SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/16/2022 8:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Intro
to Matt. 17:1-13
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt 17:1-13
Message of the verses: “1 And six days
later Jesus *took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and brought
them up to a high mountain by themselves. 2 And He was transfigured before
them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as
light. 3 And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. 4 And
Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if
You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses,
and one for Elijah." 5 While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud
overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, "This is
My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!" 6 And when
the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were much afraid.
7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, "Arise, and do
not be afraid." 8 And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus
Himself alone. 9 And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded
them, saying, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen
from the dead." 10 And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Why then do
the scribes say that Elijah must come first?" 11 And He answered and said,
"Elijah is coming and will restore all things; 12 but I say to you, that
Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever
they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." 13
Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.”
We are beginning to look at a very important section
of Scripture, a part of the book of Matthew that will show us without a doubt
that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God, that He is God come in the flesh to
planet earth.
We
mentioned in the previous chapter that what we are looking at is a preview of
our Lord’s glory that He promised some of the disciples would experience before
they died, a preview that they would never forget, and one that later on Peter
would write about it.
We
see that it took six days after the promise was given that it was
fulfilled. The fact that Luke says it
was “some eight days later (9:28) simply indicates that he was speaking in inclusive
terms, unlike Matthew and Mark (9:2).
Whereas those writers referred to the six intervening days between the
prediction and the fulfillment, Luke also included the days on which those
events occurred.
The
disciples that Jesus took with Him, Peter and James and John his brother were
the most intimate disciples of Jesus, constituting, with Peter’s brother
Andrew, the Lord’s inner circle. So it
is therefore not surprising that it was these three men whom He brought…up to a
high mountain by themselves. The
question to me is does the Lord have favorites, or did He just bring them with
Him for another reason? I really don’t
know the answer to those questions.
John
MacArthur writes “Four reasons seem to suggest themselves for Jesus’ taking
only these three with Him to witness His transfiguration. First, they would be reliable witnesses of
His manifested glory, able to confirm the event to the other disciples and to
the rest of the church. According to
Deuteronomy 19:15, ‘On the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be
confirmed.’ The Lord’s promised display
of His kingdom glory (Matt. 16:27-28) would be confirmed by the testimony of
these three trust-worthy witness.
Well
we will look at the other reasons, which I think will answer my questions as to
why Jesus took these three men with Him to see His glory in our next SD.
10/16/2022 8:38 AM
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