Tag: Christ

Matthew 16:5-12 – Be Careful of Bad Teaching

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Do not be deceived
“Don’t be deceived, bad company corrupts good character.” (1 Corinthians 15:33)

When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”

Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you do not understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (NIV)

I tend to think in metaphors, which is probably one reason I like the teaching of Jesus so much. While on this earth, he used a range of metaphors from common everyday life to communicate his point. Seems as though the disciples were more concrete thinkers.

Yeast was a common symbol for evil, which is why the Jews ate unleavened bread.  Jesus was trying to get the point across to his disciples that, like yeast, even just a little bit of unhealthy teaching can have far-reaching effects. Partaking of bad teaching works through the whole batch of dough and ruins the spiritual life.

We might think that after seeing Jesus heal the sick, raise a paralyzed man, cure the blind, restore the demon-possessed, walk on water, and feed the masses with only a few loaves of bread that his disciples would be clamoring with praise and responding with a big “Wow! Look at what Jesus did!  Tell us what to do next!”  Instead, they stood around mumbling about how to interpret the great feeding of the four thousand.

The math lesson Jesus explained to the disciples about the baskets of food that they had gathered was that the less the disciples had and the bigger their problem, the more Jesus did.  Jesus Math adds up to grace.  And grace means that who we are, or are not, and what we have, or do not have, is immaterial; what matters is that we have Jesus.  We give him what little we have, along with ourselves, and let him do the work.

We must avoid the trap and the temptation of thinking, “If only I had ___; If only I were ___.”  This is unsound doctrine because it denigrates the image of God within us and the good gifts God has already given to us, as if we ourselves are not enough. Yet, even if we have next to nothing, with few abilities, when offering it to Jesus, he turns it into a miraculous bounty of blessing for the world.

Seeing ourselves, our relationships, our stuff, and our world through the person and work of Jesus Christ is our task.  It does not take great powers of interpretation to see that the times are evil and bad information gets disseminated and spread.  What is more difficult for us is discerning that there is a great opportunity for mission and service amid this decaying world.

We will miss that wonderful opportunity if we partake of bad teaching. It is imperative that we feed upon sound teaching and be very discerning about who we listen to and what they are really saying to us. Words which are heavy with judgment and light on grace are to be suspect because such teaching is antithetical to the gospel. Instruction which sets apart and demonizes groups of people or characterizes certain individuals as monsters or animals is completely out of step with the way of Jesus Christ.

Wolf in Sheep Clothing

We are to be on our guard against any teaching which places an unrealistic and dispassionate heavy load of guilt and shame upon people. We must be vigilant to not accept teaching that plays upon people’s fear and twists reality, making groundless and unsubstantiated claims without evidence. In short, the Holy Scriptures are not to be used as a club to beat people into submission toward our way of thinking and acting.

The spiritual abuse and objectification of others by using the Bible is a terrible condition which unfortunately exists in today’s world. The sad reality is that there are people who engage in harassing others by using God’s Holy Word. People have been created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore deserve to be treated with respect and civility, regardless of their creed, color, or condition.

So, let me be clear and deliberate about the use and abuse of God’s revelation to us:

I do not condone any use of the Bible which seeks to intimidate, bully, impede, or affect any person’s ability: to work effectively at their jobs, to worship joyfully at their church, or to live without fear of being blacklisted or red-lined to the periphery of society.

I do not condone any use of the Bible which intends to control either by threat or by use of physical force any person, their family, and/or their property through inducing fear.

I do not condone any use of the Bible which justifies touching any person without their consent, or coerces, or physically forces another person to engage in a sexual act against their will.

I reject any use of the Bible which encourages any sort of hate crime, act of violence, or hate speech against any person regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, class, or religion.

I reject any use of the Bible by any clergy and/or church leadership which demeans and marginalizes women in their basic humanity, role, function, or leadership.

