Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 209th episode. In this episode we’re continuing our study of Matthew’s gospel. Today we will finish chapter 9. This chapter has given us multiple examples of Jesus’s power to save and has revealed with clarity His desire to do so. In the opening passage He healed a paralytic who was carried to him by the townsfolk. After that we saw Him take an unlikely disciple by calling Matthew the tax collector to follow Him. The Pharisees were upset with this because they didn’t think He should be dining with tax collectors and sinners. In the previous episode we unpacked the verses which present the disciples of John asking Jesus questions about fasting. And then we recounted the story of Christ traveling to Jairus’s house to heal his daughter — and the woman who reaches out and touches Christ’s robe along the way — His power immediately healing her of a condition from which she suffered for 12 years.
In this episode we’re going to see Christ perform more miracles as He heals two blind men as well as a man who was unable to speak. The mute man was demon-possessed, and so after Christ cast out the demon the man was able to speak again. Of course the Pharisees react negatively to this miracle and accuse Christ of casting out demons by the ruler of demons. The chapter finishes as we watch Christ go from city to city, preaching the gospel and teaching the people in their synagogues. He also continued to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. This closing passage is the passage from which the famous saying, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” comes from. Jesus saw the people, had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and then He instructed His disciples to pray to God (who is the Lord of the harvest) to send out workers into His harvest. Let’s begin by reading verses 27-34:
Mat 9:27-34
27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
28 When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus *said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They *said to Him, “Yes, Lord.”
29 Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.”
30 And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: “See that no one knows about this!“
31 But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.
32 As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him.
33 After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
34 But the Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”
This passage presents us with two more miracles done by the hand of Jesus. We should view Jesus as the Source from which the fountains of light and life emanate. When He raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead in the previous passage, He proved that He is the same God who breathed life into humanity at the creation of the universe. As we watch Him give sight to the blind men in these verses, we understand Him as the same God who commanded light to shine out of darkness in the beginning of all things.
Observe how the blind men follow Jesus from Jairus’s house with unremitting cries for help. The approached Him with all the desperation and all the surrendered dignity of beggars. Word had traveled all across the land of His miraculous power and that He healed every kind of disease at no cost. Naturally as His fame grew He had no shortage of patients who sought His healing power to fix their own issues.
It’s interesting to note how these blind beggars address Jesus as, “Thou Son of David!” It was common knowledge at this point that the foretold Messiah would come from the lineage of king David. So anytime the public thought themselves to be in the presence of the Messiah they would call this person son of David. While most Jews understood and agreed the Messiah would come, not all of them agreed Jesus was the one. These two men, having heard about His power to raise the dead back to life, were sufficiently convinced to proclaim Christ as their Savior openly in the streets of Capernaum. These kinds of public proclamations aggravated the Pharisees and the chief priests who opposed Jesus.
It’s true not everyone saw Him resurrect Jairus’s daughter. In fact He dismissed the crowds and chose to do it in private undoubtedly because He knew they couldn’t accept the implications of it. The Pharisees lacked the faith necessary to see Jesus for who He is and His miracles for what they were. We talked a little bit in the previous episode about how we ourselves were not eyewitnesses to the miracles of Christ and yet this does not absolve us of accountability to believe in them. Scripture says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Even if we didn’t personally see the divine miracles of Christ’s ministry on earth, we are still recipients of God’s grace to have our eyes of understanding enlightened by Him. By faith we are able to discern the great things of God which are hidden from those who think themselves wise and prudent.
The two blind men called out to Jesus and asked if He’d be merciful to them. The prophecies concerning the Son of David said that He would be merciful. Psalm 72 points to Jesus when it says, “For he will deliver the needy when he cries for help, The afflicted also, and him who has no helper. He will have compassion on the poor and needy, And the lives of the needy he will save.” The mercy of God is revealed and personified in Jesus Christ. When meditating on the mercy of God not only should you understand its immediate accessibility, but also its comprehensive sufficiency. To take part in the mercy of King Jesus is enough to alleviate all of your burdens and supply all of your necessities.
You might ask how the mercy of God is sufficient to meet needs in the present moment like healing a disease or putting food on your table. The idea that God’s grace doesn’t overlap with these kind of specific, mortal needs is the consequence of misunderstanding the means through which God works. Too often both Christians and unbelievers inappropriately reserve the workings of God to the evidently miraculous.
