Introductory Ministry in Judea/Samaria · Introductory Ministry in Judea/Samaria 2 of 18 Lesson 07...

Transcript - NT504 The Gospels/The Life of Christ

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LESSON 07 of 24NT504

Introductory Ministry in Judea/Samaria

The Gospels/The Life of Christ

Terry C. Hulbert, Th.D.Distinguished Professor Emeritus at

Columbia Biblical Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina

We pray now as we begin, Our Father we do thank You for the Lord Jesus Christ, for His incarnation, for His life, His ministry, His gentleness, His understanding, His patience with the people of His day. We rejoice, Father, in the fact that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. That today He is the same kind of person He was in the days about which we are reading and studying. Remind us of this, Lord, and help us to draw closer to Him, the light of the world, to expose ourselves and to have Him illuminate us and illuminate our way, that we may walk in the light as He is in the light. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

We continue with the call of these four disciples in Section 51, we were noting three key points through this section, three things that Jesus asked the disciples to do—or at least one of them—and I see these as a sequence that often occurs in our lives. Jesus will not ask us perhaps to do the big thing at first. He did not start by saying to Peter, “Follow me.” He started with something very simple. He says, “Can I get into your boat?” Peter wasn’t very enthusiastic about it. He had been out fishing all night He was cleaning the nets, and yet he allowed Him into the boat. Perhaps we could liken this to Jesus saying, “Let Me come into your life.”

Then He gave him a specific command that stretched his imagination, stretched his faith. He says, “Let down the nets for a catch” (verse 4). And he [Peter] did not see much possibility in this, “What does a carpenter know about catching fish. We fished all night. Doesn’t He know there’s nothing out there this morning?” And yet, he obeyed the word of God and did this.

Interestingly enough, in verse 8, when Peter sees all of the fish being caught and the nets full, he says, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” It doesn’t seem to fit. It just is dropped in there. As a matter of fact, we wonder where Peter thought Jesus might go, because Peter had never seen Jesus walk on the




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water. So he says, “Depart from me, where You go, when You get out of the boat.” And here is Peter in a most unlikely scene, theologically, with all of these fish around him. And he says, “I’m a sinful man.” It is apparent that Peter saw himself as he was, and this is a good start. This is important. He saw that he was a sinner. He saw that all of this was happening, not because he was lucky or because he was worthy. The amazing thing is that he saw himself as a sinner.

Very often we think, when good things happen to us, that it’s because we’re good; and when bad things happen, it’s because we’ve done something bad. But here’s something good happening, and he says, “I’m bad, in effect, he says, I’m a sinner.”

And in verse 10, he says, don’t fear, from now on you’ll be catching men. We know what this means. I don’t know if Peter knew what it meant. But this is an illustration of how Jesus relates His metaphors to the people involved. A sower goes forth to sow, a shepherd with sheep, and in this case, a fisherman.

And later on, one of the last interviews that Jesus has with Peter in John 21, He makes him a shepherd. He says, “Shepherd my sheep.” But right now, He’s saying, “Catch my fish,” making him a fisher of men.

And they left everything and followed Him. This is the third challenge of Jesus: First, “May I come in your boat;” Second, “Let down the net;” and the third one is, “Follow Me.” And Peter could have said, “The Lord has blessed my fishing business. Certainly that indicates that He wants me to stay in it. I’ve never caught so many fish. There’s great wealth out here. Surely this is an evidence of the fact that He wants me to stay in the fishing business.” But, of course, they left everything and followed Him. They still had much to learn.

Section 52, a leper comes to Jesus and says something amazing in Mark’s account, [chapter 1] verse 40. He says, “If You’re willing, you can make me clean.” This is a statement of faith. And Jesus said, “I’m willing, be cleansed. And immediately the leprosy was cleansed.” And then in verse 44, he says, “Go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a testimony to them.” Now he’d have to do this down at the temple, so [Jesus] says, “Go down to Jerusalem and there is a ritual that you go through, not to get rid of the leprosy, but as a ceremony that shows that the leprosy is gone.” A little




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bit parallel to the baptism thing, because the water didn’t take away the sin, but it was a ceremony that showed the sin was taken away.

