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Matthew 23:1-39
Today we continue our series in Matthew
titled Jesus King of Kings. As John, Tim and Carl have stated Jesus is in the
last week before His Crucifixion. Last week Carl explained the difference of
the Herodians and the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
As I prepared for today’s message I
wondered “What the difference between the teachers of the law, the scribes, and
the Rabbi’s were and how they and Synagogues and the Sanhedrin originated?”. So,
today’s message is going to touch on the answer to this question. Before we get
into that let us pray and ask the Lord to open our hearts to what He wants us
to learn and apply from His word in these passages from Matthew chapter 23.
Matthew
22:15-46
Welcome! Today we continue
our series into the book of Matthew, now looking at the last week before the
crucifixion. There is a lot to talk about in today’s passage, but I think it
helps to understand the context with a quick review of some things we have
looked at in the last two weeks.
Recall that Jesus has been
teaching the crowds, who by and large love Him (even hailing Him as the Messiah
as He rode into Jerusalem). He has also been opposing the religious leadership,
even cleansing the temple of their excessive-money-making exchanges. He has
also embarrassed them in public debate, pointed out their hypocrisy, and
generally won decisively against them in the “court of public opinion” which
was really an honor-shame contest. The religious leadership resents Jesus, hates
Him, is jealous of Him, and fear for their future if He continues to grow in
popularity.
Matthew 21:28-22:14
We continue our study
today in the middle of Matthew 21. As John mentioned last week, we are now into
the last week of Jesus’ life, leading up to the climax of his death and
resurrection. He is in Jerusalem, and the tension between him and the religious
authorities is growing. He had been speaking out against their false teaching
and hypocrisy all along, and since chapter 12 they have been plotting how to
kill him. But now, with his arrival at their center of power and influence, the
confrontation has become even more intense – and intentional. Back in chapter
16 Jesus had explained to his disciples that “he must go to Jerusalem and
suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the
teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised
to life.” He had to do it; it was his purpose for coming to earth, the only way
to bring salvation.
Matthew 21:1-27
As Jonathan pointed out
last week, while we are still several chapters from the end of the book of
Matthew, the time span from today’s passage until Matthew 28 is only a week. These
are clearly critical moments of Jesus’ life on earth.
Last week, in Matthew
20:17, we saw that Jesus began his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. In
Matthew 20:29, we see that Jesus and his disciples passed through the city of Jericho
on the Jordan River. The journey from Galilee to Jerusalem was 85-90 miles and
took four to five days by way of the Jordan. Jericho to Jerusalem was the last
leg of the trip, roughly 18 miles.
Here now at the beginning
of Matthew 21, Jesus and the disciples are approaching Bethphage on the Mount
of Olives. They have made the big ascent that Jonathan mentioned last week from
Jericho to the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem. Even today, Google Maps
predicts the journey from Bethphage to the Temple Mount is about a mile and a
half and would take just over 30 minutes to accomplish. That route has to take
into account modern roads and things so it potentially is a bit longer that it
might have been in Jesus’ day. It’s an up and over, down and through kind of
journey. Leaving Bethphage, you go up
over the Mount of Olives, then down and through the Kidron Valley, and then
back up into Jerusalem which is on a similar elevation as Bethphage.
I enjoy looking at maps in
general. I especially like to look at maps of places in the Bible because it
helps the reality of the Scriptures to penetrate in a little bit different way.
I can begin to feel what is happening a bit more. Hopefully, it is a help to
some of you, as well.
Let’s pray and jump into
today’s passage.
Matthew 20:17-34
As we continue on in
Matthew 20, we are very near the end of Jesus’ life. Matthew’s narrative will slow down
drastically over the next several chapters as we get closer to Jesus’ death. Matthew devoted the first 20 chapters to
Jesus’ first 33 years, but it will take him the last 8 chapters to cover the
final week. (Of course, we know that
Matthew did not actually write in chapter and verse. Those were added around the middle of the 16th
century.) Matthew devotes over one
quarter of his gospel to the final week of Jesus’s life to show the importance
of it. In Matthew 19:1, Jesus left
Galilee, crossed to the East side of the Jordan River, and was ministering in
the area of Perea. Perea was an area
just north of the Dead Sea but on the Eastern side of the Jordan River, the
side opposite of Jerusalem. When we pick
up in 20:17, Jesus is leaving Perea and headed for Jerusalem.
