Monday Morning Coffee with Mark

Daily Bible Reading - Matthew 15:21 thru Matthew 16:28

November 01, 2021 Mark Roberts Season 1 Episode 23
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark
Daily Bible Reading - Matthew 15:21 thru Matthew 16:28
Show Notes Transcript

Daily Bible Reading Material

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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.

Speaker 1:

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches. Special Monday morning coffee here on this podcast. Our preacher mark Robert we'll help you get your week started. Right? We look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark we'll then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And he may have some extra bonus thought from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday morning coffee with mark.

Speaker 2:

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday morning coffee podcast for Monday, November the first can you believe it's November I'm mark. And I'm holding a cup of coffee. Ready to talk with you about our daily Bible reading. Can't do a lot with sermon notes this week in the podcast, because, because I did not preach yesterday at west side, I'm in Louisville, Kentucky with the Douglas Hills church of Christ this week. And this is the last gospel meeting of the year for me. I have been gone a lot. I understand about that and that makes me unhappy, but I will be home and preaching where I'm supposed to be starting next Sunday on a very regular basis. The meeting thing has gotten kind of crazy rescheduling stuff with a pandemic and so forth. But trust me, I'll be back in the pulpit where I belong before very long, and I'm going to be staying there for today. Let's turn our attention then directly to daily Bible reading. We're reading in the gospel of Matthew as we spend the year with Jesus. Monday's reading is Matthew 1521 to 28. This is a very short account, not long to read couple of keys here that are super important for us. First, you should know this begins the longest stretch in Matthew without an old Testament quotation. So that's going to make answering some of our five questions, a little bit difficult, particularly that question about old Testament connections. You may have to look a little deeper and think a little harder because there won't be something set out in the special marginal notes where the text is saying, Hey, this is a direct quotation of Isaiah and they indent that a little bit, but there are without any question, old Testament illusions going on in this section and what's happening here is that Jesus has moved verse 21 to a very Gentile area of Galilee. And there's going to be a great contrast now between some Gentiles who receive Jesus and the scribes and the Pharisees who rejected Jesus in verse one of this chapter. The other thing that we ought to notice here is Matthew is highlighting that contrast by using verse 22, the term Canaanite woman that is not a new Testament word, nobody in the new Testament world would have said, Hey, I'm going to Canaan. Hey, you're from Canaan. You're Canaanite. She is for example, in Mark's gospel, designated as a Syrophoenician woman, why is Matthew calling her a Canaanite woman? Because to his Jewish audience, Matthew is using a very sharp term that would have turned their heads and pick up their ears. Here are people, Gentile people, Syrophoenician people, Canaanite people who are accepting Jesus. This is a deliberate choice on Matthew's part to make certain we get the emphasis, the Gentiles, the Canaanites they're receiving Jesus when the Jews are in fact not. The other thing that I'll say about this reading today is that it has attracted some attention because it just doesn't sound very Jesus. She asked for help in verse 23, verse 24, Jesus says, I don't think so. I'm not here to help people like you. She keeps asking for help. Jesus says something about not giving the children's bread to dogs. Dogs is a very strong term here. What is Jesus doing? She responds verse 27. Even the dogs get the crumbs and this verse has attracted some attention by various pop theologians. And in pop culture is saying Jesus was a racist. Jesus had to be taught by this woman. She's the hero of the story. Lots of bad is out there online. The reality of course, is that we cannot see Jesus's facial expressions and to act like Jesus never taught tongue in cheek is of course to miss much of Jesus's teaching. We don't know his tone of voice when he responded to this woman. The other point that ought to be made here is that Jesus deliberately pushes her to say some things about her national identity, her ethnicity, because that's the point Jesus is making that he is coming to all people then that the gospel is for all. So Jesus uses that in a startling kind of fashion to make his disciples sit up and realize, Hey, the gospel is for all that's verse 23, the disciples come and say, send this woman away. They need to learn. Jesus is for all. And of course there's nothing in scripture that would indicate in any way that Jesus is a racist and Matthew's gospel is particularly driving the theme of the gospel for all nations. We saw that in the parable of the net in verse 47. And we're going to see more of that as Jesus goes, for example, to the garrisons and to other non-Jewish areas to teach and preach, don't let some pop theologian disquiet you about our Lord. Jesus loves all people and died for all people. And this exchange just highlights how serious Jesus was about making certain, his disciples understood that on Tuesday. Then we read this further account in Matthew chapter 15 of Jesus's interaction with the Gentiles verse 29 to 39. Please make note of verse 31. There's that old Testament illusion. They saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking and the blind seeing that's what John the Baptist disciples were told in chapter 14 in verse five, when they came asking Jesus on John's behalf, are you the Messiah? And this is a quotation from Isaiah 61, maybe an illusion as well, Isaiah 29, 18 and Isaiah 33, 5 to six. Our reading today then concludes with