Matt. 13:52-58 – The Importance of Trusting & Obeying Jesus
Translation & Sermon by
Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 12 Aug 2012
Translation
13:52 Then He said to them, “On
account of this,
every scribe, after
having been discipled in the kingdom of the heavens, is like a man
who is the kind of head-of-household which casts
forth from his treasury fresh things and old things.”
13:53 And so it was that when
Jesus finished these parables
He relocated from there, 13:54 and,
after coming into His hometown,
He taught them in their synagogue
in such a way that they were astounded and saying,
“Why is it to this man
that this wisdom and these miracles [came]?”
13:55 Is not this man the son of
the carpenter?
Is
not his mother named Mary and his brothers [named] James and Joseph and Simon
and Jude?”
13:56 And are not his sisters
near us?
Why then is it to this
man that all these things [came]?
13:57 And they were scandalized by
Him.
So
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in His hometown and
in His household!”
13:58 And He did not do many
miracles there on account of their unbelief.
Exposition
13:52 Then He said to them, “On account of this, every
scribe, after having been discipled in the kingdom of the heavens, is like a
man who is the kind of head-of-household which casts forth out of his treasury
fresh things and old things.”
ο δε
ειπεν αυτοις Δια
τουτο πας
γραμματευς
μαθητευθεις
εις την βασιλειαν των
ουρανων ομοιος
εστιν ανθρωπω
οικοδεσποτη οστις
εκβαλλει εκ
του θησαυρου
αυτου καινα
και παλαια
- grammateus –So far in Matthew’s gospel, the scribes
were not portrayed in a positive light, so why did Jesus choose the word
“scribe”?
- Jesus has just instructed His disciples privately and
asked them if they understand; It is on account of their positive
response in v.51 that they understood His teaching that Jesus now says in
v.52 that they should take leadership in society as those who have a
working knowledge of God’s revelation.
- By using the word “scribe” Jesus was making clear that He
intended His disciples to take on the role that the scribes had in that
society. In Jesus’ day, the scribes were very prominent citizens –
they were honored more than even parents were honored. Throughout
the Gospel accounts we see scribes acting as spokesmen for the
people and guardians trying to protect the people from religious
error.
- Scribes had to go through a rigorous process of training
under Jewish Bible teachers, and when they graduated, they fulfilled a
role in their society which was like a lawyer, judge, political activist,
diplomat, Bible teacher, college professor, librarian, and secretary –
all at the same time, if you can imagine! (Unger, p.1141-2). The closest
we have to that today might be the role of a politically active church
pastor.
- Ezra is upheld in the Bible as a good example of a
scribe. Ezra is the one who brought the gold plundered by Nebuchadnezzar
from the treasury in Babylon back to the temple in Jerusalem after the
captivity:
- “This Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a scribe
skilled in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given… he
came to Jerusalem, because the good hand of his God was upon him. For
Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it,
and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” (Ezra 7:6-10, NASB)
- Notice why Ezra was so successful: the Bible says it is
because he set his heart to study the law of the LORD, to practice
(obey) it, and to teach it to the people. Like him, let us be
scribes who study, practice, and teach the Bible!
- That is the kind of role Jesus is intentionally training
His disciples to fill. This required instruction/training/discipleship in/concerning
the kingdom of heaven:
- matheteutheis - instructed untoKJV/instructed
aboutNIV/trained forHend,ESV/become a disciple ofNAS/made
a learner toATR - is the same Greek root from which the word
“disciple” comes
- This participle is in the Aorist tense, indicating that
this discipleship happened first, and then, after that, the learner had
the maturity to be handling new & old effectively.
- So Jesus commends training. Leadership in the kingdom of
God is not to be approached casually without preparation.
- In our culture, it is typical to qualify pastors with a
three-year Master of Divinity program in a seminary, or give them two
more years to get a Doctor of Ministry for good measure.
