Reflective Bible Study

As Matthew shares more of the healing miracles Jesus helped people with, we come to another two miracles that don’t seem very connected. However, these two miracles give us insight into Jesus’ character and how Jesus worked His miracles of healing.

Our passage picks up right as our passage from the last episode ended, and it can be found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 9. For this episode, we’ll be reading from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 27, Matthew tells us that:

²⁷ As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” ²⁸ When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” ²⁹ Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.” ³⁰ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: “See that no one knows about this!” ³¹ But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.

³² As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him. ³³ After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” ³⁴ But the Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

Let’s stop reading here. In these two miracles, almost nothing is the same. In the first miracle, we see a clear example of Jesus attributing the success of the miracle to the faith of those being healed, but in the second miracle, the passage doesn’t indicated the person being healed had any faith. In the case of the first miracle, Jesus tells the men He healed to be quiet about it, even if they choose to share it with everyone, while the second miracle doesn’t have the same warning.

The second miracle prompts the religious leaders to challenge the source of Jesus’ miracle working ability and attribute Jesus as a messenger of Satan, while the first miracle has no such backlash.

But in these two miracles, we see a big picture summary of all the miracles Jesus did to help people. Within these two miracles, we see Jesus healing the blind and healing the mute. We see Jesus healing disabilities that were caused by demon possession and disabilities that were not. We see Jesus healing based upon the faith of those being healed, and we see Jesus healing regardless of the faith of those present. We also see Jesus healing regardless of whether those He healed would obey His instructions afterwards and we see a healing where no follow-up instructions are given.

In these two miracles, almost every detail is different. However, one detail is clearly the same. With all the unique details of these two miracles, we cannot get away from the common denominator of Jesus. The two blind men followed Jesus and the mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus. In both these miracles, Jesus is present, active, and willing to help in the situation.

Will all the miracles in the gospels, and really with all the miracles in the Bible as a whole, we cannot get around the presence of God the Father, Jesus the Son, or the Holy Spirit being present and active in every significant event.

This is a key theme in the Bible, and those writing the various books that have been assembled into our Bible all believed that God was alive and working in the world during their time period in history. In the case of the gospels, the writers of these four books believed Jesus to be God who became one of us, and they risked their lives to share Jesus’ life with others.

However, too often, in our lives today, we are quick to discount God’s active involvement. We are quick to look at science for an answer, quick to look to an expert for an explanation, or quick to look to ourselves for a solution. In our lives, we are less likely to see God moving in the details, that is except for in one way.

The way every one of us can see God moving in our lives if we want to see Him is when we look at our past. When you look at your past and when I look at mine, there are countless ways that our lives could have been different if things went just a little differently. It’s possible that you have come close to seriously injuring yourself, or even killing yourself, but something happened that changed your path or prevented this accident. When I look at my past, I see a whole collection of unrelated events shaping who I am today.

While some people look back and see a series of coincidental events that randomly brought us to this point, other people, myself included, instead see a series of God-directed events where He was leading and directing our lives up to this very moment in history.

When faced with huge challenges in our present or in our future, it can be easy to forget God’s leading and His working in the past, including in our past lives. However, the way we can trust that God is still interested and in control is by remembering all the times in the past where things could have gone worse than they did, but for some reason they didn’t. We can attribute the series of events that brought us to where we are at right now in life to God.

Sometimes the events in our past are bad or negative. It also can be easy to blame God or to doubt His love because we went through some trial or challenge. However, while God might be worthy of blame for causing or not preventing something bad from happening, the only way we can move forward in our own lives is to forgive God and trust that there must have been a reason we don’t understand behind what happened.

While I don’t have all the answers to life’s tough questions, I do know that this world has anger, hostility, pain, sin, and struggle associated with it. If God were to remove all the bad in the world today, we would have no need of Him and no reason for a new life in a perfect recreated world. Instead, God wants to eliminate sin from the universe forever, and part of keeping sin from resurfacing is letting sin reveal its true colors. Sometimes bad things happen simply to remind us that our eternity is not in a sinful world.

Sometimes when bad things happen, God is reminding us to look forward to a new life with Him in heaven.

In the two miracles we looked at in Matthew’s gospel, there weren’t many similarities. However, both miracles had Jesus, and when we face trials in our lives, Jesus is the best place for us to look to and the best Person for us to lean on!

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

Always intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to trust Him and lean on Him when trials, challenges, and problems come into your life. Blaming God doesn’t solve anything, but trusting God helps us move through whatever trial comes our way and out the other side. Sometimes, when bad things happen, we are reminded that God is preparing a better place for us without all the sin and negatives in our current world. In other times, bad things happen to give us a connection point for others who may be facing what we have faced. Only God has all the answers, and we should look to Him when we question what is happening around us.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. Grow your personal relationship with God so that you will have the faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus to withstand all the storms that Satan wants to throw our way. Our world is getting crazier each day, and only by staying connected to God can we remain grounded in 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 leave where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

After Jesus shared the parable of the ten bridesmaids, He follows up by sharing another fairly well known parable. This follow-up parable is our focus for this episode, and it is often called the parable of the three servants. Similar to the parable of the ten bridesmaids, we hear this parable so frequently shared out of the context of the end-times discussion that we think Jesus shared it at some point in the middle of His ministry.

