THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 56, Chapter 16
Who is Yeshua? What is Yeshua? This is a question that has yet to be fully
answered to this point in Matthew, and even though most 21
st
century Christians
think it is an answered and settled matter in The Church, it is far from it. Matthew
chapter 16 adds a new wrinkle into who and what Jesus is. Up to now He has
said and demonstrated that He is a number of things. We'll go fairly deep into this
topic during our study of this chapter mainly because this is the time to do it. The
first thing that must be noticed is that Christ has been presented by the Gospel
writer Matthew as a complexity of attributes and roles and He cannot be defined
by a simplistic faith doctrine. The second thing to notice is that to this point
Yeshua is, to the Jews He has encountered in so many different settings,
primarily a Tzadik; a Jewish Holy Man...even though they had some suspicions
that He was some other things, too. A Tzadik is a remarkable Jew who comes
along only rarely that has the divinely-given ability to do miracle healings. It
seems that Jesus was not the only Jewish miracle healer that had come along by
His day, and after His time there would be others.
Let's begin our study by reading all of Matthew chapter 16.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 16 all
To better understand the scene that unfolds to open this chapter, we have to go
back to the ending of chapter 15. There it reads:
CJB
Matthew 15:37-39
37
Everyone ate his fill, and they took seven large
baskets full of the leftover pieces.
38
Those eating numbered four thousand
men, plus women and children.
39
After sending the crowd away, he got in
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the boat and went off to the region of Magadan.
So after the miraculous feeding of the 4,000, and then sending the crowds away,
Yeshua got into a boat and went to a place called Magadan (there is no settled
conclusion about where exactly that is, except that it is on the western shore of
the Sea of Galilee). Now, still in Magadan, Yeshua is approached by some
Pharisees and Sadducees that have come to ask Him (demand is more like it) to
show them a sign from heaven as some kind of unspecified validation not so
much of who He is, but rather from what source does He get His power. Since
the accusation has been made to Him before that His abilities came from Satan, I
imagine they wanted Him to somehow prove to their liking that these powers
came from above... from God... if He could. As with only the opening verse of this
chapter, there is so much to unpack throughout it that we're going to spend a lot
of time with it because it is here that we see an important milestone occur in
Christ's earthly ministry. And, because this incident of yet another
confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders is also recorded in the Book of
Mark, we're going to take a couple of minutes to read it because it rounds out the
information we have about it.
READ MARK CHAPTER 8:11 - 22
Notice that Mark says some Pharisees came to Yeshua but makes no mention of
Sadducees. It is hard to know why except perhaps Mark didn't think it that
important to mention them. Remembering that Mark's intended audience were
gentile Romans while Matthew's were Jews, the lack of mention of the
Sadducees by Mark might have to do with his gentile readership not really
understanding or needing to know the Jewish cultural nuances between
Pharisees and Sadducees; nuances that every Jew would readily pick up on and
understand the significance of this piece of information. Jews knew that the
Pharisees were the faction who dominated the synagogue system leadership
while the Sadducees were the faction that dominated the Temple system
leadership. That is, while both of these are essentially political/social factions and
are not the name of some kind of religious or political office or position,
nonetheless each faction represented the dominant one within their particular
sphere of influence; the Pharisees were the favored leadership of the synagogue
while the Sadducees were the party favored by the chief priests and the High
Priest. So an ominous corner has been turned. Up to this point Yeshua has been
targeted as a threat only to the synagogue leadership (as we know from His
several testy encounters with them); however that sense of threat has now
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crossed over to include the Temple authorities and priesthood. In other words,
starting now the entire Jewish religious leadership complex was gunning for Him.
What we see is that the Jewish religious leadership of both the systems were all
too aware of Yeshua's accomplishments and claims but even more how much
the people flocked to Him. These 2 factions that were essentially rivals had little
love for one another but here they are banding together to try to blunt the
trajectory of this rising star of the common people (the enemy of my enemy is my
friend). We learned in Matthew chapter 5 of the tremendous crowd Jesus drew at
His Sermon on the Mount. Then in chapter 14 we read of Him drawing about
10,000 people (people He not only miraculously healed but also miraculously
fed), and in chapter 15 He drew yet another crowd of about 8,000 for whom He
did the same. No one could establish that immense of a following in the Holy
Land and it go unnoticed by a perpetually suspicious religious or political
leadership because it was occurring outside their oversight and their structure,
and therefore outside their control. Jesus was not accepted by the Pharisees or
Sadducees as a fellow servant of God and minister to the people, but rather as
an unwelcome competitor... a pest... that they were afraid would upset the apple
cart and ruin especially the Sadducees' cozy relationship with their Roman
occupiers.
