UPDATE ON NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTURAL COMMENTARY STUDY

We just finished the turning point portion of Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus reveals three important factors in His journey here on earth. Up until now, He ministered throughout His home province of Galilee in the area of  Capernaum. But His fame as a miracle worker and teacher of a new doctrine, they considered a heresy, had spread all the way down to Jerusalem. So the Jewish leaders there sent a contingent of Pharisees and Sadducees to question this Jesus of Nazareth and force Him to prove that He was the Messiah that people were claiming Him to be.

Jesus called their questioning and opposition to His ministry, yeast, and warned His disciples and followers not to allow such yeast of doubt to affect their thinking and faith in Him as a messenger sent by God. And just to show them that He had not lost any of His power, He took them back across the Sea of Galilee to feed 4,000 men, plus all their wives and children. That was His way of proving to them that the yeast of doubt brought by the Pharisees and Sadducees was harmful to them.

So then He took them north to a city that was known for its idolatry, and while visiting there, He sat His disciples down and asked them what they had heard while walking around this city about what people were saying about Him. After they told Him, then  Jesus asked them, “Who do you believe that I am?” That’s when God the Father used Peter to reveal that this Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. That revelation was very critical to what Jesus had planned to reveal to them.

That revelation was very critical to what Jesus had planned to reveal to them. So with that confession, He then told them that He would be going to Jerusalem. But instead of Him being welcomed as the Messiah, He would be persecuted, mistreated, and die on an execution stake. At first, Peter objected. But then Jesus told him that such thinking came from Satan, and it was to be rejected and discarded. This was the plan of God, and nothing could stand in its way.

Once they understood that the Messiah must first become the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world before He could become the King of God’s kingdom, He then informed them that they too must be willing to sacrifice their lives on an execution stake if so demanded in order to promote God’s Kingdom here on earth. In fact, He told them that all of them would live long enough to see Him rise victorious and be crowned King of His Father’s kingdom.

This was not only a message for His disciples and followers then, but it continues to be the same message for today. The Kingdom of God is not for those who want the world to look at them as victims, but only for those who are willing to become victors just like Him. That’s why one day they would be seen by John in his vision as “Overcomers.” And they become overcomers through the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11).