Matthew: Testing, Teaching, Understanding

Text: Matthew 16:1-20
Title: Testing, Teaching, & Understanding

Reading: Matthew 16:1-20

“for many the demand to follow Jesus to be a disciple is too burdensome. Instead they want to know more about Jesus.” (Stanley Hauerwas)

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:22&23)

“like a parent teaching a child not to be led astray by the flashing signs of city advertisements, he warned them of the ‘leaven’ of the Pharisees and Sadducees. This was puzzling to the disciples, who thought Jesus was referring cryptically to the fact that they'd forgotten to bring any bread with them. It is even more puzzling to us, because unless we have grown up knowing something about Judaism we probably don't know what leaven could stand for. The point is this. At Passover, one of the greatest Jewish festivals, all leaven had to be cleared out of the house commemorating the time when the children of Israel left Egypt in such a hurry that they didn't have time to bake leavened bread, and so ate it unleavened. Gradually, ‘leaven’ became a symbol not for something that makes bread more palatable, but for something that makes it less pure. Warning against the ‘leaven’ of someone's teaching meant warning against ways in which the true message of God's kingdom could be corrupted, diluted, or (as we say, referring to drink rather than bread), ‘watered-down’.” (N.T. Wright)