I think it is hard for a Bible student that is paying attention as he or she reads
through Matthew to understand how after the barrel-full of miracles and
exorcisms Christ had done that these men could then demand yet another one.
The reality is that such a request for a sign is absurd on its face and merely
exposes these leaders as the false prophets, blind guides, and wolves in sheep's
clothing that Jesus had openly declared them on numerous occasions. There
was nothing Yeshua could ever do to convince them of His divine position and
authority because they had hardened hearts. They were here to protect their turf
and nothing else.
As for the miraculous sign in heaven that they wanted; this is speaking about a
sign in the sky above the firmament of the ground, and it's not about the spiritual
Heaven where God lives (and in the ancient belief of that day, God's Heaven sat
above the sky). So, exactly what kind of a sign in the sky might they have been
seeking? Making the sun stand still? The moon to come out during the day? It's
not stated and no doubt it doesn't matter because their request for a sign was
sarcastic and not literal and was only meant to try to cast Yeshua as a fraud in
order to discourage His many followers and would-be followers.
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Yeshua refuses their request and in reply speaks a proverb of sorts that most
people even in the modern West know. To paraphrase: red sky in the morning,
sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight. That is, the red sky is a sign
in heaven (the heaven where the birds fly and the clouds float) that the typical
Jew (and gentile for that matter) would understand its significance. Just like
today, weather mattered for people and they paid attention to signs that would tell
them what to expect. In the red sky proverb the people of course understood that
the time of day that the red sky occurred was decisive because the same sign at
one time of the day was a good omen, but at another time it was a bad omen. So
says Christ, these religious leaders seem to know how to look up into the sky and
see these signs that tells them about the weather, and yet they can't read the
even more important and obvious signs about the era of redemption history they
are in and thus the accompanying events. The implication is heavy that Yeshua
is one of those signs...the chief sign... of the times.
There is a principle that simply oozes out of what we are reading, and yet it is
one that can be easily overlooked. It is that despite the well-worn expression to
the contrary, seeing is NOT necessarily believing. It wasn't only the religious
leaders but also the thousands of common Jews that had personally seen
Yeshua's incomparable acts of compassion and miracles, and heard His many
sermons so full of wisdom and truth, yet that still didn't bring them to a belief that
extended beyond His mysterious ability to heal. Yeshua proved (even though it
frustrated Him deeply) that doing miracle healings for unbelievers is not what
brings them to faith, and this reality is no different in the 21
st
century. Or as W.D.
Davies puts it: "whereas miracles do not create faith, faith does in fact work
miracles".
In verse 4, giving as the reason for His refusal to produce a sign in the sky
(something He was clearly capable of doing), Jesus says it is because these
religious leaders are representative of those being in league with Satan;
adulterous means to be unfaithful to the God whom they purport to be in union
with and serve. Marriage terms like adultery are used because human marriage
is the illustration that is regularly applied in the Bible to explain the kind of
relationship we are to have with God. Marriage unions consist either of faithful
partners or unfaithful (adulterous) ones. Yeshua's claim against these religious
leaders is deeply offensive to them and quite embarrassing to have happened in
front of an audience of onlookers. Both Matthew and Mark report that Yeshua
abruptly ended the confrontation and left the leaders standing there as He got
into a boat and went back to an undisclosed location on the east side of the Lake.
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I have little doubt it was to escape being arrested.
The scene now changes to the boat as it is crossing over the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus and His disciples are apparently some distance from the shore when one
of them notices that they had forgotten to bring food... bread... with them.
Bread...lechem in Hebrew... was a term that doubled as one time meaning actual
dough that rose and was baked, but another time as simply meaning food in
general. Bread was the staple food of the times, especially for the common folk. It
was not only part of every meal, it was the primary food eaten... often with
nothing to supplement it. So the disciples were likely a little upset when they
discover they've somehow left their bread behind. Yeshua uses the mistake as
an opportunity to teach.
