Matthew 3:1-6

Scripture:

1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight.'"
4 Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
-- Matthew 3:1-6

Observation:

Who?

• John the Baptist
• The people of Jerusalem, Judea, and the region around the Jordan
• God

What?

• v1: John the Baptist comes to the wilderness
• v2: John the Baptist preaches a message of repentance because the kingdom of heaven is at hand
• v3: John the Baptist identified as fulfilling Isaiah 40:3
• v4: John the Baptist's wardrobe and diet
• He wore a garment of camel's hair with a leather belt
• He ate locusts and wild honey
• vv5-6: Everyone from the surrounding regions came out to John the Baptist to be baptized and confessed their sins

 When?

In v1, we are told that John the Baptist came "at this time." In the immediate context, this refers to the time after Jesus has returned to Nazareth (see comments on Matthew 2). In the broader historical context, John the Baptist comes during the Roman rule of Palestine, about 400 years after the prophet Malachi wrote the last book of the Old Testament.

Where?

According to v1, John the Baptist is in the wilderness of Judea. In v6, we learn, more specifically, that he is by the Jordan River.

Interpretation:

In ancient Israel, the prophet held a unique position. Everyone was supposed to love God with his whole heart, soul and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). This meant humbly submitting oneself completely to God, but it also meant acting with justice and mercy toward your fellow men (Micah 6:8). In addition to this, the king was to rule Israel as God's proxy, upholding His righteous standards and judging with truth, justice, and mercy. The priest stood between God and the people and interceded for them, making sacrifices to atone for the people's sins.

The prophet was different. Where the priest spoke to God on behalf of the people, the prophet spoke to the people on behalf of God. When the Spirit of the Lord was upon a prophet, the words he spoke were the very words of God. One often hears people talk about prophecy as though it were the same thing as prediction. It is not. The prophets sometimes made predictions about the future, but their main role was to tell the people, "The things you are doing are not pleasing God. Stop doing them, or there will be consequences!" In fact, most of the predictive prophecies in the Old Testament foretell the consequences that will occur if the people persist in their wicked ways (most of the other predictive prophecies foretell that after punishing His people, He will restore them because of His unfailing love for them).

As you read the Old Testament histories, you will see that from the time of Moses forward, God had raised up prophets in every generation to speak to the people on His behalf. There was always a prophet in Israel, proclaiming the Word of the Lord. Always, that is, until Malachi.

The prophet Malachi wrote the last book of the Old Testament, and when he passed away, the Voice of the Lord passed with him. After Malachi's time, God no longer raised up prophets in Israel. The book of Malachi and the Gospel of Matthew sit right next to each other in the Bible, but in history 400 years passed between the writing of the two books. During all that time God's prophetic voice was silent¹.

In the closing chapter of the book of Malachi, Malachi makes some predictions about the coming Day of the Lord in which the Messiah will judge the wicked and restore the righteous:

"For behold, the day is coming,
Burning like an oven,
And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble.
And the day which is coming shall burn them up,"Says the Lord of hosts,
"That will leave them neither root nor branch.
But to you who fear My name
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings;And you shall go out
And grow fat like stall-fed calves.
You shall trample the wicked,
For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet
On the day that I do this,"
Says the Lord of hosts.
"Remember the Law of Moses, My servant,
Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel,
With the statutes and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."
Malachi 4 (NKJV)² (emphasis is mine)

In the final words which God prophetically gave to Israel, He said that in the Day of the Lord, the Messiah, the Sun of Righteousness, would come. Further, He said that before that Day would come, Elijah would come to bring people to repentance, literally to "turn" their "hearts." (Interestingly, but not in a way related to where I'm going with this study, the consequence of this repentance is the restoration of families. Maybe, someday when we study Malachi we can dig into that more...)

These final words of God became an important part of the elaborate and startlingly accurate³ chronology of the life of the Messiah which Jewish scholars worked out by careful study of the Old testament. In fact, these words are possibly the reason for the development of that chronology! The Jews of the intertestamental period had suffered through the punishment of God's exile to Bablyon. God finally returned them to their homeland, but even then, things weren't as they had been. There was no king in the line of David. Instead there was an endless succession of foreign and half-foreign rulers. They and their land were constantly besieged by impure people with unholy ways, and they were helpless to do anything about it. O, that Messiah would come and restore all things! How long, O Lord, until You restore your people, Israel?

