[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m. if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, you can find us
[email protected] dot. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: All right, so real quick, I'm just curious, who is this is your first time in the class? Like you weren't here for the first. Okay. Okay. So a good number, I would encourage you. We got through chapter 14 last quarter. So go back, read Matthews chapter one through 14.
Now, for those of you all that weren't in here when we did the class last time, it was our intent to get all the way through the book in one quarter. We failed miserably at that. Craig Beale had told me he was going to be in here tonight, and he had said that he reckoned we would probably get through chapter 15 this quarter.
So with that, I've got David. Okay. When Robert said we were going to do a brief review, we're going to do a brief review. So, David, I need you to start a seven minute timer. And if we aren't done in seven minutes. Yeah, you know. Okay. And then you teach the rest of the class. Okay.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Are you starting now?
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Starting now. Okay. So we're going to give a brief overview.
I like to talk a little bit about Matthew the Mandev. He had two names that we found in scripture. And this is stuff that I covered last time. Maybe some of you all remember this. He had two names in scripture. One was Matthew. It is a hebrew name, which means gift of Yahweh. He's mentioned five times by that name. And then Levi, son of Alpheus, which is also Hebrew, which means joined in harmony. He mentioned three times by that name. So a grand total of eight times. Only that he's mentioned in scripture. He was a tax collector or publican. He was the author of the Gospel of Matthew. And he only mentions himself twice in his own gospel, one where he is called, and the other is just a simple listing of the Twelve Apostles. Some things I like to point out about matthew as we get into the writing to make this more real. So you'll know his frame of mind as he's writing this. So he was a tax collector, as I said. Now, if you guys. Anybody remember what I said last semester as a jew becoming a tax collector, what would he have done? Anybody remember?
Okay? He would have purchased his right to collect taxes from the roman government. Okay? So he bought this, right? And the minute he did that, he's out of the synagogue. He is no longer by the jewish people. He is no longer a jew. He is cut off from his people. He's cut off from his religion. Okay?
The scripture or the traditions. Rabbinic traditions said you could lie to a tax collector. Okay? So they were hated people. So he was raised as a jew. He literally would have turned his back on that. And what I find interesting is matthew mentions the Old Testament 99 times in his gospel. That's more than the other gospels combined. Okay? So what that tells me about matthew is he was, I think, probably a tormented man, right? He was somebody who had turned his back on his. On his faith and his nation, and yet he's still talking back to the teachings that he would have gotten as a child.
Interestingly, then we see when he's called in Luke 527, jesus calls him to be an apostle. What does he do? He immediately gets up, he leaves his tax booth. So once again, he's massive life change. Okay?
And he also immediately brought others to Jesus. We see that in Luke 529. Also another interesting point.
From context, it appears that his tax booth was probably on the road in Capernaum, there where Peter, Andrew, James and John would have been taking their fish up into the city. So he likely knew some of the other apostles. Okay, so, Robert, I think you're going to do the next part.
Oh, okay.
So. So I'll go ahead and keep going. Cause how much time we got? David, you're at 315. Okay, so for the book of Matthew, the target audience was the Jews. Okay, so he was writing to Jews who were familiar with the Old Testament, Moses and the prophets.
His objective and intent of the book was to demonstrate to the jewish audience that Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham, is the Christ, the messiah as prophesied in the Old Testament. And again, that's why he has so many throwbacks to the Old Testament.
There was a gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament of about 400 years of silence. So about 400 years from the final book of the New Testament, or Old Testament into the New Testament. New Testament, Matthew versus the other gospels. This was a synoptic gospel, which means it was seen together. It's a common view of what the followers of Jesus would have seen. You'll see many of the same events in all the synoptic gospels.
Interestingly, Matthew was really focused on a jewish audience. Luke was more a broader gentile audience. And then John, which is not a synoptic gospel. It was a broad audience and persuasive so that folks would believe in Jesus again, his style, he extensive use of Old Testament references. I mentioned 99 times, and that's more than Mark, Luke and John combined. He had an emphasis on Christ, the kingdom. He also has an interesting reference that we spent probably too much time on last time, and we still don't know exactly what it means. But he is the author that writes the words kingdom of heaven, where other writers typically wrote Kingdom of God. And we talked a little bit about that toward the end of last quarter. So how much time do I have? A minute and a half. Okay. I think that's pretty good. Robert, do you have anything you want to add there, or do we have any questions?
