Reflective Bible Study

As we continue moving through the gospel of Matthew, looking at Jesus’ life, we come to a place where Matthew tells us some Pharisees ask Jesus a question about the behavior of His followers. Before even knowing what this issue is, it is interesting that Jesus isn’t challenged about His own actions, but about the actions of those around Him.

Seeing how this passage is framed seems to tell us that Jesus actually obeyed the custom that the Pharisees were concerned about. Otherwise, these Pharisees would challenge Jesus and His followers on the idea that they all were breaking the custom in question.

What custom were the Pharisees concerned with? Let’s read the passage and find out.

Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 15, and we will read from the Contemporary English Version. Starting in verse 1, Matthew tells us that:

¹ About this time some Pharisees and teachers of the Law of Moses came from Jerusalem. They asked Jesus, ² “Why don’t your disciples obey what our ancestors taught us to do? They don’t even wash their hands before they eat.”

³ Jesus answered:

Why do you disobey God and follow your own teaching? ⁴ Didn’t God command you to respect your father and mother? Didn’t he tell you to put to death all who curse their parents? ⁵ But you let people get by without helping their parents when they should. You let them say that what they have has been offered to God. ⁶ Is this any way to show respect to your parents? You ignore God’s commands in order to follow your own teaching. ⁷ And you are nothing but show-offs! Isaiah the prophet was right when he wrote that God had said,

⁸ “All of you praise me
    with your words,
but you never really
    think about me.
⁹ It is useless for you
    to worship me,
when you teach rules
    made up by humans.”

¹⁰ Jesus called the crowd together and said, “Pay attention and try to understand what I mean. ¹¹ The food that you put into your mouth doesn’t make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean.”

¹² Then his disciples came over to him and asked, “Do you know that you insulted the Pharisees by what you said?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Every plant that my Father in heaven did not plant will be pulled up by the roots. ¹⁴ Stay away from those Pharisees! They are like blind people leading other blind people, and all of them will fall into a ditch.”

¹⁵ Peter replied, “What did you mean when you talked about the things that make people unclean?”

¹⁶ Jesus then said:

Don’t any of you know what I am talking about by now? ¹⁷ Don’t you know that the food you put into your mouth goes into your stomach and then out of your body? ¹⁸ But the words that come out of your mouth come from your heart. And they are what make you unfit to worship God. ¹⁹ Out of your heart come evil thoughts, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, vulgar deeds, stealing, telling lies, and insulting others. ²⁰ These are what make you unclean. Eating without washing your hands will not make you unfit to worship God.

In this passage and challenge, some Pharisees come with a somewhat innocent sounding question about hand washing, but Jesus understands that their question is really a question about why He teaches them to disregard tradition and custom. Jesus answers their underlying challenge while also warning people to stay away from this style of belief.

The big truth we can learn from this passage and from Jesus’ warning is that any tradition that disagrees with God’s Word must be ignored, adjusted, or discarded in favor of obeying God’s Word above anything else. And, while it is more difficult to do, we only truly know what God’s Word says when we study it for ourselves. This is why I repeatedly challenge each of us on this podcast to personally pray and study the Bible for yourself. It is too easy to simply follow someone else because they sound like they know what they are talking about.

An emphasis on tradition over God’s truth leads people into the exact trap Jesus warned against in this passage. Jesus describes these Pharisees in verse 6 as people who “ignore God’s commands in order to follow [their] own teaching.”

The other temptation in this passage is to think Jesus was strictly talking about food and clean verses unclean foods. This is not the case. Instead, this passage is focused on being fit for worship, and the food we eat does not change how fit we are to worship God.

In the Old Testament, God gave the Jewish people detailed instructions regarding clean and unclean foods, and while this teaching gets wrapped up as a spiritual message, the primary reason for this is more for health than it is for spirituality. Jesus does not make the dietary regulations in the Old Testament void with His statement. Instead, He draws our attention to the truth that our diet does not impact how fit we are to worship God.

In Jesus’ challenge to the people present, He places the emphasis on worship. This doesn’t mean that we ignore what we put into our mouths. Instead, this means we must be extra careful about what comes out of our mouths, because what comes out of our mouths comes from our hearts. When we worship, we offer our hearts as a gift to God, but we also want our gift to be pleasing to God. This means we must protect our hearts from things that would taint, stain, or damage our hearts, because this ultimately damages our gift to God.