And [Jesus] says, “for a testimony to them.” Who’s the them? The people of the temple, the priests. This was an evidence of the fact that Jesus was keeping the law and He wanted to show these people down in Jerusalem that something had happened up there and that He had done this miracle. I don’t know whether the man ever got to Jerusalem or not, because he did the very thing that Jesus told him not to do. He says, “Don’t proclaim it. Don’t tell people. Don’t spread the news around.” Because Jesus knew what would happen. They would bring all the lepers and all the further sick people in. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what happened. And from then on, He had to go into unpopulated areas, [because] He is not looking for a crowd going into cities. Now He’s going where the people aren’t, and the people are coming out to Him. This is another evidence of the popular interest increasing on the basis of His work, not of His person necessarily.

Again, we must remember to trace the ups and downs, trace the thread of the reception of Jesus (or rejection of Jesus) by various groups of people. We should never put everybody into the same category. When we say the Jews received or the Jews rejected Him, this is not true. It depends what time it is in His ministry, what part of the country it is in His ministry, and what group we’re talking about. Always make a distinction among these. And this is the general populous now. I like verse 5:16 of Luke’s account, “But He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.” [That is] something that speaks for itself.

Section 53, when He came back to Capernaum several days afterward—remember the last time He was in Capernaum, He healed Peter’s wife’s mother, and now He comes back—and it was heard that He was at home (this is in Mark’s account). Whose home? It may have been Peter’s in-law’s home or it might have been His own home. We’re not told whether Jesus operated out of His own house, so to speak. I rather doubt it. I think it’s more likely that this was Peter’s wife’s mother’s home. And the reason I say that is that Jesus had brothers who were very much opposed to Him, who ridiculed Him.




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And this is kind of a subplot here. What would it be like to be Jesus’ brother if you didn’t believe that He came from the Father in heaven? How difficult would it be to grow up with Jesus and believe that He was sent by God? So they rejected Him. As a matter of fact, they ridiculed Him. And six months before the crucifixion, in John 7, they say, “Go on down to Jerusalem and show yourself off there.” And they didn’t believe. And ultimately, they did come to believe, and two of them wrote books in the New Testament, James and Jude.

So He’s at home, possibly Peter’s home in Capernaum. You’ll notice in Mark 2:2 that people are crowding around. So there is no room, not even at the door. And He was not healing. It’s always interesting to me that sometimes He’s healing and sometimes He’s teaching, sometimes He’s doing both. But in this case, He wasn’t healing people, but they’re still pressing around. So we can almost say that they were as interested in the Word of God as they were in the healing at some times. They didn’t come and find that He wasn’t healing and then go home. They came and listened to Him teach.

And here is this famous story about the paralytic being carried in by four men. And they’re unable to get in for the crowd, and so they dug an opening in the roof and let the man down. This wasn’t a beautifully formed drop ceiling like we have, or cathedral roof. [It is] possibly only six and a half or seven feet high, just above their heads. And they would let him down through this roof. Undoubtedly, it caused quite a stir and would stop the teaching session. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “My son, be healed and go home” (Mark 2:5). And the man stood up and walked out. This is what we’d expect. This is why they brought him. They brought him to be healed, but [Jesus] didn’t heal him. And here he is, lying and paralyzed at the feet of Jesus, everybody looking at him, everybody crowding around to see what was going on, and the four faces appearing through the roof looking down. And He says, “Your sins are forgiven.”

You remember I mentioned in a previous session that Jesus knew the hearts of people, and we are not always told what goes on in their hearts, but we have to make a deduction from subsequent actions. When did this man confess his sin?” “When did this man repent?” “When did this man get ready for the kingdom?” We’re not told, but Jesus knew that he had repented and so He could say, “Your sins are forgiven.”