[00:07:15] Speaker D: Any questions or anything we might have missed from our intro last quarter?
If not, let's go ahead and dive in. Maybe we'll get through 15.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:28] Speaker D: You may have to come figure out.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: You want me to work on that while you're. I'll do that.
[00:07:34] Speaker D: You want to. If you wanted to cover the first part or not.
This was highly coordinated effort.
Let's go ahead and dive in. Let's open up to chapter 15 and take a look at the first few verses.
In summary, the things we're going to look at tonight. Chapter 15 is really. Jesus is continuing to clash, if you will, with the religious leaders of the time. We see that all throughout the book, and we see a lot of Jesus repeated and consistent methodology of teaching, whether it be in parables, the way he addresses questions that come to him. But he's moving as we get into chapter 15, into to gentile country, if you will. And we're going to be seeing some stories about religious leaders that are really heavy on their tradition, as the jewish nation was, and at this time, somewhat ignoring the commandments of God. He heals the daughter of a canaanite woman and then feeds a multitude. So you got that going. Good. Do you want to start the lead? I don't know how you want to frame the. Let's go ahead and read those first. That first section, I'll just read it since we have the microphones and the folks can hear us online.
Chapter 15, verse one. And the Pharisees and the scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?
A couple of things right there.
Who are they questioning?
Or what behavior are they questioning when they come confront Jesus?
It's not Jesus. They're not saying Jesus is doing anything or questioning what his behavior is, but his disciples.
And their concern is the tradition of the elders with this question. Keep that in mind, for they do not wash their hands when they eat.
He 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 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 goddesse. He need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.
Goes on to say, 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 do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of Mendez?
There's another chart that has your.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Okay, so one of the things I wanted to bring out here, let's look at verse two.
And I want us to look at questions asked to Jesus in the entire chapter. So we're going to kind of jump ahead a little bit. So in verse two, what's the question that was asked of Jesus?
Okay, verse twelve. What is the question ask of him?
Can somebody read that real quick?
Do you know that the Pharisees were offended.
[00:11:27] Speaker D: When they heard this saying?
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Okay. And then verse 33, somebody read that.
Okay, so I want to spend a little bit of time looking at these questions. Now, by my reckoning, those are really the three main questions that are asked to him in this chapter. Did say, I think there's an honorable mention here in chapter, in verse 15 and verse 16 that I'm not. You could make an argument. It's a question. And I personally don't consider verses 21 through 28 a question and answer. So let me ask you guys a question. I want you look in your bible right now. In each one of these, he's asked a question. And in the verse after that, he answers the question. And I want somebody to tell me, how does he answer the question each time with a question? Okay. Now, I have never done this, but I have wanted to go through the gospels and look how many times did jesus answer a question directly? Okay. I don't know how many it is, but my assumption is it's not many. And in this chapter alone, we see he never answered directly. How did he answer the verse two question?
What did he say?
Right, right. Okay.
What did he do in verse twelve?
And this one's interesting to me. Okay, so the first one. Let me. Let me back up a little bit. The first one, who was talking to him.
Scribes, was this a friendly audience?
No, it wasn't. It was an adversarial officer. Excuse me? Adversarial audience.
Verse twelve. Who's asking?
It's a friendly audience. Right.
Wouldn't you think there might be a different approach there? You know?
And then verse 33, who asked the question there?
Disciples again. Okay. And we're going to have some fun with that one. We're gonna have some. Some real fun with that. Okay, so why.
Well, we've already answered this question. Yeah. Ziegfried, I know you didn't have the.
[00:14:20] Speaker E: Time to do this at home. How many times did he answer directly? Three times out of 183 times.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Really?
[00:14:28] Speaker E: That's what it says on Google. I just looked it up. That's what it says? Yes.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:34] Speaker E: How many times did he answer a question directly? And it says he's asked 183, of which he only answers three.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: That's why I love this class. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. You took the time. Yeah, yeah. It would have been too much work for me to type that into Google. Right.
So.
Thank you for that. So.
And this is just a discussion for just a couple minutes. Why do you think Jesus does this with people?
And I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer. I've got some opinions that I'm planning on sharing, but does answer your question with a question make people think not?
I think so I should have said, does it?
[00:15:28] Speaker F: It kind of encourages you to take a look at yourself.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Right, right. So I will say the first question I want to ask y'all. Do you think the first question was a legitimate question?
