Reflective Bible Study

After sharing some end-time parables with the disciples in the large discussion about the time of His return, Jesus shifts His focus out of speaking in parables, and He returns to teaching about His return. In this grand conclusion to His end-time message, Jesus shares one of the most practical truths in the entire Bible, and it is a truth that is easy to see while also being easy to miss.

Let’s read how Jesus concludes His message for these disciples, and how this message has challenged believers throughout the centuries stretching all the way to today. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 25, and we will be reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Starting in verse 31, Jesus continued by saying:

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. ³² All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on the left. ³⁴ Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

³⁵ For I was hungry
and you gave Me something to eat;
I was thirsty
and you gave Me something to drink;
I was a stranger and you took Me in;
³⁶ I was naked and you clothed Me;
I was sick and you took care of Me;
I was in prison and you visited Me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or without clothes and clothe You? ³⁹ When did we see You sick, or in prison, and visit You?’

⁴⁰ “And the King will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’ ⁴¹ Then He will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!

⁴² For I was hungry
and you gave Me nothing to eat;
I was thirsty
and you gave Me nothing to drink;
⁴³ I was a stranger
and you didn’t take Me in;
I was naked
and you didn’t clothe Me,
sick and in prison
and you didn’t take care of Me.’

⁴⁴ “Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help You?’

⁴⁵ “Then He will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me either.’

⁴⁶ “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In this passage, we see one of the most startling challenges we have on the subject being saved. This passage seems to indicate that our salvation hinges on something we do rather than on the One we believe in. However, narrowing our salvation down to be exclusively based on the truth in this passage only shares half of the truth.

The full truth is that our salvation is based on faith, but our faith is only valuable when it is visibly helping others.

In this passage, I find it interesting that both groups of people are surprised to find out that Jesus was among the least of these people. While I don’t believe that Jesus was literally present in each of these situations, I believe that Jesus shares a powerful truth based on how God wants us to focus our love for Him. Within this passage, I see God, through Jesus, challenging us to love Him by loving and helping those in society who cannot help us in return or repay us for our help.

While the list of help that Jesus shares is probably not exhaustive, I believe it gives a tangible theme of the type of help God values. When someone is hungry or thirsty and we give them food or drink, they cannot repay us. If they had money, they could simply buy food or water, and if they had food or water, then they wouldn’t be hungry or thirsty. Helping others in this way is help that introduces us to the theme of helping in a way that cannot be repaid.

Next, we discover that helping a stranger by giving them a place to stay also follows along the same theme. If someone had money, they could rent a room in a hotel, and they would have a place to stay. Without money, when we take someone in and give them a place to stay, there is nothing they can really do to repay us. While they might help around our home, chances are good that their “repayment” is really a way of saying thank you more than trying to earn their right to stay.

After the stranger, we discover the same theme within being naked and being clothed, sick and being taken care of, and in prison and being visited. All of these examples represent help that is giving without expecting any type of repayment, and it is help in situations where payment cannot be returned.

So why does God value this type of help to base our salvation on? In my mind, I see this type of help being God’s type of help. This type of help is what God has done for each of us.

By sending Jesus into this world, God chose to step down and help the human race when we didn’t deserve help, and when we could not do anything or repay anything back to God. It is as though God gave us a million dollar gift and the best we could return is a penny.

But Jesus didn’t come to collect the pennies of humanity. He came because God is interested in sharing the millions and billions in gifts because of who He is and how much He loves us. The best way we can say thank you to God, continuing our metaphor, is to pass our pennies on to those who cannot repay us.

While it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that money is the best gift, money is also the most repayable gift. When we are called to help others, we are called to help in ways that are not repayable.

God values humanity so much that He gave Himself for us. While anyone could help another person out, only those who help others because they love God, they have placed their faith, hope, and trust in Jesus, and they have chosen to show their love for God through loving others will experience salvation. The motivation of the heart matters and the reason for our love is crucial.

People can love and help others with self-serving motives, and people can love and help others without having faith in Jesus. These people will have only carried out the visible half of salvation while missing the hidden part. Others can place their faith and trust in Jesus but be cruel and mean to everyone they meet. This second group will have only carried out the hidden half of salvation while missing the visible part.

In order to be welcomed into heaven, we must be saved internally, because of our faith is in Jesus, and we must display our faith and thanks to God for His gift by helping others in ways that are not easily repaid. This is living out God’s character in the world, and it’s His challenge to each of us!

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

Always seek God first and place Him first in your life. Be sure to have your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus’ sacrifice to cover your sins. Believe that His sacrifice is enough and show your thanks to God for what He has done for you through helping others who cannot help you in return. Pay God’s love forward in the world around you!

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to keep your connection with God strong. We need a strong private connection with God to truly know His level of love and sacrifice for us. We cannot out give God, and the closer we are to Him, the more we know this to be true.

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 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!

A short while after Jesus called Matthew to be a disciple, we discover a set of two miracles that display some unusual characteristics. Neither miracle is really like the other, but without both of these miracles put together, neither one would be as significant.