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He wouldn’t have said this if the man hadn’t repented.

And he would have gone on with his teaching, presumably, but there were some scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. And I want you to go back to the third column there, to verse 5:17 in Luke’s account, and notice who was there. “Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem.” So you have people here from all over now, religious leaders, who are coming to investigate. These are the people now who are making the statement in Mark 2:7—they’re reasoning in their hearts, and again, Christ knows their hearts—“He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God only? What’s He saying? What’s this mean? He says nobody had ever said that before.” They had never heard anybody say, “Your sins are forgiven.” And Jesus was aware of this, and in verse 9 he says, “Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘rise up and walk?’” Well which is easier to say? It’s easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” because you don’t have to prove that. You can just say, “Your sins are forgiven,” and the man looks just the same. But if you say, “Rise up and walk,” then you have to prove it. Then its obvious whether or not the man has the power or not.

So in verse 10, “In order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” notice “Son of Man.” We’re going to see that title again. It’s a messianic title. It comes from Daniel 7:13. It’s going to be the one statement that turns the case against Jesus at the religious trial. And He says, “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. I am [the] Messiah, I am God, I am on earth, and I have authority to forgive sins. And I’m going to prove that to you by doing the harder thing to say, namely, to heal the paralytic.” So He says, “Rise, take up your pallet, and go home.”

Theoretically the man would never have been healed if there had not been a theological discussion of it. So He’s arguing from the greater to the lesser in terms of the greater difficulty.

Now we know that theologically it’s more difficult to forgive sins (that’s an eternal matter), rather than to heal a paralytic. Each takes a miracle, of course.




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And in verse 12, “They were amazed, they glorified God, and they said, ‘We’ve never seen anything like this!” Never seen anything like what? You’ve never seen a man healed? Yes, you’ve seen people healed. You’ve never seen a man forgiven his sins? It must be some religion if you could never see a man forgiven of his sins.

Section 54, Matthew is called. He was a tax-collector, but likely a customs tax-collector, not the type of the other tax-collectors that we meet in the Gospels so much. Except that in Mark’s account (14:18), in Section 58, Jesus is reclining at a table in Matthew’s house—this is a good illustration of friendship evangelism. A web network relationship among the tax-collectors. How many of these customs or other tax-collectors had ever had any religious instruction? How welcome would they be in a synagogue? How much contact would they have, even with the Pharisees, to teach them about the law? But Matthew follows Jesus—we can only speculate as to how his heart was soft and how he was prepared for this—Matthew follows Jesus, and he invites these tax-collectors over to his home. He says, “Come over and meet my new friend.” There was nothing threatening about going to Matthew’s house. There was something very threatening probably about going to the synagogue; they would be looked down on.

So they were dining there with Jesus and His disciples, and there were many of them, and they were following Him. So here’s a new kind of thread going through Jesus’ ministry. Now we have tax-collectors who had hither to be an untouched, unreached people, we might say, following Jesus. Pharisees didn’t like that, and they objected to it. “Why is Jesus eating with tax-collectors and sinners?”

So we learn something further about the Pharisees. They were very exclusive about the people with whom they associated. This was part of their religion. They thought if they could separate themselves from people who are evil that they themselves would be more righteous. And, of course, Jesus says, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). [He’s] calling sinners to repentance.”

Section 56, [In Mark 2:18] John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. They were noted for fasting. And the people came and asked, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”




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The answer, of course, is that John was like a friend of the bridegroom introducing the bridegroom. “But at the great wedding, the bridegroom is here now, and this is a time for rejoicing because the bridegroom is present. We don’t fast now. This is a time for feasting and not fasting.”

And this is the passage where we find, in verses 21 and 22 in Mark’s account, the reminder that the old ways of Judaism just can’t contain the teaching of Christ. External religion would be burst like a wine skin that had hardened around the wine within it, and now if you put in new wine, if you put in that which will expand, that which will press to the limits, it would explode. It would break apart. It would be broken up by the new life. And so you cannot adjust fasting or any other ceremony to an unregenerate person. This is a gospel of regeneration, a gospel of new life.

