Reflective Bible Study

Continuing our journey in Matthew’s gospel brings us to another point in Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. In this section of Jesus’ message, we discover how God values our private relationship with Him over a public relationship. It may be for this reason that Jesus challenged the religious leaders so strongly. It is likely that many of them did not have a personal relationship with God in private, and that they only acted like they had a relationship with God when in public.

In the portion of Jesus’ sermon that we are focusing in on, Jesus draws our attention onto two specific areas where He likes to see His people be more private than public.

Let’s read this section of Jesus’ sermon, which is found in Matthew chapter 6. Using the God’s Word translation and starting in verse 1, Jesus continued preaching saying:

¹ “Be careful not to do your good works in public in order to attract attention. If you do, your Father in heaven will not reward you. ² So when you give to the poor, don’t announce it with trumpet fanfare. This is what hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets in order to be praised by people. I can guarantee this truth: That will be their only reward. ³ When you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. ⁴ Give your contributions privately. Your Father sees what you do in private. He will reward you.

⁵ “When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites. They like to stand in synagogues and on street corners to pray so that everyone can see them. I can guarantee this truth: That will be their only reward. ⁶ When you pray, go to your room and close the door. Pray privately to your Father who is with you. Your Father sees what you do in private. He will reward you.

⁷ “When you pray, don’t ramble like heathens who think they’ll be heard if they talk a lot. ⁸ Don’t be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹ “This is how you should pray:

Our Father in heaven,
    let your name be kept holy.
¹⁰     Let your kingdom come.
    Let your will be done on earth
        as it is done in heaven.
¹¹     Give us our daily bread today.
¹²     Forgive us as we forgive others.
¹³     Don’t allow us to be tempted.
    Instead, rescue us from the evil one.

This is where we will stop reading. It is interesting that some of the oldest manuscripts stop Jesus’ prayer here, while some of the later manuscripts add the familiar closing, which goes something like “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Whether you believe Jesus ended His model prayer with a nice closing statement, or whether He left the prayer open ended to let us have the freedom to conclude the prayer in whatever way we would like, we shouldn’t miss the bigger picture of what Jesus is trying to teach us in this part of His sermon.

In this portion of Jesus’ message, He amplifies the importance of having a private relationship with God, specifically a private relationship when we give of our time and energy, and a private relationship when we pray. While both of these activities can be done publicly, and in the case of prayer, sometimes should be done publicly in certain cases, the goal of our giving, helping, and prayer must be giving glory to God. If we do anything looking for glory or praise from others for ourselves, then while we may be doing something good, we have the wrong motives, which actually undermines our relationship with God and with others.

When we do things for praise and glory from others, we subtly set ourselves up for disappointment. This is because once we have done something praiseworthy, the next time we do this it becomes less praiseworthy, and after a few times, what we once were praised for is now an expectation that we have created for ourselves. This leaves us searching and moving from one praiseworthy thing to another and trying to outdo our past selves and others expectations. Looking for praise from others is setting ourselves up for disappointment because we will not always be able to receive praise from others.

Also, looking for praise from someone else affects how we live our lives. When we are looking for praise from someone else, when no one else is around, then we are let off the hook for pleasing others and we believe we can do whatever we want. This leads to hypocrisy, which is when our talk doesn’t match our actions, and our private lives don’t math our public lives. The opposite of hypocrisy is integrity, and integrity is when everything in our public and private lives match, and when our words and our actions are in alignment. Living our lives looking for praise from others leads to hypocrisy, because we elevate others ahead of ourselves, and subtly ahead of God as well.

In contrast, when we intentionally give, help, and pray privately, the only one who knows is God, and He is willing to step in and help when we are genuinely seeking to please Him. While some might believe that it is possible to have an empty, private relationship with God, part of me wonders if the more time we spend with God privately, even if it feels like we are only going through the motions, if God is still able to use this time to actually draw us to Him.

While it’s obvious that the ideal for our private relationship with God is genuine, heartfelt, time with God that is not rushed in any way, I don’t know of anyone who decided to grow their relationship with God from nothing and have it turn into this extra close relationship and connection in less than 24 hours.

Instead, like friendships and relationships in our lives with others, a relationship with God takes time, and the time we spend with God, even if it feels weird, hollow, or empty at the beginning will grow into more when we resolve to stick with God.

Our passage challenges us to avoid doing things for praise and recognition from others, because that will be our only reward. Instead, Jesus challenges us to give, help, and pray in a way that when we are rewarded, the only possible Source of our reward is God because He is the only one who knows what you gave, how you helped, and what you specifically prayed for!

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 and focus on pleasing Him in ways where only He knows what you have given, how you have helped, and what you have prayed for. Focus on growing your personal relationship with God and choose to live your life in a way that pleases God and that doesn’t chase after praise from others.

Also, as you grow your personal relationship with God, be sure to continue spending time with Him and to privately and prayerfully study the Bible with Him and with His Holy Spirit. While public Bible study is good, and while other people have good ideas to share, always take what others teach and test it against what you know and read in the Bible for yourself. God has revealed truth to us in the Bible, and He has kept the Bible safe for thousands of years.

