Motley Crew Matthew Bible Study
November 11, 2009
Thank You Veterans!
The Questions
1. What was the most spiritual thing you learned about 40 Days?
Read Matthew 8:1-4
2. Jesus has just preached a powerful sermon. Many people believed in Him. Why didn't He just stop there – or at least just stay on the mountain?
3. What does this say to churches and individual Christians today?
4. What do you make of this leper’s faith?
5. Have you ever risked something for Jesus?
6. Why did Jesus tell him not to tell anyone?
7. Why did Jesus tell him to go to a priest?
Read Matthew 8:5-13
8. What is a centurion?
9. Is Jesus stronger than even paralysis?
10. Why was Jesus so astonished?
11. Would Jesus be astonished at you?
Motley Crew Matthew Bible Study
November 11, 2009
Thank You Veterans!
Some Answers
We began with prayers of praise, petition, and intercession,
1. What was the most spiritual thing you learned about 40 Days?
It's not about me. It's easy to meditate. The closer I am to God the smaller everything else looks.
The world is less important than God.
Unconditional love.
God is in control; it's not about me.
God isn't finished with me yet.
Actively listen to other people first (then be grateful for what you've got).
I never learned anything by talking, only by listening.
If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate.
Read Matthew 8:1-4
The Man With Leprosy (NIV)
1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy [a] came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured [b] of his leprosy. 4 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."
Footnotes from BibleGateway.com:
Matthew 8:2 The Greek word was used for various diseases affecting the skin—not necessarily leprosy.
Matthew 8:3 Greek made clean
2. Jesus has just preached a powerful sermon. Many people believed in Him. Why didn't He just stop there – or at least just stay on the mountain?
The Gospel is a forward moving process. See Acts 1:8 and Matthew 28:18-20 and because Jesus has such deep compassion. See Matthew 9:36.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Some observations from the group:
His mission was just beginning.
The Gospel is a forward-moving process.
He had more to do.
Some observations from the a couple of commentators:
“Verse 3. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him,.... This is a wonderful instance both of the grace, and goodness of Christ, in touching this loathsome creature; and of his unspotted purity and holiness, which could not be defiled by it; and of his mighty power in healing by a touch, and with a word of his mouth, saying, I will, be thou clean ...” John Gill's Exposition of the Bible.
When Jesus touched the man, under the law Jesus would became unclean (Lev. 5:3) – but clearly not so here.
“... it deserves to be noticed that the first of our Lord's miracles of healing recorded by Matthew is this cure of a leper.” Jamieson, Faussett, Brown.
3. What does this say to churches and individual Christians today?
We must be on the move. It is not Biblical to just say “here we are – our doors are open – if you want Jesus come in and get Him – on the terms we offer Him.”
Some observations from the group:
We need to be on the go.
“Lean forward in the foxhole; don't wait for the enemy to come to you … get out there!”
We have an enemy that is always on the attack; we can't afford to be re-active … we've got to be pro-active.
“The best defense is a good offense.”
4. What do you make of this lepers faith?
WOW!
Some observations from the group:
The leper knew that Jesus could make him clean. There was no doubt.
The only question was whether or not Jesus was willing to make the leper clean.
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus always chose relationships over the law.
5. Have you ever risked something for Jesus? What would you risk for Jesus?
Going into the ministry.
Some observations from the group:
Praying when guests are there for dinner (although those raised in the faith take this for granted, there are many for whom this is a new experience).
Any little spoken word – or action – that affirms the faith.
The actions often speak louder than the words, and are less intimidating – but it takes both.
One of the men in our congregation entered a Roman Catholic monastery after graduation from college. He arrived with his complete worldly possessions: a small suitcase and a beat-up guitar. He reports that it was a lot easier to move in those days.
6. Why did Jesus tell him not to tell anyone?
We know Jesus didn't want to be just a miracle worker. We also know He had much to accomplish and a very short time to accomplish it – especially in the teaching/training of the disciples. Jesus also knew the miracles were going to cause the authorities to kill Him (see the raising of Lazarus) so He wanted it to be in His time.
The Gospel account of the raising of Lazarus and the plot to kill Jesus is a long one; it is reproduced below.
Some observations from the group:
Not the time yet to tell others of His ministry. Later.
A question of the timing of his mission.
The leper needed to present himself to the priests in order to be declared clean in the community.
One member read some good “below the line” information; you can find it in the Concordia Study Bible.
7. Why did Jesus tell him to go to a priest?
He wanted Him to follow the ritual of purification. See Lenski, page 321.
This is a long passage, and is reproduced below.
Read Matthew 8:5-13
The Faith of the Centurion (NIV)
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.6 "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."
7 Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
8 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. 9For I myself am 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."
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 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. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.
