SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/10/2021 9:48 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Response to Criticism”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
11:16-19
Message of the verses: 16 "But to
what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market
places, who call out to the other children, 17 and say, ‘We played the
flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ 18
“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’ 19 “The
Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man
and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is
vindicated by her deeds.’”
There is no doubt that by the time that this section
of Matthew takes place that the miracles that Jesus had done had already
established His messianic credentials beyond any legitimate question as most of
the Jewish people by this time had witnessed those miracles but refused to
recognize the facts or accept Him as the Messiah.
John
MacArthur writes “But to what shall I compare this generation” reflects a
common Oriental expression used to introduce a parable or other
illustration. The Midrash, an ancient compilation
of Jewish traditional teaching, contains many expressions (such as ‘To what is
the matter like?’ or ‘How can I illustrate this point?’) used by rabbis to
introduce illustrative metaphors, analogies, and stories. In this tradition Jesus was saying, ‘How can
I illustrate the responses of ‘this generation’ of God’s people to his truth
and work? To what do they compare?’”
As
I listened to MacArthur’s sermon on this section yesterday I found it very
interesting to say the least, as I learned something that I would have never
though could be found in this section that we are beginning to look at this
morning.
Some
of those who had refused to believe the gospel covered their unbelief with
criticism, and so Jesus then compares them to the foolish “children sitting in
the market place’ who objected to everything the other children did. These children were not much different than
the children today living in our country, as they would find fault with
whatever the preacher of other church leaders do. I remember talking about this same subject
when I was 12 years old with a Catholic friend of mine as I told him that since
I was a Methodist that I could do whatever I wanted to do up until the age of
13, which was the age of accountability believed by the Methodist church I went
to. The bottom line here is that kids
like to argue and disagree and not come to many conclusions they could all
agree on, and in this case believing that Jesus was the Messiah after seeing
all of the works that He did to prove who He was. (I am speaking now of the older generations
acting like these children.)
MacArthur
writes “The agora (market place) was
a central area of cities and towns where people went to do business and to socialize. On certain days of the week, farmers,
craftsmen, and merchants of all sorts would bring their produce or wares to
sell from stalls, tents, carts, or simply from a cleared place on the ground.”
From
this scene we can see that as their parents were doing business the children
would have a place to play. MacArthur
speaks of two games that these children would play. One would be “Wedding” and the other would be
“Funeral,” as these were particularly popular, and the reason was that weddings
and funerals were the two major social events, and so the children like to
mimic their elders by performing mock weddings and mock funerals. Now weddings involved festive music and
dancing, and so when the children played the wedding game, they expected everyone
to dance when the imaginary flute would be playing, which is just what the
grown-ups would do in this real ceremony.
The other game, the funeral, when it was played there was an imaginary
dirge played, just like the paid mourners did when a person actually died. Yes the Jewish people would hire mourners to
come in a make lamenting sounds at a funeral, and the more money you had the
more of these people would be hired.
As
one could expect when the children played these games that there would be an
argument as to which game they would play.
Nothing the other children did satisfied them as they were peevish, perpetual
spoilsports who threw a wet blanket on everything their friends did writes
MacArthur.
12/10/2021 10:34 AM
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