SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/15/2019
9:16 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Scribes”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 2:4
Message of the verse: “4 And gathering
together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them
where the Christ was to be born.”
We
have already studied both the gospel of Mark, and the gospel of John, and in
those studies we saw a lot of things about the scribes, things like they were
primarily Pharisees, authorities of Jewish law, scriptural and traditional, who
were often referred to as lawyers. The
scribes had considerable prestige among the Jews, and were recognized as the
key scholars of religious Judaism. Their
theology was conservative and they held a literalistic view of Scripture, and
were generally legalistic and strict in regard to both the ceremonial and also
the moral law. Some of the scribes were
Sadducees and that made them liberal in their interpretation of the Scripture,
as they did not believe in such things as the resurrection and also angels as
seen in Acts 23:8. In Jesus day it did
not make any difference if they were liberal or concretive they all hated Jesus.
Herod
wanted to know where the Christ was to be born, and so He called together all
those Jewish religious leaders who were both politicians and theologians to
find the answer to his question. They
showed him from the Scripture where the Messiah was to be born, but of
themselves they showed little interest in it.
One would think that this would excite them, but to their shame it did
not. Here is the Scripture they should
have stated to Herod “"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too
little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be
ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity’”
(Micah 5:2). John MacArthur writes “In
any case the chief priests and scribes told Herod what he wanted to know,
referring him to the specific passage (Mic. 5:2) where the birthplace is
predicted. Out of Bethlehem would come
forth a Ruler. The last phrase, Who will
shepherd My people Israel, is not from Micah, but does express the emphasis of
One who would rule. Either the Jews said
this or Matthew added the words as his own comment to indicate the kind of
Ruler, the Christ would be. Though the
popular idea of a shepherd is that of kind, tender care (Ps. 23), the Scripture
emphasis is also on authority and strong, even stern, leadership. The combination of a Ruler (hegemon) who will shepherd (poimaino) shows that the shepherding
function is more than tender card. It is
sovereign dominance. Nowhere is that made
more clear than by the use of the verb poimaino in Revelation 2:27; 12:5; and
19:15. In each of those verses the verb
is justifiably translated ‘rule’—and ‘with a rod of iron’ at that. Its appearance in Revelation 7:17, as well as
its use in John 21:16; Acts 20:28; and 1 Peter 5:2, could warrant a similar
rendering. The point is that the
statement here in Matthew is a consistent elucidation of the idea of a shepherd’s
being a Ruler, and thus fits the intent of Micah’s prediction. Unlike Herod, Jesus not only would be a
legitimate King of the Jews, but would also be the final and perfect Rule of
Israel.”
Lord, willing we will look at more of
this in our next SD.
Our quotation from “Love in Action”
comes from Luke 24:17.
“What kind of conversation is this that
you have with one
another as you walk and are sad?”
12/15/2019 9:44 PM
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