A similar example is giving a gift to a friend. If we purchase a brand new item at the store that our friend really wants and needs, would we take this item home, open it up, use it many times, stain it, damage it, break it, and then ultimately package up the not-so-perfect-anymore gift for our friend. Would our used and abused gift show our friend how much we value his friendship?

Or, would we purchase this item, and save it in as perfect as a condition as we can until we can give it to our friend in its new condition.

I hope you would agree with me that we would try to keep our gift in as great a condition as we can. It is the same way with our hearts. While not everyone wants to give their heart to God, when we choose to place our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus, we are giving ourselves to Him and we are promising Jesus our hearts. While our hearts may be stained, damaged, and abused by sin already, when we come to God, we can ask Him to create in us clean, new hearts, and God is willing to repair and recreate our hearts from the inside. When God has created new hearts for us, we now have a gift that is worth protecting. Our new-heart-gift from God is valuable to God, and we are called and challenged to keep this gift safe.

God has called us to follow Him, to place our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus, and to obey His commands. We are to place following God above the rules and traditions of humanity. While there are many areas where we can do both, whenever there is a conflict between God’s rules and humanities rules, the safest choice from eternity’s perspective is to choose God’s way and to obey Him, regardless of what the consequences are in this life. No matter what consequences come in our lives because we chose to follow God, they will be worth it when Jesus returns and gives us our rewards.

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, intentionally seek God first in your life and place His Word, His will, and His ideal ahead of ourselves. Choose to obey God’s rules over humanities traditions, and if there is ever a conflict, choose to obey God rather than man. Humanity’s rules change each year, each decade, and each generation, while God’s rules are eternal. When we obey God’s rules and we live a life of God’s love, we keep our hearts clean and pure and fit to offer God as a part of our worship to Him!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to grow closer to God each and every day. Focus on growing a personal relationship with God and intentionally make your relationship personal. While other people can give us ideas to think about, always take these ideas to God in prayer and ask Him if they are worth paying attention to. Above everything else, trust God’s Word as He has revealed it in the Bible because if you trust God to keep you safe for eternity, He is more than capable of keeping His Word safe for a few thousand years of human history.

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 be ridiculed out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue moving through Jesus’ last big conversation with the group of disciples, we discover Jesus shares a powerful message, and an otherwise silent disciple speaks up with a question of his own.

Let’s pick back up where we left off last week and keep reading what Jesus shared. Our passage for this episode is found in the gospel of John, chapter 14, and we will be reading from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 15, Jesus continued sharing by saying:

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. ¹⁶ I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper who will be with you forever. ¹⁷ That helper is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it doesn’t see or know him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be in you.

Pausing briefly here, I want to draw our attention onto an unpopular idea. Jesus opened our passage by telling us that our love for Him is displayed through our obedience to His commandments. This means that obeying the commandments, while it might sound legalistic, is actually how Jesus wants us to show our love to Him.

It is interesting in my mind that some Christians immediately think that anything that supports keeping the law is a step towards legalism and away from God’s grace. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Obeying God’s law can be done with a legalistic attitude, or it can be done with a loving attitude. Obedience comes from either legalism or from love. Too many religious leaders in the first century came to obedience through legalism, but God, through Jesus, has called us to obedience through love.

Also, because it is within close proximity, we also could logically conclude that receiving the Holy Spirit into our lives could be at least partially dependant on our obedience, and it’s likely that this is referring to an obedience that is founded on love and not obedience from legalism.

Jesus isn’t finished with His promises to the disciples. After promising the Holy Spirit, Jesus continues in verse 18 by telling His followers:

¹⁸ “I will not leave you all alone. I will come back to you. ¹⁹ In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. You will live because I live. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father and that you are in me and that I am in you. ²¹ Whoever knows and obeys my commandments is the person who loves me. Those who love me will have my Father’s love, and I, too, will love them and show myself to them.”

²² Judas (not Iscariot) asked Jesus, “Lord, what has happened that you are going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”

²³ Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will go to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ A person who doesn’t love me doesn’t do what I say. I don’t make up what you hear me say. What I say comes from the Father who sent me.

²⁵ “I have told you this while I’m still with you. ²⁶ However, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything. He will remind you of everything that I have ever told you.

²⁷ “I’m leaving you peace. I’m giving you my peace. I don’t give you the kind of peace that the world gives. So don’t be troubled or cowardly. ²⁸ You heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, but I’m coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am.