the feeding of the 4,000. This is the second time Jesus has done a mass feeding like this. It is not a repeat of the feeding of the 5,000. In fact, in Matthew chapter 16, verses nine, 10 and 11, Jesus will reference that he did this twice. It is again a miracle of creation and chose Jesus as the one who is the provider for all that we could need. It's also very possible that this is a Gentile audience that is fed here, which would fit with the theme in this chapter beginning in verse 21, where there is the contrast between the Gentiles who received Jesus and the Jews who refuse. Matthew is still working. Now when in chapter 16 in verse one, he tells us the Pharisees and the Sadducees came demanding. A sign. Our reading on Wednesday is Matthew 16, verses one to 12. Here they come wanting Jesus to do something spectacular that will force faith. And Jesus says, I will not do that. You can read the signs of the weather, but you cannot see what's going on right in front of your face. And Jesus uses the term verse for an evil and adulterous generation that is straight out of Deuteronomy 1 35 straight out of Deuteronomy 32, 5 and harks back to the things the prophets said about the Israelites and the Jews when they served idols in is a strong rebuke. And it is rooted in the old Testament. Then Jesus begins to discuss the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees in verses five to 12. This is the last time that Jesus will withdraw before heading towards Jerusalem. And Jesus is saying something about their demands for a sign to Jesus that says something about their attitude, verse six, that permeates like 11 or Yeastwood all that they do. The attitude of heart, I believe is what Jesus is going for there. Watch out for that kind of thinking, make us believe, do something so incredible that we have to believe, or we won't believe be aware of that kind of thinking on Thursday. Then we have a rather short reading that is just full of important and critical material in our understanding of Jesus and our understanding even of the church. So significant here. And then this is one of the reasons I'm so glad to have this podcast. So we can really get in here and dig down into some of this and work with some of this taxed. The key here is to see the connection between revealing Jesus as the Messiah and realizing that he will suffer that he is the suffering Messiah. And of course, probably the other key is to not let Roman Catholicism drive our understanding of this particular taxed. Roman Catholics use this text to say that Peter was the first Pope that is an erroneous use of that text. And I'm going to trust that this audience mostly would understand that if you have questions about that, please contact me. We can work through that further. There are huge issues with the idea of having a Pope or that Peter was the first Pope. None of that is biblical. None of that is scriptural, but I'm really not going to talk about that here on the podcast. I don't think that's something you need a big dose of what we need is to be sure we understand what's going on in this text. Verse 13, Jesus is in a very Gentile region. This is the area of Herod Philip, the tetrarch and the Philippa is added to distinguish it from the Cesarea that was on the coast. Jesus is about 25 miles north of Galilee. The question then he asks is who do people say that I am in some savers, 14, John, the Baptist. We get that other say Alijah, great prophet others. Jeremiah. Jeremiah is only mentioned here in Matthew's account and others. One of the prophets, all of this is about the profits. All of this is people thinking Jesus is a great spokesman for God. And there is a lot in Jewish, apocalyptic literature, particularly material written between the testaments between Malakai and Matthew. This is not scripture. It's not part of the Bible, but there's a lot of that that talks about that. Very famous people would reappear as a forerunner of the Messiah or to prepare the way for the Messiah. There's a quote from a book called second as[inaudible], I will raise up the dead from their places. I will send you help my servants, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Now secondary address is actually dated about 180. So that would be after what we're reading here, Matthew 16, but it gives you a flavor of Jewish writing the idea that a great spokesman for God, a prophet is going to appear before the Messiah. Jesus needs them to he's not before the Messiah. He is the Messiah. So he asked who do you verse 15, say that I am in the, you is plural there. Who do? Y'all say that I am. And Peter steps to the front. You're the Christ. You are the anointed of God are the Messiah. Jesus says, blessed are you Simon? Barjona bar is son of Simon, son of Jonah or son of John would be, uh, how we would say that flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you. You didn't figure this out on your own. It comes as a result of the revelation of God through me, Peter has watched Jesus heard Jesus seen Jesus do miracles. He draws a conclusion. You're the anointed of God. Then verse 18. I tell you you're Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church. Well, there it is. What is the rock here? It could be Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah. That's the foundation of the church. That's the foundation of Christianity. That's the beginning of everything. When someone believes Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the son of God, that faith, if it's true, biblical faith drives them to the actions of discipleship and the actions necessary to become a disciple, repentance and confession and baptism and a life lived afterwards to glorifying Jesus Christ. It can be the confession. No doubt about that. Sometimes the way to establish that is there's a lot of discussion about Greek wordplay. Little stone is Peter's name, big stone. I'm going to build on this big rock that is not bore out by good linguistic study at all. Jesus is probably speaking Aramaic, which would be the common language of the day. And I wrote this down. What they would have heard is you are kept on and on this