- It is said that none of Jesus’ disciples went to
seminary, which is true, but then again, they spent three years being instructed
and trained by Jesus before His final commissioning.
- So whatever we do for training can be formal
(like Bible college or seminary), or informal (like an
apprenticeship or internship), but everyone who aspires to lead the
church should welcome opportunities to learn from the teachers God
places in their lives.
- And what should be the centerpiece of our study?
- “You, however, continue in the things you have learned
and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and
that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are
able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which
is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training
in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped
for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:14-17, NASB) Hearing scripture
as children and studying scripture as adults is what
equips us in godliness, it is how we are discipled into the kingdom of
heaven!
- This training/instruction in God’s word results in the
person becoming like a…
- oikodespote – head of householdHend,NAS/householderKJV/masterESV/owner
of a houseNIV
- “Teachers are like heads of families who care not only to
have enough for themselves but to have a store laid up to feed others.”
~J. Calvin
- Men, our society has traditionally taught us to think of
ourselves as providers when it comes to financing our household,
but it is also our calling to be providers of God’s word to
everyone in our household – be they wife, children, roommates, or guests.
- You don’t have to be a church elder in order to
assume this role. Providing spiritual treasures of truth from the Bible
is what every man should be preparing to do for his household, so
that he can...
- ekballei – “bring out,” or literally “cast/flingVin/
hurlATR forth” from his thesaurou – storehouseHend/
storeroomNIV/ treasureKJV/ treasure-box/treasury new
and old things.
- This is a lot like Matthew 12:35 “The good man,
out of his good treasury casts forth good things.”
- It’s the same word in Greek for “casting out” demons and “throwing
away” garbage.
Why such a strong word when referring to the teaching of a
spiritual leader?
- The Hebrew word for “teach” (ירא ) literally means “to throw.”
Teaching involves launching ideas from our minds into the minds of other
people. So perhaps there is some cultural crossover between the
Hebrew Aramaic language Jesus spoke and the Koine Greek
that Matthew wrote in. But I don’t think that is enough of an
explanation.
- I like Marvin Vincent’s explanation in his Word
Studies of the New Testament, “this indicates his zeal in
communicating instruction.”
- We should not be casual, haphazard, or lacksidaisacal in
teaching God’s word. Being a good “scribe of God’s kingdom” requires
forethought, zeal, and earnestness, whether it’s teaching in a
university classroom, an elementary school, family devotions, Sunday
School, Bible Study, or one-on-one discipleship! Throw those good things
from God’s word out like an Olympic javelin-thrower throws that spear!
- kaina kai palaia – What does Jesus mean by “new and
old”? (cf. Cant. 7:13)
- The Greek word for “old” (παλαια)
is the plain word for “old.”
- It’s used in the Bible to describe food that has been
sitting in storage for a year (Lev. 25:22; 26:10), and for used
wineskins and worn clothes (Josh. 9:4,5; Mat. 9:16,17),
- but it is also the word translated “ancient” in the
phrase “Ancient of Days” in the book of Daniel (Dan. 7:9,13,22).
- What is most relevant in our interpretation of Matthew
13 is a passage in 2 Cor. 3:14 which uses this word to refer to the “old
covenant” written by Moses, in other words, what we call the Old
Testament – or the first five books of the OT anyway.
- In this old covenant are commands like, “Do not covet”
(Ex. 20:17a) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18b, 1 Jn.
2:7) which have been around for as long as God has been revealing
Himself to mankind. These old, well-worn words are worth treasuring and
passing on to our disciples.
- The word for “new” is generally used in the Greek Bible
to indicate things that are brand new (house, ropes, wineskins, wagons,
clothing, songs, books), but it is also used to denote some things that have
been around for a long time but are coming into new use (such as the
worship of false gods, the use of foreign languages, and the
re-establishment of a broken covenantal relationship with God). It is the latter of
these that I think Jesus is keying in on when He said that a trained
scribe brings out new things as well as old. Here are some of the ways
the word “new” is used in this sense:
- Isa 42:9 Behold, the ancient things have come to pass,
and so will the new things which I tell you... (Brenton LXX) Here “new”
and “old” indicate different time-periods in which God revealed Himself:
first to Moses in the “ancient” times, and the things that Moses prophecied
came true, and then, 700 years later, God revealed more things to Isaiah
the prophet. This confirms the truth and valuable-ness of both the
Pentateuch and the Prophets in the Old Testament.
- Isa. 43:19 “Behold, I will do new things, which
shall presently spring forth, and ye shall know them: and I will make a
way in the wilderness, and rivers in the dry land.” (Brenton) I
believe this prophecy has to do with the incarnation of Christ and His
ministry and death and resurrection which satisfied God’s just wrath
against our sin and enabled Him to redeem all that He loves. This good
news about Jesus is part of the “new” things Jesus was talking about. It’s
called the “new covenant” in…
- Luke 22:20 (NASB) “This cup which is poured out for you
is the new covenant in My blood.” (cf. 2 Cor. 3:6, Heb. 8:8,
9:15)
- The prophet Ezekiel also mentions God putting a “new”
spirit in His people (11:19, 18:31, 36:26), and Paul talks of Jesus
making us into new people, new creations (2 Cor. 5:17,
Gal. 6:15, Eph. 2:15 & 4:24) because the Holy Spirit makes important
changes in the way we think and act.
- John spoke often of the commandment to love one another
as being a new commandment, yet really an old commandment being brought
to new emphasis and practice. (John 13:34; 1 John 2:7-8, 2 John 1:5 “Now
I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new
commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we
love one another.” NASB) The commandments which Jesus gave during His
time with His disciples on earth, and which are recorded in the New
Testament are part of the “new” that a scribe instructed in the kingdom
will bring forth. And there are more “new” things to come:
- “For there will be a new heaven and a new
earth…” (Isa 65:17, 2 Pet. 3:13, Rev. 21:1-5) and Jesus promised that in
that time He will share the fruit of the vine with us “anew His Father's
kingdom." Matt. 26:29
- Whereas Jews of Jesus’ day clung to the Old
Testament and were reluctant to embrace these new things that
Jesus was teaching, evangelicals in our day are often the opposite,
clinging to the New Testament and not bothering to study the Old
Testament because it’s, well… old – and therefore irrelevant. But this is
not so at all!
- Remember that Paul wrote in the New Testament that “ALL
scripture is inspired by God and profitable… for training in
righteousness,” (2 Tim. 3:16) not just the New Testament, not just the
Old Testament.
- It is a sign of immaturity to be fixated on the past,
thinking that just because something is old therefore it is good
and should be preserved, and it is immature to be fixated on whatever is
the latest, newest fashion (like the philosophers in
Athens who were constantly looking for new ideas in Acts 17:21). Both
Traditional Conservatives and Liberal Progressives can fall into the
same rut by failing to grasp this principle Jesus teaches.
- The ability to treasure up both God’s old
revelation and His new revelation, and to draw principles out
from the Old and New Testament at the right time is a sign of a mature
disciple and teacher.
- “The mere scribe, Rabbinical in spirit, produces only
the old and stale. The disciple of the kingdom like the Master, is
always fresh-minded, yet knows how to value all old spiritual treasures
of Holy Writ, or Christian tradition.” (Bruce, as quoted by ATR)
13:53 And so it was that when Jesus finished these
parables He relocated from there,
και
εγενετο ‘οτε
ετελεσεν ‘ο Ιησους
τας παραβολας
ταυτας μετηρεν
εκειθεν
13:54 and, after coming into His hometown, He taught them
in their synagogue in such a way that they were astounded and saying, “Why is
it to this man that this wisdom and these miracles [came]?”
