SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/29/2021 9:57 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Intro to “The Works of the Lord”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 9:35
Message of the
verses: “35
Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their
synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of
disease and every kind of sickness.”
I want to look at the intro to this
section entitled “The Works of the Lord” and then begin to look at the first
sub-section “Teaching” from Matthew 9:35b.
What we have been looking at for the
past few months is what is called “Jesus’ Galilean ministry as it began in
Matthew 4:23 which says “23 Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in
their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every
kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.”
John MacArthur writes “We learn from
the Jewish historian Josephus that at this time there were some two hundred
cities and villages in the region of Galilee, and area about forty miles wide
and seventy miles long. ‘The cities are
numerous and the multitude of the villages everywhere,’ he wrote, ‘crowded with
men owing to the fertility of the soil, so that the smallest of them contains
about fifteen thousand inhabitants.’
Based on that assessment, Galilee then contained at least three million
people, most of whom could have had direct exposure to Jesus.
“Cities of that day were distinguished
by having high surrounding walls for fortification, whereas villages were un-walled.
During His brief stay in Galilee, Jesus
visited all of them as He fulfilled His threefold ministry of ‘teaching…proclaiming
the gospel…, and healing.’”
Now that was the introduction and
now we will begin to touch upon the first part which is teaching which covers
Matthew 9:35b “teaching in their synagogues.”
The first thing we need to know
about is what a synagogue was and when it began. Now the synagogues began during the
Babylonian exile that actually began when the first Jews were taken to Babylon
around 605 BC, but it really began in 586 BC when the last deportation of the
Jews took place after Jerusalem was defeated, so the Jews would need a place to
worship and thus the era of the Synagogues began there in Babylon.
The synagogue was a place of
worship, a town hall, and a courthouse all in one as it was the center of
Jewish life. We know that before the
exile all worship centered in the temple at Jerusalem, from which every Jew in
Palestine lived less than 100 miles from.
However when they were separated from the temple worship while in
Babylon the synagogue era began as that meant a place of worship. There had to be at least ten Jewish men
living in a community in order to began a synagogue, and many of the large
cities of the ancient world had numerous synagogues. I think we can see that there are some
similarities of the church with the synagogues, which we will talk about a bit
later on.
Now the synagogue was usually
located on a hill or by a river, as it frequently was built without a roof as
was most of the temple was in order for the people to look up to heaven as part
of their worship. Many of the synagogues
were often identified by a long pole that went high into the air and this was
similar to a church steeple. Now if a
stranger came into town and wanted to find a synagogue all they would have to
do was to look for the large pole (GPS was not available at that time).
I will conclude this first SD on the
synagogue with a quotation from MacArthur’s commentary and then will try and
finish this section in our next SD.
“Members of the synagogue would meet
for worship on the Sabbath and on the second and fifth days of each week. They also met there to celebrate their many
feasts,, festivals, and holy days.
Regular worship services were simply structured. They began with a time of thanksgiving or
blessing, which included songs of praise and spoken testimony of the Lord’s
goodness. Prayer followed and was
concluded by a congregational ‘Amen,’ and a statement of affirmation that means
‘So be it.’ Jesus often used the term ‘amen (translated, ‘truly,’ or ‘verily’;
see Matt. 16:28; Mark 9:1) to emphasize the truth of important teachings; and
the early church, following the synagogue practice, used it as a response to
prayer (see 1 Cor. 14:16).” As mentioned
earlier there were similarities between the synagogue and church services.
6/29/2021 10:25
AM
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