SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/2/2023 7:33 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Confrontation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 21:23
Message of the
verse: “23
When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came
to Him while He was teaching, and said, "By what authority are You doing
these things, and who gave You this authority?’”
We are still looking at Wednesday morning of
Passover week. It was after Jesus and
His disciples had passed the fig tree He cursed the day before and found it
completely withered as seen in verses 18-22, and this can also be compared with
Mark 11:20-21. Jesus had come with them
into the temple.
We see in this verse that Matthew
talks about the chief priests and the elders of the people, and this may have
included the high priest Caiaphas and Annas, who served concurrently for several
years (Luke 3:2). It was because of the
seriousness of the confrontation of Jesus, it is likely that at least the Caption of the Temple, who was the second highest official, would have been
there too. John MacArthur writes “The
elders comprised a wide variety of religious leaders, which definitely included
Pharisees (Matt. 21:45) and scribes (Luke 20:1), and possibly Sadducees,
Herodians, and even some Zealots and Essenes.
Although those groups have many differences from each other and were
constantly disputing among themselves, they found common ground in opposing
Jesus, because He threatened the authority of the entire religious
establishment.”
This is true today, as every false
religion has the common denominator of works righteousness, of salvation by
human achievement, and is by nature offended by and opposed to the gospel of
divine accomplishment by God in Christ.
It is true that the religions of the world are divided by vast
difference in theology and practice; they find common ground against the gospel
of Jesus Christ. In a similar way the Jewish religionists in the Temple did as seen in our verse as we dig deeper
into it along with others in this section of Matthew 21. It is possible that they presume to honor
Christ as a prophet, a great teacher, or even as one among many gods, but they
vehemently oppose the truth that He is the only Savior and that no person can
come to God except through the merits of His sacrifice.
I want to take a moment to talk
about something that before studying this section of Matthew in more detail
that I now understand why it was that when the Lord came riding into Jerusalem
on the colt of a donkey that as He did this the people were ready to crown Him
king, and then not many days later were calling for Him to be crucified. The reason for the change of heart is because
they first thought that He was going to defeat Rome and be their political
Messiah, but Jesus came to confront the Jewish way of worship because He found
no fruit in them as seen by the fig tree which had only leaves, and no
fruit. Leaves represented their false
religious ways that accomplished nothing in the saving of their souls.
7/2/2023 7:57
AM
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