8. What is a centurion?
A Roman military officer in charge of 100 men. They were individuals with great authority in the Roman army. In the Bible each of them are portrayed as having faith.
This would correspond to the Captain of a company-sized Army element. If a non-commissioned officer, the equivalent is the First Sergeant.
9. Is Jesus stronger than even paralysis?
AMEN!
“Observe [the centurion's] self-abasement. Humble souls are made more humble by Christ's gracious dealings with them. Observe his great faith. The more diffident we are of ourselves, the stronger will be our confidence in Christ. Herein the centurion owns Him to have Divine power, and a full command of all the creatures and powers of nature, as a master over his servants.” Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary.
10. Why was Jesus so astonished?
The Centurion clearly understood authority. And the Centurion clearly understood that Jesus was ultimately authoritative!
Some observations from the group:
The Centurion believed that Jesus had so much authority, that His Word alone was enough to cure the paralysis of his servant.
Especially the great faith of a Gentile. Was this the first Gentile to show his faith in the Lord? (given as an assignment for next week ;)
One asked how did the Centurion know to come to Jesus?
Matthew 4: 23-25: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.”
“Verse 8. But speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. As the former expression declares his modesty and humility, and the mean apprehensions he had of himself; so this signifies his great faith in Christ, and the persuasion he had of his divine power: he does not say pray, and my servant shall be healed, as looking upon him barely as a man of God, a prophet, one that had great interest in God, and at the throne of grace; but speak, command, order it to be done, and it shall be done, which is ascribing omnipotence to him...” John Gill's Exposition of the Bible.
11. Would Jesus be astonished at you?
Yes.
Some observations from the group:
One person mentioned: “However, you can always be used as an example of what not to do.”
Fortunately, God will continue to love you, regardless.
We closed with prayer.
John 11. The Raising of Lazarus and the Plot to Kill Jesus.
38 Jesus,
once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone
laid across the entrance. 39 "Take
away the stone," he said.
"But,
Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this
time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."
40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."
43 When
he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come
out!" 44 The
dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen,
and a cloth around his face.
Jesus
said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place[c] and our nation."
49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.
55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, "What do you think? Isn't he coming to the Feast at all?" 57 But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest him.
Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew's Gospel (Wartburg Press), pp. 321-322.
The reason that Jesus wants the man's lips to remain sealed can be gathered only from what follows. Mark again helps us: Jesus "immediately rushed him off" with the order to go and to show himself to the priest, etc. We may not introduce the man's moral condition as the reason that Jesus tried to seal his lips. The miracle had been performed in the presence of great crowds and was thus public in the highest degree. The haste and the stern orders with which Jesus sends the man away have only one explanation: the news of how this man was healed is not to reach the priests in Jerusalem until in all due legal form they have pronounced him clean of leprosy. The priest to whom he will present himself is not to know the man's story until afterward.
It cannot be proven that a healed leper might anywhere present himself to a priest for examination, in this case at Nazareth where a colony of priests is thought to have resided at this time. The procedure as described in Lev. 14:1, etc., required that the examining priest receive the man's offerings, which consumed an entire week. What a priest in Nazareth might determine as to the man's physical condition would not be recognized by the priest officiating in the Temple at Jerusalem. "Show thyself to the priest!" means in Jerusalem.
The first act of the priest on the day the man presents himself consists of the physical examination plus the offering of two live birds, etc., and the ceremonies connected with them, Lev. 14:2-8. The second act follows on the seventh and the eighth days when two lambs, etc., or in case of poverty one was offered, plus the ceremonies stated in v. 9-32. The first act restored the healed leper to the people, the second to his religious prerogatives in the Temple worship. The word δωρον, "and offer the gift," etc., does not refer to a thank offering, for the offerings prescribed in Lev. 14 are first symbolic of physical cleansing (the birds, etc.), and secondly sacrificial for the purpose of spiritual cleansing (the lambs, etc.) as a trespass and sin offering.
Jesus thus orders this man in all due form to carry out the ceremonial requirements "which Moses ordered" and thus to have himself officially reinstated as being clean of leprosy. Jesus has not come to destroy but to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (5:17), and by his order to the leper he had healed fulfills what the Law of Moses required in the present case. … To them [the hostile priests in Jerusalem] Jesus sends this healed leper as a living testimony. Jesus, who has been away from Jerusalem for a long time, sends them this man, who for eight days is to be a silent preacher to them, a living witness of his gracious will and power and of his reverence for the Law of Moses while it is still in force. When they finally learn this man's story after they themselves have officially pronounced him clean they will have another testimony regarding the Messiah whom they reject, a testimony backed by their own finding.
