Hello and welcome to the Women’s Weekly Bible Challenge! I’m Lisa Ann Spencer.
Today, we
are going to jump right in to part 3 of our study, When Jesus Speaks to
Women.
Click here
for Part One and Part Two
Let’s finish
the book of Matthew today.
JESUS
SPEAKS TO JAMES AND JOHN’S MOTHER
In the
Matthew passage, we see the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons,
approaching Jesus to make a request.
📔NOTE: We know from other passages
of scripture that ‘the sons of Zebedee’ are James and John (See Matthew 4:21; Mark 1:19).
Q: What
brought this request on?
A: Three
Things
#1 The
Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1
and Mark 9:2)
Peter,
James and John were highly favored of the LORD. They were the only apostles invited up to
the mountain to see Jesus transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah,
where they heard the voice of GOD the
Father. That is rather a big deal!
#2 The
promise of sitting on 12 thrones (Matthew
19:28)
All 12
apostles had been promised that in the coming Kingdom, they would sit on 12
thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.
#3 Nearing
Jerusalem and the Triumphal Entry of Jesus (Matthew 20:17 and 21:1-11; Mark 10:32 and Mark 11:1-11)
This
request made by the mother of James and John occurs as they are approaching the
ascension to Jerusalem. The ascension
does not mean simply walking uphill to that city on a hill. It has to do with ascending to the throne of
the nation of Israel. All 12 apostles and the disciples of Jesus’s were in expectation that He was
about to lay claim to the Kingdom which they had been preaching for the previous
three years!
ESTABLISHING
THE CONTEXT – context is critical!
Today we
understand that Jesus’s followers failed to fully understand the Old Testament
prophecies about His death and suffering that must occur before He would
establish the kingdom on earth, even though Jesus had told them plainly many
times. In both of these passages, Jesus mentioned as they were going into
Jerusalem that He would be condemned to death and rise again the third day (see
Matthew 20:17-19 and Mark 10:32-34).
Here is a list of
all the passages in Matthew and Mark
where Jesus prophesied of His death, burial and resurrection:
- Matthew 16:21
- Matthew 17:9, 22-23
- Matthew 20:18-19, 28
- Matthew 21:37-38
- Matthew 26:2, 12, 31-32
- Mark 8:31
- Mark 9:9-12, 31
- Mark 10:33-34, 38, 45
- Mark 12:6-8
- Mark 14:8, 27-28
Regarding
Jesus’s prophesied suffering, we read very plainly in see Mark 9:31-32 that the 12 apostles did not understand anything about
Jesus’s death burial and resurrection. (Compare Luke 18:34.)
Q: A question
should arise upon hearing this. If the
12 apostles did not understand the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus,
which is our gospel today according to 1Corinthians 15:1-4, what gospel had they been preaching for the past 3
years?
A: The answer
is the
gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew
4:23).
The
preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom included:
- Repenting and turning back to the Law of
Moses (Matthew 3:2; 23:3)
- Being water baptized in order to be ceremonially cleansed (Mark 1:4) in order to be qualified to be a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6) unto the world
- The kingdom being at hand, very near, soon to be set up on earth (Matthew 6:10; 10:7).
- The Messiah’s throne would be headquartered at Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:17).
- Israel would be the head and not the tail (Deuteronomy 28:13).
IN THIS
CONTEXT OF THE KINGDOM JESUS SPEAKS TO A WOMAN
Returning
to our passage where Jesus speaks to a woman, I am sure you noticed the difference
between these two accounts; namely that in Mark’s account, the mother of James and
John is not even mentioned. Let’s take a
closer look at Matthew’s account.
Matthew 20:20 Then came to him the
mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a
certain thing of him. 21 And he
said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my
two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy
kingdom. 22 But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask.
Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of…
Jesus does not answer their mother. In previous lessons I have shown you that ‘Ye’
and ‘You’ are plural; ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ are singular. By using the word ‘Ye’, we know that Jesus
was not answering the mother but the sons.
We also know this because in Mark the mother is never mentioned. It is also not likely that the mother would
be expected to drink the cup that
James and John must drink.