Let’s read what happened and then look for some things we can learn from this event. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 9, and we will read from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 18, Matthew tells us that:

¹⁸ While Jesus was saying these things, a leader of the synagogue came to him. He bowed down before Jesus and said, “My daughter has just died. But if you come and lay your hand on her, she will live again.” ¹⁹ So Jesus and his followers stood up and went with the leader.

²⁰ Then a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came behind Jesus and touched the edge of his coat. ²¹ She was thinking, “If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”

²² Jesus turned and saw the woman and said, “Be encouraged, dear woman. You are made well because you believed.” And the woman was healed from that moment on.

²³ Jesus continued along with the leader and went into his house. There he saw the funeral musicians and many people crying. ²⁴ Jesus said, “Go away. The girl is not dead, only asleep.” But the people laughed at him. ²⁵ After the crowd had been thrown out of the house, Jesus went into the girl’s room and took hold of her hand, and she stood up. ²⁶ The news about this spread all around the area.

In this event and this set of two miracles, we discover among other things, that Jesus was focused on helping each individual exactly how they needed help. It is also interesting in my mind that Matthew really summarizes this event and these two miracles.

In the other gospels that include this event, the synagogue leader who asks for help asks Jesus while His daughter is still sick and not dead yet. The other gospels also draw out the woman’s healing and her desire to remain hidden. In the other gospels, it seems that Jesus stops everything to discover the woman who touched His garment, and it delayed His progress to the synagogue leader’s home to the point that messengers were able to arrive and tell the synagogue leader that his daughter had died.

While Matthew summarizes many things about both these miracles, one thing Matthew does not skip over is Jesus’ reaction to the funeral musicians and those crying. Matthew also does not skip over sharing the woman’s thoughts and her belief that simply touching the edge of Jesus’ clothing would heal her.

Matthew includes the detail of the woman having faith in perhaps the least significant action she could think of. Touching the edge of Jesus’ clothing is pretty insignificant, but she believes that is all she needs to be healed. She may have been embarrassed about her condition, and would rather not have to explain it to a bunch of men why she was needing to be healed.

However, Jesus doesn’t want her faith or her miracle to be lost in the commotion of Him going to help someone else. Jesus stops just long enough to make sure she was healed and to draw attention onto her faith and her story so that we would be able to read and know it from what was recorded. If Jesus had not stopped, this woman’s miracle would have never been known outside of a handful of people.

Matthew also does not summarize or minimize Jesus’ reaction to those who were preparing for a funeral at the synagogue leader’s home. Jesus tells them all in verse 24, “Go away. The girl is not dead, only asleep.” However, those present laughed at Jesus. They knew the girl had died. A doctor had probably already called the time of her death a short while earlier.

However, I wonder if Jesus intentionally set the stage for this event by making sure that He hadn’t arrived before the girl had died. I wonder if Jesus wanted to challenge the faith of everyone present and if He wanted to teach us that death is nothing to be feared. When we read the Bible, we cannot get around the metaphor, both in the gospels and in the other parts of the Bible, that death is compared with a sleep.

In the context of Jesus’ statement here, those who viewed death viewed death as the end of life, with no immediate hope of a resurrection. If those present had believed in an upcoming resurrection, it is likely there wouldn’t be any tears present. It is clear in this event, that the crowd of mourners and funeral musicians did not have faith that Jesus could reverse death. Because they didn’t have faith, I believe this is why Jesus kicked them out of the house.

It is also interesting that if those present believed the girl to be in a much better place now that she had died, then they may have been sad at her death, but they wouldn’t have wished for her to be brought back to life. In this frame of view, Jesus resurrecting anyone, including Himself, would be one of the cruelest things for Him to do.

I don’t believe it is a coincidence that death is referred to as sleep in the Bible. The Bible contains many metaphors that God has written into the details of our physical world to teach us about spiritual truths. I believe sleep teaching us about death is one such truth.

While there are many physical and biological reasons for sleep and how our brains need sleep to function well, the spiritual component of sleep is simply rest from our daily work. If the day represents our life and sleep represents our death, then there is nothing to be afraid of when we ultimately lay down to rest at our life’s end because we know morning is coming. Following our rest in death, morning brings us a resurrection into a new life with God.

Whether we are close to death in this life or whether we have a lot of life left, we can know and trust that with whatever happens, God has placed us alive on this earth for a reason. We can know and trust that when we have accomplished what He has placed us here to accomplish, He will let us rest in peace until morning comes and the trumpet of resurrection sounds.

While we don’t know the rest of this girls story, what we do know is that from that moment forward, her life was a clear gift from God. This girl’s story would be significant and important in God’s eyes, because He had given her a new life, and her new life foreshadows our new lives when we are resurrected at Jesus’ return!

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 choose to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus and in His promise of a new life with God. While our new life with God begins at the moment we choose God, our ultimate new life with God begins at the moment He returns to take us home!

Also, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself. Don’t take my word, or any pastor, author, speaker, or podcaster’s word for any spiritual truth. Instead, test everything through what the Bible teaches to discover God’s truth for your life 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!