This brings us now to the Sabbath controversies and a period of withdrawal, beginning in Section 57. The significance of the Sabbath controversies may be expressed this way: The Pharisees were being increasingly threatened by Christ’s claim to righteousness and deity, and they realized very quickly that His standards of righteousness were quite different from theirs. As a matter of fact, the key statement in the Sermon on the Mount—which is going to occur right after this—is in Matthew 5:20, “[Unless] your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will under no circumstances enter the kingdom of heaven.” And they were becoming aware of this, and so they were looking for some way to discredit him. Jesus does not wait to be attacked. Jesus (as we’ll see in this passage), we might say, goes on the offensive. At least he takes the initiative.

So in Section 57, we find a feast of the Jews, which is down in Jerusalem. We’re not told which feast it is. It’s possibly a feast of tabernacles—we’re not sure—that would have been in September. [We’re] also in doubt as to whether or not His disciples went with Him on this occasion. But we find Him now in Jerusalem, just beside the temple, on the north side of the temple, at a pool which is called the Pool of Bethesda. It’s at the sheep gate where they brought the sheep in for sacrifice. And around this pool (John 5:3) there were sick, blind, lame, withered, a very discouraging, dismal scene. They had this idea that when the water moved, if they brought somebody down, the first person in would be cured. Not likely that it’s true, but this is what they believed. In verse 5, there’s a man that had been




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there for 38 years. Can you imagine, 38 times of disappointment, giving up hope. And it’s interesting that it says, in verse 6, that “Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, and he said, ‘Do you wish to get well?’” Of all the people there, he singled out one; and interestingly enough, we’ll find later that this man was a sinner. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t lame because of some innocence.

I remind us to think on to John 9. You remember when they found the blind man down the street from this, and the disciples said, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” And Jesus said, “Neither his parents nor this man sinned. This is for the glory of God.” That’s in contrast to this scene where the man had sinned, because He says, “Go and sin no more lest something worse come upon you.

So this man apparently was lame in connection with some sin. In any case, [Jesus] singles him out (He could have done it for many, but He only did it for one). He said, (John 5:6) “Do you wish to get well? And He looked at his limited resources and said, “I don’t have any way of doing it.” But he didn’t realize that the one who spoke to him had superior power, and Jesus said, “Take up your pallet and walk.” Jesus could have said, “Be healed,” and the man could have stood up and spent the rest of the day there, but he specifically said, “Pick up your pallet, roll up your little mat, and walk.” Somebody had brought him down there every day and taken him back home at night. But this time he could walk. Immediately the man became well, took up his pallet, and began to walk. Every one of these details becomes significant, as we’ll see. Especially the next line, “Now it was the Sabbath on that day.” The man had been there for 38 years. Why did Jesus have to hit on the seventh day of that particular week? Couldn’t he have waited a day? Couldn’t he have done it on Friday? Well Jesus had taken the initiative.

Verse 10, he walks into the temple area. Apparently, the Jews were saying to him who was cured, “It’s the Sabbath, It’s not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” (You can just picture the scene: The man gets up. He hasn’t walked before; hardly knows how to walk. Looks at his legs, tries out his legs, jumps around a little bit perhaps, rolls up the pallet, looks at the other guys, and says, “I’m sorry fellows, I can’t help you.” But they say, “Wish it could happen to us.” And he says, “Goodbye, I won’t be back tomorrow,” and he starts to walk over [to] the temple over there.




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He starts to wander around the temple area. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He just wanders around, and here all these Pharisees, Jewish leaders, [are] there (it’s the Sabbath, and they’re there), a very solemn situation. All of a sudden, their eyes brighten, “Look at that guy over there. He’s got something under his arm, let’s go get him.” They all trundle over there to see this man. They surround him. They pounce on him. They say, “what are you doing carrying this on the Sabbath?” And the man says (he doesn’t even know who Jesus is), “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘take up your pallet and walk.’” The obvious inference is that “If He is important and powerful enough to heal me of 38 years of lameness, that it’s okay if He tells me to pick up my pallet and walk, you know.”