No, it was bait.
They were trying to come and get him. Okay. They were trying to come and get him. We'll also see throughout as we go through this study. And y'all are going to hear this all quarter, so just get ready.
You're going to see so many times that they are out to get him. They're going to ask him a question that has no good answer. The example I use a lot, and this is something I had an attorney friend that told me this.
I can't remember the name of it, but there is a question that they will use, you know, when you're grilling a witness, where they would say something like, Mister Beale, when you beat your wife, you beat her with your right hand. Correct?
He can't answer. Right. I've trapped him. If he says, well, no, I say, let the record show he beats his wife with his left hand. Right? Have you stopped beating your wife? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you stopped beating.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: That's.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: That's better. But the point is, they were out to get him. Okay? And so what I find interesting is Jesus didn't let what they were doing affect his response. Right? He didn't. He didn't. He didn't play their game, right? Somebody said it. They were baiting him. He didn't play the game. Now let's jump down and look at verse 33.
No, I said that wrong. Verse twelve. I'm sorry, verse twelve. You jump in there, Robert.
[00:17:25] Speaker D: Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Okay, so this one, what does he say back? And again, I don't know. I don't think it's a direct answer. Now he says something, but again, he uses almost. I would call it a pseudo parable. Right. He says, every plant which my heavenly father did not plant will be uprooted. Leave them alone. They are blind guides of blind people. And if a person who is blind guides another who is blind, both will fall into a pit. Okay, so again, I. He doesn't answer directly. All right.
[00:18:09] Speaker D: But while we're on that, to Jeff's point, the question starts you to think, and it forces you to think. But he typically gives you sufficient information for you to walk yourself to an answer.
[00:18:27] Speaker F: It seems to me in both of these first two questions, the questions are trying to validate the authority of men, because they're talking about the traditions of the elders and about the Pharisees being offended. And Jesus turns it around and shows them where the real authority is coming from.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:18:52] Speaker E: That's part of the point, is that the assumption is the man has that much authority.
I think just the assumption that where they're coming from is clearly different from where he is. Point A, right through z, or whether he is part of the Alpha Omega. Right. So I think that kind of illustrates the whole.
It's the whole issue there.
Two different chess and checkers being played here.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Speaker E: They think they're playing the same game, but they're not.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah, Robert, I was thinking too.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: I just finished reading job again and God doesn't allow interrogation. Jesus is God.
What's been said here and all.
[00:19:41] Speaker D: He's God.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: That's what these little questions. He just cuts in the chase with something more important and God does it. Nobody queries God without him saying, let me ask you.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a fantastic parallel. Thank you for bringing that up. You're referencing, I think it's job 38, correct? I think that's right. It's honest to goodness. Probably one of my favorite passages of scripture where God basically says, oh, I'm sorry, job, did I upset you? It's fantastic. Fantastic. So the final one, I want to jump in. We're going to hit it really really quickly because we do need to move on. Verse 33. What have they asked him?
What did they ask him? They're asking for what?
Feed. Feed these people. Okay. This is the feeding of the 4000, not the feeding of the 5000. How long ago was the feeding of the 5000?
Turn the page back one.
Right. It was chapter end of chapter 14. Okay, my opinion. Okay. I haven't, I googled it Sigvriedde and I couldn't find, okay.
But if you look at the chapter transitions, I would say this is at most a couple of weeks. I think it's probably a couple of days and a day or two before he's just. Do you know something?
[00:21:10] Speaker C: No.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: There are no chapter translations.
That's correct. But if you read the text even without the chapter break it's kind of like this happened, this happened and then this happened. So my point is that it is not like a good time later. It's like this happened, this happened and this happened. So they've just seen that now. What else happened in chapter 14?
Anybody remember? It's a good one. We talk about it a lot. What?
He walked on the water? He walked on the water. Okay, so this is at most a few weeks before they walk up to the guy that they saw walking on water and the guy that they saw feed 5000 people and they say, where are we going to get food?
I don't know. I find that hilarious. I feel like he was kind of like, I feel like it kind of went, let's see. They said where would we get the food? And I feel like he kind of went, how many loaves do you have? You know, I don't know. That's kind of the way I feel like it probably went. I know basis for that.
[00:22:26] Speaker D: But I've got to put in perspective to the types of questions he was being hit with. It was either people that were out to get him, trying to hang him, bait him, whatever, and then people that he chose to follow him that still don't get it.
