Reflective Bible Study

Part way into Jesus’ ministry, we come to an event that many skeptics probably would eliminate from the Bible if they could. This event is one of the clearest examples in Jesus’ ministry that He was from God, but interestingly enough, Jesus asked the disciples who were present to keep the event a secret until after He was raised back to life.

As we read this event together, think about what you might have done if you were there with the disciples when it happened. Our event is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 17, and we will be reading from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 1:

¹ After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John (the brother of James) and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone.

² Jesus’ appearance changed in front of them. His face became as bright as the sun and his clothes as white as light. ³ Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them and were talking with Jesus.

⁴ Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here. If you want, I’ll put up three tents here—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵ He was still speaking when a bright cloud overshadowed them. Then a voice came out of the cloud and said, “This is my Son, whom I love and with whom I am pleased. Listen to him!”

⁶ The disciples were terrified when they heard this and fell facedown on the ground. ⁷ But Jesus touched them and said, “Get up, and don’t be afraid!” ⁸ As they raised their heads, they saw no one but Jesus.

Let’s pause reading here for a moment, because what just happened is very significant when we think about it. In this event, not only does Jesus temporarily reveal His glory to the three closest disciples, we also have confirmation from God the Father and two of the most prominent Old Testament figures.

I don’t think it was an accident that Moses and Elijah were the one’s present for this event. Moses, who died and was buried on a mountain just outside the Promised Land is one of the first in history to have been physically resurrected and taken to heaven. While Enoch lived a thousand or more years before Moses, Enoch never experienced death. Moses had. When we look at Moses being included in this event, we see foreshadowing of those who will face death looking forward to the opportunity of resurrection.

Including Elijah is also significant, because in some respects, he was the most famous and Holy Spirit filled prophet in the Old Testament history. Elijah is also significant because he is the only individual in Israel’s history to have never experienced death. God took him to heaven on a fiery chariot prior to his death.

When thinking of the phrase, “law and the prophets”, we can see Moses representing the law, and Elijah representing the prophets. In this event, both of these historical figures come and validate what Jesus is doing, and what He is here to accomplish. In the same way, both the law and the prophets point forward to Jesus, His mission, and His ministry.

Looking at the timetable of history, I wonder what sort of conversations Jesus had with both these men prior to coming to earth as a baby. Both these men would have been able to spend hundreds of years with Jesus in heaven prior to this brief moment on the mountain, and we really don’t know what they shared with Jesus while on the mountain in this passage.

Which makes me wonder, what would you have done if you were on the mountain there with Jesus, Moses, Elijah, and the three disciples? Peter impulsively says the first thing that comes to his mind, which while not bad, was not all that necessary. James and John on the other hand simply don’t say anything at all. If it weren’t for them being included in the verses leading up to this event, we wouldn’t even know they were there.

I’m not sure what I would have done, but I’d like to think I would have been more like James and John, who stayed silent and observed, rather than Peter, but it would be impossible to know for sure.

Let’s continue reading and see how this event ends. Picking back up in verse 9:

⁹ On their way down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen. Wait until the Son of Man has been brought back to life.”

¹⁰ So the disciples asked him, “Why do the experts in Moses’ Teachings say that Elijah must come first?”

¹¹ Jesus answered, “Elijah is coming and will put everything in order again. ¹² Actually, I can guarantee that Elijah has already come. Yet, people treated him as they pleased because they didn’t recognize him. In the same way they’re going to make the Son of Man suffer.”

¹³ Then the disciples understood that he was talking about John the Baptizer.

One thing that amazes me about this trip down the mountain is that Jesus clearly gives an opening for these disciples to ask Him about the crucifixion-plus-resurrection weekend. Jesus asks these disciples to keep quiet about this event until after He was brought back to life, which would have been the perfect opening for one of the disciples to ask Him what He meant.

Instead, since Elijah is fresh on their minds, and since he was one of the unexpected guests on the mountain, the disciples ask Jesus about why the religious experts say Elijah is supposed to come first. Jesus gives a great answer, and the disciples realize that John the Baptizer fulfilled this prediction, but the disciples miss asking the big question that would have made crucifixion weekend significantly different for them.

