Union Church

Matthew: Understanding the End

Matthew 24:1-51

“The approaching birth of a baby is a time of great hope and new possibility, and also, especially before modern medicine, a time of great danger and anxiety.” NT Wright

“This little introduction also teaches the church not to be taken up with anything else impressive on earth except God in his Christ. Temples do not last—nor do places, institutions, attitudes, beliefs, or acts over which Jesus has pronounced judgment. When unwisely idolized realities come crashing down, so will our hopes and dreams.” - Dale Bruner

Matthew Henry - “Neither miracles nor multitudes are certain signs of a true church”

Ps 27:1-3

“All nine of these preliminary events in fact occurred before AD 70 though most if not all have recurred many times since then as well.” - Craig Blomberg

“speculation surrounding what Jesus must have meant by “desolating sacrilege” is endless.” Stanley Hauerwas

Luke 21:21

“After entering the city, Titus placed his army’s standards at the temple’s eastern gate and offered sacrifices to the Empire, defiling what was left of the Holy City — the “corpse” of verse 28. The Greek word the esv translates as “vultures” here is the plural form of aetos, which was also used of eagles. Notably, the Roman standard, a long pole that bore a legion’s insignia into battle, was always topped with the figure of an eagle, the symbol of the empire. Given this context, “eagles” is probably a better translation than “vultures” in verse 28; thus, Jesus’ reference to eagles gathering at the corpse naturally foresees the eagle-topped standards of Titus standing amidst Jerusalem’s ruins.” RC Sproul

As with the “abomination that causes desolation” in v. 15, seeing Jesus’ reference to the great tribulation as beginning in a.d. 70 does not exclude a later application of this expression to the period of time described in Rev 7–19—the final stages of this entire inter-advent period. Revelation 7:14 seems to suggest precisely such an intensification of horrors immediately preceding the end of the age. - Craig Blomberg

Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have though much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else -something it never entered your head to conceive- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.” - CS Lewis

“Maryland forests and St. John’s Apocalypse show me over and over again that when I am bored it is no fault of creation or covenant. Familiarty dulls my perceptions. Hurry scatters my attention. Ambition fogs my intelligence. Selfishness restricts my range. Anxiety robs me of appetite. Envy distracts me from what is good and blessed right before me. And then Monday’s unhurried pace and St. John’s apocalyptic vision bring me to my senses, body and soul. This power to wake us up is the most obvious use of the Revelation. It is also very often overlooked. Sometimes the obvious is the hardest thing of all to see.” - Eugene Peterson

Matthew: Hope for Hypocrites

Today we look at Matthew 23 and see Jesus give warnings and woes against hypocrisy while offering an alternative way forward.

Notes/Quotes:

Micah 6:6-8 

In what way does my own faith and life embody & give a credible alternative to the things I criticize & condemn in others? The gap between what I criticize in others & fail to embody myself is the root of hypocrisy. Criticism is cheap, discipleship is costly. - Jon Tyson

Matthew: Kingdom Collision

Text: Matthew 22:15-46
Title: Kingdom Collision 
Reading: Matthew 22:15-46

“The Pharisees were nationalistic, loyal to Israel. Whereas the Herodians had sold themselves out to the Romans and served as their stooges. The Pharisees represented narrow, conservative Judaism, and the Herodians were liberal and syncretistic in their convictions. The Pharisees were right-wingers; the Herodians were left-wingers. The Pharisees represented resistance to Rome, the Herodians accommodation.” 
-R. Kent Hughes

“inspired the Reformation doctrine of differing spheres of authority for government and religion and proved foundational for the American constitutional separation of church and state. It would be anachronistic, however, to claim that Jesus’ words support modern democratic forms of government as opposed to the imperial or monarchichal forms of his day. One can give God his proper due under a monarchy as well as in a democracy, just as authorities, sadly, can usurp prerogatives reserved for God in either system.”
-Craig Blomberg

“the problem with the question is that the Sadducees are assuming resurrection bodies to be exactly as bodies are now, which includes the capacity for sexual intercourse.” 
-Craig Blomberg