But who is the Elijah who was to come? To answer that, we must look briefly at the Elijah who already came in the Old Testament. Unlike most of the prophets about whom we learn from the Old Testament books of the same name, Elijah appears only in the historical narrative of the Kings of Israel and Judah. The ministry of Elijah starts in 1 Kings 17 and lasts until 2 Kings 2. In his ministry, Elijah did many amazing and miraculous things by the power of the Holy Spirit (which we will not talk about, but which you should read). What is important to us here is that Elijah typifies and symbolizes all that it means to be a prophet. If you want to know what a prophet is like, read about Elijah. As with the Elijah-who-was-to-come, the actual, historical Elijah brought a message of repentance that was filled with God's power. Elijah's clothing is described as follows in 2 Kings 1:7-8:

He said to them, "What kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things?" They answered him, "He wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist." And he said, "It is Elijah the Tishbite."

The garment of camel's hair with the belt of leather was the standard uniform of the prophets in ancient Israel, so much so that the king was able to recognize Elijah for who and what he was based simply on a description of his clothing. Elijah also spent significant time in the wilderness eating food that was provided to him there by the Lord (see 1 Kings 19).

When John the Baptist shows up, he is preaching a message of repentance, he is wearing the camel's hair garment, he is in the wilderness, and he is eating food that comes from the wilderness. He talks like Elijah, He dresses like Elijah. He lives like Elijah. He eats like Elijah⁴. Is this the Elijah who was to come? Is now the time when God will restore the kingdom? That certainly seems to be what John the Baptist is saying:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

So everyone in the surrounding region went out to hear his preaching and to be baptized by him in the Jordan River.

Baptism has an interesting history (which you can read about here). At the time of John the Baptist, baptism was commonly practiced with converts to Judaism. The converts were baptized to symbolize that they had left their old way of life and were now members of the Jewish community of faith, followers of the Lord, the God of Israel. John's application of baptism to people who were already Jews is a new thing. It presages the Apostle Paul's statement in Romans 2:28-29:

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

By the baptism he gives, John is saying that it is not enough merely to be a Jew. To be in right relationship with God, you must give up on your old way of life, repent, and follow Him.

In all of these things, God has acted sovereignly to fulfill the promises He has made. Through His Word in the Old Testament, He has established the expectation among His people that the Messiah will come. He has promised that before the Messiah's coming, he will send Elijah to bring His people's hearts to repentance. Now, in fulfillment of that promise, He has sent John the Baptist to be

'"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight.'"

Through these actions, God is raising the expectation among the people that the Messiah will be coming soon, that the "kingdom of heaven is at hand!"

Application

Usually, when I think of John the Baptist, I think of him as being more like a force of nature than a man. He is so focused and driven. He knows who he is and what God has called him to do, He is going to do what God has told him, and nothing will stop him. But when I try to put myself into John's shoes (if he had any), I think about him differently. Here it has been over 400 years since there was a prophet in Israel--the last time there was a prophet in Israel was as long ago for him as the Jamestown colony was for us. The book of Malachi was twice as old then as the Declaration of Independence is now. Now You're telling me to put on the camel's hair garment (where am I supposed to find that!?) and go out in the wilderness and do what?

Yet that is exactly what he does. John the Baptist does. To be fair John had good reason to know that God's call on his life was. He knew he had been set apart since before his birth (see Luke 1:39-80). Most of us don't have that advantage. However, that does not change the courage and faithfulness with which John discharges his office.

John's message is, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In the immediate context, of course, he is talking about the coming of the Messiah. However, this also recalls Deuteronomy 30:11-14:

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

In his commentary, Matthew Henry says, the nearness of God's kingdom is "a great inducement for us to repent," both because the justice of His judgments should rightly terrify us and because the consciousness of His mercies should move us to gratitude.

The people's response to John shows a couple of pretty unusual things. First, they know the Word of God and they are eager for it to be fulfilled. Second, when John the Baptist calls them to repent, apparently they do, and they receive his baptism.

Finally, God is sovereign! He reigns supremely over all of space and time. He knows the end from the beginning, and He is able to bring about His purposes. Sometimes it seems like God is taking a long time to fulfill his promises, but He is not slow as some count slowness. He knows the fullness of time and acts decisively when the right time has come.

Reflection

• What is the call that God has placed on your life?
• Do you know?
• Have you asked Him?
• How have you responded?
• In what ways have you been faithful and bold?
• In what ways have you not?
• Do you  believe and trust in God's nearness to you?
• What is your response to God's Word?
• Do you believe and trust in God's sovereignty?
• Are there situations in your life in which it seems that God is being slow to act?
• Do you trust Him to work all things together for your good?
• Are you waiting for him  in humility and love?

