SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/31/2021 10:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Peter’s Raw Material”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
10:2a
Message of the
verse: “The first, Simon, who is
called Peter”
In our last SD we began to look at what I called the
introduction to what we will be learning about Simon Peter, as we will be doing
this for all the rest of the Twelve disciples of Jesus. Today we want to begin by looking at what the
raw materials of Peter were, and how they were used to cause Peter to become
the man that he became.
As we look at all of Peter’s life and what God made him
into we can say that Peter had the right raw material from which Jesus could
fashion the sort of leader He intended Peter to be. Peter was a big beginning, as he had
potential, however while he was the one in control of his own life, his
beginnings never got further than that and his potential was not always easy to
see.
If we want to look at one of the reasons that Peter’s
qualifications for leadership we could say that Peter was always asking
questions; Peter wanted to know the what, when, where, and why of everything
the Lord said and he did this by asking questions. We can figure out as we look
at the life of Peter in the New Testament gospels that many of his questions
were superficial and immature, but they reflected a genuine concern about Jesus
and about His work. MacArthur writes “A
person who does not ask questions has little chance for success as a leader,
because he has no desire or willingness to inquire about what he does not
understand. When the other disciples failed
to understand something, they appear to have been more likely to keep quiet or
simply discuss their doubts and questions themselves. Peter, on the other hand, was never reluctant
to ask Jesus about whatever was on his mind.”
I have to say that I can relate to wanting to know things and as an
example of that while teaching Sunday school last Sunday a topic came up about
whether or not Jesus has always been the Eternal Son of God, of He became that
at His incarnation as some believe. It
seems that when John MacArthur was teaching through the book of Hebrews that he
believed that Jesus became the Son of God after the incarnation, and then after
challenged about this changed his mind as he now believes that Jesus has always
been the Eternal Son of God. This whole
subject seemed to bother me as I confess that I had never studied this before,
and so I went to the internet to find some answers and found a great article
that explains both sides, and also talks about men who believed like MacArthur
did while preaching through Hebrews. The
article actually mentions that MacArthur had changed his position. The author surely believes that Jesus Christ
was always the Eternal Son of God, but goes into evidence to show both
sides. I have to say after looking at
this article that I have learned much about this subject, a subject as
mentioned that I had never going over in my mind before but am happy to do some
studying about it.
Whenever Peter did not understand the things Jesus meant
when He said that it is “not what enters into the mouth [that] defiles the man,
but what proceeds out of the mouth,” Peter then said “Explain the parable to us”
(Matt. 15:11, 15). Another time when
Peter was concerned about the reward he and his fellow disciples would get for
leaving all and following Jesus, he did not hesitate asking about it as seen in
Matt. 19:27. Another time Peter was
wondering about a fig tree that Jesus had cursed to cause it to wither as seen
in Mark 11:21, and another with James, John and Andrew, he asked Jesus to
explain when and how the temple would be destroyed as seen in Mark 13:4. I have to say that I am thankful that Peter
asked that question as the answer that Jesus gave is found in three of the four
gospels and also that answer goes along with what is found in Revelation
chapter 6-19. In John chapter 21 we see
that Jesus told Peter that he would be a martyr for the Lord, Peter then asked
about what would happen to John.
MacArthur writes “Peter’s questions seldom received the answer he
expected, because the usually were self-centered or completely missed the
primary truth Jesus was explaining. But
the Lord used even his poor questions to patiently train him in leadership. Peter’s questions, immature as many of them
were, gave the Lord an opportunity to him him grow.”
7/31/2021 10:41 AM
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