If they had simply asked Jesus to teach them about what He meant when He referenced His death and coming back to life, I doubt the disciples would have been as sorrow-filled when Jesus actually died. Instead, the disciples would have been waiting expectantly for His resurrection. They might have even been present at the tomb to witness the angel.

However, they didn’t ask the question. For all the openings Jesus gave them to ask about His death and resurrection, the disciples didn’t ask Jesus to teach them about it until it was too late. Only after the resurrection and the confusion surrounding the weekend do the disciples actually stop and pay attention to what the scriptures actually predicted would happen. Only while Jesus is walking with disciples who don’t recognize who He is, do we see the disciples being open to learning what the scriptures predicted would happen that weekend.

In our own lives, God wants to teach us and show us amazing things, but we must be willing and open to what He wants to teach us. While Jesus is in heaven now preparing a place for each of us, we can look forward expectantly for the day He will return and bring us home to Him. We can look back in scriptures and discover who Jesus is and what He is like. We can look at Jesus’ life, love, and ministry, and discover what God the Father is like as well. And we can trust, believe, and have faith that God is doing everything He can to save us for eternity!

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

Be sure to seek God first in your live and be open to letting Him teach you what He wants you to learn. Be open to being used by God in amazing ways, for His purposes, and trust that He has your best future – your eternal future – secure. While crazy things might happen while sin is present in our world today, trust, believe, and look forward to the new heaven and new earth where sin will be a distant, forgotten memory.

Also, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself so that you will learn and know what God and Jesus are like firsthand. While listening to pastors or podcasters can help you see the Bible in new ways, God wants to show you Himself through the pages of His word personally. Only through personal study can you grow a personal relationship with God, and a personal relationship with God is something you can start today. There’s no reason to wait until heaven to grow towards 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 reject where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

If you have ever had a rumor circulate about you, you know how difficult it can be to break that rumor in light of the truth. And if you are in the spotlight, or in a place where you have people looking up to you, then this is even more true.

While the rumor mill is alive and well today, when we look back at the first century, during the time Jesus walked the earth, Jesus was one of the most famous, or infamous, people around. Almost everywhere Jesus went, He drew a crowd, whether it was a synagogue or a deserted place in the middle of nowhere. If someone knew where Jesus was, a crowd would eventually find Him and form around Him. Part of me wonders if there wasn’t always a crowd of people actively looking for Jesus, and that Jesus subtly tried to avoid the crowd whenever He needed time to rest.

However, oftentimes when big groups of people get together, they start talking, perhaps even exaggerating, the stories or things that they say, and when this happens, rumors start that either exaggerate the truth, or spread speculation that is outright false. This is just as true today as it was in the first century.

With the frame of mind that rumors were alive and circulating about Jesus during the first century, let’s read our passage to uncover a question Jesus asks His disciples about the rumors. In my mind, as we read this passage, it is unclear if Jesus really had two questions He wanted to ask, or if the first question really was designed to lead into the second question that Jesus was more interested in knowing.

Our event for this episode is found in three of the four gospels, but Matthew’s gospel includes some details that Mark and Luke don’t include. However, too often, we get caught up in the details Matthew includes that are unique that we miss the profoundness of Jesus’ questions and the responses that the disciples gave.

Because of this, for this episode and our time together, let’s look at Mark’s gospel. In Mark’s gospel, this event is found in chapter 8, and we will read from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 27, Mark tells us that:

²⁷ Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

²⁸ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

²⁹ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

³⁰ Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

In this event, Jesus opens with a question asking the disciples what the rumors surrounding Him are.

Something I find interesting in the response the disciples give is that the people living in Jesus’ time did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah that God had promised, but simply another prophet, or significant historical figure. Some might point to this detail as evidence that the people in Jesus’ time believed in reincarnation, but what is described here is a lot closer to resurrection of a historical figure than someone who is inherently immortal, continually returning in different forms.

It seems that the people believed Jesus to have been sent from God with a message for them, just like God sent John the Baptist and the prophets who came before Him. Jesus shared many similarities with the prophets God had send before, including the somewhat ironic detail that most, if not all, of the prophets were disliked by the spiritual and political leaders during their prophetic ministries. Part of me wonders if the regular Israelite living in the Old Testament had any positive or negative opinions of God’s prophets. From what I remember reading from the prophet and history portions of the Bible, I don’t recall anything being said about the common Israelite’s impression of any of the prophets.