And they said, “Who is the man who said, take up your pallet and walk?” He said, “I don’t know who it was,” Because Jesus had slipped away. Now it could have ended right there. That would be the end of Chapter 5 of John, right there. Except that Jesus takes the initiative. Jesus find him in the temple. He goes through the crowd, finds him, comes up beside him, and he says, “You have become well. Don’t sin anymore so that nothing worse will befall you.” The man nods, and he says, “Those Jews wanted to know who it was. I’ll go tell [them] now I know who it is.” So he runs over to the Pharisees and he said, “You wanted to know who it was. It’s that one over there.” And they went over and they began persecuting Jesus, because He had done these things on the Sabbath.

Now that’s not the end of the story. Jesus says, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” Now to us that may not mean a great deal, but to the Jews it meant much. He was, in effect, saying that, “I am doing the same thing as God is doing, and God is My Father in a special sense.” How do I know that? John 5:18, “For this cause therefore the Jews were seeking the more to kill Him.” Now we’re going to find several references to the Jewish leadership desiring to kill Jesus. It seems to me that this developed over a period of time. In other words, it wasn’t just one meeting they had at one time and they said, “We’re going to kill Him.” But I think that various Jewish leaders, probably the more radical and the more disturbed among Him, would say, “We’ve got to get rid of this man” So the idea of killing Him would be growing.




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As a matter of fact, it reaches its climax in John 11:45-48 where Caiaphas says, “It’s necessary that one man die for the nation or we’re going to lose the whole thing.” But what I’m saying here is that this is something which is developing, and we’ll find several—it’s not a universal thing; they are not all saying this—but seeking the more to kill Him. Remember that, by the way, they’re going to deny it a few months later.

Now why are they going to seek the more to kill Him? One, because “He was not only breaking the Sabbath, but was also calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18). When did He do that? He did what he said in verse 17. Because in verse 17, what He was saying, in effect, was “God is my Father in a special sense.” The word “own” in verse 18 is a special word, “His own.” It means, “His own of the same kind in a special relationship.” And they noticed the word that He used.

But furthermore, what Hes actually saying is that “I am continuing the same kind of thing that God did when He opened up the Red Sea to Moses and when He knocked down the walls of Jericho to Joshua.” This is the same kind of person doing the same kind of thing. And, of course, this was a challenge to them.

That brings us to Section 59, and all of Section 59 is, in effect, an answer, a response, to verse 17. In other words, to their objection that they raised about verse 17. It’s an explication of it.Jesus, therefore, answered, and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you the Son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the Father doing.” Notice the word “do” through here. “Do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, these things, the Son also does in like manner.” Again, the idea that Jesus is God. “He that has seen me has seen the Father. He that’s heard Me has seen the Father. The words that I speak are not my words. They’re the words of the Father who sent Me.”

All of this, of course, is reflecting the origin issue. Now notice in the next few verses He lists three things that are attributed to God which He now attributes to himself. Sort of two things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

Verse 21, “Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. So I can do what the Father does.”




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Second, for not even the Father judges anyone, but he’s given all judgment to the Son. So if He’s given judgment to the Son, that means the Father has the authority to judge. And if He’s given it to the Son, then He’s equated the Son with him in authority to judge.

The third line of evidence is in verse 23, “In order that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” So he receives the same honor.

So as the Father, so the Son gives life and resurrection, judges and receives honor. So these are parallel. Verses 24-29 give examples of this, verses 21-22.

Beginning at verse 30 then, He gives a series of five witnesses to who He is. Now all of this is in response to their saying that He called God his own Father, making Himself equal with God. The first witness is Christ, in verse 30. He says, “I do nothing on my own initiative, as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. If I alone bear witness of Myself, My testimony is not true.”