I reject any use of the Bible by any church member and/or attender which demeans and discounts the worldwide Christian community.

I uphold any use of the Bible which seeks to communicate its theology and message gently, carefully, graciously, and lovingly for the spiritual edification and healing of all people.

I uphold any use of the Bible which intends to cultivate one’s own soul and develop a teachable spirit.

I uphold any use of the Bible which looks for truth, wisdom, beauty, and humility.

I champion use of the Bible for both personal and corporate encouragement.

I champion use of the Bible for critical inquiry, scrutiny, and learning.

I champion use of the Bible for all people, regardless of age, including genuine seekers and spiritual misfits, as well as the hurt, abused, lonely, lost, confused, and concerned.

Soli Deo Gloria

Matthew 8:1-13 – Two Amazing Healings

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Jesus heals the leper
Jesus touches the leper, a mosaic from an early Byzantine Church

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am also a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you: I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment. (NIV)

Maybe you, like me, have had your computer pick up a nasty virus that hijacks every file and function you possess. For me, the most frustrating thing about those events is that there is nothing I can do by myself to fix it or make it better. I must humble myself and ask some computer geek to get into my system and take care of the problem. It feels weird looking at my screen and having somebody I do not know working inside my personal computer. But if I fail to get help, my computer would be worthless – unless I let someone with authority fix the blasted thing.

Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Since he has authority over everything, we must live our lives in submission to his will and way. Only through humble resignation to Christ will we experience the healing and deliverance we seek.

Jesus preached his famous Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and taught the people as one who had authority. In that Sermon, Jesus laid out the values of God’s kingdom: humility, sorrow over sin, meekness, purity, mercy, and peacemaking. Now, in today’s Gospel lesson, we see the power and values of God’s kingdom evidenced and expressed in two stories of healing and deliverance.

The world needs saving, and that is exactly what Jesus is up to. Jesus Christ’s authority is total, and comes from his moral authority, as the very embodiment of the Beatitudes he taught. Grace always gets the last word, as Jesus healed without showing favoritism nor discrimination.

In the first story, Jesus used his authority to heal and transform a leper. Leprosy was a feared disease in the ancient world. There was no known cure, and lepers were forced to live apart from everyone else. The Old Testament book of Leviticus says that a leper must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out “unclean! unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45-46).  Lepers were the ultimate outsiders.

A leper came to Jesus with a humble profession of faith: “Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean.” It was a clear case of genuine need, and poverty of spirit. Jesus responded by doing the unthinkable: He touched him.  In a great and wonderful reversal, Jesus did not become unclean by touching the leper but instead the leper was made clean.

If we want the world to be saved and to follow the way of Jesus, then we will emulate our Lord by touching the world. It will not do for us to stand afar off from the outsiders of our community and avoid marginalized people. It will not do for us just to provide a service without having to touch someone. Authentic Christian ministry communicates love through contact and identification with others.

Eleven centuries after Jesus walked the earth, another man, Francis, met a leper on the road as he journeyed toward Assisi. “Though the leper caused him no small disgust and horror, he nonetheless, got off the horse and prepared to kiss the leper.  But when the leper put out his hand as though to receive something, he received money along with a kiss” (Life of St. Francis by Thomas of Celano). Francis did what seemed humanly impossible because he was filled with the love and compassion of Christ. The love of Jesus allows us to touch others with compassionate care, especially to those who have been rejected and mistreated.

Centurion Begs Jesus stained glass
The Centurion Begs Jesus to Heal his Servant, and The Lamp of Faith, from St. Matthew Catholic Church in Detroit, Michigan.

The second story was equally eye-popping and unbelievable to the people in Christ’s day. Jesus used his authority to heal and transform a Gentile. Again, we see the Beatitudes expressed toward a Roman Centurion who felt unworthy to even have the Lord Jesus come into his house. Furthermore, the Centurion’s profession of faith amazed even Jesus: “Just say the word,” he said in recognition of Christ’s authority, which is big enough to heal without even being present.  Centurions were the backbone of the Roman military machine and hated by the Jews. Yet, Jesus the Jew not only responded to the Centurion’s request, he affirmed this Gentile’s faith as greater than any Jew.