Mark disagrees with Matthew on one small point; Matthew says they had no
bread while Mark says there was one loaf between them all (hardly enough to go
around). Yeshua uses the important ingredient of leaven in bread-making to
illustrate a point. In verse 6 He says that the disciples need to be very careful and
to guard themselves against the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Leaven
is often used biblically as a metaphor for sin. And yet, it was at times (like here)
also used as a metaphor for teaching. Very likely what we have here is a word
play. In Aramaic the word for leaven is hamira and the word for teaching
is amira. Hebrew and Aramaic are cousin languages, and it was common that
both languages were spoken by Holy Land Jews in Yeshua's day. We know for
sure because of His final utterance on the cross that Yeshua could speak
Aramaic. So leaven was known to be used as a term describing teaching that
was neither positive nor negative. It was the context of a conversation that
determined in what light to take the meaning. Here because Yeshua says to
beware, clearly He means the term leaven as a negative. So the idea is that
while the instruction of the Pharisees and Sadducees may not always be wrong,
all too often it is. This wrong instruction can be a corrupting influence that clouds
or even replaces God's truth and leads people astray. We've already seen Christ
excoriate the Pharisees for just this reason.
In the previous chapter of Matthew we read of Yeshua saying this:
CJB
Matthew 15:4-6
4
For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and
'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'
5
But you
say, 'If anyone says to his father or mother, "I have promised to give to God
what I might have used to help you,"
6
then he is rid of his duty to honor his
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father or mother.' Thus by your tradition you make null and void the word
of God!
So what Yeshua is saying to His disciples and against the Pharisees has now
been extended to actions and edicts set down by the chief priests and the High
Priest; those who control the Temple and belong to the Sadducee party. While
the leaven metaphor is not a Parable in which only 1 single moral point is being
made, at the same time we should resist the urge to find a flurry of allegorical
uses of the term leaven in this verse that can send us away from the simple
message Christ was establishing. And that message is this: it is the human
tendency to automatically place our trust in our religious leaders, but we should
always do that with a strong sense of caution. Their instruction to us could very
well be in error and have a hidden agenda behind it. It's all too easy to assume
that these leaders are especially holy; and that what they do and what they say
must be biblical in its source and proper before God, because they are the
experts, the religious office holders, and the role models. While Yeshua is of
course referring directly to those particular Pharisees and Sadducees that put
their manmade doctrines above God's Word, it equally applies to all Judeo-
Christian religious leaders in every era, whatever their title might be or office they
hold.
It really is only in recent times that the layperson within Judaism or Christianity
has the means to fact-check what our religious leaders are telling us. Bible
ownership, even after the invention of the printing press, was still something that
only the more well-to-do could afford. Later as the costs went down a Bible was
still so expensive that it was considered a prized family possession that was
usually handed down as an inheritance to the next generation. Today Bibles are
exceptionally cheap, available in scores of languages and translations, and given
away by the hundreds of thousands to people who don't even have a few dollars
to buy one. So the 21
st
century Believer has the means at our fingertips to see if
what is being taught to us agrees with the Bible. Therefore we are without excuse
when we allow our Rabbis and Pastors to get away with, at times, taking great
liberties with God's Word and teaching manmade doctrines as though it was holy
truth. We don't necessarily have to confront them about it; but we can apply a
filter to our eyes and ears about what they say.
What is truly remarkable is the resources we now have available online. I have
no doubt that this is a fulfillment... or at least part of the fulfillment... of the strange
prophecy from Daniel chapter 12:
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CJB
Daniel 12:4
4
"But you, Dani'el, keep these words secret, and seal up the
book until the time of the end. Many will rush here and there as knowledge
increases."
"As knowledge increases". Little more than 25 years ago the knowledge and
materials that were the sole province of Theological schools were locked up and
available only for those few worthy students that attended and handed out within
whatever doctrinal framework that school adhered to. The average synagogue or
church member had little to no access. But because of the Internet, these
libraries and their scholarly content have become opened to the public, and far
more in depth Bible teaching has become available to the average God
worshiper, for little cost. On the other hand we must understood that in Christ's
era personal access by the common man even to the tiniest portion of Holy
Scripture was not possible. Scripture scrolls were few, and they were held mostly
by the wealthy and the religious authorities. The elite among the Jews (like Paul)
did have an opportunity to go to one of the great religious academies of the day,
if they had the funds and the influence to gain a seat in one of them. Yeshua
knew that indeed those Jews who came to hear Him teach were helpless sheep
before the ravenous wolves of the religious leadership that had their own
personal interests in mind, and not the welfare of God's people.