cap, it, the words are not different. There's no distinction there, but even without trying to make some kind of fancy scholarly Greek argument, it is possible. Jesus is saying what you said that confession is the foundation of everything that Christianity is going to be. However I would offer in would want you to think about this. It's possible that Jesus is saying to Peter, you, you are going to be the foundation. And by that, he would mean people who make the confession. And I think that flows very naturally. Peter is talking here. Jesus responds to him. Jesus doesn't seem to be shifting gears to something else. And there is a very natural connection to the old Testament in Isaiah 51, the rock there is Abraham. And so Jewish readers, uh, the apostles, all a bunch of Jews would be thinking in those kinds of terms. And so what Jesus says is exactly what he means. Peter, you're the rock in the sense that you're the first to fully identifying completely realized Jesus is the Messiah and it's people like you, that will compose the church. That's what's going to make up the church. That's what the church is built on is people who confess me as the Messiah. Maybe that's a distinction without a difference. I'm trying to draw a distinction between the confession and Peter itself. Some people get very exercised. If you say that Jesus is saying to Peter, you are the rock because somehow that means Roman Catholicism gets to have a Pope and a college of Cardinals in Nevada can. And I want to assure you that is not the case in any shape, form or fashion. I just think the natural reading of the text is Peter. You're the rock. And by that, I think Peter means, or Jesus means people like you. People who see me as the Messiah, I'm going to build my church. That is a term which really doesn't have spiritual implications. It just means a crowd or an assembly or group of people. It comes to be a technical term for the church later on, but I'm going to build my group on this, on this understanding that I'm the Messiah and people who have that understanding and the gates of hell will not stop that most people take that some translations have the gates of Hades as to be the devil. It is possible here that Jesus is referencing death. And there are some old Testament expressions in job job, 17, 16 job, 38, 17 Saul, nine, 13. That might back up some of that. But Jesus is saying, this is unstoppable. You cannot stop what I'm doing. And then he says, I'm giving you verse 19, the keys of the kingdom. And I think here Jesus is talking to all the apostles in my, the keys of the kingdom, which is certainly rooted in Isaiah 22, 22. Do we have enough old Testament connections in this text? Yes, we do. Isaiah 22, 22 is the metaphor here. And Jesus is saying by the preaching of the gospel, you will be able to admit people to the kingdom. And I don't think this means that on earth, the apostles could make decisions and then haven't had to ratify whatever they had decided. No, what happens is on earth, the apostles do and preach what heaven has decided, which is people will be saved, who accept and obey Jesus. The Messiah. That's a tremendous reading and easy to just kind of get lost in all of that and not notice the rest of the reading verses 21 to 28, but Friday's reading takes us where we read the rest of the chapter and we begin to see what Jesus wants the apostles. And once you and me to understand based on the confession of faith, but the key and probably most important part of all of this kind of hard to say that about Peter's confession, Matthew 16, 16 is that verse 21 says from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer. So as soon as Peter says, you're the Messiah, Jesus says, that's right, and I'm going to go and die, which completely freaks Peter out. But Matthew is helping his readers, helping you and me understand that being the Messiah is connected to the cross, the kingdom. Isn't going to be this glorious military revolution that overthrows the Roman government marches into the streets of Jerusalem to crown a new Jewish king and begin a new Jewish empire. No, it's a spiritual kingdom. That Jesus is the king of. And in order for him to be crown, that king, he will be crowned on the cross. And Jesus says for 24, his followers will need to be willing to sacrifice and die in exactly the same way. Huge statements here about discipleship 24, about valuing the kingdom verse 25 about understanding things in eternal perspective, verse 26, that will come a time of judgment verse 27, that serves as an incentive to take up the cross while Thursday and Fridays reading just incredible stuff here in Matthew, chapter 16 and well worth reading again and again, and thinking about very, very carefully and praying about this is dynamite stuff in Matthew's gospel. And it helps us define our discipleship as we look to the king and want to be part of his kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. Thank you for listening to the Monday morning coffee podcast on nearly to the bottom of this cup of coffee. I hope that you've enjoyed working in the gospel of Matthew with me today. If you're enjoying the Monday morning coffee podcast, we certainly wish that you'd share that with some of your friends, help them use this resource and access it to help them in their daily Bible reading. And from time to time when I'm doing sermon notes and ideas, from what we worked on on Sunday at west side, please give her a review on iTunes or whatever app you're listening on and following the podcast on. And again, you really help us out if you tell other folks about the show. So until next time, may your coffee be delightful. May your Monday be short and may the Lord be with you today all day. See you next week.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the west side church, your price podcast. Monday morning coffee with Mark Barr, more information about west side. You can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat.io that upbeat with two P U D P E a T, where creators can get reviews. Please share our podcast with others. And we look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday,