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beatitudes, blessed, blessings, censoriousness, cost of discipleship, criticism, decisions, disciples, discipleship, enemies, faithfulness, golden rule, hatred, humility, John the Baptist, judgment, listen, love, Messiah, miracles, narrow gate, obedience, obey, persecution, promise, sin, teachability, wisdom, wise
OK, so I’ve been sort of neglectful in keeping up with the blog. My apologies. Sometimes things just get sort of busy. But we want to continue learning about the Bible. We’ve cover the whole Old Testament and have discussed in brief the birth and childhood of Jesus. Let’s launch into the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
The beginning of Jesus’ ministry actually starts with a prophet by the name of John the Baptist. He is mentioned in all four of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry, which says something about the importance of his appearance and preaching. It had been prophesied in places like Malachi 3:1, 2
“Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.”
The reason John’s appearance is mentioned in all four Gospels is because he was considered to be a prime sign of the Messiah’s appearance. But his message wasn’t soothing:
“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, “We have Abraham for our father”; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’” (Matthew 3:7-12)
Despite the fact that John’s message was what modern ears might consider unusually bold and blunt, multitudes came out to the wilderness and Jordan River to hear his message and be immersed (baptized) to demonstrate their repentance in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus Himself was immersed (baptized) by John. At first John refused, recognizing that Jesus was the sinless Messiah; but Jesus insisted saying (Matthew 3:15) “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” That is, perfect Jesus still wanted to do everything that was righteous—not just do “good enough”.
After His baptism Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, where He fasted (had no food) for 40 days. At the end of this time in the wilderness He was tempted by Satan three times. Each time Jesus resisted by quoting the Scriptures. After this time in the wilderness, Jesus formally began His ministry.
He began by preaching and healing around the Galilee region of Israel. Even early in His ministry, Jesus drew large crowds as a healer. But Jesus wasn’t just a healer; He preached to these large multitudes about the coming Kingdom of God. One of His earliest and best known sermons is known as the “Sermon on the Mount”—found in Matthew 5-7. In this sermon Jesus taught some really important principles of Christianity.
It starts with what are often called the Beatitudes (so called because most of the verses begin with “blessed are”). The Beatitudes are essentially the attitudes necessary to be a disciple of Jesus:
- the poor in spirit—the understanding that in my sin I am bankrupt before God,
- those who mourn—the heart that truly grieves over its sin and offense toward God
- the gentle—also translated humble, it is the opposite of arrogant and selfish ambition
- those who hunger and thirst for righteousness—this attitude is much more than a casual interest in righteousness, it is a craving for God’s righteousness
- the merciful—since the disciple is to benefit so richly from God’s enormous mercy toward us, the disciple is expected to also practice this sometimes very difficult task of extending mercy, grace, “grudge-lessness”, “vengeance-lessness”, and forgiveness to others.
- the pure in heart—while moral purity is always important, this attribute of discipleship is really describing an undivided loyalty and focus on following Jesus.
- the peacemakers—Jesus Himself was and is the great peacemaker, reconciling both God and man in redemption, and man and man in the church. His disciples must also be peacemakers, reconciling man to God in sharing the good news, and man to man in the church.
- those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness—Jesus was always “up front” about the fact that persecution would follow those who followed Him.
Next Jesus taught His disciples that they must be the light of the world and salt of the earth; they must be and make a difference in the world. All these are difficult enough to do, but then Jesus said something that would have utterly shocked His original hearers—your righteousness must be better than the scribes and the Pharisees (the two most righteous groups that most people knew). But before people lost hope in being able to follow, Jesus hastened to illustrate what he meant. In Matthew 5:21ff, He taught that righteousness wasn’t merely about what one physically did, but it also extended to what goes on in one’s heart and mind. Jesus taught that not only is it wrong to murder, but it is also wrong to hate; not only is adultery sinful, but it is also wrong to lust; not only is wrong to get your revenge, but one may also be condemned by holding a grudge.
In Matthew 6 Jesus went on to teach that godliness—like prayer, giving, and fasting—must be done for God and not for public applause. He also taught that we must depend on God’s provision. This is where Jesus famously said, Matthew 6:28-30, “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!”
Finally, in chapter 7, Jesus forbade hyper-critical judgment. This was not to say that His disciples should never mention sin or false doctrine (Jesus Himself talked about such things in the next couple of paragraphs); rather He forbade the kind of criticism that simply seeks to belittle and hurt others. In this chapter He also taught that His disciples needed to pray in faith and live the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”).
At the close of this chapter, Jesus also warned against false teachers and false living. This last teaching is especially stern: Matthew 7:13, 14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” To cap all His teachings, He then told a well-known parable of a wise man who built his house on a rock. In this parable, those who hear and obey are compared to a wise man who built his house on bedrock; and He compared those who merely hear but do not obey to a foolish man who built on unstable sand and was washed away by the storm of judgment.
These teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount are among the most important of Jesus’ teachings and are well worth a careful reading.