Now that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t accurate. It means that it would not be legally acceptable. So in verses 30-31, Jesus is saying, “I am Myself telling you who I am.” But He says, “You won’t accept that one witness. You’ll need another witness, so I’m going to give you some more witnesses.”

Witness number two is John the Baptist, in verses 32-35. He sort of prods them a little bit. He says, in verse 33, “You have sent to John, and he bore witness of the truth.”

And then in verse 36, His works. “The works that I have done, they bear witness.” And notice at the end of verse 36 that “The Father has sent Me.” This is the origin issue.Verses 37-38, “The Father has born witness of me.” This may refer to His witness at the baptism. It may refer to some other witness in the Scriptures.

And then the last one is the Scriptures themselves, beginning at verse 39. This hits them harder than any of the others because they prided themselves in their knowledge of the Scripture and in their accepting the authority of Scriptures. He said, “You are searching the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.” That is, in the searching and knowing of them.




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“It is these that bear witness of Me, and you are willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

The distinction He’s making here is that knowledge of the Scriptures, even knowledge of what the Scripture says about [the] Messiah, is not enough to save. There must be a believing on the person whom the Scriptures reveal coming to him. To come to Christ means to receive Him for who He is. It means to repent.

Then he finalizes this in verse 45, “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses.” Now that was really a difficult statement for them for obvious reasons. “In whom you have set your hope, you’ve trusted Moses. Moses is not going to be your defender. He’s going to be your prosecutor. Why? Because Moses wrote of Me, and you have not listened to [Me]. You have not believed and accepted and obeyed what Moses said about Me. For if you believe Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

So those are very, very heavy statements. All of this in response to the starting of the Sabbath controversy. But I want you to notice that the Sabbath controversy, while it started with the effort to discredit Christ, quickly escalated into the issue of His origin and of His deity. But it still centers around that same focus.

Now in the next two sections, we see two more illustrations of the Sabbath controversy. So there’s really three little vignettes here. One in Jerusalem; one probably in Galilee, perhaps on the way back (that’s in Section 60); and one back in a synagogue in Galilee in Section 61. Three incidents of the Sabbath controversy in this sequence.

In Section 60, they were going through a field, and it was quite legitimate that you could eat anything in a field that you went through, any fruit. You could not take any with you, but while you were in the field, you could eat it as you pass through. And they were doing this on the Sabbath, His disciples were. And He gives five defenses for what they were doing in verse 12:3 of Matthew’s account. It’s perfectly all right to do this if there’s necessity, and He cites David as an example of this. In verse 5, in the matter of worship, that the Sabbath would technically be broken, but it’s not really. Verse 6, “One greater than the




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Sabbath is here,” namely Christ. In Mark’s account, 2:27, a fourth defense: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, the Sabbath is made as something good for man, not something that man has laid on him as a burden. And back to Matthew’s account, in verse 8, “Christ is Lord of the Sabbath.” So there are five responses in Section 60 to their challenge to Him on that.

In Section 61, they go into a synagogue, in Matthew’s account. He went into one of their synagogues, and there was a man with a withered hand. And in verse 12:10, [the Pharisees] were saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath in order that they might accuse him?” So this is a set-up. This is a put-up situation. As a matter of fact, Mark says they were “watching Him to see if He would heal on the Sabbath.” (Mark 3:2). And in Luke’s account, in verse 6:7, it says, “watching Him closely.” In verse 8, “He knew what they were thinking.”

Then back to Matthew’s account. In verse 11, He says, “I want to ask you a question.” He says, “Which one of you who has one sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath will not take it out?” So here’s a sheep that falls into a pit on [Sunday] morning. Now he says, “Which one of you isn’t going to do something about that?” Well of course, if any one of them was alone, he might say, “I wouldn’t do anything about it.” But any one of them knows that if anyone says that, the rest are going to say, “You certainly would.” So they were amongst their peers, witnesses here.