And he responds in that same way.
And I want us, I don't know where you're going to go next to think about the application that's there for us, whether it's in Bible study, whether it's dealing with children.
Look how well and efficient it was for Jesus. And last quarter, there were some teachers in here, I don't know if they're back, and had talked to me about ways they're taught to teach and to get to children, you need to stimulate their thought and let them come to lead them to the answer. Don't give it to them.
It's deeper, it sticks more. So I think there's a application point there in that, that discussion.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Absolutely.
So that was the part of that slide that I wanted to cover.
Which interaction was this?
[00:23:44] Speaker D: This is the canaanite woman.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Oh, the Canaanite.
[00:23:46] Speaker D: We better move on to it.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Okay, we lost a, we lost a bit of text there. So we are going to look at verses 21 through 28. Okay, does anybody, could somebody read that very quickly?
21 through 28. Just go ahead and start when you get there.
[00:24:06] Speaker C: Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And a canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, have mercy on me, Lord, son of David, my daughter is cruelly demon possessed.
But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and implored him, saying, send her away because she keeps shouting at us. But he answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and began to bow down before him, saying, lord, help me. And he answered and said, it's not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. But she said, yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master's table.
Then Jesus said to her, o woman, your faith is great. It shall be done for you as you wish. And her daughter was healed at once.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Okay, so we're going to spend a couple minutes talking about this, and I want to step through the ways that Jesus responded to this woman. Okay. So you can see, as I prepared for this, for whatever reason, I was really focused in on how Jesus is responding to people in chapter 15. So what is his first response to the woman?
It's in verse 23. What's his first response to the woman.
[00:25:27] Speaker F: He ignored her.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: He ignored her.
Okay, what is in the second one again, it's actually. He's not responding to her. He's responding.
He's responding to the disciples. And then in verse 26, what does he say?
It's not right for what?
Okay, who is the woman in that sentence?
She's the dog.
I can feel the tension in the room.
Is that how we usually view Jesus?
[00:26:13] Speaker C: What's the view of the Jews at the time of people that were not Jews?
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Correct.
But my question is, given our, what I would call contemporary view of Jesus, would we think that Jesus would respond to anybody in that manner unless he.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: Was going to teach a lesson?
[00:26:34] Speaker F: Yes.
[00:26:36] Speaker D: Someone, obviously, that's a very good answer.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: He said unless he was going to teach them a lesson.
[00:26:45] Speaker C: He does contrast her faith with the faith of everybody.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Yes.
Yes.
[00:26:50] Speaker F: He's making an example of her and her faith to all these other people.
This may be how you feel about her and yourselves, but.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: I.
[00:27:03] Speaker F: At the faith she has, even when.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: She'S talked to you. Absolutely.
Any other thoughts there? Great answers. Great thoughts.
[00:27:12] Speaker C: I think it's a direct challenge or a direct point out. Right. To the disciples lack of faith in comparison.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: I mean, you see that throughout the whole text of them not getting it. And then this random canaanite woman shows up and he praises her faith. He's all the time saying, you little faith. Right to us on the. So that's like a slap on the head to me.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: I think it's interesting.
[00:27:35] Speaker C: He does it two times with two different.
A samaritan woman came to the woman at the well. He does the exact same thing. He owns the disciples. He's like, look at that.
[00:27:44] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:27:45] Speaker C: Watch what I can do. And you can.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:48] Speaker C: He tells, I never thought of this before until you just read it.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:52] Speaker C: The disciples are talking to him. He gives them the answer that I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Well, who sent to the rest of the people?
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:06] Speaker C: The people he's talking to says, my job is to teach them later.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: He says, yeah, good. Great points.
All great points I want to go back to, though.
Is that how we usually view Jesus?
Does it make us uncomfortable when we see this?
Why?
[00:28:31] Speaker F: Because it doesn't feel kind.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: It doesn't. Well, I'll go further. It wasn't kind.
Yeah.
[00:28:43] Speaker F: God teaches us hard lessons all the time, right?
[00:28:46] Speaker B: Now, I'm not saying this in every case, but as I studied for this lesson, the thing I think about is how do we respond to people? How do we think we always have to respond to people.
Can we learn anything from the way Jesus is responding to people here? In every one of these cases, I would say he was effective. Right.
But would we ever dream of responding to people the way that Jesus did?