However, the first question Jesus asks seems like more of a setup question in my mind. As I look at this conversation, I suspect that Jesus used this first question to change the subject of the conversation before asking the real question He wanted to know. While the disciples know what other people think and talked about, I believe Jesus really wants to know what they think about Him.

If other people were claiming Jesus was the Messiah, that would be one thing, but I suspect that Jesus wanted to avoid His followers making grander claims about Jesus than what the larger crowds of people were able to handle. I also suspect that since Jesus came to be a different type of Messiah than the culture at that time believed, Jesus knew that claiming the role of Messiah would not be in His best interest.

In my imagination, I wonder if there was a long awkward silence that hung in the air when Jesus shifted the focus from the larger population’s opinion of Him and onto the disciples’ opinion. As I imagine this event, I wonder if Peter responded immediately without even hesitating, or did one or two of the other disciples elbow him into making a response because the silence seemed like an eternity.

Regardless of the length of the silence following Jesus’ question, and regardless of what ultimately prompted Peter to respond in the way that He did, Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question is powerful and significant. Peter replied in verse 29, “You are the Messiah.” It is a simple, direct response, and probably the one Jesus was looking for.

Remember how I shared that Matthew includes some details that Mark and Luke don’t include. These details are shared in Jesus’ response to Peter’s declaration, and the first thing Jesus says I’ll pull into our discussion. In Matthew’s version of this event, which is found in chapter 16 of his gospel, immediately following Peter’s response, we read in verse 17, “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.’”

The one big detail that made Peter’s response different from all the rumors circulating about Jesus is that God the Father prompted this belief in Peter’s heart that Jesus is the Messiah. From all the rumors circulating, none that the disciples shared framed Jesus as the Messiah, which meant that Peter would have gotten His belief from a different source than the crowd. Jesus frames Peter’s other Source as God the Father prompting this truth on Peter’s heart.

In Jesus’ response, and in the warning to not tell others about Him, I see Jesus saying to all of His followers living throughout history that it is God the Father and His Spirit who impress upon people the truth about who Jesus is. We can share the good news, we can tell others about Jesus and how our faith has helped our own lives, but only God can really move someone to internalize the truth about who Jesus is in their own hearts. Only God can make Jesus real to someone.

Jesus warned the disciples to not go spreading this around. This could have been a message for them prior to His death, since up to Jesus’ death, the popular view of who the Messiah would be was significantly different from the Messiah Jesus came to be. Or this could have been a message for them from that point forward, and to share about what Jesus had done for them and let God’s Spirit move those they shared with into the realization about who the resurrected Jesus is.

In my mind, this second idea could be relevant for us today. We can be witnesses who share our experiences and our testimony about what Jesus and God have done in our lives, but only God and His Spirit can move someone to internalize the truth about Jesus in their hearts.

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. If you are unsure about who Jesus is or should be to you, prayerfully ask God to help you understand how He wants you to see Jesus.

With this prayer on your mind and in your heart, open up your Bible and study it for yourself looking for an answer for this question. The Bible is the best place for us to find information about Jesus, if for no other reason than the New Testament has more recorded copies and manuscripts than any and every other historical document from that era. God wants us to know about Jesus, and He preserved not just the New Testament for us to learn from, but the whole Bible as well.

Also, purposefully and prayerfully study the Bible for yourself so you can learn more about what Jesus is like, which also gives God an opening to make Jesus real to you.

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 give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

While reading the gospels, I occasionally wonder about the disciples, and how it seems as though they routinely miss the message or truth that Jesus wanted to share with them. Our passage for this episode covers one such time, and the truth Jesus shares is powerful, but also completely different from the overly literal way the disciples seem to understand it.

We learn about this truth during one of the times Jesus and the disciples are crossing the lake and Jesus decides it would be a good time to emphasize a big idea while they are away from the crowds of people. For this episode, we will be reading about this event from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 16, using the New Century Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 5:

⁵ Jesus’ followers went across the lake, but they had forgotten to bring bread. ⁶ Jesus said to them, “Be careful! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”

⁷ His followers discussed the meaning of this, saying, “He said this because we forgot to bring bread.”