So no one denies that he would do something about this. And so He says, (Matthew 12:12) “So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” So the idea is you would look after the needs of one of your sheep on the Sabbath. Surely this man with a withered hand is more important than that.

Later on, at the end of His ministry, He’s going to do the same thing with a woman, a daughter of Abraham, who has been many years sick, bent over. And He said, “surely she is worth more than one of your animals” (Luke 13:16)

Matthew 12:14, the Pharisees council together against him as how they might destroy Him. This is sort of escalating now. There’s more momentum gathering for killing Him.




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Incidentally, they were doing this on the Sabbath. And so they were objecting to his doing a good deed on the Sabbath, but they were able to have bad thoughts on the Sabbath.

And notice in Mark’s account (3:6), it says they were taking council with the Herodians against Him. Pharisees normally didn’t get together with the Herodians on anything, but it looks like they’re getting desperate and they’re working with the Herodians.

Section 62, the thing to notice here is in Mark’s account. This is a summary of the activity going on at this time. The thing I’d like you to notice here is the widespread scope of His popularity and where the crowds are coming from. A great multitude from Galilee followed. Also, from Judea and from Jerusalem and from Idumea (that’s down in the Negeb, south of the Dead Sea). Beyond the Jordan (that’s Perea, that’s Herod Antipas’ territory), and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon (that’s up in Phoenicia, up in Gentile country along the Mediterranean Sea, along where Lebanon is today). A great multitude heard of all that He was doing, and came to Him.

In Mark 3:10, “He healed many with the result that all of those who had afflictions pressed about Him in order to touch Him. He cast out evil spirits,” and so on.

In the midst of that whole situation where we have a summary of His increasing popularity with people coming from all over, we note in Section 63 that He goes up into a mountain. I should mention that around the Sea of Galilee are high hills. They are called mountains. Not peaks, like we’d expect snow on, although Mt. Hermon has snow on it a great deal of the year. It actually has a ski club up there. But these were sort of convoluted hills up around forming the basin of the Sea of Galilee, which, as we’ve seen, is considerably below sea level. There’s a little pool almost at the bottom of these hills. So He’d go back up from Capernaum, where He lived, into the mountain, and He summoned those whom He Himself wanted, in Mark’s account (3:13), and they came to Him. And He appointed twelve. So there were many disciples, and from this group of disciples He’s going to appoint twelve.




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You’ll notice two reasons for this: (1), that they might be with Him in an intimate sense, to teach them, to train them, constant close companionship. And (2) that He might send them out to preach.So here is proximity to Him and here is also His purpose in preparing them to go out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons. That is, to continue and expand His work. We’ll see more of that later in Chapter 10 of Luke.

Then in Luke’s account, two other things are added. He spent the whole night in prayer and then in verse 6:13, He called His disciples to Him, and He chose twelve of them whom He would name apostles.

We often call His apostles “disciples,” and that’s quite proper. They were disciples, but they were also apostles in a separate sense. So it’s a smaller circle within a larger circle.

I should mention here that the word disciple is used in different ways at different times in Scripture. As you can readily see, disciple here is used in a general sense at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, those who would follow Him. I think we could probably distinguish the general crowd that was following Him, which wouldn’t necessarily be called disciples. Those who would be more sincerely seeking Him, [who] really wanted to learn about Him, could perhaps be described as disciples.

And then there would be His apostles, who were disciples, but who had been selected for a particular responsibility a little later on. Now that’s going to become evident in the first chapters of Acts, because when they had lost Judas from this group, they had to replace Judas with somebody who had been with them from the beginning, and there were probably hundreds who had been with them from the beginning. They could have chosen him from many. But it was important that there be twelve witnesses in the book of Acts, those apostles. Now some of them were killed quite soon after that, but there was a core group, we might say, that were official witnesses who were with Him from the beginning. So this is a group within the group selected for several reasons.