Footnotes

1 This does not mean that God was absent or idle in the intertestamental period. He was still God, eternal, holy, and unchanging. He continued to uphold all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). He continued to miraculously defend His people, Israel--the miracle which Jews celebrate during Hanukkah occurred during this period. However, He chose to silence his prophetic voice during this time.^↩
2 I am using the NKJV because I like its more explicit Messianic bent. In more modern translations, the "sun of righteousness" is usually described as an "it," not a "him." In general, I don't like switching translations for the sake of convenience; however, in this case I think it is justifiable. The modern translation may be a more technically accurate rendering of the Hebrew (see my discussion of translation issues), but I think the NKJV better captures the understanding first century Jews would have had of this verse.^↩
3 Well, accurate in some ways. Many of the details of Jesus' life were understood, but many other larger issues were missed. They were spot on with regard to His parentage, His birthplace, the precursors of His coming, etc. However, they completely missed the predictions that He would suffer and die for His people.^↩

4 The circumstances under which John the Baptist lives in the wilderness are significantly different than Elijah's. Elijah fled from persecution into the wilderness, and John the Baptist lived there by choice, as far as we can tell. The foods that they ate were also different. However, the parallel is still strong and would have been highly evocative to Messiah-minded Jews of the first century. ^↩

Hymnology 101: How to sing a hymn and actually enjoy it

I'll tell you a secret: I love to worship God.¹

I believe that God created us to be whole. He did not make us to be simply a mind floating around in an endless sea of abstraction, thinking, calculating, understanding. Neither did He make us to to be a set of feelings, amorphously gushing forth, now in anger, now in sadness, now in pleasure. Nor yet did He make us to be a body, going from task to task, lifting, moving, doing without thought or feeling. He made us to be whole, integrated, experiencing all of these things together in unified purpose, to know what has happened and be sad about it, to accomplish a task and rejoice in its completion, to see a friend in need and act on his behalf. But most of all, He has made us for Himself.

In the Confessions, St. Augustine says:

Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.

We were made to worship and glorify God! Apart from Him, we can only ever be restless. This does not mean that we can never be happy or fulfilled in any way apart from God, but it does mean that we cannot find the rest and peace our souls long for without Him--how could we, since He is that rest and peace?

He made us to be whole, and He made us for Himself. This is reflected in His commands for how we should worship Him. In Deuteronomy 6:5, He says:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

His intention is that our worship should involve our whole selves, body, mind, and spirit. There are many ways in which I know and serve God. I pray, I teach, I write, I read the Scriptures, I try to do a good job at work, I try to treat others with kindness. In all of these things, I learn about Who He is, what His character is like, and how to relate to Him. However, I usually apprehend Him most directly when I worship Him. I learn about His character, His desires, His plans for me in many ways. I see Him in the beauty of His holiness in worship. These ineffably sublime experiences are, alas, fairly rare, but the deep things of God call out to the deep places in my heart. I long for these moments, and they happen most often in worship.They inspire me to pursue Him in all of the other ways I've mentioned, and pursuing Him leads again to meeting Him, sometimes here and now but ultimately, always and forever.

We live in a postmodern culture. Among other things, this means that we, as a society, have given up on reason as a source of truth and meaning for our lives. Paradoxically, we embrace science and technology, but as sources of convenience, not as sources of meaning. As Sting says,

I never saw no miracle of science
That didn't go from a blessing to a curse
I never saw no military solution
That didn't always end up as something worse...

This attitude has pervaded the church. As a friend of mine recently wrote, "modern evangelicalism is suffering from virulent anti-intellectualism," and, frankly, why wouldn't it? If thought and reason aren't sources of truth and meaning, why would we even attempt to glorify God by using them? Let us focus instead on the emotionally evocative. Evidence of this attitude is sadly abundant in modern worship music.

Don't get me wrong, I go to a contemporary church where we mostly sing contemporary worship songs, and I love it. We are made to be whole. Singing a song with simple lyrics and a simple tune which primarily appeals to my emotions is perfectly consistent with that². You're hitting two out of the big three. Sing it with all your might! However, we should not, therefore, refrain from worshiping him with our minds. Deep calls to deep. The deep things of God are beyond our ability to comprehend, but that is not because they are without intellectual  or theological content, it's because our intellects aren't powerful enough to understand their theology. Modern worship songs which delve into the mystery of the Trinity or the efficacy of Christ's shed blood for our salvation exist, but they are rare. In worship, our emotions should feed on the Mysteries of God, but our minds should too. This, I think, is where traditional hymns should play an important role in the life of the contemporary church.

