Matthew: Patient Kingdom

Listen along as we look at the first half of Matthew 25 and what it looks like to fear, trust, and follow Jesus till the end.

Notes/Quotes:

“the Kingdom Parables in chapter 13 which began in the present tense with the words “the kingdom of heaven is like”—for they taught mainly how the kingdom enters our lives now by the power of the Word; the Judgment Parables in this chapter have a sharper future orientation.”
- Dale Bruner

“21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” 
- Matthew 5:21-23

“The Christian life in Matthew is a life of tough discipleship (chaps. 5–7), of persecuted mission (chap. 10), of practicing joyous demands (chap. 13), and of exercising self-denial for the sake of others’ salvation (chap. 18). The Christian life in Matthew is not the second-soil faith that believes a conversion experience is all one really needs; when the devil, pressures, and temptations come to “conversions-only” people (conversio sola!), they are deeply embarrassed by the gospel and its requirements and make as quick an exit as they did an entrance (13:20–21). Discipleship is a life of patient listening to the Word and of constant repenting under the conviction of the Word. “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘repent,’ he intended for the whole life of believers to be a life of repentance” (Luther, thesis one of The Ninety-Five Theses). “The just shall live by faith” (Rom 1:17). One-shot Christianity is misleading and finally fatal. The lamp oil of experiential Christianity, without the reserve oil of discipled Christianity—that is to say, an experience of Jesus without obedience to his teachings—betrays unbelief and will not find entrance into the end-time kingdom.” 
- Dale Bruner

“But “safe” as this conduct may be, there is a lack of adventure in it, an unwillingness to take risks, a preoccupation with one’s own security, which Jesus clearly dislikes. This piety is too unworldly, too withdrawn, too removed from the secular to please the earthly Jesus who sends disciples into the world to disciple it (28:19), puts salt into the meat to season it (5:13), and brings light into the room to give light to all who are in it (5:14–16; cf. Mark 4:21). Talents mean mission. 
- Dale Bruner

“The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.” 
- Oswald Chambers

“sees this servant’s laziness as the lawlessness of lukewarmness toward the demands of discipleship—as antinomianism.”
- Kingsbury

“Jesus does not end this parable grimly from a macabre pleasure in telling horror stories—Jesus loves human beings and wants to save them from messed-up lives and eternities, and that’s why he tells his scary stories.”
- Dale Bruner

“The gospel says you are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe, but more accepted and loved than you ever dared hope.”
- Timothy Keller