[00:29:23] Speaker C: That answer always struck me as harsh, but also his answer to his mother when she asked him about the wine and he says, woman, why are you bothering? Also seems harsh.
I don't know what parallels there are beyond that. They just seem uncharacteristically harsh.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I will say again, as I study for this lesson in particular, it challenges me with the way, I would say, am I viewing Jesus and the way he acted on earth? Am I viewing that through a, let's say a contemporary lens? Right. A contemporary lens of what I think a Christian ought to act like. Now, I am not advocating this is a discussion class. I'm not advocating that we behave that way. Because Ed made a beautiful point. Okay. He was making a point. And David back that up.
[00:30:25] Speaker D: But Ed is testing curve faith.
[00:30:29] Speaker C: Yes, because the Jews had a basis of looking for Messiah to come, the other her people didn't. So he was testing her faith.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:30:43] Speaker D: So go ahead, Larry.
[00:30:46] Speaker C: I was just going to say it's possible that he being God, knew how this was going to work out.
And he basically played this and really pulled the Jews in calling her a dog and then let them see how their faith compared to hers.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a possibility. Go ahead.
[00:31:07] Speaker D: To your point about today's society and the way we interpret and operate, was Jesus response in love?
Would we agree that that's how we should respond in love?
And was, I think, a more common.
[00:31:29] Speaker E: Theme of when Jesus is more aggressive in his teaching is usually to Jews. I think maybe he was not just, he was teaching his disciples. And that direct, sort of course, approach, you know, is a little bit more akin to how he would deal with Pharisees. So in my mind, she is the object of lesson, not necessarily the object of the lesson per se.
Because when he says that, it's after his disciples have come to them. Come to him saying, let her.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: What did they say?
[00:32:03] Speaker F: Send her away.
[00:32:04] Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. And then that's his response.
[00:32:07] Speaker D: He sort of validated them to begin with. Right.
With his response. But then he went on with that full lesson. And I believe you're right. The lesson was for the disciples.
[00:32:21] Speaker E: I mean, this is on the hills of just leaving the cities beforehand where he was. And he ends by saying, teaching his disciples, basically, you not still understand, you're still without understanding. So this is, I just wonder if he's getting a little bit more personal in his aggressive, in his teaching to them and not so much her, I.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: Think all valid points.
And as I often say, I don't.
[00:32:48] Speaker D: To finish that point about in love, I believe it was in love.
But to the point that you sort of touched on. Love's not always has a kind appearance. You know, tough love, ask the money changers.
Love and truth are important. And I think he makes that clear in a couple of these lessons. In this chapter.
[00:33:16] Speaker C: The worst thing he could have done was agree with them and sent her away.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:21] Speaker C: But he refused to do that.
He carried on. He used it further in the conversation so she's not to be dismissed.
[00:33:30] Speaker D: And to whose lesson it was. Did she ever waiver? She was very tenacious and consistent in pursuing him.
Demonstrated her faith that he's using as an example.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: All great thoughts. I want to challenge you though, Larry.
I'm going to call you out on something you said, and this is going to be difficult for me to say. There's a lot of dicuses sitting behind you. Okay. And they know I don't practice what I'm about to practice. Preach. Okay.
The point I want to make out of this chapter is I think what you said is true. We have to acknowledge that Jesus was God. And of course he knew all and he saw all, but he was also limited. We know that scripture tells us he emptied himself to come to earth.
And I think we can learn a lot about how we should interact with people from the examples we see in scripture. And it's extremely easy to say, oh, he did that because he was God. He knew how it was going to turn out. And I think it's in the next week or two we're going to have some other things that happen. And I've always heard it taught that way. And now as an adulthood, I don't believe that. I think Jesus was the man. Jesus, he knew people, he knew how they acted. And he didn't have to use supernatural power to know how to interact with people effectively.
And I'm only saying that because I think at times we can use that as a crutch ourselves to say, well, I could never do that. I could never teach, I could never do that because, oh, he had some supernatural power. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just asking everybody as we go throughout this study, and I hope you go read this chapter this week, and I hope you think about this that week. And I'd like you to think about that point that I'm trying to make there.
Is that fair?
You still want to teach class when we're gone? No.
[00:35:51] Speaker D: He wants to teach it when you're here.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
There you go.
[00:36:02] Speaker D: Any questions? Closing comments?
Thanks for being here.
