Salt & Light in the 21st Century

This week’s passage: Matthew 4:12-25 Jesus Begins His Ministry In the first part of chapter 4 we saw Jesus’s complete reliance upon God’s provision, protection and promise to fend off the temptations of Satan and hopefully we learned by that account that the power of God’s Word is in submitting to it, not simply quoting from it as Satan does. Now Matthew closes out chapter 4 with a summary of Jesus’s ministry, giving us a quick rundown of where He was and who He was preaching to. After hearing that John the Baptist had been arrested, Jesus leaves Nazareth (His hometown in Galilee) and goes to Capernaum which is along the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, to continue spreading the message that John was, to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” In true Matthew style, it is pointed out that this move by Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to this region (as written in Isaiah 9:1-2) that He would send a light for their darkness. ...

This week’s passage: Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus is Tempted Throughout the Old Testament we see a pattern of God’s provision and humanity’s pride. When the people are oppressed or sick, they cry out to God who rescues them by conquering their enemies and healing their sickness. When the people are blessed, they forget it is by God’s hand and turn away from Him, causing Him to allow the oppression and sickness to return. The Pharisees chose to focus on this pattern, believing the Messiah to be a warrior who would come to annihilate the Romans who had been ruling over the Israelites. They missed the truth about who the Messiah really was, but we don’t have to make the same mistake! Desires of the Flesh After His baptism Jesus has been in the wilderness fasting and praying for 40 days and 40 nights when Satan shows up to tempt Him. You might see this event as something God did to Jesus causing Him to suffer, but James tells us that God does not ...

This week’s passage: Matthew 3:1-17 John The Baptist Matthew’s first mention of John the Baptist introduces him as a preacher in the wilderness of Judea who is preparing people to know Christ, his message proclaimed so boldly that people were coming from Jerusalem, Judea, and the region around the Jordan river, to see what he was about and to be baptized by him. However, Luke introduces us to John the Baptist before he is even conceived (Luke 1:5-25), and Jesus and John meet while they are both still in the womb…lets go back to that time for a moment. Zechariah was a priest in the days when Herod the Great ruled in Jerusalem. He and his wife Elizabeth were among those the bible says were upright in the sight of God because they followed His commandments and regulations. They are both old, and have no children because Elizabeth is barren. While Zechariah is in the temple praying and burning incense, he is visited by an angel who says he and Elizabeth...

This week’s passage: Matthew 28 Is it the end, or the beginning? Are you one of those who can’t help but sneak a peek at the last chapter of a book to see how things work out? Well, you are in luck because today we are going to do just that. Since this is Passion Week I would like to “interrupt our scheduled program” to take a glance at the biggest news of all time. The writings by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John compile what they learned from the women who went to the tomb of Jesus after the Sabbath, expecting to find His body and prepare it for burial. They went to honor Him The group of women included Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and others who had traveled with Jesus during the three years He preached. The heartbreak they must have felt! They had seen His love for people, witnessed the miracles, and believed He was the Messiah. But now He was dead, I can imagine the brutal events that had taken place just three d...

This week’s passage: Matthew 2:13-23 The Angel Gives Warning The wise men are warned in a dream not to return to Herod (this is Herod the Great) with the news of where they found Christ in Bethlehem, so they went home a different route then they came. Now we see an angel coming to Joseph in a dream (he should be getting used to this by now) warning him that Herod was putting together a search party to find and destroy Jesus. True to form, Joseph doesn’t doubt this information and immediately gets up and departs for Egypt with his family. The family stays in Egypt until the death of Herod. “And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2:14-15 ESV) Remember the gifts presented to Jesus by the Magi? What a perfectly timed provision by God so that Mary and Joseph could ...

This week’s passage: Matthew 2:1-12 The Beginning of a Long Journey Matthew, being guided by the Holy Spirit is sharing so much in these 12 short verses that it is hard to unpack it all in one setting. If we are paying attention, we see an example of how the world can influence our view of events, but more on that later. These verses focus on the journey of the wise men (Magi) who were familiar with the prophecy given by Daniel some 900 years prior to the event we are reading now. "And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever," (Daniel 2:44) Perception is Everything We see through the wise men and others in this account that the way we perceive Christ can change our willingness to approach Him. Herod enjoyed ...

This week’s passage: Matthew 1:18-25 The Birth of Jesus Having established the bloodline of Jesus, Matthew shares the story of His conception and birth, laid out in a “let’s get to the point” sort of way. Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience roughly 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. God uses Matthew’s analytical mind throughout this gospel to point out to these men, who know scripture by heart, that Jesus was the fulfillment of the hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament announcing the coming of Christ, presenting to them the facts that would shine the light boldly on the Messiah! In the world today we often get bored by the facts. The lack of "colorful" language might leave us a bit unimpressed, but did you really read Matthew’s account? A young woman one day finds that she is pregnant even though she knows without a doubt that it is impossible because she had never been with a man. She learns that the man she is ...