This week, we are reading The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 14.

This chapter begins with the beheading of John the Baptist and then talks about a few miracles.

I have always been taken by His walking on water which is outlined in verses 22 through 33, where Peter was confidently walking on water himself and doing just fine until he a) took his eyes off of Christ, b) realized that not only was he walking on water, but that the wind was blowing REALLY hard, and c) called out for Jesus to help him, apparently forgetting that He was there all along.

Peter reminds me of me in this section.

The chapter starts with him telling a large crowd a parable.

The disciples asked why he spoke in parables. (I used to ask this question myself!)

Then he explains what the parable meant.

And then he tells several more parables.

If anyone wants to pick a parable or Christ’s explanations, I would love to participate in such a discussion.

This week, we will read Chapter 12 of Matthew’s Gospel.

The chapter starts out with the Pharisees trying to trip Jesus up again.  Once again, they try to trap Him, asking Him about the thousands of laws that they lived by and hoping he would slip up so they could throw Him in jail.

His response, though, was always to talk about God’s Word. When God’s Word is put up against man’s word, guess which one is trump?

They asked Him about his thoughts about the Fourth Commandment (found in Exodus 20:8-11)  which sets aside one day of the week to honor God. The Pharisees had built a bunch of sub-laws into that commandment, decreeing how far one could walk on that day, how much weight one could pick up, etc.

They were plotting against Him, and He left, with huge crowds following Him.

Please read this chapter, and we can discuss any part of it that interests you or that you have questions about.

If you remember, in the last chapter, Jesus sent his disciples out to heal people, raise the dead, and announce that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. And Jesus Himself went out teaching and preaching.

John the Baptist, sitting in his prison cell, heard about Him and sent a message asking if Jesus was the Messiah.

Jesus sent messengers back to John and then began to speak to those who gathered about John and how John fit into the prophecies.

Then He denounced all the places where he had healed people and still not repented.

And finally, he prays to God and then invites people to come to Him and He would help them with their burdens.

Here’s my only question for you: Which part of this chapter “speaks” to you, and why? Or if not why, then can you explain what you like about it?

In this chapter, Jesus informs his disciples that they have the power and authority to heal all diseases, and to cast out demons and other “unclean spirits.”

He gave them these specific instructions:

Don’t take the road leading to other nations, and don’t enter any Samaritan town. 

Instead, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, announce this: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases, drive out demons. You have received free of charge; give free of charge. 

Don’t take along gold, silver, or copper for your money-belts. Don’t take a traveling bag for the road, or an extra shirt, sandals, or a walking stick, for the worker is worthy of his food.

When you enter any town or village, find out who is worthy, and stay there until you leave. Greet a household when you enter it,and if the household is worthy, let your peace be on it. But if it is unworthy, let your peace return to you. 

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town. 

Jesus then predicted persecution, specifically (in part):

Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves.Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. 

You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations.But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. 

And the last section, He gives a parable.

For you will be given what to say at that hour,because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you.

The rest of the chapter is full of advice he gave them, who to fear and who not to, and what people will have to do about Jesus if we want to claim Him.

And then He says something that shocked me the first time I read it. In verses 34 through 39, He said:

Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 

For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be
the members of his household.

The person who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; the person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 

And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it.

And in the last part of this chapter, He talks about those the disciples were about to go out and talk to.

Possible talking points:

• Do you think that Jesus was talking just about the disciples when he predicted the persecutions?
• Did anything strike you as different from how people usually talk about Jesus and His teachings?
• What do you think He meant when he said, “It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”?
• What did He mean by this: “Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”?
• Verses 37 through 39 are somewhat cryptic. What do you think He meant there?

In this chapter, we see Jesus telling a paralyzed man, “Your sins are forgiven,” and the Jewish leaders accusing him of blasphemy. He then healed the man of his paralysis.

In verse 9, he chooses Matthew, the tax collector, to follow Him. It is widely believed, and has been since the 2nd century, that the tax collector was the same Matthew who wrote this book of the bible.

Tax collectors in the time of Jesus were hated and distrusted by just about everyone. They were usually corrupt and took money for themselves as well as for the government.

Matthew apparently did not hesitate. He left his life and his comfort zone to follow Christ.

He later sets out to go heal a young girl, but on the way, a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years slowed him down. The story of this woman is called in some bibles, “The Woman With An Issue of Blood.”

On a personal note, this is my favorite story in the bible. (It is also told in the Gospels of Mark and Luke.) If you want to read what I’ve written about this woman and her encounter with Christ, you can do so here: Woman With an Issue.