The late New Testament scholar Jaroslav Pelikan famously said:

Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.

Traditionalism is one of the major factors that makes hymns unpopular in contemporary worship. Many people who grew up in traditional churches never experienced life in Christ when they went there. Often, when they  became Christians, it was in some more contemporary setting, and they naturally concluded that traditional worship was simply traditionalistic. Not so, but far otherwise!

In addition, hymns face several challenges in a contemporary worship setting. It is much harder to play a hymn on a guitar than it is to play a contemporary praise song, so one often hears hymns done rather poorly³. This leads some to the incorrect conclusion that hymns aren't very good music. The language of hymns is often difficult as well. They use grammar and word forms that are archaic (thee's, thou's, etc.), and they use words that are not part of most people's vocabulary today (What the heck is an Ebeneezer? Is this a Christmas song?)

So, with all of that in mind, here are some rules of thumb that might help you get something out of singing a hymn:

1. It's a hymn, not a dirge. You're not at a funeral. It doesn't have to be solemn. It doesn't have to be slow.
2. Sing a hymn just like you would sing any other song. Put your heart into it. Mean the words you say. Sing the song as a prayer to God.
3. Understand the vocabulary. If you don't understand a word or a Biblical reference, look it up! (Why do you think God provided you with that smart phone!?)
4. Understand the grammar. Learn how "thou," "art," and "changest" are used in sentences so that when you see them they are no more strange than "you," "are," and "change."

1 "Worship" is sometimes a dicey word. It can be used to mean the actions and character of our whole lives as we dedicate ourselves to serving God, or it can, in a more limited way, refer to singing songs of praise to Him. I am primarily using the second meaning here, but everything I say here could also be applied to the first. ^↩
2 Simplicity should not be confused with stupidity or vapidity. There are certainly contemporary songs which are both. In fairness, however, it should be noted that stupid and vapid worship songs have always been with us. In their day, the stupid songs of the past were just as stupid as the stupid songs of today. However, because of their worthlessness, most of them (thankfully) have not survived to impinge themselves upon our notice today.^↩
3 This is not the case at my church. Harry, no criticism is implied or intended.^↩

What is Inductive Bible Study? Part 2

Inductive Bible study is a method for studying the Scriptures in which one comes to the Scriptures to see what they say and then forms an ideas about what they mean. Unlike some other methods of Bible study, in which one comes to the Scriptures with a preconceived idea in mind and looks for proof for that idea, our goal in inductive study is to come to God's Word and allow it to shape our hearts, minds, and actions. This requires us to have a very fitting attitude of humility when we approach the Scriptures and, ultimately, as we approach the Holy God Himself--we are not coming to find justification for what we think we already know, we are coming to be instructed by His Spirit in how He has revealed Himself and to learn what He requires of us.

This method has three parts:

1. Observation - Looking at the text to determine what is happening
2. Interpretation - Thinking about the text to determine what it means
3. Application - Thinking about the text to determine how it applies to my life

In yesterday's post, we made some observations about Mark: 3:1-6:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.”  And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Today, we will look at how to interpret and apply this passage.

Interpretation

Interpretation is the art of figuring out what a passage means. While observation deals with the Who, What, When, Where, and How questions, interpretation deals with the Why questions. When interpreting, the first rule in inductive Bible study is "stick to what the text says." Look at what is happening in the passage you're trying to understand. Look at what has comes before that passage and at what comes after it. Based on what the text has told you, try to figure out what the people in the passage know how they might feel. Think about what you would do if you were in their situation. Do the people you're reading about do that? Why or why not?

For instance, with our Mark passage, if we look at a little bit broader context, we can see that Jesus had already had a number of encounters with the Pharisees, so he knew they had set themselves against Him. In fact, he had just had an encounter with them about the Sabbath in the preceding passage (Mark 2:23-28), so he knew that they would regard Him healing on the Sabbath as breaking. He knew that the Pharisees were a powerful sect and that they could be vindictive. He could see that they were watching Him to see what He would do. What would you do if you were in Jesus' situation? If it were me, I'd be looking for ways to smooth things over. I'd be looking for some common ground with the Pharisees that I could emphasize when I spoke, or I'd just keep silent, or maybe even not go to synagogue that week at all so that things could die down.