και
ελθων εις την
πατριδα
αυτου
εδιδασκεν
αυτους εν τη
συναγωγη αυτων
‘ωστε
εκπληττεσθαι
αυτους και
λεγειν Ποθεν τουτω
‘η σοφια ‘αυτη
και ‘αι
δυναμεις;
- Jesus’ hometown would be
Nazareth, as is explicitly stated in the parallel passage in Luke 4:16.
- Which raises the interesting question of whether or not
the events of Luke 4:16 happened on this same visit.
- In Luke 4:16, Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth and
claimed to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s messianic prophecies and then
talked about doing miracles for gentiles and not for Jews, which made the
townspeople so mad that they ran Him out of town and tried
(unsuccessfully) to throw Him off a cliff.
- John Calvin and A.T. Robertson, in their published harmonizations
of all the events in all the gospels made the Luke 4 account out to be an
earlier visit to Nazareth,
- but Jamieson Fausset and Brown are adamant that both
describe the same visit. Indeed, I can see no conflicts between the two
accounts that would prevent them from being the same visit – and I see many
similarities too.
- Now, there are two ways you can interpret the people’s
response in Matthew 13:54:
- The people heard Jesus and thought that His teaching was
astoundingly great, and, since they wanted to grow in the wisdom and
power of God, they ask, “Where did you get your wisdom and power so that
we can know and experience it too?”
- Kind of like the “old man
named Magoo who found quite a large rat in his stew,
Said the waiter, Don’t shout and wave it about, or the rest will be
wanting one too!” Actually, I don’t think that’s the way it was. I
think…
- They just couldn’t believe that one of their hometown
boys had become so uppity, so they say in effect, “What makes this man
think He has some kind of special wisdom and power that makes him better
than us? What a jerk!”
- Judging from the context, that they “took offense” at Him
in v.57 and tried to put Him in His place by reminding Him of His dad’s lowly
trade and the status of His brothers and sisters and that in the Luke 4
account they even tried to kill Jesus, I think that this question was
more an expression of indignation.
- Even the word placement in the Greek text of their
question emphasizes the word “this man” (Literally: “Whence TO THIS MAN
this wisdom and these powers?”) emphasizing their outrage that Jesus
would have gotten wisdom and power instead of any of themselves.
- “It was unpardonable for
Jesus not to be commonplace like themselves.” ~ATR
- What should they have done? They could have asked the same
question the first way I phrased it, honestly seeking the source of Jesus’
wisdom and power.
- John Calvin put it this way: “Why did they not lift up
their eyes to heaven to learn that what transcends human reason comes
forth from God? … For indeed, when God acts in unaccustomed ways, He
shows the power of His hand the more clearly.”
- Instead they say…
13:55 Is not this man the son of the carpenter? Is not
His mother named Mary and His brothers [named] James and Joseph and Simon and
Jude?
ουχ ‘ουτος
εστιν ‘ο του
τεκτονος ‘υιος
ουχ[ι]
‘η μητηρ αυτου
λεγεται μαριαμ
και ‘οι αδελφοι
αυτου Ιακωβος και
Ιωσης
και Σιμων και Ιουδας;
13:56 And are not His sisters near us? Why then is it to
this man that all these things [came]?”
και ‘αι
αδελφαι αυτου
ουχι πασαι
προς ‘ημας
εισιν; ποθεν
ουν τουτω
ταυτα παντα;
- The phrase “all these things” at the end of v.56
refers back to the phrase at the end of v.54 “this wisdom and these mighty
works.”
- The villagers ask questions about Jesus’ family in such a
way that the answer is assumed to be yes to all of them. Of course
Jesus’ earthly father was a carpenter; of course His mother was named Mary
and his brother’s names were James, Joseph (a.k.a. Joses), Simon and Jude,
and of course Jesus had sisters living nearby.
- But just because these things were true didn’t
change the fact that Jesus was also “the power of God and the wisdom of
God” in the flesh (1 Cor. 1:24).