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

Continuing in Luke’s gospel, after Jesus is rejected in Nazareth, He travels back to Capernaum and on what may have been the following Sabbath, we see something significant happen. I wonder if Jesus ever actually had a normal Sabbath day at a synagogue in His entire three-year ministry. While the gospel writers include many exceptions, like the one we read in our last episode and the one we will read about in this episode, it is unlikely they would give much space to a normal trip to a synagogue.

This means we are left picturing Jesus’ trips to synagogues being very abnormal or hostile encounters, but it is possible that many were simply normal and uneventful. Calculating an approximate number of synagogue visits, 52 weeks in a year times 3.5 years equals 182. However, I would imagine that there were many Sabbaths Jesus did not visit a synagogue, so for the purposes of this calculating, let’s subtract our total number by 22 down to 160. I would venture a guess that many of these 160 probable synagogue Sabbaths were normal.

However, our passage for this episode describes a more abnormal visit to a synagogue, and this event is recorded as happening soon after Jesus was run out of Nazareth’s synagogue. This episode’s passage comes from Luke’s gospel, chapter 4, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 31, Luke tells us:

³¹ Then he [Jesus] went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. ³² They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.

³³ In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, ³⁴ “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

³⁵ “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

³⁶ All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!” ³⁷ And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.

Let’s pause reading here because I want to draw our attention onto something significant. If casting a demon out of someone isn’t significant enough, I am amazed that Jesus commands the demon to be quiet after the demon begins to reveal who Jesus really is.

In my mind, Jesus does this for two big reasons.

First, demons can either lie or tell the truth. They usually lie, making any truth they say suspect. If Jesus let the demon truthfully say who He was, it would potentially taint His ministry and witness because it is never wise to trust a demon. Even a 100% truthful demon is untrustworthy because demons are not always 100% truthful. It is even unwise to listen to a demon to try to discern the truth from the error. Demons have had thousands of years of practice lying in convincing ways and they might lie in more ways that we can catch.

It is safest for us to follow Jesus’ example and simply not listen to any demon. If God wants us to learn or know something important or significant, there is an almost zero chance He would use a demon. While God could use a demon, it would not benefit the bigger picture in any positive-for-God way.

Second, there was too much cultural weight surrounding the role of the Messiah as a military leader who would come and overthrow the Romans. Jesus’ arrival to walk a path different from culture’s expectations would benefit from more ambiguity or uncertainty on whether He truly was the Messiah or simply someone else who was significant.

Jesus fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies related to a Messiah coming and suffering, and He left the prophecies related to His coming as a King largely untouched and waiting for His second coming.

If the people early on in Jesus’ ministry latched on too quickly to Jesus being the Messiah they knew God promised, they would likely slip into believing Jesus came as King and would try to force Him into this role. In other cases, such as the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus sidesteps this very issue because the crowds wanted Him to become their King.

However, this Sabbath day is not over yet. Continuing in verse 38, Luke tells us:

³⁸ Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. ³⁹ So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.

⁴⁰ At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. ⁴¹ Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.

It appears in this passage that Satan wanted to derail Jesus’ ministry by proclaiming who He was as much as possible. If the demon that Sabbath morning in the synagogue wasn’t enough, many more demon-possessed people were brought to Jesus and they try to make the same proclamation that evening.

When reading this event, it is difficult to escape one huge truth: The words Jesus spoke contained power. We can see this truth in the simple detail that Jesus’ command was powerful enough to cast a demon out of an individual.

However, Jesus’ word is even stronger than this. Jesus’ command isn’t just strong enough to cast demons out of people, but it is also strong enough to silence demons from speaking! That is amazingly significant in the big picture.

Jesus’ command is also powerful enough to reverse and eliminate sickness. Verse 39 describes how Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, “So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her.” Rebuking something involves speaking, and this tells us Jesus’ word is powerful enough to heal.

On this Sabbath day, we discover a Jesus that is more powerful than we might first imagine. Jesus’ word is strong enough to cast out demons, it is strong enough to silence them and keep them from speaking, and it is strong enough to heal sickness and disease. When facing struggles, challenges, disease, or discouragement in our own life, we should look to the words of Jesus for the power to overcome!

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, continue to seek God first and place your hope, faith, trust, and belief in Jesus. When challenges come into our lives, choose to recognize them as opportunities to look to Jesus’ words for power to overcome. Jesus is more powerful than what we often give Him credit for, and I believe He is ready, waiting to help us the moment we decide to ask. While some challenges are given to strengthen our character, I believe other challenges are given to remind us it is best to turn to God for help!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. A strong personal relationship with God is best developed through personal prayer and Bible study. While praying and studying in small or large groups is beneficial on one level, never give up your own personal study time because through our personal study we are able to grow a personal relationship with God and we are able to strengthen our personal faith. Personal Bible study is the best foundation to grow our faith in Jesus on.

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 tricked or deceived out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!