speak of Him, and here we have Jesus alongside Moses, the lawgiver, the author of the books of the Law with Elijah, the great prophet of God… and the voice of God Himself telling the disciples to listen to Jesus.

The message is hard to miss: There would be no need for shelters for Moses and Elijah, for Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Law and Prophets; their time was coming to a close, and Jesus would make all things new− the disciples were justifiably terrified.

Jesus came and touched them saying “Get up” and “don’t be afraid”. Moses and Elijah were gone.

On their way back down the mountain, Jesus instructed them not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the resurrection, and then they asked Him a question: “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” (17:10). He gives them an interesting reply in 17:11-12 that came down to one thing: Elijah had come, and the teachers of the law simply had not chosen to believe him, and he had been murdered in Herod’s jail.

I really don’t see what I can add to Matthew’s account of this scene, except to say that being a disciple of Jesus in those days would have been a very interesting job!

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Matthew 16:21

We begin the long road to Jerusalem with these words of Jesus; from here on, the mission of the Messiah is the focus as Jesus tries to make His disciples understand what it means for Him to complete His messianic mission. He has not come to save Israel from the Romans and to restore it to its glory days as a great nation; He has come to save Mankind and establish an entirely different kind of kingdom.

Peter, after his mountaintop moment of divine revelation comes crashing back to earth, for he does not yet see what the mission is:  “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” (16:22b). Jesus’ response is swift and sure: “Get behind me Satan” (16:23). Peter’s expression of love was based upon purely human concerns; he didn’t want Jesus to have to suffer and die at the hands of the authorities, which is natural enough, but if his wishes were to come to pass, they would thwart entirely the eternal purposes of God.

This section will prove to be a lesson in counter-intuitive though processes, and thus we need to pay special attention, for our thought processes, like those of Peter, tend toward human understanding and desires.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. (16:24-27)

This paragraph is marked by a contrast between the human will and perception, and the divine will and perception, much as in Paul’s “flesh versus spirit” passages. We must deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Jesus, much as Paul would say that we must put the “old man” aside and live according to the Spirit. We may “find” our lives, and thus lose them by finding our human, earthly selves and live according to the ways of this world, or we may lose that life, and find eternal life with Christ; which will it be? To follow Jesus is to set aside the purely human and physical and take up a higher, heavenly calling based upon our hope for that which is unseen, and is thus counter-intuitive. Yet, Jesus had one more point to offer in this regard:

“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (16:28)

It is my rather peculiar duty to point out that this verse is actually a controversial one in many quarters, for there are commentators who actually say that this verse is intended for our time, and refers to the Second Coming. Obviously, if one actually reads it, there is no way to assert anything other than the fact that Jesus was speaking of the Twelve who were right there listening to Him. Eleven of them would see the coming of the Kingdom at Pentecost in fact they would participate in the coming of the Kingdom on that day, and so the Kingdom has been with us ever since.

As Matthew continues with his narrative, he uses several times the phrase, “From that time on Jesus began…” You may recall that in 4:17 the phrase marked the beginning of Jesus ministry in Galilee, but here in Matthew 16:21, it signals the beginning of Hs journey to Jerusalem and eventual sacrifice on the cross. In fact, we are entering a new phase in which Jesus moves on from educating His disciples concerning His identity to educating them concerning His messianic mission (16:21- 20:34). In this new section, Jesus will be showing His disciples that He must suffer and die in humble submission to God’s will.

Prior to this time, it would appear that Jesus has withdrawn from danger (cf. 12:15; 14:13; 15:21; 16:4). As we continue, we will see Jesus moving inexorably toward the cross. As in the previous section, the disciples will be in every scene, and they will be the primary focus of His teaching, as He teaches them that they must set self aside and live in humble submission to the will of God, even unto death; in all things, they will learn to trust God and God alone.

We will pick up in verses 21-28, as Jesus predicts his death, when we get back together next time; see you then.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 16:19

Peter was to be given “the keys of the Kingdom of heaven” a sign of great authority (cf. Isa. 22:22; Rev. 3:7, 9:1. 10:1) yet nothing about this tells us that Peter will determine who enters and who does not. Thus, when you “die and go to heaven” you probably won’t find old Peter sitting at the gate with a clipboard. The term “kingdom” refers always to God who reigns actively over His people, and the term “church” refers to the people over whom God reigns. At no time, does Peter, or anyone else reign over the Kingdom.

With that said, there is still authority being given to Peter in this verse, and it is made very clear by Jesus’ reference to “binding” and “loosing”: what is this authority?

For us to understand these terms, we much first recognize that they have a technical background in rabbinical Judaism. They refer to pronouncements given to the people that reflected rabbinic interpretations of the Law and what was allowed and what was prohibited by the Law concerning matters of conduct. Thus, we should not understand these terms to suggest that Peter, or anyone else, would be able to allow or prohibit an individual from participation in the Christian community, for “whatever” does not refer to a person, but to a thing. Clearly, then, Peter, and later the other disciples as well (18:17-18) were given the authority to determine which practices would be, and would not be permissible in light of God’s reign over the church. This did not give Peter or anyone else the authority to make arbitrary and capricious decrees, instead they would bring instruction concerning God’s will to the people, in much the same way as a preacher will teach his congregation about what is or isn’t appropriate personal conduct in our time, based upon the instruction of the Scriptures− remember, the early church did not yet have the teaching of the New Testament.

In the early church, the people recognized the authority of the apostles as they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). In this way, we can state authoritatively that “God’s household (was) built on the foundation of the apostles…” (Eph. 2:19-20), and in this, Peter played the critical leadership role in the early church, as we see in Acts 1-12.