- “They see God at work in Christ and deliberately turn
their eyes to Joseph and Mary and all His relatives and let their obscure
estate be a veil over the manifest light.” ~J. Calvin
- They imply that Jesus couldn’t possibly be an
authoritative teacher because He was raised by a carpenter, not a
priest, and He never even went to seminary! So, as far as they’re
concerned, Jesus is just a carpenter (which is what they call Him in the
parallel passage in Mark 6:3) – just a carpenter who is pretending to be
Some-body.
- And his mother – half the women in Israel seemed to be
named Mary. What a plain name! She was not some foreign queen, not even a
local noblewoman. One Jewish writer claimed that Mary ran a hair salon
– no prestige there!
- And the villagers know all His brothers and sisters
because they live nearby and there’s nothing special about any of them.
- This verse offers a tantalizing look into Jesus’ family,
but it doesn’t tell us enough to draw much in the way of conclusions.
- Roman Catholic theologians believe
that Mary had no children after Jesus. The Bible doesn’t actually teach
that, but this belief was shared by the rabidly anti-Catholic John Calvin
as well. Calvin taught that the terms for “brothers” and “sisters” here
just meant “male relatives” and “female relatives” or “cousins.” Which is
possible. Mary’s sister is said to have married a man named Alphaeus,
who, from other passages in the Bible, we see had many sons in the orbit
of Jesus’ ministry: Matthew, James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude – the latter
four, of course are the same names that we read here in Matt. 13, but
would technically be Jesus’ cousins, the word “brothers” being used
loosely here.
- There is also the possibility that
these relatives were brought in to Jesus’ immediate family by another
marriage. Commentators Matthew Henry and John Gill suggested that Joseph
was married before and already had children when he married Mary, while
others suggest that Joseph died young and that Mary re-married and had
children. I’ve heard it suggested that she re-married the Alphaeus I
mentioned above, making those sons more than just cousins, but actually
step-brothers.
- The third view is that these were
actually the children of Joseph and Mary, so they would be Jesus’
half-brothers and sisters (since Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ biological father).
I have a lot of respect for the commentaries written by Adam Clarke, A.T.
Robertson, William Hendriksen, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, all of
which said we should take the words at face value that these were Jesus’
brothers and sisters. Of course, you then have to explain why Jesus, at
His death, gave custody of his mom to John rather than to one of his
blood brothers, but in Galatians 1:19, Paul also calls James “the brother
of our Lord,” and it was probably this same James who presided over the
elders in Jerusalem and who wrote the Bible book of James.
- Whatever the case, the point
of this passage in Matthew is not to gain details on Jesus’ family, but
rather to reveal a bad attitude on the part of the people in Jesus’
hometown.
13:57 And they were scandalized by Him. So Jesus said to
them, “A prophet is not without honor except in His hometown
and in His household!”
και
εσκανδαλιζοντο
εν αυτω ‘ο δε Ιησους
ειπεν αυτοις Ουκ
εστιν προφητης
ατιμος ει μη εν
τη [ιδια]
πατριδι [αυτου] και
εν τη οικια
αυτου
13:58 And He did not do many miracles there on account of
their unbelief.
και ουκ
εποιησεν εκει
δυναμεις
πολλας δια την
απιστιαν αυτων
- Whether from pride, or jealousy, or ignorance, or hatred
toward God, these townspeople became offended by Jesus. The Greek word is
“skandalizw” which I transliterated “scandalized.” It originally was used
in hunting wild game and meant “to fall into a trap” and is also
translated “stumbled” in other places in the Bible.
- So how does Jesus respond to the people in His hometown
failing to worship Him as Lord and refusing to believe in Him? “It
appears He was not much concerned at it. Heb. 12:2 tells us that He ‘despised
the shame.’ Instead of aggravating the affront, or expressing an offence
at it, or returning such an answer to their foolish suggestions as they
deserved, He mildly imputes it to the common humour of the children of
men, to undervalue excellences that are cheap, and common, and home-bred.”