“Jesus sees two errors in their logic, one regarding their specific question about this woman and the other related to their more fundamental, underlying concerns about resurrection in general. These errors deal, respectively, with their understanding of Torah and of God’s power. Concerning the latter, God is able to transform us into creatures who do not engage in sexual relations or procreate. A model for such a being already exists, namely, the angels (cf. the rabbinic tradition in b. Hag. 16a, in which, interestingly, demons, in contrast to angels, are believed to copulate). Since the Sadducees also do not believe in angels (cf. Acts 23:8), Jesus is probably deliberately inserting this jibe. Lack of sex or marriage does not in any way diminish heavenly bliss. In the life to come, all interpersonal relationships will no doubt far surpass the most intimate and pleasurable of human intercourse as we now know it. Neither jealousy nor exclusivism will mar human interaction in any way.”
-Craig Blomberg

“when God raises people to new life they will have passed into a new world order in which death itself has been left behind. (otherwise, resurrection will simply collapse into reincarnation, an endless cycle of death and rebirth.) But this will mean a whole new kind of life, which at present we can only guess at. Our present bodies are decaying all the time; it's very hard to think what a non-decaying body would be like. (Paul faces the same question in 1 Corinthians 15.) Similarly, there will be no need to propagate the species, and hence no need for sexual activity. Again, most humans find it very hard to think of a non-sexual world, but that's what Jesus probably means when he says that resurrected people will be ‘like angels’. (if you grumble that this makes God a killjoy, remember what C.S. Lewis said: asking if there will be sexual activity in the future world is like the child who, on being told that sex was the greatest pleasure known to humans, assumed that people eat chocolates at the same time.)”
-N.T. Wright

“we will, with the angels, have a life with God and one another where there is no aloneness to be overcome. Jesus does not say that we will or will not have some memory of our marriages in the resurrection, but our histories will no doubt be radically transformed. Yet we know that the way we have lived will not be irrelevant to our resurrected life precisely because the very names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob matter to God.”
-Stanley Hauerwas 

“In this psalm, written by David, the king of Israel makes reference to two Lords. In the original Hebrew of the psalm, the first “Lord” translates the Hebrew word Yahweh, God’s covenant name. The second “Lord” translates the Hebrew word Adonai, a title usually given to Yahweh in the Old Testament. Jesus is pointing out that the Messiah, who is one of the sons of David, is also much more.”
-R.C. Sproul

 “Christ is both David’s Son, and David’s Lord: David’s Lord always, David’s Son in time: David’s Lord, born of the substance of His Father, David’s Son, born of the Virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Ghost. . . . Unless our Lord Jesus Christ had vouchsafed to become man, man had perished. He was made that which He made, that what He made might not perish. Very Man, Very God; God and man, the whole Christ.”
-Augustine 

 

Matthew: From Apathy to Awe

Listen along as we continue our series through Matthew, looking at a difficult passage with Jesus and judgement.

Notes/Quotes:

Matthew 22:1-14

“In a wide variety of human activity, achievement is not possible without discomfort.” - Alex Hutchinson

“To ask God to redeem Jerusalem but not cast sin outside the city walls is like asking a doctor to heal your body without excising the disease. Like asking the light to arise without casting out the darkness. Like asking for restoration to come and destruction to remain. It is to ask for a contradiction. God excludes sin from his kingdom because of his goodness, not in opposition to or in spite of it.” - Joshua Ryan Butler

“There is no point in arguing about the marriage garment, whether it is faith or a holy and godly life; for faith cannot be separated from good works and good works proceed only from faith. All Christ wants to say here is that we are called by the Lord under the condition that we be renewed in our spirits into His image, and therefore, if we are to remain always in His house, the old man with all his blemishes is to be cast off and we are to practice the new life so that our appearance may correspond to our honorable calling.” - John Calvin

John 6:37, 
John 15:16

“In the gospel story, heaven and earth are currently torn by sin. Our world is being ravaged by the destructive power of hell. Sin has unleashed it into God’s good world, and God is on a mission to get it out, to reconcile heaven and earth from hell’s evil influence to himself through the reconciling life of Christ. The time is coming when God’s heavenly kingdom will come down to reign on earth forever, when Jesus will cast out the corrosive powers of sin, death, and hell that have tormented his world for so long.Our problem is not that we’re reaching out for God and he’s refusing to be found. It’s the opposite: God’s reaching out for us, and we’re scattering in other directions. God loves us, but we love darkness. God moves toward us. But sin can’t stand the presence of God.” - Joshua Ryan Butler

“We may not long for bread, but we long for meaning, intimacy, fulfillment, community, purpose, and joy.” - Tim Chester

Matthew: The Stories that Shape Us

Listen along as we continue through Matthew's gospel and see how Jesus uses the story of scripture to shape our lives.

