Monday, September 4, 2023

PT-2 "The Question by the Lawyer" (Matt. 22:36)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/4/2023 10:13 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-2 “The Question by the Lawyer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 22:36

 

            Message of the verse:  “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’”

 

            I believe that it is a true statement that as one looks at the history of the Jewish “religion” that because of its leaders, including the Pharisees that it has changed a lot from what God intended it to be after He had given it to Moses.  So because Jesus’ teaching of Scripture was so utterly contrary to their interpretations, the Pharisees were convinced that He must be teaching a message He considered to be greater than that of Moses.  Now that certainly would not be a true statement because Moses has written about the coming Messiah.  Now it was evidence to that effect that they now hoped Jesus would disclose, because to contradict Moses was to contradict God and by guilty of heresy.  I get the feeling, well actually the truth that these men will not ever get this because of their hatred of Jesus.  It was their purpose to expose Him as an apostate and thereby turn the people against Him.  Well many of the people who were praising Him as the Son of David on the previous Monday will turn on Jesus because the Messiah that He was, was not the one that they wanted.  They wanted a political Messiah who won’t come until after the Millennial Kingdom.

 

            MacArthur writes “Over the years, the rabbis had supposedly determined that, just as there were 613 separate letters in the Hebrew text of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, in the book of Exodus, there were also 613 separate laws in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses.  Such letterism, as it is sometimes called, was extremely popular and was considered to be a valuable exegetical tool for interpreting Scripture.  The rabbis had divided those 613 laws into affirmative and negative groups, holding that there were 248 affirmative laws, one for every part of the human body, as they supposed, and 365 negative laws, one for each day of the year.  The laws were also divided into heavy and light, the heavy ones being absolutely binding and the light ones less binding.

 

            “There had never been unanimity, however, as to which laws were heavy and which were light, and the rabbis and scribes spent countless hours proudly debating the merits of their particular divisions and the ranking laws within the divisions.

 

            “It was doubtlessly that superficial and fanciful orientation to the law that led them to think Jesus had His own scheme.  Because He considered Himself to be the Messiah, they assumed that surely Jesus had devised a system to display His erudition in the law just as they were accustomed to doing.  And judging by the lawyer’s single and extremely simple question, they assumed that His naming the one great commandment in the Law would be sufficiently unorthodox to condemn Him.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Understanding the truth of Scripture that speaks of salvation is something that a child can understand, it is that simple.  However this truth must be taught by the Holy Spirit of God in order for someone to fully understand and then believe it.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I desire to continuing walking in the truth of the Scripture by the same faith which the Lord gave me to believe when I became a believer.

 

9/4/2023 10:38 AM

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