Reflective Bible Study

When reading about events in Jesus’ life on earth, occasionally I am surprised by some of the details that a gospel writer chose to include. It is this way with Matthew’s version of this event.

In our passage, Jesus has just chased all the moneychangers and merchants out of the temple, and He has sat down to heal, teach, and point people to God. But while He is teaching, the religious leaders show up. Matthew tells us what happened, “When the chief priests and the experts in Moses’ Teachings saw the amazing miracles he performed and the children shouting in the temple courtyard, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ they were irritated. They said to him, ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’” (v. 15-16)

In my mind’s eye, the leaders have approached on the sidelines and are watching what is going on. They see Jesus healing people and performing miracles, and they realize that they cannot challenge Jesus on this – especially because the crowd is benefiting from this. But they also notice the children giving praise to Jesus, and in their minds, this was clearly unacceptable. They know they cannot challenge Jesus’ actions, but they can challenge others who were present.

But Jesus has a response for even this challenge: “Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of little children and infants, you have created praise’?” The religious leaders did not like children being heard in church, but Jesus says God creates praise in their mouths.

This event brings out an interesting idea: The Pharisees and religious leaders focus on “cannot”, while Jesus focuses on “can”.

Focusing on what is not allowed and unacceptable is a defensive way of thinking. It leads to rules that protect people from breaking the rules, and it always is looking for why people cannot, or should not, do a certain thing.

But Jesus counters the religious leader’s position by focusing on helping people know what they could and should do. Instead of looking for reasons why something was unacceptable, He looked for reasons why an action was okay. Jesus answers the question, “How can we allow this?”

Jesus always appears to be one step ahead of the religious leaders – and that is because looking at the world from a “can” perspective places one on an offensive, forward thinking train of thought. The religious leaders, with their “cannot” perspective, were solidly seeing life as a defensive exercise, and instead of looking at possibilities, they were looking for reasons why things shouldn’t be done.

Jesus didn’t clear out the temple because money was unacceptable there. He cleared out the temple for a can – which was allowing people to more clearly see and worship God!

If we ever wondered or questioned God’s love for His people, this a portion of our passage for this entry helps us see how God loves us. While this passage is an excerpt from a much larger message to Jesus’ followers about remaining faithful to Him regardless of what comes our way through history, and while the majority of our excerpt is also warning, a phrase is present that shines of God’s love and His protection: “If the Lord does not reduce that time, no one will be saved. But those days will be reduced because of those whom God has chosen.” (v. 20)

This verse shouts of God’s love for us, and that no matter what happens, He is in control.

However, before you begin to question God’s love during this time when followers of His are being killed, one big key to understanding this verse is found in the phrase, “no one will be saved”. This says that there is something bigger at play here than simply one or two individuals. In this phrase, Jesus points forward to the ripple effect that our lives and relationships can have.

This phrase speaks of God ending the persecution before it has ended those who God has chosen, which gives us hope that regardless of what we face and how we might mess up, God will not let His message – His “Good News” – die.

However, slightly under the surface of this verse is another message of hope. For those who are killed, their lives still held a purpose. Some of the greatest testimonies are of those who willingly faced death because of their faith. For those who were killed, they have the promise Jesus gave that people can only kill the body; people cannot kill their whole being. God has the power to reverse bodily death and He has promised to do so for those who have died believing in Jesus.

Jesus promises to reduce the time His people are persecuted because they are His people. The persecution helps create character and resolve, but it was not ever meant to destroy. The persecution that Jesus’ followers face is like a fire that is meant to refine and not consume.

In this passage, the primary focus is on Jesus directly telling His disciples what would happen. Jesus tells them plainly that He will “be delivered into the hands of men.” Mark and Matthew’s account tells us that Jesus finishes the sentence, “and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.” (Mark 9:31; Matthew 17:23)

Here in Luke we see an interesting idea that Mark and Matthew don’t bring up, and that is the significance of this prediction was concealed (hidden) from them so they would not understand it. This brings up an interesting idea: “Sometimes God hides truth from us until we are ready to receive it.”

We have 3 or 4 events recorded where Jesus directly tells the disciples that He will be crucified, but they don’t seem to understand. One time Peter thinks He understands and tries to challenge Jesus saying this idea, which doesn’t go so well for Peter, but overall, it seems that only after Jesus has died and shattered their preconceived ideas about the role of the Messiah do they finally understand what Jesus came to accomplish.

I must ask myself: If God hid truth from the disciples, is it possible that He is hiding truth from me – at least until I am ready to receive it? If so, will I trust God enough to accept His timing and not try and push my own?

Of all the events in the gospels, probably the one that thrust Jesus into the spotlight more than any other was the time He fed a huge crowd with a young boy’s lunch. This event holds a very exclusive status as being an event that is included in all four gospels, and while Matthew, Mark, and Luke share many excellent details about this event, only the gospel of John goes into detail about where the food came from, and how it made it to Jesus.

After Jesus had challenged the disciples with an impossible for them task, we read an unlikely turn in the story. “One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, ‘There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?’” (v. 8-9)

Even though Andrew brought the boy to Jesus, in how he introduces the boy to Jesus we can see plenty of doubt displayed: Andrew asks in the last portion of verse 9, “What are these for so many people?” This semi-rhetorical question doesn’t show much if any faith in what Jesus can do. But even while Andrew was doubtful, he still does something right – he brought the boy with his snack to Jesus.

While Andrew didn’t have any idea what would happen next, he knows that bringing this boy with his food as a gift for Jesus is the right thing to do. And so he leads the boy forward through the disciples as they are all grumbling among themselves about how to solve the problem of feeding this large crowd.

Eleven of the disciples are caught up in the problem, but only Andrew has something to offer, and only Andrew was observant enough to at least bring this boy through the group to allow him the chance to give his lunch to Jesus. Even though Andrew didn’t have much faith, the little faith he had, mixed with the boy’s gift was all that Jesus needed to perform one of the most famous miracles in His entire earthly ministry.

This miracle was only able to happen because a doubtful disciple chose to act and bring a boy with a snack to Jesus. Andrew acted even though he didn’t have much faith, and through this we learn that Jesus doesn’t need a lot of faith from us – just enough to inspire us to act!