Grace answers to need, and not to smug self-confidence. The Roman Centurion did not ask for healing for himself but for his servant, and Jesus listened and answered. The Centurion neither demanded nor claimed healing but came in a spirit of humility and asked with confidence that Jesus could heal his servant if he wanted to. The Centurion simply threw himself on God’s mercy. So, Jesus upheld the Centurion as a model of faith for us all.

Not only did Jesus affirm the Centurion’s faith, he gave a solemn warning to the self-righteous: Their lack of humility and genuine faith would land them outside the kingdom. In another great reversal, the insiders will become the outsiders, and the outsiders become the insiders. The independently proud did not experience healing and transformation because they did not even know they were sin sick. They saw no need for an intervention by Jesus because they already had their righteous deeds to boast about. They were more concerned about looking good and saving face and did not perceive their own unworthiness.

The self-righteous approach to handling problems and difficult situations is to come up with good ideas and clever strategies, relying on sheer personal effort and willpower. Prayer may or may not happen after the plans are laid, and there is no sense of beginning with beseeching God.  Our delusional thoughts of personal autonomy only separate us from the grace of God we so desperately need.

There is a spiritual dimension to every situation and trouble we face – including sickness.  If we only examine the medical end of physical problems, we may be dealing with symptoms instead of the root issue that plagues us. The Apostle James said:

Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you have sinned, you will be forgiven—healed inside and out. Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. (James 5:13-16, MSG)

Jesus healed and transformed outsiders. The followers of Christ must constantly ask: Who are the outsiders among us? Do we care about strangers?  Are we willing to touch aliens and immigrants?  Will we intercede in prayer for those who are foreign to us?  Will we search for and pursue those on the periphery of society?  Do we believe the risen and ascended Jesus can and will heal, deliver, and transform people?

Jesus cannot be domesticated into some figurehead that suits our desires and conforms to our ideas about how things ought to be. Jesus is portrayed in these stories as eager to heal, wanting to show grace to the least and the lowly among society. May we participate in word and deed the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13, NLT)

Matthew 8:23-27 – Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

To Tell the Truth

Then he [Jesus] got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (NIV)

When I was a kid, every evening after supper and the news, I watched a show called To Tell the Truth.  The show featured a panel of four celebrities attempting to correctly identify a described contestant who has an unusual occupation or experience. This central character was accompanied by two impostors who pretended to be the central character. The celebrity panelists questioned the three contestants; and, the impostors could lie but the central character was sworn “to tell the truth.” After questioning, the panel then attempted to identify which of the three challengers was telling the truth. The host would conclude the show by saying the famous line, “Will the real ______ please stand up!”  The four panelists on the show often missed the real person, mainly because they had certain expectations of what the real person’s occupation or experience would be like.  And their expectations did not match the real thing.

People in the first century had expectations of what the Messiah would be like.  Their assumptions centered mostly in a manly Savior who would enter history and beat up the Romans, establishing the kingdom of God on earth with strong leadership over everyone.  And that was why they missed the Messiah because their expectations did not fit the real Jesus.

It is imperative we do not miss Jesus because we have certain expectations of who he is, and what he should do, based on our own experience, or on what we want, rather than what God is doing.

God is at work bringing all things under Christ’s authority. The kingdom of God expands and develops when people follow Jesus through genuine humility, confession of sin, and reception of grace. Satan and his demons are quite displeased when this happens because they do not want Jesus on the scene to bring deliverance.

The devil had his own aspiration to do away with Jesus so that Christ could not accomplish the mission of redeeming the world back to God. Wiley old Satan wanted the violent storm to kill Jesus. However, Christ’s authority and power overwhelmed the “natural” act.

