SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/22/2021 8:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Illustration”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 9:14-17
Message of the verses: “14 Then the
disciples of John came to Him, asking, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast,
but Your disciples do not fast?" 15 And Jesus said to them, "The
attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them,
can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast. 16 “But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an
old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear
results. 17 “Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise
the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but
they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.’”
In
my study of the gospel of Matthew as well as the other two gospels, Mark, and
John that I have recently studied I am learning that the gospel writers put
things in their writings that go along with a theme that they are writing
about. With that said I have to say that
we don’t know for sure how long it was that the statements made in this section
happened after the story of the calling of Matthew and the conversation with the
Pharisees, but Matthew has a reason in putting this story after that
conversation with the Pharisees which I hope that we will see and understand as
we got through this section. I remember
studying this section when I was a very young believer from a book that I read
to help me understand more about it, but my memories are not good ones as I am
not sure that the author understood what was going on here too well.
Now
as we compare the questions of the Pharisees with the question of John the
Baptist’s disciples we can see a big difference in that the Pharisees’ question
was not sincere, while the questions from John’s disciples were very sincere.
It
may be a good idea to review some things about what happened to John’s
disciples and John after he baptized Jesus back at the end of the 3rd
chapter of Matthew. For one thing Jesus
goes to the wilderness and fasts right after His baptism as described in the 4th
chapter of Matthew and shortly after that John is put into prison: “Now when Jesus heard that John had been
taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee” (4:12). Again we don’t know exactly how long this
happened after Jesus came back from His fast.
In the 3rd chapter of John’s gospel we see what John the
Baptist has to say about what would happen to him where he says “30 "He must increase, but I must decrease”
(John 3:30). He was saying this to his
disciples and afterwards many of them went to follow the Lord as John’s
ministry was winding down and later on he would be killed.
One
of the subjects in this section is about fasting as John’s disciples fasted
like the tradition of the Pharisees which was two times a week, however in the
OT Law the requirement was only once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement
as see (Leviticus 16:29, 31, where the phrase “humble your souls” [from the
Heb. ‘ana, ‘to afflict or humble’]
commonly included the idea or refraining from food). But Jewish tradition had come to require
fasting twice a week (see Luke 18:12), and these ‘disciples’ were careful to
follow that practice.” Now we are
getting the picture of what Jesus is really going to talk about to John’s
disciples which we will have to wait until our next SD to develop further.
5/22/2021 8:44 AM
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