Reflective Bible Study

In our journey through Matthew’s gospel, we have come all the way through Jesus’ life and up to the event that marks the start of Jesus’ crucifixion week. At the beginning of this week, Jesus arrives near Jerusalem, and we discover He has a special plan for entering Jerusalem.

Let’s read what happened and discover what we can learn from this event. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 21, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 1, Matthew tells us that:

¹ As Jesus and his followers were coming closer to Jerusalem, they stopped at Bethphage at the hill called the Mount of Olives. From there Jesus sent two of his followers ² and said to them, “Go to the town you can see there. When you enter it, you will quickly find a donkey tied there with its colt. Untie them and bring them to me. ³ If anyone asks you why you are taking the donkeys, say that the Master needs them, and he will send them at once.”

⁴ This was to bring about what the prophet had said:

⁵ “Tell the people of Jerusalem,
    ‘Your king is coming to you.
He is gentle and riding on a donkey,
    on the colt of a donkey.’”

⁶ The followers went and did what Jesus told them to do. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt to Jesus and laid their coats on them, and Jesus sat on them.

⁸ Many people spread their coats on the road. Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ The people were walking ahead of Jesus and behind him, shouting,

“Praise to the Son of David!
God bless the One who comes in the name of the Lord! 
Praise to God in heaven!”

¹⁰ When Jesus entered Jerusalem, all the city was filled with excitement. The people asked, “Who is this man?”

¹¹ The crowd said, “This man is Jesus, the prophet from the town of Nazareth in Galilee.”

We’ll stop reading here, because I want to draw our attention onto an interesting parallel that not many people might have noticed. In this passage, we see a potential fulfillment of one of Jesus’ earlier prophecies. While I don’t know if this is the exactly intended understanding for this earlier verse, one understanding of this verse does fit with what we just finished reading.

Earlier this year, a few months ago, we focused on a passage that ended with Matthew 16:28. For that episode, we read the passage from the Good News Translation, and this verse said: “I assure you that there are some here who will not die until they have seen the Son of Man come as King.”

In the passage we finished reading, Matthew draws out the point that Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was prophesied in Isaiah as the way He would enter the city as a king. While most translations frame Matthew 16:28 as Jesus saying, “Son of Man coming in his kingdom”, I wonder if this entrance into Jerusalem partially fulfills this.

There are two big challenges I see to this understanding. The first is whether Jerusalem would be considered as Jesus’ kingdom. For the majority of the Old Testament, Jerusalem is used as a metaphor for God’s city and for God’s people. While I don’t know if this event signifies a symbolic blend of these two ways of understanding the city, it is significant to note that Jesus is rejected by the people in Jerusalem most significantly after He enters it as a king. On the Sunday before the Passover, Jesus enters the city as a king, and the following Friday, He is hoisted up on a cross to die.

Jerusalem as Jesus’ symbolic kingdom is a fascinating idea, but Jesus was to become king of more than just one city or one people.

The other big challenge I see in this understanding is when Jesus says that some of the disciples wouldn’t face death before seeing this. I see no reason to doubt that all 12 disciples were present for this event. Even if Judas Iscariot was plotting a way to go see the religious leaders to plan for a betrayal during this entrance into the city, Judas would still need to enter the city. This would mean that all 12 disciples were present for this grand entrance into Jerusalem, and the way Jesus’ earlier prediction is framed, only some of the disciples would witness it.

When we look at the context of Jesus’ prediction, we find that just one verse earlier, Jesus describes returning from heaven with God’s glory and a host of angels with the purpose of repaying everyone for what they have done. The simplest understanding of Jesus’ prediction in the next verse is that Jesus is still referring to His second coming.

However, if it refers to the second coming, all the disciples have died, and they have been dead for close to 2,000 years. This makes the simple understanding of Jesus’ prediction challenging as well.