Jesus does none of those things. Instead, he brings the issue the Pharisees have to the forefront. He calls forward the man with the withered hand, and He doesn't just heal him, He calls the Pharisees out and then heals him. The Pharisees prided themselves on their legalistic keeping of the Sabbath to the point where they would put their (erroneous) interpretation of The Rules above doing good and showing kindness. Jesus knows this and He is calling them to repent.

When they refuse, Jesus is angry and "grieved at their hardness of heart." Jesus might be angry at them simply because of their behavior, but nobody grieves when someone they don't care about refuses to change. You grieve when your friend or your child is doing something self-destructive, and, no matter how many times you tell him to he has to stop, that he's ruining himself, he refuses to do it. That is Jesus' attitude here. From this, we can see that, although the Pharisees are enemies of Jesus, Jesus is not the enemy of the Pharisees; that He loves them all and longs for their repentance.

Jesus then goes on and heals the man with the withered hand. At this point, He knows the Pharisees will be angry and heals the man anyway. From this, we can see that He loves the man and does not fear the wrath of the Pharisees, or at least that His love outweighs any fear he might feel.

Finally, the Pharisees are so angry that when they leave they go and plot with the Herodians about how they can kill Jesus. The Herodians, as their name implies were the political party of King Herod. They were the political enemies of the Pharisees, but their hatred of Jesus was so great that they were willing to put aside their differences in to work together on getting rid of Him. What makes people that angry? I can only think of two things: threats to one's power and threats to one's worldview. Jesus is hitting the Pharisees on both of these points. His popularity with the masses undermines the foundation of the Pharisees' power, and His teaching says that their very ideas about how to be right with God are wrong.

Application

This is where the rubber meets the road, where we bring the truth of Scripture to bear on our lives, where we allow God to speak to us, through His Word, about what we say, what we do, and why we do it. We have had the Who, What, When, Where, How and Why questions. Application asks, "So what?"

When applying a passage of Scripture to our lives, we should look at our interpretation and ask questions like this:

• What are the people in this passage doing that is right?
• What are they doing that is wrong?
• What attitudes do they display that are pleasing or displeasing to God?
• Am I doing the right things?
• Am I doing the wrong things?
• What is the attitude of my heart?
• How do I need to change?
• What should I continue doing?
• What does this passage tell me about Who God is?
• Do I trust and rejoice in that aspect of His character?

For me, application is a mingling of soul-searching and prayer. As I look at the passage through the lens of this kind of question, I ask the Lord to open my heart. To reveal to me what He sees there, to correct what needs correction, and to encourage what needs encouragement.

In applying the Mark passage, I might pray something like this:

Father, I see that you value kindness and doing good over the appearance of righteousness. Is my heart more like your Son's or like the Pharisees'? Do I value my reputation more than I value true righteousness?

You were willing to confront the Pharisees where they were wrong. Please give me that kind of courage. I don't want to condemn or to be self-righteous, but I don't want to let those I know and love suffer the consequences of their sin either. Please give me wisdom about when and how to speak and when I should stay silent. Please fill my speech with Your love and your kindness (which leads to repentance).

Father, please open my eyes to see the needs of those around me. Where I can help, please give me the courage and wisdom to do so. Please help me to regard others as better than myself.

Father, I am not aware of any ways in which you are (currently) challenging my worldview or in which I am hardening my heart against you. Search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there be any hurtful way in me. Please reveal the wickedness in me and grant me a tender heart toward You.

In praying this, I am walking through my interpretation and looking back at the passage and asking the Lord the kind of questions discussed above. When asking Him a question, I try to pause for a while to listen to what He might be saying to me.

Inductive Bible study is a step-by-step process in which each step builds on the last. If I don't look at the text and see what it says, how could I know what it means? If I don't know what it means, how can I apply it in my life? However, what good is it to understand everything about what the Scriptures say if that understanding doesn't affect the way I live my life?

What is Inductive Bible Study?

I've been doing a series of "Inductive Bible Studies" on the book of Matthew, but I haven't stopped to talk about what inductive Bible study is. Inductive Bible study is a method for studying the Bible in which one takes three passes through the text being studied in order to understand God's Word, and to apply it in one's life.

1. Observation - Looking at the text to determine what is happening
2. Interpretation - Thinking about the text to determine what it means
3. Application - Thinking about the text to determine how it applies to my life

In this post, we will take a closer look at the observation phase by examining Mark: 3:1-6:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.”  And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

The point of the observation phase is to determine what is happening to whom and when and how it is happening. This is the plot analysis part of inductive Bible study, and it involves looking at the text and asking yourself  Who, What, When, Where, and How questions.