And yet there is another item in the background of Yeshua's warning to His
disciples to watch out and guard themselves against the teachings (the leaven) of
the Jewish religious leadership. As we have seen, Christ's disciples still held the
Jewish religious leadership in high regard, respected them as pious men, and
believed what they taught. In their minds Yeshua's teachings were a kind of
supplement, but not a challenge to the accepted leadership and customs. So far
they didn't seem to grasp that much of what Jesus taught conflicted with the
Tradition-based teachings that were typical of the synagogue. It's not unlike
warning your child for the hundredth time not to cross the street before looking
both ways for traffic. Crossing a street is not a bad or wrong thing. But the hope
is that someday that child will subordinate his or her instincts to just dart into the
road assuming all is well, and instead approach it with the due caution you have
been telling them to do.
Verse 7 reveals that the disciples thought that when Jesus spoke about
the hametz, the leaven, that He meant it literally because the disciples' focus was
that they had forgotten to bring bread to eat. Their focus and mindset was still
earthbound while Yeshua's teaching was Heavenly and spiritual-based. So once
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again Yeshua accuses them all, as a group, of having little trust. Not NO trust,
but small trust. Hidden just under the surface is an important principle that is
among the most difficult to communicate and to internalize. It is that trust in Christ
is what opens our minds so that we can learn and act upon what it is that He, and
all of God's Word, is telling us. Without that firm trust (not just in anything...not
faith for the sake of faith... but trust in Him) we will find ourselves exactly as these
disciples are. They have been sitting at the feet of Jesus, receiving personalized
instruction, for several months and yet their trust in Him is still so small that they
can't discern the more profound things He has been trying to teach them. So the
inalterable principle is this: the more we trust in Yeshua, the more we'll
understand His words. The less we trust in Yeshua, the less we'll understand His
words. In some ways the disciples still place Yeshua lower in the religious
pecking order of the Jewish faith than the synagogue and Temple leadership.
Verses 9 and 10 that begin "Don't you understand, yet?" expresses an obvious
level of frustration within Jesus towards the seeming inability of His disciples to
comprehend the meaning of all that has been happening. He blames this inability
on their lack of trust, and then goes on to remind them of the miraculous feeding
of the 5,000 and later the 4,000 for which they were present and were the ones
who distributed the multiplied food, with the idea that such a thing should have
been instructive to them... but it wasn't. The word usually translated into English
as "remember" is not meant to be some passive intellectual activity of merely
recalling the specifics of an event. Rather... because Matthew was a Jew and
wrote his Gospel in Hebrew... no doubt the Hebrew word he was thinking of and
used was zakar. Zakar means to remember in the sense of paying heed to
something; taking further action, or giving something more and deeper thought
because of what is called to mind.
Yeshua goes on in verse 11 to say (and I paraphrase) "how in the world can you
think I was talking about leaven that is used to make bread?" Rather Christ's
disciples are to guard themselves against the hametz, the leaven (the corrupted
teaching) of the Pharisees and Sadducees. We're not told the response of the
disciples but in a few verses we find at least one disciple that had a true spiritual
breakthrough. It is rather mysterious that in Mark's account in chapter 8, verse 15
says that the disciples are to guard themselves against the leaven of the
Pharisees and of Herod. What has Herod got to do with it? I have heard a few
different explanations for this but none of them bear up to scrutiny. For one thing,
which Herod is Mark talking about? Herod the Great or his son Herod Antipas?
And why would any Jew ever look to either of them for spiritual food? Perhaps
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the closest to an explanation that might work is if this was referring to Herod the
Great because the Priesthood (represented by the Sadducees).... especially the
High Priest... had been in Herod's pocket (although by Christ's adult life Herod
was dead). But other than that, one has to wonder if the addition of "Herod" to
this verse wasn't actually Mark's but rather can be attributed to a later copyist
error (and I think this is what happened).