In the rest of this chapter, we can read about many of the people he healed from various maladies and then he says something about the “harvest.”

So, if anyone wishes to discuss any of this, I would like to point out some of the questions I had when I first read this chapter:

• Why did the scribes accuse Jesus of blasphemy?
• Why did the disciples mistrust the tax collectors and lump them in with other “sinners”?
• How does the woman with an issue of blood related to me?
• What does Jesus mean about sending out workers to the harvest?

Or, of course, anything you would like to discuss about it.

This chapter begins when Christ came down from the mountain after his Sermon on the Mount.

He was followed by a throng of people who had heard Him speak. Immediately a man with leprosy asked Him to heal him, or “clean” him of his disease.

Jesus touched him, commanding him to be made clean, and immediately, the leper’s disease was gone.

He then told the healed man not to tell anyone of his healing, but instead he go to the priest and offer to the priest the gift that Moses prescribed. This gift is a reference to what Moses talked about in  Leviticus 14:2-9 about what a person should offer when he is healed of leprosy.

When He got into the town of Capernaum, a Roman centurion came to Him, asking for his servant to be healed. When Jesus said that He would go there and heal him, the centurion said, essentially, that he believed that if Jesus commanded the healing, it would be done, whether He was at the house or not.

Jesus told the centurion that he had more faith than anyone in Israel, and then He healed the servant remotely.

Then He goes to his disciple Peter’s house and heals Peter’s mother-in-law. He indicates that He is fulfilling a prophecy when he quotes Isaiah.

While He is surrounded by huge crowds, He is approached by a man who tells Jesus that he will follow Him wherever He goes, but first he has to go bury his father. Jesus tells him to follow Him now and “let the dead bury their own.”

Then Jesus and the disciples got into a boat and a storm overtook them, and He commands the sea to be calm.

Finally, He drives demons from two men who were possessed. The demons are driven into a bunch of pigs who then run into the water and died.

When word got out about this, the people from the town came to Jesus and begged Him to leave town.

Now, I’d like to do something a little different. I’d like to know what you all think about some of the things in this chapter. If you would, I’d like you to pick at least one of these questions and comment on what you think, and we can discuss them.

Don’t worry, it’s not graded. Just your thoughts.

• When Jesus told the leper not to tell anyone, why do you think that would be?
• In verse 11 and 12, Jesus tells the centurion about that many people will be weeping and gnashing their teeth. What do you think He was talking about?
• In verse 17, Jesus says that he is fulfilling a prophecy. What was that prophecy, and what does it refer to?
• In verse 20 through 22, what is happening that might apply to us today?
• In verse 34, the townspeople beg Him to leave town. Why would they do that?

This is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount, and it delves into some important issues.

Verses 1 through 7 are about not judging others.

Verses 7 through 12 is encapsulated in the phrase, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you…”

Verses 13 through 23 are about entering the Kingdom of God.

And 24 through 27 are about two men: a wise man who built his house on rock, and a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

With this, Jesus ended his sermon.

Jesus continues with the Sermon on the Mount, basically explaining that what we do, we should do for God, not for man.

He tells us how to give quietly, without seeking approval from others, and that our reward will come instead in His eyes. And when we pray, keep in mind the same thing.

And then, He tells us how to pray, giving us the words to The Lord’s Prayer.

He tells us to fast without complaint or for praise.

Then he explains that the things we accumulate here on earth are all temporary, so we should collect future rewards — or crowns — in heaven where they will be eternal.

This is the passage where the saying, “You cannot serve two masters.” He teaches us that we have to pick whether we worship money and possessions or worship God.

In the final part of this chapter, He teaches us that we don’t need to worry about worldly things. This is helpful for anxiety.

This is a lot of teaching, and it is about how to comport ourselves here on earth and how to keep our minds free of anxiety and our eyes on the prize.

In this chapter, Jesus calls those who follow Him to engage in radical devotion and radical dependence on God.

So many important things in the bible happen on mountains, and this is no exception.

He was sitting while he gave this sermon, which is how rabbis frequently taught disciples.

The first part of the sermon is called “the Beatitudes.” They are the verses which have the word “blessed” in them (verses 3 through 11). They are comforts to believers who suffer.

The second part contains the new laws, and they contrast toe old law of Moses with the new laws of Christ. A new era began with the ministry of Jesus, who came to fulfill the law, which he explains in verses 17 through 20.

This chapter has some of the most quoted verses in the New Testament, and I know that even before I knew anything about Jesus and Christianity, I had heard the Beatitudes.

They are truly words to live by.

Although this sermon is not the reason Christ was born, as so often misstated, it are very important for Christians because it tells us how to live.