Judas was in the group; this was not a mistake. Judas had a function, and in verse 6:16 of Luke’s account, it says he became a “traitor.” [This is] the only time that traitor is used as an adjective for Judas. He wasn’t one then, but he became one.




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This brings us now to the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is recorded in Matthew’s account and in Luke’s account. There’s been considerable debate as to whether it’s the same. I really believe that it is the same. You say, one is in a plain (Luke’s mentioned a plain), and Matthew mentions a mountain. If you will look at the configuration of these hills, you’ll see that there were plains between them, and that was a perfect amphitheater for people to sit in to hear what was going on.

I’d like to survey this Sermon on the Mount, noting especially the interpretations, the background, who was there, and then the general content of it. We will not have [an] opportunity in this course to go into any detail of the text.

Let’s look, first of all, at the background. Where does it fit into Jesus’ ministry? What had been going on? Well first of all, John the Baptist was in prison at this point, and Jesus began a special ministry from that time, as we have seen.

Second, Christ had been accused of breaking the law, the Sabbath controversy. That was very important, and again, we must notice the time periods when these take place in the sequence in the life of Christ. He had just been accused of Sabbath breaking (that’s, of course, a background of what He’s going to say when He said, “I came not to break the law”). Then He had proclaimed the insufficiency of human birth or human works, “You must be born from above” (John 3:7). And then there were new converts who were coming to Him, including John’s converts, John’s disciples. And there were many seekers following Him. We’ve seen on numerous occasions, many, many people coming.What was His theme on this Sermon on the Mount? I believe that His theme was expressed in Matthew 5:20, that absolute righteousness is required for entrance into the kingdom. And that He also gives encouragements to people who are coming into the kingdom and warnings to the multitude as they need them.

This brings us to note the interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. There are several major ones. One is soteriological, saying, “This is a way of salvation.” We often hear people say, “I am saved. I’m going to heaven, because I live up to the Sermon on the Mount.” Whatever that may mean, because the Sermon on the Mount has diverse material in it. Some would relate this to individuals, personal salvation. “I am saved because of




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it.” Some would relate it to society, that sociologically, we will be saved by following the Sermon on the Mount. I think that the evidence is against the Sermon on the Mount as a way of salvation.

And second, penitential. That is, it’s given as a means by which God convicts the sin. And I think this is quite legitimate. I don’t think it’s the major interpretation, but I think it is certainly legitimate. We could preach a Gospel message from this, showing man’s need of salvation.

Third, ecclesiastical. That it gives them moral standards for believers in the church age today. In other words, this is our Magna Carta of the church. I have a problem with this. I believe that we can use this and preach it and learn much from it in our age today, but there are many things which are omitted. There’s nothing said about the church. There’s nothing said about the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing said about some of the major themes that are vital to the church. Nothing said about the resurrection, for instance, in this. So it’s limited.

Some make it eschatological. They say it only applies in the future kingdom age. I have a problem with that, because in the kingdom age, I don’t expect anybody to hit me on the cheek and me have to decide whether or not to hit them back.

I believe that this Sermon on the Mount should be interpreted contextually. In other words, what’s the context? Who is in the audience? How do we interpret anything that Jesus said? We look at the audience. We see how He is addressing the audience in that given situation. What they’re need is. In this case, we have seen that John is in prison, Christ has been accused of breaking the law, the Pharisees are holding up their ancestry (most of the Jews are holding up their ancestry) in Abraham as their claim to be in the kingdom, and many people are coming. Many people discouraged, many people bewildered, asking questions. And I believe that Jesus is speaking to all of these needs. This is His audience, and He’s addressing their particular needs.

Now in our next session, we will survey quickly the Sermon on the Mount.



Christ-Centered Learning— Anytime, Anywhere

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Introductory Ministry in Judea/SamariaLesson 07 of 24

I would encourage you to read it through before that time from the perspective of Jesus speaking to meet the needs of the people in that audience at that particular time.

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