This episode in Magadan by the Sea of Galilee ends with Matthew telling us that
Yeshua next appeared with His disciples in Caesarea Philippi also known as
Banias home to the worship of the god Pan. This is a fascinating site in Israel that
most times I take a tour group to Israel we try to stop here to take in its beauty, its
history, and to have a Bible lesson. It is located on the southern slope of Mount
Hermon in the north of Israel, and it is one of the sources of water for the Jordan
River. It is here that Christ's mission and the question of who and what Yeshua is
turns a corner. It is here that Yeshua makes the leap in His identity
from Tzadik to Mashiach; from Jewish Holy Man to Israel's Messiah.
In verse 13 Jesus asks His disciples: "Who are people saying the Son of Man
is?" Pandora's Box has just been opened and a question has been asked that
despite what the average Believer might think, has not been fully settled even to
this day. Matthew's Gospel has the disciples saying that some people say He is
John the Baptist, others that He is Elijah, and still others that He is the Prophet
Jeremiah or another of the revered prophets of old. This ought to be sufficient
evidence to prove that Jesus has, to this point, not made a firm mention of who
He is such that people could quote Him or have some kind of definitive
description of Him. I spoke to you in an earlier lesson about how Herod Antipas
was concerned that Jesus might be a resurrected John the Baptist, and that this
idea came to him not from his own mind but from others around him. Such
superstitions had much popularity among the Jewish people in those days.
Yeshua as a reappearance of Elijah had some merit in that Elijah went to Heaven
having never died and He was prophesied to return at the End of Days
(something which many Jews believed they were currently living out). And then
finally there was the thought that Christ could be a reappearance of the Prophet
Jeremiah. Biblically speaking no such thing was contemplated for Israel's
prophets however it was the subject of folklore and Jewish tradition that some of
Israel's ancient prophets would reappear in the Latter Days. The thing is that the
people were guessing about Jesus because they were uncertain just how to label
Him. Interestingly the one thought of the people that never seemed to enter their
minds as a possibility was that Yeshua could be the Messiah. Why might that be?
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This leads to a subject all its own: in the minds of 1st century Jews what was a
Messiah thought to be and what would He do? This is important because it goes
a long way to explain the challenge Yeshua had in explaining His true and fullest
identity over and against the expectations about a Messiah that had been taught
to the people by the synagogue leadership.
Yeshua's person and purpose were misunderstood by the very people He came
to save. As one example of this we read in the Book of John:
CJB
John 6:14-15
14
When the people saw the miracle he had performed,
they said, "This has to be 'the prophet' who is supposed to come into the
world."
15
Yeshua knew that they were on the point of coming and seizing
him, in order to make him king; so he went back to the hills again. This time
he went by himself.
This probably represents the most widely taught and accepted mindset and firm
belief among the Jews of what the hope-for Messiah was to be. He would come
not as a religious leader but rather as a political figure. The Romans seemed to
be quite aware of this belief among the Jews that their Messiah was going to be a
king. They took this as a threat and it took it quite seriously. The Messiah would
be the first Jewish king Israel had had in hundreds of years. And of course this
belief came from a firm biblical foundation.
CJB
2 Sam. 7:4-16
4
But that same night the word of ADONAI came to
Natan:
5
"Go and tell my servant David that this is what ADONAI says: 'You
are going to build me a house to live in?
6
Since the day I brought the
people of Isra'el out of Egypt until today, I never lived in a house; rather, I
traveled in a tent and a tabernacle.
7
Everywhere I traveled with all the
people of Isra'el, did I ever speak a word to any of the tribes of Isra'el,
whom I ordered to shepherd my people Isra'el, asking, "Why haven't you
built me a cedar-wood house?"'
8
"Therefore say this to my servant David
that this is what ADONAI-Tzva'ot says: 'I took you from the sheep-yards,
from following the sheep, to make you chief over my people, over Isra'el.
9
I
have been with you wherever you went; I have destroyed all your enemies
ahead of you; and I am making your reputation great, like the reputations of
the greatest people on earth.
10
I will assign a place to my people Isra'el; I
will plant them there, so that they can live in their own place without being
disturbed any more. The wicked will no longer oppress them, as they did at
the beginning,
11
and as they did from the time I ordered judges to be over
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my people Isra'el; instead, I will give you rest from all your
enemies. "'Moreover, ADONAI tells you that ADONAI will make you a
house.
12
When your days come to an end and you sleep with your
ancestors, I will establish one of your descendants to succeed you, one of
your own flesh and blood; and I will set up his rulership.
13
He will build a
house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever.