²⁹ “I’m telling you this now before it happens. When it does happen, you will believe. ³⁰ The ruler of this world has no power over me. But he’s coming, so I won’t talk with you much longer. ³¹ However, I want the world to know that I love the Father and that I am doing exactly what the Father has commanded me to do. Get up! We have to leave.”

Let’s stop reading here and take a few minutes to focus in on what Jesus has promised us in this passage. After promising the disciples the Holy Spirit and that He would return, Jesus describes how obedience is how we are able to see God.

While this is difficult for a skeptic to accept, Jesus challenges everyone who wants to find Him that they must first love Him by being obedient to His commandments in order to see Him show up. If you are skeptical about this claim, the challenge I have for you is to try obedience for a month, and if your life has gone downhill from your choice, nothing is stopping you from going back. If at the end of your test you determine that God isn’t for you, you will have at least made the decision on your own and not because of someone else’s persuasion or attitude.

Jesus promises to move into the hearts and lives of those who love and obey Him and He promises to bring the Father with Him. This is an amazing promise, and in case you are wondering, Jesus tells us that this is God the Father’s promise, not His own, because Jesus then tells us that He doesn’t make up what He says. Jesus tells us He shares the Father’s message. Jesus came as a Messenger from God to share God’s message with the world.

Jesus shared God’s message of love, of compassion, and of mercy through the teaching, through the parables, through the healing, and through giving up His own life for a race of rebellious sinners.

Before wrapping up the part of the passage we are focusing on, Jesus circles around and promises the disciples that the Holy Spirit will remind the disciples what Jesus had shared and that the Holy Spirit will teach them everything.

At the end of our passage, Jesus promises His followers His peace. It’s worth pointing out that this peace should not leave us troubled or cowardly. The peace Jesus offers is a peace that affects our life because we choose to live each day with eternity as our perspective. Think how peaceful life would be if you were 100% certain that God knows and will supply your needs here in this life, and that with whatever happens in the brief time we are alive while sin reigns, that the next thing we know after taking our last breath is a new life in a sinless world.

While a little oversimplified, this truth brings amazing peace if we are willing to let it. If we truly believe that God will keep us safe both today and for eternity, then we are freed to live open, powerful lives pointing people to Him. Jesus called His first disciples to this radical ideal, and He calls His followers today to the same challenge.

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

As always, seek God first and if you haven’t done so, make the commitment to be obedient to Him. Take His challenge and see if He doesn’t step in and transform your life in amazing, positive ways. The biggest promise we can hold onto is that God loves us and that He wants to save us for eternity. With whatever happens in this sin-filled world, we can know and trust that God is preparing for the end of sin and the recreation of the universe.

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself. While these truths sound nice, don’t take my word for them. Be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself and discover what God wants to teach you personally. Through personal prayer and study you are able to grow a personal relationship, and a personal relationship with God today leads to a eternal relationship when Jesus returns.

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 fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue moving through Matthew’s gospel, we come to two well-known events that happened within twelve hours or so of each other. One of these events happens to be included in all four gospels, and it is distinct because it is the only miracle other than Jesus’ resurrection, that is included in all four gospels. The other event is another miracle that was less well known, even though it is in three of the four gospels, and Matthew’s gospel includes a unique detail in it that none of the other gospel writers mention.

I debated whether to choose one of these events to focus in on instead of both, but thought that since most often, these two events are looked at separately, it might be beneficial to actually read them together and point out some shared themes that we might not see immediately on the surface.

With that said, let’s read our passage for this episode. It is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 14, and we will read from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 13, Matthew tells us that:

¹³ When Jesus heard about John, he left in a boat and went to a place where he could be alone. The crowds heard about this and followed him on foot from the cities. ¹⁴ When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. He felt sorry for them and cured their sick people.

¹⁵ In the evening the disciples came to him. They said, “No one lives around here, and it’s already late. Send the crowds to the villages to buy food for themselves.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to them, “They don’t need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

¹⁷ They told him, “All we have here are five loaves of bread and two fish.”

¹⁸ Jesus said, “Bring them to me.”

¹⁹ Then he ordered the people to sit down on the grass. After he took the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed the food. He broke the loaves apart, gave them to the disciples, and they gave them to the people. ²⁰ All of them ate as much as they wanted. When they picked up the leftover pieces, they filled twelve baskets.

²¹ About five thousand men had eaten. (This number does not include the women and children who had eaten.)