Who?

The people and groups of people mentioned in this passage are

• Jesus
• Man with withered hand
• Pharisees
• Herodians

There are several activities involved in answering the "who" question. First, you must untangle the pronouns. You cannot understand the sentence, "He said to him, 'Tend my sheep,'" (John 21:16) until you know who "he" and "him" are. Similarly, you must resolve all symbolic or figurative references--does "he" mean that he literally has a flock of sheep that "he" wants "him" to take care of? If not, what does he mean by "sheep?"

You also need to understand the references to groups of people. Who were the Pharisees? What did they believe? What was their agenda with regard to Jesus? What is a Herodian? Where do they come from? What is their agenda?

What?

Now that we know who is here, we need to ask, "Who did what to whom?" To answer that question, we will look, mostly, at the verbs:

• Jesus entered the synagogue
• The Pharisees watched Jesus
• Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, "Come here."
• The man with the withered hand came to Jesus
• Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?"
• The Pharisees were silent
• Jesus looked at the Pharisees
• Jesus grieved at the Pharisees' hardness of heart
• Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch out your hand."
• The man with the withered hand stretched out his hand, and it was healed
• The Pharisees went out and held counsel with the Herodians to decide how to destroy Jesus

Establishing these facts may raise more questions that need to be answered: What is a synagogue? What is the Sabbath? What does the Old Testament say it was lawful to do on the Sabbath? What did he Pharisees think was lawful to do on the Sabbath?

When?

There are several layers to the "when" questions. This might include the following:

• What time of day is it? 
• What day of the week? 
• What was the season? 
• Was it a holiday? If so, what was the significance of the holiday? 
• At what point in Jesus' ministry did this take place? 
• At what point in the broader historical context did this take place? 

It may not be possible to answer some of these questions, and the answers to others may turn out not to be important, but you can't really tell until you start asking them. In the Mark passage, the day of the week is highly significant, but more on that when we discuss interpretation.

Where?

As with the "when" questions, there are multiple "where" questions you might ask:

• Is this happening in the city or in the country?
• Is it happening inside or outside?
• Is it in a house? by a lake? on a mountain?
• Are they traveling from one place to another?
• What region are they in?
• If the action is taking place somewhere "special" like a synagogue or the Temple, what makes that place special?

How?

Often the "how" questions are so obvious that one answers them in one's head before being aware that they have been asked. "How did Jesus get into the synagogue?" and "How did Jesus talk to the people?" are pretty obvious--He walked and used his vocal apparatus in the same way anyone else would. Sometimes, however, the "how" questions reveal something significant. This usually happens when something out of the ordinary occurs:

• How did that guy get lowered down through the roof?
• How did Jesus just "pass through" the crowd that was trying to kill Him?
• How did Jesus heal that guy's hand?

In these cases, the answers often point to some pretty amazing things like the faith of the paralytic's hands or Christ's divine nature.

Matthew 2

Scripture:

Matthew 2

Observation:

vv1-12: The visit of the wise men
vv1, 2: Wise men (Magi) from the east come to King Herod looking for the "King of the Jews" because they saw his star rise. Their intent is to worship Him.
vv3, 5: Herod asks the priests and scribes where the Messiah was to be born.
vv5, 6: Scribes and priests tell him the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of Micah 5:2 .
v7: Herod secretly gets the time of the star's appearance from the wise men
v8: Herod sends wise men to find the child and to let him know where the child is. His stated purpose is to worship the child
v9, 10: Wise men go. The star reappears and the wise men rejoice. The star goes before them and comes to rest over the place where Jesus is.
v11: Wise men meet Jesus and Mary. They fall down and worship and offer gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
v12: Wise men warned in a dream not to return to Herod. They go home a different way.

vv13-15: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus flee to Egypt
v13: In a dream, an angel tells Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt because Herod is trying to kill Jesus.
v14-15: They go to Egypt and and stay there until Herod dies. Fulfillment of Hosea 11:1

vv16-18: Herod kills all children in Bethlehem
v16: Herod realizes the Wise Men have tricked him. He becomes angry. Rather than killing only the Christ-child, he kills all of the boy younger than two years old, the length of time since the Wise Men had first seen the star
v17-18:  Fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15

vv19-23: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus return from Egypt and go to Nazareth.
v19-20: In a dream, an angel tells Joseph it is safe to take Mary and Jesus back to Israel
v21: Joseph takes them to Israel
v22-23: Joseph learns that Herod's son, Archelaus is ruling in Judea, so he takes them to Nazareth in the region of Galilee. Fulfillment of prophecy that "He shall be called a nazarite"

Interpretation:

This chapter recounts the visit of the wise men to the infant Jesus. This visit is celebrated on the holiday Epiphany. The wise men are, apparently, court magicians or astrologers from an unspecified kingdom to the east of Palestine. Speculation about their place of origin abounds, but there is no additional information about their place of origin given in the Scriptures. The idea that the wise men were astrologers is supported by the fact that they came to seek the King of the Jews in response to a sign which appeared in the heavens.

