Plymothian

²⁰ Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.

²¹ “What is it you want?” he asked.

She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”

²² “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”

“We can,” they answered.

²³ Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”

²⁴ When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. ²⁵ Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ²⁶ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— ²⁸ just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Servant Leadership

The disciples didn’t know the nature of the Kingdom to come and neither did their mothers.  The error of thought is highlighted by the disciples’ desire to be greatest.  When the Kingdom comes, true leadership will be shown by those who lead in the example of self-sacrifice.

Questions

1. What does the mother request?
2. What is the disciples’ response?
3. What misconception do people in the passage have about the Kingdom of God?
4. How do people fight for their children to be elevated today?
5. What ambition should parents have for their children above all other ambitions?

¹⁷ Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, ¹⁸ “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death ¹⁹ and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”

Purpose Statement

Jesus doesn’t just wander into a shrewd political entrapment and end up tragically losing his own life.  He is on a mission and the purpose of his mission is to be a substitutionary sacrifice to raise the world into a new life if it will follow him into death.  Jesus knows who he is, he knows what he must do, and he is set on accomplishing the greatest mission of all time.  We must then follow him through deat into new life.  We must kill our old ways and old processes and take on a new perspective.  The life that we are born into is nothing.  The new life that we are born into after we choose to die is everything.

Questions

1. What did Jesus do with the Twelve in order to tell them what would happen?
2. Why did he tell them?
3. How could Jesus know the details of how his betrayal and crucifixion would pan out?
4. What do you believe disciples are to do upon hearing this news?
5. How do you show a greater understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus than your unbelieving peers?

²³ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

²⁵ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

²⁶ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

²⁷ Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

²⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹ And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife^[e] or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. ³⁰ But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

Rich People Don’t Seek God

The idea that we are rich enough to have disposable income is a relatively new concept.  We are rich if we can enjoy luxuries like going to the movies or going out for a meal.  Historically people wouldn’t have eaten at a restaurant or attended a theatre unless they were wealthy.  We have redefined wealthy to include the ‘super rich’.  If we don’t have a billion we aren’t wealthy.  Of course, with the big picture of history humans in the west no longer live in the day-to-day poverty of the ancient world.

The tragic truth is that when our financial and daily needs are met, we tend to not look to God.  The disciple’s life is the pursuit of Jesus.  When one follows Jesus one is living life as it was designed to be lived.  Self-sufficiency often sstops the pursuit of God in its tracks.

When we leave wealth behind for Jesus, we gain everything and lose nothing.

Questions

1. How hard is it for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God?
2. Is Jesus saying it is impossible to be rich and follow him?
3. What motivates the disciples’ response?
4. How much are you struggling financially and how does that affect you spiritually?
5. Do you look up to or down upon those who seem wealthy?

15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there. 16 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” 17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” 18 “Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, ” ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ “ 20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” 21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Rich, Young, Powerful and Foolish

If we put all the gospel accounts of the rich, young ruler together that is how we get a broader description of him than ‘a man’ which we have above.  He has everything that our culture promotes:  riches, youth, and power.  We don’t know if he was ‘sexy’, but for many women wealth is ‘sexy’.  Unlike our times, when these things have been associated with sin and things that God is ‘against’, in Jesus’ time all these things were markers of God’s blessing.  If God showed favour upon you he lavished you with, riches, power, and eternal youth.  However, in the Old Testament we see that the heart of Solomon was corrupted because of riches and power.  He became ‘too sexy’ and his many women led him astray.

The problem is that we think Jesus is meant to aid us in our idea of success.  We are meant to gain influence, accumulate possessions and money,and we are meant to remain healthy and virile.  However, Jesus sees life as being a journey into a deeper relationship with God.  The purpose of life is not for God to exist for me, but I exist for God.  We still tend to uphold those like the rich, young ruler who are moral and generous with their wealth.  The rich young ruler was moral toward his fellow human beings, but he lacked the most important thing.  All his ‘goodness’, greatness, and gold were getting in the way of God.  He didn’t depend upon God, and he came to Jesus, I believe, for a cheap affirmation that he was doing okay.  If we synthesize the words of the ruler from the different passages, we get, “Good Teacher!  What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?”  His behaviour can’t buy eternal life, his morality stands in the way.  He can’t demand eternal life, he lacks jurisdiction.  He can’t buy it.  If he wants eternal life he must remove all the things that are stopping him from following Jesus.  Then his focus must be to walk with Jesus and that path is eternal life.