A quick side-note that I’ll include here is that this is where most people will break these two events. However, since we’re looking at both together, let’s continue reading. Jumping back in at verse 22, we read that:

²² Jesus quickly made his disciples get into a boat and cross to the other side ahead of him while he sent the people away. ²³ After sending the people away, he went up a mountain to pray by himself. When evening came, he was there alone.

²⁴ The boat, now hundreds of yards from shore, was being thrown around by the waves because it was going against the wind.

²⁵ Between three and six o’clock in the morning, he came to them. He was walking on the sea. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified. They said, “It’s a ghost!” and began to scream because they were afraid.

²⁷ Immediately, Jesus said, “Calm down! It’s me. Don’t be afraid!”

²⁸ Peter answered, “Lord, if it is you, order me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹ Jesus said, “Come!” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he noticed how strong the wind was, he became afraid and started to sink. He shouted, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ Immediately, Jesus reached out, caught hold of him, and said, “You have so little faith! Why did you doubt?”

³² When they got into the boat, the wind stopped blowing. ³³ The men in the boat bowed down in front of Jesus and said, “You are truly the Son of God.”

³⁴ They crossed the sea and landed at Gennesaret. ³⁵ The men there recognized Jesus and sent messengers all around the countryside. The people brought him everyone who was sick. ³⁶ They begged him to let them touch just the edge of his clothes. Everyone who touched his clothes was made well.

In this long passage, we have four main events, even if we’re tempted to only see two. The first event is the feeding of the five thousand, which happens to be the famous miracle that all four gospel writers include. The second event is Jesus praying on the mountain while the disciples are struggling in the boat. The third event is Jesus coming to the disciples on the water and Peter’s big water-walking adventure. The fourth and last event is Jesus healing those who were sick in Gennesaret.

Every single one of these events have big themes that we can learn from them. However, when we put them all together, one theme stands above the rest. This theme says that: When we are focused on God, His love and power will be seen in our lives and the lives of those around us.

If we don’t include Jesus’ prayer on the mountain event, we have another big theme that trusting Jesus in our lives is never misplaced trust. Those who needed food in the wilderness, those who were sick in Gennesaret, and Peter as he was sinking in the water all needed Jesus, and they all trusted that Jesus could help them in the exact way they needed.

However, this second theme doesn’t match our primary theme in significance or importance. In all four of the events within our passage, we see the clear example of focus being placed on God. In the miracle of the feeding the large crowd, Jesus pushes the focus of the disciples onto what God can do when they are being tempted to believe that they cannot be a blessing.

After this miracle, when other gospels share how this crowd wanted to force Jesus to become their King, Jesus sends the disciples alone across the lake while He goes up the mountain to pray. In this second event, Jesus focuses more on God and His will than on what the crowd wanted Him to be or become. Jesus intentionally focused on God when everyone else wanted the focus to be placed on Him.

When Jesus comes down the mountain and walks to the struggling disciples on the water, Peter jumps out of the boat on Jesus’ command, but then he becomes scared and his focus leaves Jesus. At that moment, Peter starts sinking and he cries out to Jesus and God to save Him. When Peter’s focus left God, he began to sink prompting him to remember his need for Jesus.

In the fourth event, after the boat lands at Gennesaret, the people there spread the news this is where Jesus and the disciples had docked, and everyone brought those who needed help to Jesus. At Gennesaret, the people trusted in God and they placed their faith in Jesus that He could heal their friends and family. The focus of these miracles was on God and the power He had blessed Jesus with.

Within these four events, we can see how God is worthy of our trust, our faith, and our belief, and we can see that we succeed when we place His will ahead of our own. We are blessed when we stay focused on Jesus and on doing God’s will for our lives!

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, be sure to intentionally seek God first in your life and always place His will ahead of our own. Stay focused on Jesus and be sure to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus, because like our secondary theme tells us, hope, faith, and trust placed in Jesus is never misplaced hope, faith, and trust.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and know God better. Use your prayer and study time to grow a close, personal relationship with God and open your heart to what He wants to teach you. Discover in your personal time with God a God who loves you enough to let His Son die to redeem you from sin!

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!

On the night Jesus was betrayed, the gospel of John records Jesus’ last conversation with the disciples before He would be taken from them and ultimately put on a cross. We began looking at this conversation last week, and over the next few episodes, we will move through this conversation and focus in on some of the big things we can learn from it.