⁸ Knowing what they were talking about, Jesus asked them, “Why are you talking about not having bread? Your faith is small. ⁹ Do you still not understand? Remember the five loaves of bread that fed the five thousand? And remember that you filled many baskets with the leftovers? ¹⁰ Or the seven loaves of bread that fed the four thousand and the many baskets you filled then also? ¹¹ I was not talking to you about bread. Why don’t you understand that? I am telling you to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” ¹² Then the followers understood that Jesus was not telling them to beware of the yeast used in bread but to beware of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Something about this event sounds funny in my mind. I don’t think the truth Jesus shares is funny, but I do chuckle a little about how the disciples completely miss the metaphor Jesus used to emphasize His warning.

While the disciples rightly connect yeast with bread, and forgetting bread was fresh on their minds, Jesus never once hints at His statement being about bread. Perhaps Jesus planned this metaphor just for this purpose. I wonder if Jesus used this angle not only to share the truth about being wary of the Pharisee and Sadducee teachings, but also to reemphasize the importance of trusting God.

In the simple statement about yeast, we get two truths out of this event. Jesus could have simply said to beware of the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees, but then there would be no visual element to it. By paralleling this truth with the visual of yeast, we can see a picture of how just a little bit of error can slowly affect an entire movement.

It doesn’t take much yeast to cause dough to rise, and with the negative spin Jesus places on this yeast, we can rightfully conclude that it doesn’t take much error or deception to wreck the truth.

Interestingly enough, we could also apply this truth in our own lives. We could say that one sin, regardless of how insignificant it is or was in our past, is enough to separate us forever from God. Even though the sin in question might have lasted only a split second of time, it results in us being condemned. Because of this, the Bible rightfully concludes that everyone who has ever lived has sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, or God’s ideal for each of us.

In the case of our own lives, Jesus came to make a way for us to be reconnected to God even after we have sinned. Jesus accomplished this by living a perfect life within God’s will, and living a life without sin, before ultimately dying on a cross when He didn’t deserve death. Jesus took our punishment so that we can accept His reward.

This leads us back to looking at the other truth that we are reminded of in this passage: the truth about bread.

While Jesus challenges the disciples for understanding His statement to be about faith and bread, He reminds the disciples that a lack of food is nothing to be concerned about. While it might weigh on our minds and our empty stomachs, when you are with Someone who could multiply a crumb in the back of the boat into a three-course meal, a lack of food is not that big of a concern.

The truth for each of us in this case is to be intentional about trusting God to supply our needs. When we are living with and for God, He will supply our needs and He knows we need food, clothing, and shelter. While His idea of what each might look like is probably different from our thoughts, He knows what is best in the big picture and long-term view. God’s focus is on saving us for eternity, and that perspective will filter everything He brings into our lives.

God is not going to bless us in such a way that we would lose our salvation, but He also will not curse us when we could have been saved under different circumstances. While I don’t claim to know why certain bad things happen, or why tragedy seems to strike people indiscriminately, I know that I can trust God with my own future and that eternity lasts longer than today’s trials.

God is in the business of saving people forever, and saving the greatest number of people forever that He can!

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

Be sure to seek God first and trust Him with your future. While we don’t always know why things happen the way they do in our lives today, we can trust God is working through the ups and the downs for our ultimate salvation. I firmly believe that God wants each of us in heaven more than each of us wants to be in heaven!

Also, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself. I don’t want you to take my word, or any pastor or podcaster’s word for this. Instead, I want you to study God’s love out for yourself, because only you can grow your personal relationship with God into a saving relationship with Him.

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!

In all the gospel records, and in all of Jesus’ miracles, two similar events are among the most well known events. Actually, let me back up. In all the gospel records, and in all of Jesus’ miracles, there is one event that is very well known, and another similar event that is in many ways just as significant, but it is overshadowed by the more famous event. From these two separate events, we get a glimpse of the size of the crowds that Jesus preached to, though that detail in each event is more of a side note rather than a key detail.

Most of you likely have already jumped ahead and know the two events I’m referring to. These two miracle events are the ones where Jesus multiplies an insignificant amount of food to feed the large crowd of listeners who happened to also be hungry.