As we talk about this, I wonder if Jesus coming as a King, or coming into His kingdom is a multiple step process. As I connect the dots in my mind, I see the fulfillment of Jesus’ words beginning the moment He rode into Jerusalem as a king. The next dot that is connected is Jesus hanging on the cross. Jesus came as a king and was rejected by the people. Jesus died a death He didn’t deserve. The next dot is Jesus’ resurrection, where He returns to life which marks another step Jesus takes in the progression into His kingdom. After the resurrection, Jesus ascends to heaven with the remaining disciples watching, and this was a visible sign for all present that Jesus was leaving to return to God. The final dot is marked by Jesus’ return that is promised throughout the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

Jesus’ entrance into His kingdom is bigger than one event can hold. All 12 disciples were there witnessing the beginning step of this process, only some of them were there to witness the next few steps, but all God’s people will be present or resurrected for the last great finale when Jesus returns as King!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, seek God first in your life. Be sure to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus so that when Jesus returns, you will be excited and happy to meet Him rather than fearful and afraid. God wants you in heaven, and Jesus came to make the way possible for you to be forgiven!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. If you disagree with anything that I shared in this or any other episode, that doesn’t bother me. Instead, my challenge for you is to use the Bible to put together and develop your own beliefs. I would rather see you pick your own beliefs based on what you read and study personally from the Bible than to take anyone’s interpretation at face value!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

When describing all that happened following Jesus’ arrest and leading up to the cross, all four gospels describe the details differently. Each gospel writer has the details in a unique, but similar order, and some events that are placed in different places in each gospel’s “order of events” may actually describe the same event.

While these discrepancies might be reasons for a skeptic to doubt, all this uniqueness in my own mind speaks to four independent investigators asking witnesses questions of a single event. It’s possible that the order of the details is different, and that makes piecing the timeline of the event together a little more difficult.

This brings us to our passage for this episode. Two weeks ago, we read Mark’s gospel, which described a trial Jesus faced at night. This trial had numerous false witnesses contradicting each other, and when it looked like the trial was about to fall apart, in almost desperation, the high priest challenges Jesus on His claim of being God’s Son.

However, in Luke’s gospel, the first trial we see take place is after Peter’s denial and it happens when morning came. Luke doesn’t describe any false witnesses, but he does draw our attention onto the direct challenge of the religious leaders that they use to condemn Jesus.

In my mind, as I piece the gospel record together, there were two trials. The one during the night was a practice trial to get information that these leaders could then challenge Jesus on during the official trial in the morning.

Let’s read about the morning trial that Luke describes. This event is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 22, and we will read it from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 66, Luke tells us:

⁶⁶ In the morning the council of the people’s leaders, the chief priests and the experts in Moses’ Teachings, gathered together. They brought Jesus in front of their highest court and asked him, ⁶⁷ “Tell us, are you the Messiah?”

Jesus said to them, “If I tell you, you won’t believe me. ⁶⁸ And if I ask you, you won’t answer. ⁶⁹ But from now on, the Son of Man will be in the honored position—the one next to God the Father on the heavenly throne.”

⁷⁰ Then all of them said, “So you’re the Son of God?”

Jesus answered them, “You’re right to say that I am.”

⁷¹ Then they said, “Why do we need any more testimony? We’ve heard him say it ourselves.”

Let’s stop reading here because this marks the end of this trial. Following this, the religious leaders take Jesus to Pilate.

However, what I find interesting in Luke’s trial that makes me think this was a different trial than what Mark describes is that the religious leaders open with a direct question and Jesus responds with a similar, but distinctly different answer.

The religious leaders are working against the clock because they have the Passover to get ready for, and they want Jesus condemned to death as quickly as possible, since this is likely the only chance they feel they will get.

After fishing for information and for a charge to bring against Jesus during the time they had Him at night, the religious leaders settle on Jesus’ claim of divinity and His role as God’s Messiah. They take this information to the official trial that is first thing that morning.

