SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/3/2023 10:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “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?’”
In the same way that Jesus took center stage while
cleansing the temple he now took center stage again and He was teaching as He
walked about the courtyard as seen in Mark 11:27 “They came again to Jerusalem.
And as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the
elders came to Him.” I have to believe
that those whom He had driven out for making His Father’s house a den of
robbers as seen in 21:13 have now returned, and the entire spacious Court of
the Gentiles was now available for those who came to worship. It seems possible that many of them followed
Jesus into this area of the temple in order to confront Him.
It is certain that Jesus was
teaching at this time, but it is not known for certain what He was teaching
because it does not say. John MacArthur writes that “He was likely reiterating
some of the more important truths He had taught many times before. We can be sure that whatever He said was
related to His kingdom, the subject with which His ministry began (Matt. 4:17)
and ended (Acts 1:3). In his parallel account
Luke reports that Jesus was ‘teaching daily in the temple,…preaching the gospel’
(Luke19:47; 20:1), which was sometimes called ‘the gospel of the kingdom’
(Matt. 9:35). Whatever His specific
theme, ‘all the people were hanging upon His words’ (Luke 19:48).”
The paragraph that we have begun to
look at (Matt. 21:23-32) is about authority, Jesus’ authority and so as we look
at the question that these Jewish leaders were asking Jesus at the end of verse
23 "By what authority are You doing
these things, and who gave You this authority?
This was the same question as it was from the beginning. You see many of the Jewish teachers were
taught by looking at different Rabbi’s who came before them, and yet they see
Jesus did not site anyone when He taught and this is one thing, one of many,
that bothered them. Let us look at John
2:18, and this verse happens right after Jesus cleanses the temple the first
time “The Jews then said to Him, "What sign do You show us as your
authority for doing these things?" They
did not realize, as many today still do not realize that Jesus Christ is the
One who has all authority in heaven and on earth. A person who realizes that he is a sinner,
and then after hearing the good news of the gospel accepts Jesus Christ as
Savior and Lord will then learn this truth, and realize that He has authority
over their life too. There is no one
else that I would rather have than Jesus to have authority over my life.
It is possible that these Jewish
leaders who were confronting Jesus asking about what authority He had were not
only talking about His cleansing the temple, but about all of His teaching, for
His teaching was certainly different from what they were teaching, His teaching
was right, theirs was mostly all wrong.
MacArthur writes that “they particularly had in mind His abrupt and, in
their eyes, utterly presumptuous cleansing of the Temple the day before. Except for His similar act at the beginnings
of His ministry, He had never done anything that more clearly, forcefully, and
publicly devastated the religious establishment. While it was happening, they were powerless
to stop Him and apparently were even speechless. But now that they had recovered from the initial
shock, they were on the offensive and were demanding an explanation.”
I mentioned that one of the problems
that these Jewish leaders had was wondering who gave Jesus His authority, and
in his commentary John MacArthur explains about how Rabbinical candidates originally
had been ordained. They were ordained “by
a leading rabbi whom they respected and under whose teaching they served a kind
of apprenticeship. And just as the
teachings of the leading rabbis varied greatly, so did their ordinations. Because of widespread abuses, and probably
also to centralize rabbinical authority, the Sanhedrin, or high Jewish council,
had taken over all responsibility for ordination.
“At his ordination a man was
declared to be rabbi, either, or judge, and was given corresponding authority
to teach, to express his wisdom, and to make decisions and render verdicts in
religious as well as many civil matters.
During the service various discourses and readings were given and hymns
sung. Once ordained, the man had
official recognition as a credentialed teacher of Israel.”
In our next SD we will talk about
Jesus not having any of these credentials.
7/3/2023 11:17
AM
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