Cross References:

Matthew 21:23-46
2 Chronicles 36:15-16 
Titus 2:11-14
James 1:19-25 
1 Peter 2:1-10
Prov. 29:25

Matthew: Counterintuitive Kingdom

The power went out!

Listen along as we continue through Matthew's gospel.

Text: Matthew 21:1-22
Title: Counterintuitive Kingdom
Reading: Matthew 21:1-22

“Jesus is consciously making preparations to enter Jerusalem after the fashion of Zech 9:9, with echoes of Isa 62:11. Zechariah’s prophecy was widely interpreted in rabbinic literature as messianic” 
- Craig Blomberg

“One who sees a donkey in a dream should anticipate salvation, as it is said: “Behold, your king comes unto you; he is triumphant, and victorious, lowly, and riding upon a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).” - Berakhot 56 b

“it is a triumphal entry, but one that parodies the entry of kings and their armies. This is the entry of the one who has come to serve, but that he has come to serve makes him no less a king….Jesus identifies himself as the Lord, but one that will ride on an ass, a creature not normally associated with what it means to be a king. Victors in battle do not ride into their capital cities riding on asses, but rather they ride on fearsome horses. But this king does not and will not triumph through forces of arms.” - Stanley Hauerwas

“The crowds acclaim Jesus as Messiah with regal, Davidic terminology. “Son of David” also echoes the blind men’s cry in the previous chapter. “Hosanna” originally meant God save us but by the first century was probably just a cry of praise to Yahweh. The “He who comes in the name of the Lord,” like the “coming one” of whom John the Baptist spoke, refers to the Messiah, and the entire beatitude echoes Ps 118:26. 
- Craig Blomberg

“And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” - Luke 19:41-44

“Jesus is the great high priest who has come to restore to Israel the right worship of Israel's God. The chief priests and scribes understand that this is about power. They will soon ask him where he gets the authority to do what he has done. They do not understand that the son of David can do what he does: cleanse the temple by making it the place where the blind, lame, poor, and children can praise God. If Jesus is not the Messiah he's certainly acting like He is.” - Stanley Hauerwas

“In Jeremiah 8:13, the Lord had said to Jeremiah that he wanted to gather the nations but he had found no "figs on the fig tree," and even the leaves had withered. Jesus, fresh from his confrontation with the chief priests and scribes, curses the fig tree, declaring that no fruit would ever come from it again. The tree withered, just as the scribes and chief priests withered the temple.” - Stanley Hauerwas

“Our personal lives can look like “in leaf.” Our leaves may look like those of a supermom, a winner, a perfect family, an A-team Christian with an overstuffed schedule of ministry activities. But the root may be withered. There may be no fruit of holiness and no intimacy with God. What’s worse—our leaves may even fool us. And our churches can do the same. A church’s leaves may look impressive: booming attendance, capital campaigns, clever pastors, impressive music. But what will the Lord find upon close inspection? Will he find only leaves? Or will he find figs, too?”
- Greg Lanier

Questions:
1. Are we celebrating, in awe, moved to tears over this or are we just disappointed that He is not bringing the reforms of our personal agendas?
2. What do we really mean when we sing hosanna?
3. Are we all leaves and no fruit?

 

Matthew: Attention and Ambition

Matthew 20:1-34

“My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this: God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be. It is the message of grace…A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wages as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five…A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party no ifs, ands, or buts…This grace is indiscriminate compassion. It's not cheap. It's free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the Orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility. Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover. Grace is enough…Jesus is enough.” - Brennan Manning

“God’s grace, in short is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his over flowingly generous nature.” - NT Wright

“As before they knew not what they asked, so now they knew not what they answered.” Matthew Henry

It is a terrible bore, of course, when old Fatty Smithson draws you aside and whispers, "Look here, we've got to get you in on this examination somehow" or "Charles and I saw at once that you've got to be on this committee." A terrible bore...ah, but how much more terrible if you were left out! It is tiring and unhealthy to lose your Saturday afternoons, but to have them free because you don't matter, that is much worse. - C.S. Lewis

“People hanker after it, because the love of bossing other people is even greater than the distaste for being bossed oneself.” Lesslie Newbigin

Romans 3:23-24

Where is your attention?
Where is your ambition directed?
In what is your assurance placed?