The truth is God will work in whatever way He sees fit to achieve His ends. That means if He chooses to heal you through a specific medicine or doctor, it is God Himself healing you nonetheless. Simple provision of food is even easier to epistemologically reconcile with a miracle-working God. You might think food lands on your table when you use money to buy it at the grocery store (nothing especially divine about that) — but you need only follow the causal chain to arrive at the indisputable miracle of life and growth on planet Earth. All food — everything we have to sustain ourselves — originates in God’s power to bring life and growth. This is a power which is both miraculous and utterly mysterious to scientific comprehension.
Since it’s impossible to keep accurate record of all the ways in which God is merciful towards us, we are best served when we simply refer ourselves to the wisdom of Christ and trust in Him to deliver in whatever way He sees fit. That’s precisely what these blind men were doing. They didn’t care so much how Jesus would heal them, they just had faith that He could heal them. They sought His mercy more than they sought His miracles. Also notice how they petition Christ for each other together. One is not asking for himself to be healed, they’re both asking if He might heal them together.
Everyone knows the old adage, misery loves company — but not as many people are familiar with its biblical opposite. The reason miserable people are drawn towards each other is because a victim-mentality is buttressed when the miserable people can agree with each other that they’ve been unjustly victimized. There is also very frequently commission of sin in such circles. Sinners are able to comfort each other from the guilt of conviction by affirming or justifying each other’s behavior. I think this tendency for miserable people to keep each other’s company is a satanic perversion of the godly impulse for community.
The blind men unite in their affliction not so they can feed one another’s bitterness and tell each other stories of why God has brought this on them — rather they unite in their appeal for the mercy of God. In the same way, Christians who are suffering similar afflictions should seek each other out for support and unite their efforts in prayer. So if several members of a church recently lost loved ones, they should gather together in a grief-share group to support each other and pray in unison for the same grace of God which they all need at this moment. The mercy of God is sufficient for all things, and it is also limitless in terms of there being enough for everyone who calls on Him.
Jesus didn’t take notice of the two blind beggars at first. It’s possible in this moment that He was testing their faith. Perhaps He was allowing them space to increase the fervency of their prayers so that once He did heal them they would appreciate the miracle all the more. There could be many reasons why God is delaying His response to your prayer, but one of them is to train you to pray without ceasing. It’s a gentle reminder of God’s sovereignty when He doesn’t yield to our first beck and call. Many times, not only is God’s providence delayed, but it can appear contrary to what you need or desire. For some measure of time the blind men were following Jesus while Jesus was walking away from them. Had they simply given up and believed Jesus didn’t want to help them, they would have never made it into the house where Christ healed their blindness.
Again we see Christ avoid the opportunity to heal these men publicly in the streets for all to see. In the previous episode we discussed some valid reasons why Jesus might want a miracle to be concealed from public attention — and the scripture is not clear in this passage but for whatever reason He wanted this healing to remain private as well. He came into a house and the men followed Him inside. He didn’t try to stop them from following Him. The doorway to Jesus is always open and welcoming for the faithful and especially those in desperate need. It’s probable Jesus wasn’t luring these men into the house, rather He was simply putting away for some rest. By any consideration their following Him inside was a rude thing to do, but it reveals the compassionate nature of Jesus that He didn’t reject them.
At this moment the blind men approached Jesus inside the house and He asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” And they said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Jesus sought a confession of faith from the men before He went on to heal them. I am not the kind of theologian to ever put constraints on the sovereign power of almighty God. I believe God is able to heal whomever He pleases and He is able to extend saving grace to whomever He pleases. But in this passage Jesus appears to establish faith as one of the great conditions of His favors. Presumably He may not have healed the men had they responded to His question with incredulity. I don’t think the men’s faith is empowering Jesus at this moment, rather He’s seeking a confession of faith because (as we’ve been reminded throughout this entire chapter) His ultimate concern is always the condition of your spirit. Jesus will use bodily healing to alleviate people of disease but His underlying motive is always to heal their souls and reconcile the lost to God.
As we mentioned with the paralytic, the woman with the issue of blood, Jairus’s daughter, and now these two blind men: each healing miracle came packaged with a more important spiritual blessing. Their sins were forgiven and their souls were restored. There are remedies in technology, even if they remain as yet undiscovered or undeveloped, which can cure paralysis, give sight to the blind, and heal chronic diseases. But there is no solution outside the grace of Jesus Christ for restoring a person’s spirit. That’s why in this moment the blind men are healed by faith. The restoration of their sight was the lesser miracle in this passage and the greater was the sanctification of their souls — a blessing which can come no other way than by faith in the grace and power of Jesus.
