Thursday, 19 November 2015

Matthew 16:1-12 – Be careful what spiritual food you are ingesting


Dictionary defines the word sign as something that indicates or acts as a token of a fact or a condition that is not immediately or outwardly observable. It is a gesture or a mark that conveys information of an event or of some underlying activities. The activities happening in Jesus’ ministry, had quite adequately proven that the Kingdom of heaven or Kingdom of God has broken into the human realm. Jesus was not only the herald of that Kingdom, He was in fact, Israel’s long awaited Messiah. His Kingdom activities sought to initial or restore the people’s relationship with God once again. The Pharisees and Sadducees were political groups having different views about the restoration of the Kingdom. They were blinded by their personal agendas and acted in their personal interest. To be able to identify with Jesus and His ministry we all need to lay aside our personal agenda.  
 
But it is so true that none can be as blind as one who refuses to see. This exactly describes the situation of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Here we see an indication that they had stubbornly refused to acknowledge all that were obviously happening in Jesus’ ministry. Those activities pointed clearly to the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven (God) has broken into human realm. But they chose to see Jesus’ ministry as a threat to all that they were propagating. Thus, they sort to trap Jesus by asking Him to show them some signs. Earlier they had accused Him of collaborating with the devil and they were probably hoping to highlight it again. In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the people of God were warned of activities of false prophets leading Israel astray to false gods, with false signs and wonders. Perhaps, they were hoping to trap Jesus into doing something so that they could accuse Him of being one of those false prophets. Jesus saw through their scams and told them they were quite an expert at reading signs of weathers and climates, but they really had no clue concerning the signs of the time. Calling them an evil and adulterous generation, He blatantly told them that they would see no sign except the sign of Jonah. This of course was referring to His death and resurrection. With that He left them and went away. 
 
So coming away, Jesus took the opportunity to warn His disciples about being led astray by ostentatious signs. He referred to the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees as leaven or yeast. The disciples mistakenly thought that Jesus was chiding them for the bread they did not bring. So Jesus now truly chided them for their lack of perception. They had so quickly forgotten the two miraculous provisions of bread that fully satisfied the multitudes, and even had huge leftovers. Jesus’ reference to the unleavened bread brought them to the history of the Passover and that feast. In that event they had no time to bake leavened bread for they had to leave Egypt in a haste. Over time, leaven that was added to make bread more palatable came to be likened as impurity. When Jesus warned about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, He was warning against their adulterated version of the Kingdom message. They have added their impurities to the message and were propagating an impure form of the message. Jesus only wants the message of the Kingdom to go forth in its purest and unadulterated form.  
 
We are living in days where there is an explosion of all kinds of teachings. We get it from the internet and even from some live conferences by eloquent, flashy preachers. What must we, who want to be true to our Lord, do?  We need to be vigilant and we must also be observant. The warning of the Lord is a call to distinguish between what’s pure and what’s adulterated. One clear way to help us in our task of distinguishing this, is to look at the fruit of the teacher. For we are told that we shall know them by their fruit. In all these, we are also called to embrace only what’s pure and unadulterated.

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