Questions

1. What does the man ask Jesus?
2. What does Jesus reply?  Why doesn’t he immediately answer the question?
3. Why does the rich, young ruler walk away sad?
4. What sometimes stand between you and following Jesus?
5. Why are some people today who want eternal life walking away from following Jesus?

¹³ Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.

¹⁴ Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” ¹⁵ When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

Little Children

Little children are trusting and obedient.  In ancient culture little children were seen as property who had not yet gained status or value because they were not adults.  Adults had value because they helped the family to make a living.

Children have value because they are made in the image of God.  THeir spiritual sensibilities give evidence of something beyond the mere physical realm.  Children can also call us back to profound, simple faith which we lose as we develop a hard heart over the years.  Those who raise or teach children find that they modify their behavior for the good around children.  There is something innocent about children that we want to preserve.

Following Jesus develops trust in the Father.  We become obedient to God’s commands because we cease having to prove our autonomy.  We realise that we wee always truly dependent upon God, so we just let that be.  We look for ways to stop pleasing ourselves but to increase pleasing our Father.

Questions

1. What was the disciples’ reaction to people bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed?
2. What was Jesus’ reaction to his disciples?
3. Why was Jesus’ reaction unusual?
4. How have you grown up and become independent of your Heavenly Father?
5. How can you move closer to God with childlike faith?

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. ² Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

³ Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^{[a] 5} and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’^[b]? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

⁷ “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

⁸ Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹ I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

¹¹ Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. ¹² For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Marriage In Community

A hard heart will result in divorce.  A marriage may not be dissolved, but a hard heart means that one or both partners have ceased the open attitude that marriage was meant to be built upon.  There are legitimate reasons for divorce.  Jesus says that porneia (sexual immorality) is an excuse.  For that immorality to occur, there must be the assumption that one partner at least has hardened toward the other and is getting their kicks elsewhere.  A hard heart is usually self-serving but some reasons for being self-serving are more understandable than others.  If someone changes physically by putting on a few pounds, adding cellulite, sagging a little through age and fatigue the hardening toward that person can be superficial and consumerist.  If someone shares a dreadful experience where something significant is lost in an accident like a house burns to the ground or a child is struck with a car, the protection of a heart from pain by blaming the other person can be more complex and understandable.  In all cases we are to guard our hearts but not harden them.  We are to filter what comes in to our hearts but we are not to close our hearts.

Is your heart as open to your spouse as it was when you married?  Ideally it should be more open.  Are you tender in your time with your spouse?  Do you cultivate appreciating the gift that God has given you in your spouse.  If your spouse seems difficult they are a means of receiving more of God’s grace in order to love unconditionally.  If your spouse is easy they can be a source of God’s comfort and affirmation.  In each case, though, the focus should not be on what I receive from my marriage but what my marriage enables me to develop in myself as I am conformed to the image of Christ?

Questions

1. What question is Jesus asked about marriage?
2. How does Jesus respond?
3. Why do you think the disciples thought it might be preferable, then, not to marry?
4. How do you cultivate a tender heart toward your spouse?
5. How can you truly affirm your spouse and listen to them so that you create a safe place for them to share their hopes and dreams?  Do you really listen to your spouse and show interest when they are looking insecure, afraid, or angry?