Jesus calms the storm

The real Jesus is, in truth, beyond our expectations. The emphasis in the story of deliverance from the storm is on the person of Christ. The people were surprised that even the wind and the waves obey him!  They were afraid because of the furious storm. But Jesus was sleeping, not the least bit fearful. The disciples woke him, and the original text of the story has just three short staccato-breathed words expressing their abject fear: “Lord! Save! Dying!” Jesus seemed to lazily awake and chided them for little faith, for their inability to recognize who he really was. The disciples’ expectations of Jesus were way too low!

Many people believe that God hears and answers prayer. Yet, sometimes our faith can be so small that, when God answers those prayers in ways far superior to our expectations, we are slack-jawed astonished by it.  Matthew’s Gospel records several instances of people being surprised by the real Jesus:

When Jesus had thrown out the demon, the man who couldn’t speak began to talk. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” (Matthew 9:33, CEB)

Everyone was amazed at what they saw and heard. People who had never spoken could now speak. The lame were healed, the crippled could walk, and the blind were able to see. (Matthew 15:31, CEV)

When the followers saw this [Jesus withering a fig tree] they were very surprised. They asked, “How did the fig tree dry up and die so quickly?” (Matthew 21:20, ERV)

They were surprised to hear this [how insightful Jesus is to the human condition]. Then they left him alone and went away. (Matthew 22:22, GW)

But Jesus said nothing in answer to Pilate, and Pilate was very surprised at this. (Matthew 27:14, NCV)

The real Jesus is more marvelous, wonderful, powerful, and awesome than we know. Jesus will take care of us; he will not let his people be destroyed.  When we truly grasp the real Jesus, and how much he loves us, there is no room for fear, only faith.

Even though the disciples’ faith was small, Jesus still responded to it with grace because even small faith is faith. Grace is undeserved help. Our Lord helps anyone who approaches him, whether with little faith or big. Our small faith is no obstacle for Jesus in delivering us from the storms of life.

I am wondering if you are presently experiencing a violent storm in your life. Please know that Jesus can bring peace.

Perhaps you have a besetting sin that dogs you every day. Jesus can deliver you.

It could be that depression follows you like a lost kitten wherever you go.  Jesus can bring new life and fresh joy to your life.

Maybe there is a relationship you have lost hope over. Jesus can restore it.

Perchance you think your neighbor, co-worker, or family member is too far from God to ever know Jesus. By now you know the response. Our expectations of Jesus are much too small!  We can pray big prayers because we serve a big and powerful God who has the authority to command even the wind and the waves!

When the real Jesus confronts the world, he confronts injustice and the darkness within human hearts.  Some people are crushed by their awareness of sin, disobedience, and guilt. Therefore, they respond by hungering and thirsting after true righteousness. Others respond by trying to domesticate Jesus in serving their own ends.

The Gospel of Matthew portrays Jesus as both a powerful and compassionate God. Christ has authority over all things, and uses that authority to bestow grace, even in the face of the smallest of faith in his followers. Jesus cares about people and seeks to deliver them from the dominion of evil.

So, may we participate with Jesus in his agenda for this world.  May we submit to his rule and authority. May we exhibit the same care, compassion, and concern for people as Jesus does. May we identify the real Jesus to stand up.

Lord Jesus, Son of God, I believe all things are possible through you; help my unbelief! Take my small and seemingly insignificant faith and use it to calm the storms in my life and demonstrate your authority even over the wind and the waves. Amen.

Matthew 14:22-33 – Walking on Water?

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Welcome, friends! Click the video below and let’s have a time together around God’s Word.

You may also view this video at TimEhrhardtYouTube

For a classic hymn on God’s peace, click Like a River Glorious by Stonebriar Music.

For a contemporary song based on today’s story, click Walking on Water by the group NeedToBreathe.

May Christ dwell in your heart through faith, now and always. Amen.