When you get up every morning and walk through your day-to-day life, there are several parts of God’s character of which you would do well to remind yourself in every given circumstance you face. First is His omniscience. It doesn’t matter how complicated or nuanced your situation is, Jesus knows everything about it. He knows more about it than you do. In fact it would be impossible to understand yourself, your life, or your problems greater than Jesus understands them. Second is His omnipotence. No matter how desperate your circumstances — even if there is no one left on the planet who is able to help — you are not outside the strength of God’s arm. He has the power to resolve any situation according to His will and He also has the power to totally transform a human being. With a touch He is able to give sight to the blind. With a word He is able to raise the dead to life.
Third is His omnipresence. It doesn’t matter what dark corner of the earth you’re stuck in, Jesus is right there with you. As mind-breaking as this doctrine is, Jesus is perfectly present in all places at all times. Last is that Christ never changes. He is eternal. He has no beginning and no end, and there is nothing forceful or terrifying enough to invoke a change in Him. So even if your entire life is ruined by some sin or some tragedy, Jesus remains exactly unchanged. This means no matter what shifting sands of chaotic change you experience, you will always have Jesus to cling to as your anchor. Himself and the scriptures are the one thing you can be certain will never change or never go away for the rest of your life — indeed for the rest of your eternity. The word of God says, “all things shall work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” This includes your own circumstance — no matter how helpless it appears.
Another reason Christ sought a confession of faith from these men was because they were only partially correct about the title they gave Him. Jesus is the foretold Son of David insofar as He is the Messiah. But Jesus is also the Son of God. While these men may have believed Christ to be empowered by God as a holy prophet, He wanted them to understand the power to save is actually sourced in Himself. While others in your life may serve to encourage you and support you, they may use their own spiritual vision to assist you in your blindness, only Jesus is able to transform you and give you vision to see for yourself. Trusting in the power and grace of Jesus means assuring yourself of it, committing yourself to it, and encouraging yourself in it. We live each day differently because we are confident that Christ can and will do the things He said He can do.
For the blind men, it didn’t matter that Christ held them in suspense for a time. When He asked them about their faith they replied without hesitation. By their estimation, Christ’s delay in helping them was a consequence of His wisdom and not a consequence of weakness or inability. They knew He had power stored up for them which would be expressed in the form of His mercy on them. Psalm 31 says, “How great is Your goodness, Which You have stored up for those who fear You, Which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You, Before the sons of men!”
Jesus chose to cure the blind men by touching their eyes. Healing their blindness no doubt served to encourage their faith in Him. We’ve already read about other instances where Christ performed miracles to improve the faith of those around Him — notably by turning water to wine in the wedding at Cana. Part of His motif in restoring sight to the blind is to show that He is one the who enlightens lost souls by the power of His grace and the truth of His word. In this case, as with His other healings, He points out the faith of the blind men as instrumental in the healing itself. This is not to say the blind men were restored on their own power, but that their faith was a factor in His decision to heal them.
Jesus was asking them if they believed in His power to heal them. Notice how He didn’t ask them for money or any kind of payment. He didn’t seek to discover the status of their reputation in the community. God does not take favorites among men. Jesus knew the authenticity of these men’s faith and He approved of it. Christians today should take comfort with the knowledge that Christ is aware of their faith and is pleased by it. Even if your faith is so weak that others are unable to discern it — Jesus still knows. Sometimes you might not even be confident in your own faith, and at these moments you can rest assured Christ still knows the truth.
If there’s any part of you at all which determines the quality of the response you’ll get from Jesus — it is your faith. A high profile career won’t save you. Your wants and desires aren’t able to save you. Only by grace through faith does Jesus Christ save you. The gospel is an expression of God’s love which is why it works independent of these other merits. It is a free gift for all who believe in Jesus and submit to Him as Lord of their life. Success in this world may garner you the praise of your fellow man, but it achieves nothing towards finding favor with God. It is only your faith which places you in proper alignment with God. This is a wonderful thing because it means all the trappings of faith: love, wisdom, and peace which goes beyond comprehension are continuously available to you regardless of how desperate your circumstances are. Your spiritual comfort in this world ebbs and flows according to your faith.