Matthew: Treasure

Text: Matthew 19:16-30
Title: Treasure 
Reading: Matthew 19:16-30

“When you have a real encounter with the real Messiah, you realize that He requires far more of you than you ever thought but He offers far more to you than you ever imagined.”  -Timothy Keller

"How few of the Lord's people have practically recognized the truth that Christ is either Lord of all, or is not Lord at all!" -Hudson Taylor

“God is saying, when you make my son your treasure, that makes you my treasure.” -Timothy Keller

“Americans profoundly underestimate how rich they are compared to the rest of the world. The average U.S. resident estimated that the global median individual income is about $20,000 a year. In fact, the real answer is about a tenth of that figure: roughly $2,100 per year….What explains these misperceptions? Human beings draw heavily on their own local, lived experience to make judgments about the wider world. As individuals’ own incomes rise, and therefore the incomes of those around them, so too do their overestimates of the global median income.”                         — Washington Post, Gautam Nair, PhD candidate in political science at Yale University.

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” - Matthew 6:24 

Question: Who and what do we really treasure? What percentage of my riches actually go to Kingdom priorities?

Matthew: Marriage, Divorce, Sexuality, Kids, and Jesus

Listen along as Jesus answers questions from the Pharisees about marriage and divorce which leads to a conversation on sexuality and kids.

Notes/Quotes:

Matthew 19:1-15

“From the very beginning.” Jesus’ phrase means that in God’s plan there has never been any other will for sexual life than the creation of one man for one woman. Indissoluble heterosexual marriage, then, is not a novelty in Jesus’ teaching, or a sudden spasm of legalism.” Dale Bruner

"When God designed the original marriage, he already had Christ and the church in mind. This is one of God’s great purposes in marriage: to picture the relationship between Christ and His redeemed people forever.” - Tim Keller

“The gospel surrounds our text. There are two great errors to avoid here: (1) teaching the present text so rigorously that the impression is left of no context of gospel whatsoever—that is, no forgiveness of sin and of sinners; and (2) diluting the present text’s high imperatives so quickly with the context’s forgiveness that repentance, faithful marriage, holy living, and honest discipleship are sabotaged. The first task for interpreters, then, is to teach the high commands of Jesus faithfully without betraying his tender mercies; in other words, to teach God’s law without canceling God’s gospel. The second, and as important task, is to preach the gospel without making Jesus’ commands meaningless.” - Dale Bruner

“My identity does not begin when I begin to understand myself. There is something previous to what I think about myself, and it is what God thinks of me." -Eugene Peterson

“I am same-sex attracted and have been my entire life. By that I mean that I have sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions to people of the same sex. I choose to describe myself this way because sexuality is not a matter of identity for me. And that has become good news. My primary sense of worth and fulfillment as a human being is not contingent on being romantically or sexually fulfilled - and this is liberating.The most fully human and complete person who ever lived was Jesus Christ. He never married. He was never in a romantic relationship. And never had sex. If we say that these things are intrinsic to human fulfillment we are calling our Savior subhuman.” - Sam Alberry

“I don’t believe it is wise or truthful to the power of the gospel to identify oneself by the sins of one’s past or the temptations of one’s present but rather to only be defined by the Christ who’s overcome both for those He calls His own.” Jackie Hill Perry

Matthew: The Power to People

Text: Matthew 18:15-35

Title: The Power to People

“A triangulated relationship is any three person relationship that should have two people in it…Gossip is always a form of triangulation, as are most middle school relationships.” - Steve Cuss

“In an environment of suspicion, assuming the best is a revolutionary act.” Matt Smethurst

“Most people don’t want accurate information, they want validating information. Growth requires you to be open to unlearning ideas that previously served you.” - James Clear

 “In this context Jesus is almost certainly referring to the procedures of vs. 15–17 involving the withholding or bestowing of forgiveness and fellowship.” Craig Blomberg

“The next story—the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant—confirms this. The servant there, who at first is repentant and forgiven, is loosed; but when this same servant proves to be vindictive, he is literally bound and cast into prison. “Binding and loosing,” then, simply means banning and forgiving, the church’s announcing in the name and power of Christ the loss of life to the unrepentant and the gift of life to the repentant.” Dale Bruner

“Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever-deepening friendship with the Triune God and with others… Forgiveness does not mean risk your life, but it does require our death.” - L. Gregory Jones