In Luke’s official trial, I am amazed at Jesus’ response, especially after a passage we read earlier this year. In this response Jesus gives, I believe He directly references the question He asked the religious leaders that they could not answer.

Earlier that week, Jesus had presented a divine picture of the Messiah when He quoted David saying in the Psalms: “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Take the honored position—the one next to me [God the Father] on the heavenly throne until I put your enemies under your control.’” (This event can be found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 20, verses 41-44.)

Now with that in mind, let’s read Jesus’ response again during Luke’s trial. Verses 67-69 tell us that Jesus responded by saying, “If I tell you, you won’t believe me. And if I ask you, you won’t answer.  But from now on, the Son of Man will be in the honored position—the one next to God the Father on the heavenly throne.”

Do you see the similarities in these two verses?

Reading these two passages together gives me a picture of what Jesus is doing right now. Following Jesus’ return to Heaven, God the Father gives Him the honored position next to Him and Jesus is reigning in Heaven as the “Defeater of Sin and Death”. These two passages together describe the time we are currently living in, which is a time where Jesus is victorious but sin hasn’t yet been destroyed.

In this passage, we discover that Jesus not only responded strategically here, but He responded in the exact way that the religious leaders needed Him to respond to condemn Him to death.

Also, with this response, the religious leaders condemn themselves. Not only do they reject that Jesus is God’s Son, but they also reject Jesus as God’s Messiah, and they reject God Himself because they don’t believe Jesus fits their picture of God.

By rejecting both God the Father and Jesus as the Son and the Messiah, their judgment displays their allegiance to the powers of this world and not to the religion they claimed to follow. These religious leaders had taken their tradition and formed it into their religion in place of the religion God had given to Moses for the people.

It is no wonder the religious leaders rejected Jesus. Jesus came with an accurate picture of God that said every human being is a sinner who needs a Savior. While the religious leaders intellectually believed this, otherwise they would not have judged Jesus as a sinner, they disliked this truth being shared openly by an outsider.

It is the same way with us today. While it is not pleasant to see ourselves as sinners, that is who we are. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, we are victorious sinners who have had our sins washed away, but until Jesus returns to rid the world of sin, sin will always be something our lives are challenged with, and sin is always something that is included in our past.

This is the way God designed it to be, because if there was no sin in our past, not only would we be deceiving ourselves, but we also would be rejecting the need of a Savior to wash us clean. Jesus came to save sinners, and those who don’t see themselves as sinners needing a Savior won’t accept the gift that Jesus freely offers to those who place their faith in Him.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and place Him first in your life. Be sure to recognize that you are a sinner who needs a Savior and that your past needs Jesus’ sacrifice to cover it. Choose today to live a victorious life that doesn’t look like your sinful past, and choose to live each day moving forward for Jesus.

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow closer to God and to Jesus each and every day. Through prayer and Bible study, you grow your personal relationship with God and through the personal relationship with God, you are able to discover and learn the truth that God wants to teach you. While others can give you ideas to think about, filter everything you learn through the truth of God’s Word.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we come closer to the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion in Matthew’s gospel, we come to a parable Jesus shares about a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard. Like many of Jesus’ other parables, this one is attributed to the kingdom of heaven.

However, as I have read this parable, I have always been amazed at the implications and things I learn from the details in this parable, and I’m sure that this time will be no exception. Let’s read what Jesus shared and then unpack some things we can learn from this teaching. Our parable and passage are found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 20, and we will be reading from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, Jesus tells those present:

¹ “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ² He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³ “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴ He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ⁶ About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

⁷ “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

⁸ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰ So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹² ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵ Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Whenever I read this parable, one portion of the parable bothers me when we compare it with how this parable is framed. At the start of this parable, Jesus frames this parable as being about the kingdom of heaven, and at the end of the parable, we find people who are being rewarded by this landowner who are grumbling against the landowner because they don’t feel they have been treated fairly.

