Monday, June 10, 2024

PT-1 "The Presumption of Peter" (Matt. 26:50b-53)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/10/2024 10:17 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                           Focus:  PT-1 “The Presumption of Peter”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                            Reference:  Matthew 26:50b-53

 

            Message of the verses:  Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 53 “Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”

 

            It was right after Jesus was identified by Judas that the soldiers “came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him.”  Now we have to move to Luke 22:49 to see what the disciples asked Jesus:  “When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?’”  However there was one who was Jesus, the one who seems to always be in a hurry and he (Peter) did not wait for Jesus to reply but “reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.”

 

            10 Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave’s name was Malchus (John 18:10).  John tells us that it was Peter, as he was one of the two soldiers who armed themselves as seen in Luke 22:38 “They said, "Lord, look, here are two swords." And He said to them, "It is enough.’”  MacArthur adds “It may have been that the synoptic writers did not identify Peter because their gospels were written earlier than John’s, when Peter could have been in danger of reprisal from the Jewish authorities.”  I want to add something that I have heard before, and it seems to be that this could be true, and that is that Peter’s aim was not as good as he wanted it to be as it seems that he was aiming to cut off the man’s head and only got his ear.

 

            John 18:10 tells us that the man’s name was Malchus, who because he was in the very front of the multitude, was probably a high-ranking slave of the high priest.  As I continue looking at MacArthur’s commentary he agrees that Peter was aiming for the head of Malchus but only cut off only his ear when the man ducked.  MacArthur adds “Peter probably was emboldened by the fact that a few moments earlier when Jesus to the multitude who He was, ‘they drew back, and fell to the ground’ (John 18:6).  Seizing that time of vulnerability, Peter perhaps thought he would kill as many as he could before he himself was slain.  Or perhaps he assumed he was invincible, thinking that Jesus would not allow Himself or His disciples to be harmed.”

 

            Now as I read, and study this passage, and I have studied all of the gospel writers letters with the exception of Luke, it seems that things become familiar and one seems to have their own ideas of why things happened the way that they did, but I think it best to keep an open mind so that the Holy Spirit can aid in one’s thinking.  I want to learn from this section from Matthew’s gospel, learn things that perhaps I had not thought of before.

 

            MacArthur has a lot of commentary in this section that I think best to quote as I usually do when I see a lot of his commentary given without being surrounded by the verses that he is writing about.  I will just do one more paragraph and then pick up where I left off in the next SD.

 

            “As was often the case, however, Peter reacted the wrong way.  When the Lord had told the disciples ‘Let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one’ (Luke 22:36), He was speaking of spiritual, not physical, preparedness.  As Jesus had made clear many times, and as Paul later declared to the Corinthian church, ‘The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses’ (2 Cor. 10:4).”

 

            I have to say that this has been very exciting to me when MacArthur puts what happened with Peter to the verse in 2 Corinthian, as in doing so it makes much more sense to me.  I knew that Jesus did not want Peter to use that sword to harm anyone, but the spiritual meaning that MacArthur brings up makes perfect sense to me.  I have to say that I would guess that there is a lot of Peter in me, the Peter who was in the gospel records.  It is my desire to have more of the Peter that is seen in the book of Acts in me.

 

6/10/2024 10:48 AM

 

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