For this episode’s portion of this conversation, John records Jesus opening with a promise. Let’s read it together. Our passage is found in the gospel of John, chapter 14, and we will be reading from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, John tells us that:

¹ Jesus said to his disciples, “Don’t be worried! Have faith in God and have faith in me. ² There are many rooms in my Father’s house. I wouldn’t tell you this, unless it was true. I am going there to prepare a place for each of you. ³ After I have done this, I will come back and take you with me. Then we will be together. ⁴ You know the way to where I am going.”

⁵ Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t even know where you are going! How can we know the way?”

⁶ “I am the way, the truth, and the life!” Jesus answered. “Without me, no one can go to the Father. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known the Father. But from now on, you do know him, and you have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father. That is all we need.”

⁹ Jesus replied:

Philip, I have been with you for a long time. Don’t you know who I am? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. How can you ask me to show you the Father? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am one with the Father and that the Father is one with me? What I say isn’t said on my own. The Father who lives in me does these things.

¹¹ Have faith in me when I say that the Father is one with me and that I am one with the Father. Or else have faith in me simply because of the things I do. ¹² I tell you for certain that if you have faith in me, you will do the same things that I am doing. You will do even greater things, now that I am going back to the Father. ¹³ Ask me, and I will do whatever you ask. This way the Son will bring honor to the Father. ¹⁴ I will do whatever you ask me to do.

Let’s stop reading here, because what Jesus has just finished sharing is really powerful, and we might miss it if we kept going.

Jesus opened by promising the disciples that He is going to prepare a place for us in His Father’s house, and that when it is ready, He will come and take us home to be with Him. After facing the question about not knowing the way, Jesus reminds and emphasizes that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one can go to the Father without Him.

If you don’t believe in Jesus, then you might think His statement here is incredibly arrogant, selfish, and egotistical. In some ways it is, but it might also be true. If Jesus lied elsewhere in the gospels, you could make a case for this being deceitful, but if Jesus spoke truthfully everywhere else, then it is likely that even with the selfish implications in this statement, Jesus is simply sharing truth.

After then being asked to show the remaining disciples the Father, Jesus then draws their focus onto the oneness of the Son’s and the Father’s relationship. In every way that matters, Jesus showed us the Father. This Oneness leads into probably the biggest promise that Jesus gave to His followers. This promise seems like a blank check for prayer.

Jesus gives us two angles for faith that we can use to have a powerful prayer connection with God. The first angle is faith that Jesus is One with the Father. This might be challenging to wrap our minds around, but if it were easy to understand and see, then not much faith would be needed.

The other angle we can base our faith on is on the things Jesus has done and is doing. Right now, Jesus is in heaven negotiating on our behalf and looking for every possible angle He can use to save us. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, and when we have faith in Him, He is more than willing to stand in our place and cover our sins with His sacrifice. This is the other foundation we can build our faith on.

Jesus doesn’t seem to make a distinction between which foundation is better or worse, so feel free to pick either or pick both. What matters is that we have faith in Jesus.

Is faith like this the only thing necessary for this blank check for prayer? Almost, but there’s one additional piece of faith hinted at in this passage we must pay attention to.

In the first part of verse 12, Jesus tells His followers that, “I tell you for certain that if you have faith in me, you will do the same things that I am doing.” Once we have based our faith on Jesus using one or both of the foundations He gives to us, we must live this faith in a visible way. We must do the things Jesus would have done. This means loving others, helping those in need, and pointing people towards giving glory to God.

Jesus never lived His life to seek glory from people, but everything He did was to show people God’s love and to give them reasons to give God glory. In Jesus building up to the amazing promise, we have the foundation of faith in Him that leads to living like He would live if He was living on this earth today. When we have these two pieces of the puzzle of faith in place, then He is more than willing to answer our prayers, because what we pray for will be for God’s glory – and Jesus loves giving God the glory.

In this passage, we discover both a blank check for prayer, and the pen we must use to write our request. When we live our faith in Jesus in visible ways, and when we live and love like Jesus lived and loved, we will pray prayers that ask for God to be glorified, and Jesus will always answer huge prayers that point people to God.

All too often, we pray small and selfish prayers, but hopefully this passage has challenged you like it has challenged me to pray differently, and on the foundation of faith in Jesus for who He is, what He is doing, and for what He has given to each of us through His sacrifice on the cross.

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

Always seek God first and live your life in a way that leads people to Jesus and to give God glory. When our lives are pointing people to Jesus, our faith in Him is visible, and He is happy to answer the prayers we pray.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal connection and relationship with God. Other people can give you great things to think about, but only you can grow a personal relationship with God!

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 drift away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!