However, we know from our journey through the week leading up to the cross that the real context of this parable is the end times, and it is part of Jesus’ long response to the disciples about what the end time will be like.

Let’s read this parable and discover what addition details Jesus wants to share with us regarding the Kingdom of Heaven during the end times. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 25, and we will be reading from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 14, Jesus continues by saying:

¹⁴ “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. ¹⁵ He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.

Let’s pause briefly here, because three big ideas are present in this opening that we may miss if we read through this parable too quickly.

The first big idea in this opening that we are tempted to miss is that the master strategically divided the silver, “it in proportion to [each of the servant’s] abilities”. This meant that the master paid attention to the servants and He knew that there were differences in each. Instead of giving each servant the same amount, the master strategically divided up 8 bags among the three servants.

This also tells us that while God might not give blessings equally, He is strategic with His gifts. He will not give us more than we are capable of handling.

The second big idea we see relates very closely to the first. While it might be easy to get caught up on the unfairness of each servant receiving a different amount, the truth is that every servant did receive something. It would be foolish for the servants to compare with each other and speculate why others got more or less than them. In the same way, it does us no good to compare our blessings or experiences with each other because all we will discover is that they are simply different.

While we might not understand why God has blessed someone else more or less than it seems He has blessed us with, our focus should instead be on using what He has blessed us with to help others, and not worry about playing the comparison game. The comparison “game” is really a trap to distract us from doing what is truly important.

The third big idea is in the last phrase we read in verse 15: “He then left on his trip.” When we read this statement, it is worth noting that there is no indication when the master will return. It could be days, months, years, or even decades later. There is no hint at the length of time, except to say that it probably was longer than a day or a week because the master expects the servants to have enough time to do something with the money.

This also tells us that Jesus’ return will likely be later than what we might think, plan for, or realize. This shouldn’t discourage us. Instead, we have been blessed with more time to grow the blessings God has given to us – even if the blessing we have only feels like one bag of silver.

Continuing reading in verse 16, Jesus then tells us:

¹⁶ “The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. ¹⁷ The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. ¹⁸ But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.

¹⁹ “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. ²⁰ The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’

²¹ “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

²² “The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’

²³ “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

²⁴ “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. ²⁵ I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’

²⁶ “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, ²⁷ why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’

²⁸ “Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. ²⁹ To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. ³⁰ Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The challenging part of this parable for me comes down to the comparison trap that we talked about earlier. All too often, it seems like I can look around and see people who appear much more blessed than me. I am also aware that other people might look at me the same way – as being more blessed than them.

However, while it is easy to look at those who appear to have more blessings, the only direction this really takes us is down. We feel blessed less when we focus on those who have been blessed more, and this makes us feel like the few blessings we have to admit to being given are only equivalent to one bag of silver, and that it would be better to hide these blessings rather than use them.

This is a huge trap. All three servants faced this trap, and it is a trap of fear. Hiding what God has given to us, or purposely sitting on the sidelines when we could be in the game, is falling to the trap of fear that the one-bag servant was guilty of. While this servant wasn’t the star performer of the servants, the master still gave him a chance, and he still received blessings – according to his ability – which meant that even if he didn’t believe he had anything special to offer, the master saw some potential there.

God sees potential for His Kingdom in each and every one of us. While we might not see ourselves as He sees us, God has placed us on this earth for a reason, and even if we don’t see or know His reasons for why we are here, we should move forward focused on serving Him with whatever He has given to us.

Don’t let fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, or fear of failure get in the way of moving forward along the path God has placed before you and I. Fear could have derailed any of the three servants, but it didn’t have to derail any of them either. So regardless of whether you feel as though you’ve been given an oversupply of blessings or if you struggle to even find one blessing from God, focus on serving Him and using what He has blessed you with for His glory and advancing His Kingdom!

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

Always seek God first and focus on serving Him ahead of being fearful, scared, or timid about using what He has blessed you with. While it’s easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to someone else, that trap doesn’t lead anywhere positive. Instead, focus on what you can do for God and how you can live for Him today, and every day moving forward.

Also, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself and focus on growing closer to God personally. When we grow close to God and lean on Him for help, support, and direction, He will lead us along the path He created us to walk, and He will bless us in ways we will only realize after His story is finished. But don’t take my word for it, pray and study the Bible for yourself to see for yourself how this is true for many of the Bible’s heroes of faith.

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