This detail comparison strikes me as odd because regardless of what represents the kingdom of heaven in this parable, I find it challenging to picture people complaining about the unfairness this parable presents.

Don’t misunderstand me though. Looking around at people here on earth, including those in the church and those out of the church, I can easily picture a group of people accusing God of being unfair. However, it is harder for me to picture this happening in heaven.

However, while God, who I believe is represented by this landowner, is being accused of being unfair, is there anything actually unfair happening in this parable?

If we judge this parable through our human standards, we might be able to make a case that what the landowner does is unfair. After all, those who worked for fewer hours should receive less than those who worked for more hours, especially with all other variables being the same. If someone who came later in the day worked harder and produced more than someone who was present but not all that diligent, then a case could be made for paying the one who performed better for a shorter period of time the same, or worse for that matter, as someone who worked longer but who wasn’t as productive.

However, the details of this parable remove the accusation of the landowner being unfair. Those who began first thing in the morning agreed to being paid a fair day’s wage. After the day’s worth of work, they seem to have forgotten what they had agreed to. However, forgetting the details of an agreement doesn’t make the agreement any less binding and it doesn’t make what was agreed upon any less fair.

Those who worked a full day were paid what was fair for a full day’s worth of work. In contrast, those who started later get more than they deserved for their work. Those who started later get to experience generosity because they receive more than they would have normally earned for the time they spent working.

It is interesting when we take this idea and extend it into the spiritual realm. If we ignore for a moment that those who worked the longest complained, we can see an amazing spiritual parallel in what Jesus did for us.

Let’s take the day of work in the vineyard in this parable and translate it into a lifetime of service. When we look at our lifetime service record, the only one in history with a spotless record is Jesus. Jesus began way before we even knew anything about God and Jesus will continue long after memory of us has faded from those alive on this planet.

If anyone has served for a long time, it is Jesus. Anyone and everyone who serves God is someone who started after the start of the workday because when we were born, regardless of how smart we were or what family we were born into, we had no understanding of serving God.

This also means that when God pays us for our lifetime of service, He gives us more than we deserve. Instead of limiting the reward He has planned to give us and basing it on how well we served, God decides to reward us as though we served Him like Jesus served. We are given the rewards of perfect service when our service record is anything but perfect.

And the amazing thing about this understanding of this parable is in the last phrase Jesus shared in this parable. In verse 16, Jesus tells those present, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Jesus deserved to be rewarded for His life of service, but Jesus chose to be last and to place us first. Jesus is the only one with a spotless record of service, but instead of leaning on His perfect record, He decides to trade it with our imperfect record and take the punishment for our sins. I can understand those who are skeptical of a selfless God like this, but would a God of love act any other way?

Looking at the details of this parable, and how the landowner continues to seek out people to help in his vineyard, we can conclude that God is always looking for more people to help in His vineyard. While the workday is still in progress, it is never too late to accept God’s invitation to work with and for Him.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open the challenges by saying, intentionally seek God first and place Him first in your life. Choose to accept Jesus’ gift of His service record in place of your own. Choose to accept God’s invitation to serve in His vineyard and discover what life is like with God.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to intentionally grow closer to God each day. Through prayer and Bible study, we are able to open our hearts to God and we are able to let Him enter our lives. Prayer and Bible study help us serve others better and these habits help us live the life God has called us to live.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

While Jesus was being tried in the religious court, Peter is outside warming himself by the fire. Even though He and the other disciples scattered and left Jesus to be arrested, Peter is one disciple who wants to know firsthand what the results of this trial will be. Peter knew Jesus had sidestepped every other encounter with the religious leaders, and I wonder if he wants to be an early witness of one more brilliant evasive maneuver that Peter knows Jesus is capable of.

However, this also sets Peter up for what he feared the most, and that fear was letting Jesus down. Let’s read about what happens.

Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 14, and we will be reading from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 66, Mark describes the scene to us:

⁶⁶ As Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant-girls of the high priest came, ⁶⁷ and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Nazarene.” ⁶⁸ But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you are talking about.” And he went out onto the porch. ⁶⁹ The servant-girl saw him, and began once more to say to the bystanders, “This is one of them!” ⁷⁰ But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders were again saying to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean too.” ⁷¹ But he began to curse and swear, “I do not know this man you are talking about!” ⁷² Immediately a rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, “Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” And he began to weep.

In this passage, all Peter wanted to do was be close to Jesus while also being anonymous. Peter wanted to be present if Jesus needed him, but otherwise, he wanted to remain unknown.

However, a perceptive servant-girl speaks up and blows his cover. Whether this servant-girl was with the crowd and soldiers who went to arrest Jesus, or whether she happened to have seen Peter with Jesus at some point earlier in the week when Jesus was teaching and preaching in the temple, we see in this passage, that Peter could not escape being recognized for His presence with Jesus.

It’s quite possible that many of the crowd that Peter was mingling with were among those who were part of the crowd that had arrested Jesus. Peter’s outburst with the sword during Jesus’ arrest would be enough to single him out in the memory of those present. However, it was dark out, and perhaps not many people were able to see Peter clearly enough to recognize him at first.

In this passage, in spite of Peter’s big declaration the previous evening that he would never deny Jesus, we discover that Jesus’ prediction rings true regardless of how insistently Peter denied Jesus’ words to the contrary.

However, Peter’s big failure in this passage gives us hope. It is likely we are not as arrogant as Peter was. Someone who had walked with Jesus for over three years and who knew all about Him was the only one who we clearly read about openly denying Jesus. The rest of the disciples deserted Jesus, but Peter is the only one who denied knowing Him.

In our own lives, while we walk with Jesus in a spiritual sense, we walk by faith. God has called us to be His representatives in the world we live in. When people ask whether we know Jesus, it might be easy to simply minimize our connection to Him, but the easy path leads us to regret.

When Peter realized that Jesus’ words came true, and that he had denied Him the three times, it breaks Peter’s heart. Peter regretted his mistakes and his denials. If we deny Jesus when we know Him and claim to follow Him, we walk Peter’s path of regret.

It’s hard to say if Peter’s fear of being recognized would have been realized if those present knew he had been with Jesus. Peter’s fear was that he would be pulled in and put on trial next to Jesus.

In an interesting way, this is also the fear many of us face today. If others know we love, follow, and believe in Jesus, will they ridicule us and make fun of us? Will we be laughed at or abused by others because of our belief?

Sometimes, our fears describe an illusion. Sometimes we can say these fears are simply false evidence that appears real. However, other times, our fears may be realized. Sometimes standing up for Jesus does mean that we lose something in the present world.

However, when we stand up for Jesus in this life, we gain much more than we lose. If we stand up for Jesus and we lose friends, we can look forward to the promise of new and better friends in the future. If we stand up for Jesus and lose family, God has promised us a new family – His family, that He adopts us into. If we stand up for Jesus and lose our lives, nothing worse can happen. Instead, when we lose our lives for Jesus in this world, we gain eternal life in the next one. And given the choice between life in a sinful world or a sinless one, always pick the world and life without sin!

Denying Jesus is never the right choice. Denying Jesus leads to regret. However, when we deny Jesus, we can still turn back to Him and experience forgiveness. When we fail God, He doesn’t fail or reject us. Instead, He’s standing with open arms waiting for us to repent and turn back to Him! Our failures are opportunities to experience God’s forgiveness.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and declare your allegiance to Him. When faced with the choice to acknowledge or deny Jesus, always choose to share your connection with Him. Telling people you love, believe, and have faith in Jesus is never the wrong choice from eternity’s perspective!

Also, always be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself to keep your personal connection with God strong. While other people can give you ideas to think about, filter these ideas through the truth of God’s Word. Never let anyone discount, belittle, or shake your connection with God!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, or chicken out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!