Mark reports that despite the stringency of the Lord's command this leper failed to keep silent and even caused his divine Helper great inconvenience. Instead of hurrying off to Jerusalem, he lingered in the vicinity where he was healed and advertised the miracle far and wide, so that Jesus had to keep away from the cities. Mistaken thanks are not thanks.
Note: the original 12 volumes from the 1940s were re-issued in paperback form in 2008 in 20 volumes.
Leviticus 14:1-32 (NIV)
Cleansing From Infectious Skin Diseases
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "These are the regulations for the diseased person at the time of his ceremonial cleansing, when he is brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine him. If the person has been healed of his infectious skin disease, [a] 4 the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed. 5Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. 6 He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the infectious disease and pronounce him clean. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields.
8 "The person to be cleansed must wash his clothes, shave off all his hair and bathe with water; then he will be ceremonially clean. After this he may come into the camp, but he must stay outside his tent for seven days. 9 On the seventh day he must shave off all his hair; he must shave his head, his beard, his eyebrows and the rest of his hair. He must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water, and he will be clean.
10 "On the eighth day he must bring two male lambs and one ewe lamb a year old, each without defect, along with three-tenths of an ephah [b] of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, and one log [c] of oil. 11 The priest who pronounces him clean shall present both the one to be cleansed and his offerings before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
12 "Then the priest is to take one of the male lambs and offer it as a guilt offering, along with the log of oil; he shall wave them before the LORD as a wave offering. 13 He is to slaughter the lamb in the holy place where the sin offering and the burnt offering are slaughtered. Like the sin offering, the guilt offering belongs to the priest; it is most holy. 14 The priest is to take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. 15 The priest shall then take some of the log of oil, pour it in the palm of his own left hand, 16 dip his right forefinger into the oil in his palm, and with his finger sprinkle some of it before the LORD seven times. 17 The priest is to put some of the oil remaining in his palm on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot, on top of the blood of the guilt offering. 18 The rest of the oil in his palm the priest shall put on the head of the one to be cleansed and make atonement for him before the LORD.
19 "Then the priest is to sacrifice the sin offering and make atonement for the one to be cleansed from his uncleanness. After that, the priest shall slaughter the burnt offering 20 and offer it on the altar, together with the grain offering, and make atonement for him, and he will be clean.
21 "If, however, he is poor and cannot afford these, he must take one male lamb as a guilt offering to be waved to make atonement for him, together with a tenth of an ephah [d] of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, a log of oil, 22 and two doves or two young pigeons, which he can afford, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.
23 "On the eighth day he must bring them for his cleansing to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, before the LORD. 24 The priest is to take the lamb for the guilt offering, together with the log of oil, and wave them before the LORD as a wave offering. 25 He shall slaughter the lamb for the guilt offering and take some of its blood and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. 26 The priest is to pour some of the oil into the palm of his own left hand, 27 and with his right forefinger sprinkle some of the oil from his palm seven times before the LORD. 28 Some of the oil in his palm he is to put on the same places he put the blood of the guilt offering—on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. 29The rest of the oil in his palm the priest shall put on the head of the one to be cleansed, to make atonement for him before the LORD. 30 Then he shall sacrifice the doves or the young pigeons, which the person can afford, 31 one [e] as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering, together with the grain offering. In this way the priest will make atonement before the LORD on behalf of the one to be cleansed."
32 These are the regulations for anyone who has an infectious skin disease and who cannot afford the regular offerings for his cleansing.
Footnotes:
Leviticus 14:3 Traditionally leprosy ; the Hebrew word was used for various diseases affecting the skin-not necessarily leprosy; also elsewhere in this chapter.
Leviticus 14:10 That is, probably about 6 quarts (about 6.5 liters)
Leviticus 14:10 That is, probably about 2/3 pint (about 0.3 liter also in verses 12, 15, 21 and 24
Leviticus 14:21 That is, probably about 2 quarts (about 2 liters)
Leviticus 14:31 Septuagint and Syriac; Hebrew 31 such as the person can afford, one
Some Sources of Study:
W. Robertson Nicoll, The Expositor's Greek Testament (New York: George H. Doran Co., ca. 1900). Available at Google Books.
The Greek Interlinear
Bible.
http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/mat8.pdf
The Lutheran Study Bible (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009).
Matthew Henry's Concise
Commentary, 1706, 1811.
http://www.ewordtoday.com/comments/matthew/mhc/matthew8.htm
John Gill's Exposition
of the Bible, 10 Volumes, 1746-1766; 1816.
http://www.ewordtoday.com/comments/matthew/gill/matthew8.htm
Robert
Jamieson,
A.R. Fausset,
and David Brown,
Commentary Critical and
Explanatory on the Whole Bible,
1871.
http://www.ewordtoday.com/comments/matthew/jfb/matthew8.htm