The King Herod to whom the magi came was Herod the Great, the brutal ruler of the Roman province of Judea:

He has been described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis", "the evil genius of the Judean nation", "prepared to commit any crime in order to gratify his unbounded ambition" and "the greatest builder in Jewish history."

When Herod hears the report of the Magi, he is "troubled" because he fears that a rival to his throne has been born. In response he sets in motion a plan to eliminate this potential rival. He knew of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah (Christ), so he inquired of the religious leaders where the Scriptures predicted that the Messiah would be born. The religious leaders respond that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, siting Micah 5:2.

Digging Deeper

As evidence that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, the priests and scribes site this verse from Micah 5:2:

And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.

Interestingly, if you actually look up Micah 5:2, it doesn't quite match that:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
    from ancient days.

As you can see, the phrasing is somewhat different, but the basic meaning is the same in the first part of the quote. However there is a significant difference in meaning in the final clause--the Shepherd-of-Israel thing doesn't match up to the from-ancient-days thing at all. If you spend much time looking up New Testament quotes of Old Testament Scriptures, you will see that this sort of thing is fairly common. Some critics have looked at differences like these and claimed that they are evidence of errors in the New Testament. While the differences are undeniably there, I would argue that they are not errors, but rather represent a number of cultural differences between the time when the New Testament was written and now.

To dig deeper into this issue, see here.

With the stated intent of worshiping the Child whom the Magi seek, Herod gathers more information about the Child from the Magi and sends them on their way, asking them to return and tell him where the Child is to be found. His real intent, however is to eliminate this rival to his throne.

When the wise men leave, the star which they had seen before reappears and guides them to the place where Jesus was to be found. It is not clear what exactly this star was. There have been many attempts to explain this star as some kind of natural phenomenon which the Magi, as astrologers, interpreted to mean that there was a King of the Jews who had been born. However, this was clearly not a normal star or planet. Stars and planets don't move around like this and they don't stop over a particular house so that you can find it. This seems to have been a unique and miraculous sign of Christ's birth.

When they meet Jesus, the Magi fall on their faces and offer him their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Traditionally, gold is said to represent worldly wealth, frankincense is said to represent religious worship, and myrrh is said to represent death. So, symbolically, the Wise Men are offering Jesus all they have physically and spiritually in this world and are trusting in Him for the next.

After this, God warns both the Wise Men and Joseph in dreams that Herod is up to no good. The Magi go home by a different route so that they can avoid Herod, and Joseph takes Jesus and Mary to Egypt. Matthew says that this was done to fulfill Hosea 11:1. If you read this verse in context, it seems to be talking about the historical exodus and Israel's subsequent rebellion:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
    the more they went away;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals
    and burning offerings to idols.

It was widely believed that the events in the life of the Messiah would parallel in some way the events in the history of Israel. The history of the people of Israel given in the Old Testament was their true history, but it was also seen as a foreshadowing of the life of the coming Messiah. Thus, this Scripture was taken to have a second, metaphorical meaning which applied to the Messiah (at least the called out of Egypt part was, not the rebelling against God part).

This parallel with the Exodus is furthered by Herod's actions when he realizes the Magi aren't coming back, he loses it. Not realizing that they have already fled, Herod has every boy born since the Magi first saw the star killed.This is strikingly parallel to Pharaoh's actions in Exodus 1, when he kills all of Israelite's the male children. Just as Moses was saved from Pharaoh's purge by the actions of his parents (Exodus 2:1-10), Jesus is saved by his parents' actions.

Some time later, Joseph receives another dream in which he is told by an angel that it is safe to go back to Israel. This is the fourth time in Matthew that we have seen God communicate via a dream. Three of those dreams have been given to Joseph, and he has always obeyed the voice of the Lord when it has come to him.