14
I will be a
father for him, and he will be a son for me. If he does something wrong, I
will punish him with a rod and blows, just as everyone gets
punished;
15
nevertheless, my grace will not leave him, as I took it away
from Sha'ul, whom I removed from before you.
16
Thus your house and your
kingdom will be made secure forever before you; your throne will be set up
forever.'
The reality is that Jesus would be executed by the Romans primarily because He
was mistakenly seen as a political revolutionary that challenged Roman rule.
When we read of the sign tacked onto the cross, above Yeshua's head, it said
"King of the Jews". This was intended to publicly mock Him but certainly not in
the spiritual or religious sense. Rather it was a demonstration by Pilate to the
Jewish people with the message that they should abandon any hope that a
Jewish Messiah could ever come along, lead a successful rebellion against
Rome, and install himself as king. Nonetheless, the expectation of the Jewish
people was that the Messiah would be a warrior leader and a king like David and
successfully vanquish their Roman occupiers.
Of course as we have been reading, Yeshua wanted no part of being a political
figure. He had no intention of trying to break the cruel yoke of Rome off the necks
of His fellow countrymen. Despite the broad expectation among the Jewish public
that their Messiah would be a political deliverer, there wasn't anything near to
what we might call a unanimity of thought among the Jewish religious authorities
or people regarding the attributes and works of the expected anointed-one.
It does us well to recall that mashiach means anointed-one and not Savior or
Deliverer. It is a rather broad term that, as used in the Bible, was applied to every
one of Israel's kings. That is, from a purely grammatical and biblical standpoint
every Israelite king was a Messiah... an anointed-one (not metaphorically or
allegorically, but actually). The title of mashiach meant to communicate 2 things:
1) That this person was spiritually anointed by God as His divine choice to lead
His people, and 2) the king was literally ceremonially anointed by having olive oil
poured over his head in an inauguration usually officiated by the High Priest. So
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the most predominant view of Jesus by the Jewish people, as we find it in the
New Testament, was in a nationalistic tone and not in a religious one. If Jesus
was the Messiah of Israel, it would be as a typical sitting king over a newly re-
established independent nation of Israel. The religious component was
secondary to the political component. And the religious component existed
primarily because there were prophecies that this new king Messiah would arise
and rule, and because secular life and religious life were not separated or
compartmentalized like they are today.
I dare to say that my reading of the Gospels decisively shows that the messianic
expectations of the Jewish people in that era are nothing like the gentile Christian
view. And perhaps that is because the Gospel accounts are based almost
entirely on the recorded history and life of Christ prior to His death and
resurrection. His death, burial, resurrection and ascension are told only in the
final 1 1/2 of the 28 chapters of Matthew. In 1 1/2 of the 16 chapters of Mark. And
in less than 2 of the 24 chapters of Luke. Thus the Christian views of who the
historical Yeshua was and how to understand what His words and actions meant,
are based almost entirely on what happened after His death. By no means am I
suggesting this is wrong. Rather I'm suggesting that when Christianity reads back
into the bulk of the Gospel accounts the things that happened before Yeshua's
execution... interpretations and doctrines that are formed based only in the last
few paragraphs of each Gospel book... this is how "The Church" can
misunderstand so much of what happened in the many acts of Jesus and what it
meant to the minds of the Jewish people of His era. The Jews had been
conditioned through centuries of teaching and Traditions to understand the
expected Jewish Messiah in certain ways; Yeshua didn't fit that mold because
the mold makers were wrong.
One other backdrop matter also tends to escape Christian view... especially
the modern Christian view. It is that within the Jewish culture the expectation of
the arrival of a Messiah coincided with the End Times and the Apocalypse. This
expectation was not lost on Yeshua nor did He ever deny it. He saw His own
advent as a Latter Days event, and all the Apostles who followed Him (including
Paul) were certain they were living in the Latter Days not only because of the
things Yeshua said, but because the culturally accepted notions of the Jews had
it woven in to their thinking.
Jesus, therefore, was not some odd figure who operated outside the cultural
norms and lifestyle of typical Jewish society. He would not have stood out in a
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Jewish crowd from His appearance; rather He would have blended because He
was, indeed, one of them. So it is with this conceptualization of Jesus in the
minds of the Jews among whom He spoke and lived and performed miracles that
we need to understand all that comes next in Christ's life as presented in the
Gospels.
We'll continue next week in Matthew chapter 16.


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