~ M. Henry
- I had assumed that Jesus repeated a proverb here about
prophets and honor, so I turned to my trusty source on ancient Jewish literature
and culture, Dr. John Gill, but not even he could find a source for that
proverb in the Jewish writings, so Jesus may have actually coined this
one. (cf. Luke 4:24, John 4:44)
- Jesus is indeed a prophet – in
the sense that He spoke God’s word, and He had every right to be honored
as such (Deut. 18:15-18, Matt. 21:11, Luke 24:19, John 9:17, Acts 3:22,
7:37), but “familiarity breeds contempt,” and when people know you well,
it’s harder to impress them. That didn’t stop Jesus from giving his
hometown a chance, however, and it shouldn’t stop us.
- This rejection is, in itself, a fulfillment of prophecy.
The Greek word a-timos, translated “without honor” here in v. 57
was used in Isaiah’s prophecy about how Jesus would not be honored when
He came to earth as the suffering servant: “He was despised and was the
One rejected of men - a sorrowing man also known by grief. And like one
from whom there is hiding of faces, He was dishonored and we did
not give Him consideration.” (Isa. 53:3, NAW)
- And if it happened to Jesus, it can happen to us, so don’t
get discouraged if you try to tell people about Jesus and they hate you
for it.
- That happened to the apostles too. Paul wrote in 1 Cor
4:9-10, “For I think God exhibited us latter apostles as men on death row
because we became a spectacle to the world… We are weak, but y’all are
strong. Y’all are illustrious, but we are dishonored.” (NAW)
- However, it is worth
mentioning that this rejection of Jesus was not universal or ultimate:
- “Augustine aptly compares faith to the open mouth of a
jar, whereas unbelief is like a lid which covers the jar and prevents the
liquid from being poured in by God. And this is very true. For when the
Lord sees that His power is not received by us, He finally takes it away…
[A]lthough He justly and necessarily restricts His power because it has
not an open entrance into us, yet we see that He does not fail to do us
good and makes a way where there is none!” ~J. Calvin
- “It will be seen that, by God’s grace, unbelief was subsequently
changed to faith” in the case of Jesus’ brothers, because they were all
up in the upper room in Jerusalem starting the first church after Jesus
ascended into heaven in Acts 1:14 (Wm. Hendricksen)
- And there were a few other people in Nazareth who
believed in Jesus enough to seek and receive healing from Him. The
parallel account in Mark 6:5-6 reads, “And He could do no miracle
there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people
and healed them. And He wondered [marveled] at their unbelief. And He was
going around the villages teaching. (NASB)
Conclusion
All of us who have read the gospels know that to be a
follower of Jesus we must repent of our rebellion against God and believe in
Jesus to save us from our sin.
But it is precisely over these two points that the
townspeople of Nazareth stumbled:
- They were unwilling to accept that Jesus was any different
from them, and therefore they were not willing to budge from a stance of rebellion
against the authority of God’s own Son,
- and secondly they were unwilling to place faith in
Jesus to bring God’s salvation and healing into the lives of needy people,
so they didn’t get healing or salvation. They didn’t believe He could heal
them, so they did not come to Him to be healed, and so He did not do many
healings. (Wm. Hendricksen)
What hard-hearted, stupid wretches!
It’s easy to criticize them in our 20/20 hindsight, but we
need to take the beam out of our own eye and ask ourselves, How are we like
these villagers?
- In what ways am I unwilling to humble myself and relinquish
control of things to Jesus and obey Him like He is my Master?
- In what ways am I unwilling to trust Jesus’ wisdom and
power to fix my problems and try to solve my problems without praying to
Him or waiting on Him? How many mighty works is Jesus not doing in my home
and workplace because of my unbelief?
·
“…if mighty works be not wrought in us, it is not
for want of power or grace in Christ, but for want of faith in us. By grace ye
are saved, and that is a mighty work, but it is through faith, Eph. 2:8.” ~M.
Henry
Oh Lord, I do believe, Help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24)