One of these events is commonly referred to as the feeding of the five thousand, and it holds a significant and rare award for being one of the few events to be recorded in all four gospels.

However, the event we are focusing in on in this episode is not the feeding of the five thousand.

Instead, for this episode, we turn our attention onto the less famous miracle of this pair, which is simply known as the feeding of the four thousand. While most people know a lot more about the feeding of the five thousand, with the boy giving his lunch to Jesus, let’s discover what we can from this less famous miracle of food multiplication.

Our passage is found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 15, and we’ll read it using the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 32, Matthew tells us:

³² Then Jesus called his disciples and told them, “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry, or they will faint along the way.”

³³ The disciples replied, “Where would we get enough food here in the wilderness for such a huge crowd?”

³⁴ Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?”

They replied, “Seven loaves, and a few small fish.”

³⁵ So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. ³⁶ Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to the disciples, who distributed the food to the crowd.

³⁷ They all ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. ³⁸ There were 4,000 men who were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children. ³⁹ Then Jesus sent the people home, and he got into a boat and crossed over to the region of Magadan.

In this passage, as we read it together, we can easily see several places where this miracle of feeding four thousand people has similarities to the feeding of the five thousand. However, instead of focusing in on the similarities, like their being loaves of bread and fish in both events and that there were baskets full of leftovers in both events, let’s focus in on one or two things in this passage that make this event unique from the more famous meal where 5,000 were served.

While I already alluded to both events having bread and fish, the first thing that stands out when I read this is not that the quantities of each are different, but the source of food is different. In the feeding of the five thousand, a small boy offers his lunch and this gift is multiplied exponentially to feed the crowd. But in this event, all indications are that the disciples scavenged among what they had to find the seven loaves of bread and a few small fish.

The big idea that stands out in my mind regarding this detail is that sometimes we will have to put in the little that we have in order for God to multiply it into being something more. In the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus accepts and multiplies the gift from someone in the crowd, but in this event, it is the disciples own food and savings that Jesus used and multiplied into the meal for the over 4,000 people present. This would be like saying that the gifts that other people bring can be multiplied by Jesus, but so can the gifts that we bring too.

All too often, we are tempted to sit back and let someone else step up to provide what is needed, and sometimes, like in the feeding of the 5,000, it happens. But other times, like our event where 4,000 are fed, we have to be the ones to supply the materials and effort.

Another thing that stands out in my mind with the feeding of the four thousand is that it was after the crowd had followed Jesus for three days. In verse 32, we read Jesus saying to His disciples, “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry, or they will faint along the way.”

While the feeding of the five thousand was after one long day, most of the gospels record the disciples telling Jesus He should send the crowd away so the people can get something to eat. But in this event, after three days, Jesus is the One who prompts this miracle because He realizes these people probably left their homes without preparing for a three or more day trip with Him.

This detail tells me that Jesus sometimes will prompt a miracle because He knows we need it perhaps even without us asking. We don’t see people in the crowd asking for or demanding a miracle. We simply see Jesus offering to perform the miracle because He knows the people need it.

Also, as a side observation, while the feeding of the five thousand was after one day where many of the crowd may have had a big breakfast before leaving to find Jesus, the feeding of the four thousand was after three days and almost all the food was gone. In my mind, these four thousand people probably ate even more total combined food than the five thousand, simply because they were all that hungrier.

All these details come together to bring us a key point: Sometimes God is waiting for us to bring our time, talent, energy, and resources to Him to allow Him to do something great in the lives of those in the world. While we are tempted to let someone else do it, God is waiting for your gifts and mine.

With that said, as we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life. Intentionally choose to step up and give God the little you have. While you might think your gift is insignificant in the big picture, your gift may be just the thing God is waiting for to transform someone else’s life. Never think your gifts are too small when giving to the One who multiplies small gifts for great impact!

Also, as I regularly challenge you in one way or another, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to Jesus. A relationship with Jesus is vital, not just for gaining eternal life in the future, but for surviving in life today. While many people focus on the future rewards of following Jesus, don’t ignore the gifts and blessings God is willing to give you today for following Jesus!

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 give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!