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Matthew 16:17-20

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think this is a good place to do so again: I don’t write this blog for theologians and scholars; it isn’t very “academic”. There are many wonderful blogs written for and by scholars and academics, and I doubt that one more is really needed; no sir, I write this for “regular” folks. Consequently, I avoid whenever possible, discussions of grammar and foreign languages that is fascinating to some, and quite confusing to the rest. I try to make the Scriptures clear and come alive for anyone who reads these posts, and I leave the academics to others, not that there is anything wrong with the academics; it’s just that they sometimes give way more information than is strictly needed for comprehension. To be sure, the style in which I write most of these posts is not the way I approached these texts as a professor in teaching seminary… but this isn’t seminary!

To a certain extent, this post will be an exception to my editorial norm, because in covering 16:18-19, there is little true comprehension of Jesus’ meaning, without some academics, but I will try to use them only as much as necessary, and not so much that your head will spin…

Our journey begins with the matter of Peter himself, and to understand his position in this text, we really need to avoid either of two extremes, and please understand that I intend neither disrespect nor offense to holders of either: On the one hand Roman Catholicism has read into these verses an elaborate doctrine of Papal succession and infallibility based upon a supposed investiture of Peter with exclusive authority and status. Protestants, on the other hand, in reaction have downplayed Peter’s central role, viewing him instead as either “just another disciple” or a being representative of all of the disciples. Setting both of the extremes aside for a moment, it is difficult for us to ignore the intensely personal way that Jesus addresses him in these verses. After Peter’s statement concerning Christ’s identity, Jesus uses the personal pronoun “you” no fewer than six times. In the process, Jesus even changes his name from Simon to Peter. You may also note the play on words between Jesus’ use of “you are” (sy eimi) in verse 18 with Peter’s use of the same words in verse 16 (“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”). Do you see it? “You are the Messiah…”; “you are the rock…”.

Scholars like to argue this point because in the Greek, the word for rock (petra) is feminine, but the word used for Peter has been made masculine to become a man’s name (Petros) and the result of this argument is that Peter cannot have been the “rock” upon which the church was built. I will admit that I have taught this way myself… until I considered one little detail, which really messed things up for me: Jesus was speaking Aramaic, not Greek.

In Aramaic, the word (kepha) in both cases, as in English, is the same gender. (You are kepha and on this kepha…) Thus, on Peter Jesus will build His “church”. This is the first time Matthew has used this word (ekklesia) and much has been made about Jesus building “The Church” upon Peter. What we must consider is the fact that ekklesia does not mean an organization, hierarchy or international headquarters; it simply means “assembly” or “community.”

What I take away from this is that Jesus is going to build His church (assembly/community) around Peter’s leadership, and if you skip ahead to Acts, that is exactly what happened. Peter was an apostle among other apostles, he held no office and he claimed nothing more than his apostleship, like the others. Yet we cannot miss the fact that he stepped forward and led the others during the crucial formative period of the church in Jerusalem.

The concept of “building” God’s church upon a foundation of rock comes from the idea that the people of God are a temple or a “house”; in the New Testament that “house” is called the “church”.  Thus, what we have here is a paradigm shift, from God dwelling with His people in the Temple, to God dwelling with His people in the Church; we do not have God establishing an institution on Peter’s shoulders.

After assuring Peter of his important role in building the church, Jesus goes one more step and assures him that “the gates of Hades” will not overcome it. The gates of Hades represent death; death will not overcome the church in the battles ahead, for the victory of God’s people over sin, evil and death is assured, and when the end of this world comes, the church of Jesus Christ will stand supreme.

Next time, I will complete this discussion when we take a look at “binding” and “loosing”; see you then.

Matthew 16:13-20

Jesus and the disciples came to the region of Caesarea Philippi where Jesus asked them who people were saying that He was. They responded with several things He was being called. Then Jesus asked them a fateful question: “Who do you say I am?”

It was Simon who responded for the group:

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (16:16)

That was it, the missing piece of the “who is this guy” puzzle: He was the Son of God (14:33) and now they have seen that He is also the Messiah.

Throughout this section, Jesus has been intent to educate the disciples on His true identity, to educate them concerning the Kingdom of heaven, and to teach them about His true mission. They have come a very long way indeed, but there is still much for them to learn, and so in verse 20 Jesus tells them not to discuss this Messiah business with others, at least not yet. As we will come to see, they aren’t yet ready to tell people He is the Messiah, because they do not yet know what the nature of His messianic mission is, for if they went out at that moment telling people He was the Messiah, it is very likely that they would, along with everyone else, think He was there to destroy the Roman occupation and restore Israel to its place as a powerful Nation among the nations of this world.

Jesus is on a very different mission.

Yet Jesus congratulates Simon on his insight, revealed as it was by none other than God Himself (16:17). Their recognition of Jesus as both Son of God and Messiah was a game-changer, for with this knowledge in hand, everything would be different, both for the disciples and for the world in general, as verses 18 -19 indicate, yet these two verses may well be the most controversial two verses in the entire Bible… and doesn’t that just figure!

The very simple version is this: In recognition of his statement, Jesus changed Simon’s name to “Peter” which in Greek means “rock”, and on “this” rock, Jesus would build His church, but then is the “rock” Peter personally or is it the acknowledgement that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” This question is battleground number 1.

Peter would be given the “keys of the Kingdom” and “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” This is battleground number 2.

For now, I will just leave this as a game changing moment. In the next post, I will remind myself that I am a theology professor, and we’ll tackle 16:18-19; this one may not be for the faint of heart… see you then!