Cool art courtesy of TheBibleProject.com
“The people who are living today are evil and not faithful to God. They ask for a proof from God, but no proof will be given to them except the Jonah miracle” (Matthew 16:4, IEB).
AFTER YOU READ MATTHEW 16
One of the crippling illnesses I have is spiritual blindness. I pray for God “to work” in my life and totally ignore the signs all around me of the works of God. I’m not talking about the beauty of nature or something. Jesus said most anyone with an Almanac and eyes on the horizon can see the sunset or certain kinds of clouds and thank God for the rain that’s coming.
Our youth minister Nate is good at pointing out humor and wit of Jesus to our youth, and certainly this is one of those witty episodes where Jesus’ wry humor sticks a point with the Pharisees and teachers of the law, and we get to listen in.
Pharisees ask for a sign to show he’s really the Messiah from heaven. Remind you of anyone? Maybe Satan, hmmm? In the wilderness Jesus was tempted and tested by calling on him to show his divine skills by creating bread for himself, saving himself, taking his rightful throne without struggle or love. And now the Pharisees ask the exact same thing of Jesus: make the divine a great carnival trick for our pleasure and reassurance you are who you say you are.
But they had ignored the compassionate acts of mercy he’d done in every town he’d visited, and they knew about them, but these were meaningless to them because they didn’t view the Messiah coming this way. They wanted God how they wanted God, and they were spiritually blind to anything else.
So Jesus says, “The people who are living today are evil and not faithful to God. They ask for a proof from God, but no proof will be given to them except the Jonah miracle” (Matthew 16:4, IEB). Then Jesus left them and went away.
[Microphone drop]
Jesus then warns the disciples about the “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” but this confused the disciples. Their confusion is often comforting to me! I don’t always get it, but we sometimes expect they would. They lived in those times, walked with Jesus, and could get the symbolism of what Jesus was saying, right?! They thought Jesus was talking about stopping at the next exit for something to eat! Exasperated with them, he slaps the back of their heads and says, “OK, look, when I say yeast, I’m warning you to cut a wide berth around the teaching of the Pharisees!”
“Hey Jesus, what’s a wide berth?”
Jesus didn’t really say “wide berth” but I said that to talk about another story Jesus mentions, and it’s very important. There’s an Old Testament story about a man named Jonah who was called to Nineveh as a missionary prophet, to tell them to shape up and repent or else. Jonah’s “wide berth” he cut was to avoid going to Nineveh altogether because he was afraid and didn’t like Ninevites, so God showed him what’s what by having him swallowed by a fish, spit on the shore three days later, pretty dramatic story and worth you reading it!
“The Sign of Jonah” is Jesus way of cryptically planting a clue that would only make sense when after three days in a tomb, a rumor spread that Jesus had risen. I think I have a text for my 2018 Easter sermon!
Prayer
Dear Lord, I know I’m spiritually blind, so I can’t hardly sneer at the Pharisees or even laugh at the disciples without sneering and laughing at myself! Show us our blind spots, which seems only possible by your Holy Spirit teaching us new things we never knew before, or maybe they were right in front of us and we ignored them.
Action Step
Ask a trusted person in your life if there are blind spots you seem to have that you can talk about and work on your spiritual, relational, emotional blind spots so you can see the things in front of you Jesus wants you to see.
Greg Taylor
Greg Taylor preaches for The Journey. Greg’s wife, Jill, teaches math at Broken Arrow High School and Tulsa Community College. Greg and Jill have three adult children, Ashley, Anna, and Jacob. Greg is the author of many books, including his latest co-authored with Randy Harris, Daring Faith: Meeting Jesus in the Book of John.
Hi I grew up in the Tulsa area but do not live there now. Since seeing the sign of Jonah in Matt 12:39&40 and applying it in connection with original time found in Genesis 1 and the time in the tomb, I have begun to see that both Sunday and Saturday and the Lunar Sabbath are ALL WRONG. They all follow the same Roman doctrine that there was only a day and half in the tomb. And looking at the letters to the churches of Ephesus and Laodicea I see that TIME is incorrect. We know that the Roman months and years beginning in winter not spring are wrong but the Roman week is also wrong. The light of the first day of the original week belongs to our saviour not to the SUN. The SUN was not created until the 4th day of the original week. Satan our deceiver was there in the beginning also and does know the order of the days even if have not understood this. Ephesus is warned to see from WHENCE (time) they (original people) have fallen and to repent and do the first works. Laodicea is plainly described as being Lukewarm neither cold nor hot. I believe that Sunday is not the real first day and that it is day 4 as Genesis 1:14-19 says even tho it is the first day of the Roman week. If its actually day 4 then its not cold not being the true first day and not the 7th day (hot) which is the true sabbath day. Being on day 4 as Genesis describes it’s in the midst of the week between day 1 and day 7 so it’s Lukewarm. Also using the original biblical week instead of the numbers for the Roman week days when calculating the crucifixion and the sign of Jonah you can see that the true 7th day falls on Wednesday not Saturday. And that the crucifixion happened on the 4th day of the biblical week which is where I believe Sunday actually sits. We are NOT to turn to the right or to the left according to scripture. And tho Sunday and Saturday are right next to each other they are on opposite ends of the Roman calendar week. There is a wide space between them by the Roman calendar yet they are days 3 and 4 of the original week. Enter in to the gate called straight, Wednesday of the current week falls on the center stem of the Menorah not on one of the curved branches. A 4th day crucifixion (now Sunday) with the sabbath 3 days after is Wednesday not Saturday. We cannot use the Roman timeline as truth but see it in the light of the WORD. Anyway this is what I see and why I keep the 7th day that I see falls on Wednesday. My name is Sue Sinor I am on facebook.