²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.^[g]

²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold^[h] was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.^[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Unforgiving

It sometimes feels righteous and just to hold unforgiveness over a person.  If we can hold onto our anger, we tell ourselves, we can bring justice to a situation.  We can create an illusion in our powerlessness that we have power and control over the person we do not forgive.  The reality that we hold no such control or power is something that we will not accept sometimes.  It is hard to feel rejected, betrayed, afraid, or maligned.  It is harder not to seek some kind of justice.  Couples often degenerate into competitive rivals.  Giving up ‘winning’ or ‘being right’ is just too hard.  Being wrong about an issue is not the same as being wrong as a person.  The truth is we are all ‘wrong’ as people because of sin.  If we can accept that, we will not have a high position of self-righteousness from which to judge people.  Also we will see that others are fallen and that they have no position of righteousness really from which to condemn us.

The parable points out that when we hold a grudge or do not forgive someone we are being ridiculous.  The truth is that we have lost the big picture.  It is essential for harmony that we do not look at how we have been sinned against, but remember what a HUGE debt God has forgiven.  No debt that is owed to us is even close to the debt that we owe God.  The truth is that we sometimes feel so deeply the injustice and devaluing of ourselves that we don’t look to God.  To obsess on unforgiveness can be crippling.

Questions

1. How many times was Peter prepared to forgive?
2. How much does God forgive?
3. How does God’s forgiveness aid us in forgiving?
4. Why don’t people forgive?
5. How does forgiveness maintain healthy community?

¹⁵ “If your brother or sister^[b] sins,^[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. ¹⁶ But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’^{[d] 17} If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

¹⁸ “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be^[e] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^[f] loosed in heaven.

¹⁹ “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Church Discipline

Both my wife and myself have had circumstances where church discipline has been applied to us.  In retrospect I would say that it was not done well in either case.  The procedure is for people to bring all things back into harmony with God as soon as possible.  The person disciplined must be in an attitude of continual and rebellious sin.  The first step is for the person sinned against to try and deal with the offense quickly and privately.  I have heard all kinds of excuses why this could not be done.  Some would say they ‘clam up in conflict’, ‘they feel overwhelmed by confrontation’, ‘the person they are dealing with is scary’, or various excuses which start with, “I tried to let them know, but … ‘ There are cases where a person’s life might be in danger or there might be physical abuse, in that case I don’t think that these verses apply.  However, in most cases the person who is continually sinned against must make their case gently but firmly and clearly to the one who is continuing in an unrepentant sinful pattern.

After the case has been put to someone that their sin is fractious and unrepentant, they may repent.  If they do, the whole issue is to be dropped and forgotten.  However, if they continue, someone else must gently but firmly affirm the case the first person has made.  Finally, if the sinful action continues without any repentance the person should be treated like a tax-collector or any outsider.  The church was to treat tax-collectors or pagans as those who were in need of convincing of salvation.  In other words, if someone continues unrepentant in sin, our thought should be, “Oh, they probably weren’t saved.”  We should then try to win them from the outside in.  It might be said, though, that the use of tax-collector and pagan are curious choices.  For a Jewish audience such people were frequently shunned.  I am disturbed by the distinct possibility that Jesus may say that we should treat people who rebel against the faith with a shunning that Jewish people showed to the irreligious.  I would err toward cordiality and apologetic persuasion, the kind of which I might use with an atheist friend.

In any case, the strong desire is to return the interpersonal relationships and relationship with God to a condition of harmony where disharmony has occurred.  The question for the body of believers is, “Is there harmony among you?”

Questions

1. What should you do when someone sins?
2. What happens if the person you talk with listens?
3. How should you treat someone who does not listen to correction?
4. What is the point of church discipline?
5. In what ways could you cultivate harmony with fellow believers?

¹² “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. ¹⁴ In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

Lost Sheep

The lost sheep here are Christians who have been led astray.  They are the little ones who Jesus looks after in his flock.

What I fiind interesting is the lost verse that goes before in the NIV.

Questions

Where is verse 11?

1. What does the shepherd do with the 99 sheep?
2. How does he feel when he finds the one?
3. In context what would have us believe that the sheep who is lost is a believer?
4. How do people get lost even when they are a disciple?
5. How does a lost disciple get refound?