The response of the other ten apostles in Matthew 20:24 and Mark 10:41, says they were moved
with indignation and much displeased
with the two brethren, namely James and John. They were not angry with their mother. This
is another indication that Jesus did not answer her directly.
Jesus, knowing the thoughts of all men, discerned that the
sons had put their mother up to making this request. This makes me wonder about the age of James
and John. Were they quite young? Biblically speaking, a man is not considered
an adult until age 20 (Deuteronomy 1:39
and Numbers 14:26-39). I cannot imagine a mature man putting his
mother up to making this request to Jesus.
At the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus had charged Peter,
James and John to tell no man about what they saw until
after His resurrection.
Matthew
17:9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell
the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead. The
same is repeated in Mark 9:9.
Do you suppose they obeyed? He said tell 'no man', but do you suppose they told a woman, their
mother? The Bible does not tell us, but it does show us many examples of Jesus
charging people to ‘tell no one’ and very few obey.
SUMMARY
In light of the context, we can understand that it was an
honest and natural request for James and John to expect such high honor. Their mistake was failing to understand the
price that must be paid by Jesus and themselves as the next steps toward receiving
that prophesied kingdom. They must first
drink the cup of suffering.
They demonstrated cowardliness by having their mother make
the request for them, and they demonstrated false bravery when they answered
that they could indeed drink of the cup that Jesus was to drink. If we can learn anything from this account,
it is that we should be NOT be ignorant of EVERYTHING that the word has to say. We cannot pick out the parts that are
agreeable to our flesh and disregard things we do not understand or do not like. We must seek to understand all the scripture in context; we must rightly divide the word of Truth (2 Timothy 2;15)!
[Update: 01/13/23, I did not include Pilate's wife because Jesus did not speak to her, but she had a dream during the day, because of Him. Read Matthew 27:11-26. Jesus stood trial before Pontus Pilate the Roman governor.
Matthew 27:19 When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
The account of Pilate's wife is not found in the other gospels. Why is it included at all? I believe it is as a witness against Pilate. Pilate states that he found no fault in Jesus. Pilate sent Jesus to Herod; he found no fault in Jesus. Two or three witnesses are required to establish a matter. His wife's warning would be a third witness against Herod that he knowingly caused an innocent man to be put to death.]
JESUS SPEAKS TO A GROUP OF WOMEN
Read Matthew 28:1-10
We will focus on verses 9 and 10.
Matthew
28:9 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All
hail. And they came and worshipped him. 10 Then said Jesus unto them, Be
not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they
see me.
Jesus says, “All hail” to a group of women at the sepulcher,
and He tells them to tell His brethren to meet Him in Galilee.
📔NOTE: Webster’s
1828 dictionary defines ‘hail’ as to call a person at a distance, to arrest his
attention.
This event, which happens between the wee hours of Saturday
after midnight and Sunday morning just after the rising of the sun (in the
darkness and in the light), is covered in each of the four gospels. Many books have been written about the
details of these events, some in an attempt to disprove the Bible because the
events seem to contradict one another.
It would take several Bible studies to entirely cover the
details of these events, all of which are true.
That study is outside my sphere of teaching as a woman, but I do
encourage you to study these events in detail, knowing that the Holy Spirit inspired
each of these men to remember the details that He chose to reveal through each
writer (John 14:26). We do well to
remember that men are liars, but God cannot lie.
In Matthew's account, the two women mentioned are “Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary”. When we
see Jesus speaking to the women in verses 9 and 10, we can compare this with
the other passages from the other gospel accounts and understand that there
were more women present than just the two Mary’s. Many women, and even some apostles, were
coming and going to revisit the tomb many times. Again, I encourage you to
study these things for yourself.
What is remarkable about these passages is that after Jesus’s
resurrection, He appeared first unto women.
In so many religions of the world, women are either looked down upon as
very low and mistreated, or they are highly regarded and worshipped as false goddesses.
Only in Christianity do we discover the true and proper honor that God
has bestowed upon women.
I am thankful for His care for us.
Next week we will finally get to Mark, most of which we have
already covered in Matthew. Then we will
move quickly into the book of Luke. If
you have not read Luke recently, challenge yourself to do that this week. I hope you will join me week as we continue
our study, When Jesus Speaks to Women.
The material covered in this Blog can be viewed here:
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