When Joseph is told that it is safe to return from Egypt, he learns that Archelaus, Herod's son is ruling in Judeah. He is afraid, so he takes Mary and Jesus to Nazareth.This seems to be in contrast with Joseph's previous bold obedience, but the Lord's hand was present, even in this. Matthew tells us that even when acting on his fears, Joseph was bringing about the fulfillment of the prophecy, "He will be called a Nazarene."

The Nazarene prophecy is a difficult to understand because this prophecy can't be found in directly the Old Testament. There is an excellent treatment of this issue in this blog post. In short, there are a couple of theories about this verse. One is that the word "Nazarene" is a reference to the nazarite vows talked about in the Old testament. The other is that "nazar" the Greek root word of Nazarene means "branch," and that this is thus a reference to Isaiah 11:1:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

This verse speaks of the Messiah as a king restoring the line of Jesse's son, King David.

Application:

In their responses to the news of Jesus coming, we see three different heart attitudes modeled: Herod was hostile, the religious leaders were politely indifferent, and the Magi were worshipful. On the surface, these reactions seem fairly straightforward. Herod was a powerful man who felt that his power was threatened by this coming Christ, the religious leaders were just answering the question they were asked, and the Magi have just traveled who-knows-how-many miles to fine Him--of course, they're going to worship him. However, if you look at these people's background, their reactions are a little more surprising.

Herod had been raised "in the church," and he wasn't one of those kids who walk out the door of the church building, never to look back, the moment they turn 18. In the couple of centuries leading up to Jesus' coming, Jewish thought and religion was obsessed with the coming of the Messiah, so when the Magi came to him, he knew they were talking about the Messiah who was to restore the kingdom of Israel. He was actively involved in his church's building program--in fact, he was a big contributor. He had restored and greatly expanded the Temple of God in Jerusalem. One might expect someone like this to be excited about His coming. Yet Herod reacted with open hostility to the coming of the Savior. He could only see that if Jesus were to be King, Herod could not be.

The religious leaders are, perhaps, even more puzzling. These are men who have devoted their lives to studying the Scriptures. As the teachers of Israel, they have been the ones most deeply involved in Israel's Messianic obsession. They even have correct doctrine. They said the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem, which is just where Jesus was found. These men have yearned for Messiah's coming for their whole lives. Yet these men made no move to worship with the Magi. Content with their correctness, they missed the Messiah for whom they had been longing!

The Magi, meanwhile, were pagan magicians and astrologers. The Old Testament has several things to say about those who practice magic and divination, and none of them are good (Leviticus 19:31 and Deuteronomy 18:9-12 for a sampling). By rights, these men should want nothing to do with the God of Israel. Yet when they saw the miraculous sign of His coming in the heavens, these Magi rejoiced! They procured expensive gifts and left on a lengthy and dangerous journey so that they could lay them at His feet.

In this chapter, we also see the Lord guiding people in various ways. We see God leading with a miraculous sign when he leads the Magi with the star. We see Him speaking speaking directly through His Word, the Scriptures, when the scholars give the location of Jesus' birth. We see Him speaking through dreams, both to Joseph and to the Magi. Less strikingly, however, we also see God lead Joseph to take Mary and Joseph to Palestine through his natural fear. On the surface, this seems like it is just an ordinary human taking an ordinary precaution for the safety of his family, and it is, but God, in his Sovereignty, is also guiding Joseph to Nazareth for the purpose of fulfilling a prophecy about the Savior.

Notice that when God speaks to Joseph and the Magi, they obey Him and through their obedience, God blesses them. Joseph has so far been blessed to be married to Mary, to be the earthly father of the Son of God, and to keep his family safe. The Wise Men were blessed to find Jesus and worship Him. Those who did not obey the voice of the Lord, Herod and the religious leaders came to very different ends.

I believe God still speaks to us in all these ways. Some of them happen significantly less frequently than others, but He is unchanging (Hebrews 13:8) and He has plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11). He wants us to know His will. To this end, it is important for us to know the Scriptures and to study them. In reading Scripture, we give Him the opportunity to speak to us. It is also important to obey Him when He does speak. According to James 1:22-25:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Reflection:

• In this passage we saw three reactions to Jesus. How has your heart reacted to Him?
• How as your reaction to Jesus changed over time?
• How does God speak to you?
• In what ways do you usually obey Him? In what ways to you usually disobey?
• Is there something you feel He is telling you now that you don't want to do? If so, why don't you want to do it?
• Read and reflect on Jeremiah Jeremiah 29:11 and James 1:22-25