After healing the blind men, Jesus admonishes them not to tell anyone about the miracle. There are several possibilities as to why He wanted this kept secret — so we’ll take our time walking through each of them. First is that Jesus was setting an example for us in terms of how we should handle our own good works. Our good works should not be motivated by attracting the praise of man, rather we should do them from a posture of humility and lowliness of mind. The Christian’s motive for doing good works should be ultimately traceable to his desire to love his neighbor and his desire to glorify God. As a Christian it is better to be quietly useful than it is to proclaim your own usefulness for any who might observe. Proverbs says, “ It is not good to eat much honey, Nor is it glory to search out one’s own glory.” Jesus said, “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” And He exemplifies this principle here with this healing of the blind men.
Another possibility is that Jesus was displeased with the people of Capernaum. These people had witnessed Him do many miracles and yet many of them refused to believe. We know that God will shroud the light from those who shut their eyes against it. Jesus does not cast His pearls before swine. If a person or a group of people are obstinate in their lack of repentance or their infidelity, Jesus will withhold the means of conviction from them. This is much like when a person sears his or her conscience. They are no longer able to see what’s true because they disbelieve in such a thing as truth itself. They no longer feel the sharp pain of shame or guilt because they’ve lost their ability for moral evaluation. Such a person is in a terrible condition because they’ve exchanged evil for good and dark for light, rendering them incapable of recognizing their only Savior.
Perhaps Jesus told these men to keep the healing secret because it was not yet time for Him to die. He knew if His miracles were proclaimed it would stir the jealousy of the Jewish rulers. Of course, as Christ demonstrates in other passages, He was always in full control of when He would die and when He would be resurrected. He was never in any real danger of being moved against the will of God the Father. But why not give these newly restored men the opportunity to demonstrate humble silence? But of course they failed to do so.
I think one of the most likely reasons why Christ sought to keep this miracle silent was because He knew the Jews were looking for an earthly king to call their Messiah. Too many public miracles, especially the transfiguration, would have prompted the Jews to try setting up Christ’s kingdom on earth by way of revolution or sedition. This would have been pointless political violence because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world and His incarnation was not purposed for seizing control of government. All of that changed the moment Christ was resurrected. The Resurrection functioned as total proof of the legitimacy of His claims and the authority by which He conducted His mission. With the Resurrection came the establishment of Christ’s spiritual kingdom — and now instead of concealing the good works of God, believers are called to declare them in the preaching of the gospel.
Despite all of this, as Matthew Henry notes, the funny thing about honor is how it flees from those who follow it and follows those who flee from it. The blind men who had been given their sight chose to violate the instruction of Jesus and spread His fame abroad. Most charitably, I think these men were just so excited about being healed that they wanted to glorify Jesus in whatever way they could. Their defiance was likely excused although it was not justified. We are called to glorify God in all that we do, but we shouldn’t violate the word of God even if our intention is to glorify Him by such violation. Any action which truly serves to glorify God must also be one that is obedient to Him.
Moving on from the blind men we read next about a demon-possessed man who was unable to speak. At this moment in scripture it’s hard to resist feeling a strong sense of pity for these people. Those who lived during the time of Christ’s incarnation suffered from a variety of illnesses we ourselves are fortunate to evade today. Part of the problem with the secularists is that they’re often unwilling to see the world for how it actually is. Since their beliefs do not allow for an eternal kingdom separate from our mortal lives on earth, they’re bound to the project of trying to build a utopia here in the present moment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m exceedingly thankful to enjoy the fruit of all the hard work men and women across history have done to make this world a better place to live. But certain things, like human corruption and malevolence, simply cannot be expunged from our nature.
The secular humanist wants to dismiss the spiritual reality of evil by diagnosing it as a mental health condition. As the diagnosable mental health conditions begin to stack up and as the culture’s grip on spiritual truth weakens, these diagnosable mental illnesses become identities. Once evil morphs into a mental illness and then into an identity, not only do we stop trying to fix it but it becomes a moral hazard to do anything other than affirm it. The problem with evil is that it cannot be cured apart from sanctification by the Holy Spirit through the word of God. Evil is a spiritual reality which exists in spirit and manifests itself in the actions of people on earth. Despite their noteworthy successes in alleviating material privation, developing technology which supports life on earth, and eradicating diseases which once sent mankind fleeing in terror, the secularists will never be able to resolve spiritual maladies like evil because their worldview simply does not account for it.
The man who was mute must have been so thoroughly addled that he could no longer form words or sentences. The oppression of a demon was on him and scripture indicates this accounted for his inability to speak. Although being unable to speak was very difficult for him, his silence can almost be understood as a grace of God. At least the demon was not speaking through him as was the case with the demoniac who said, “What have we to do with thee, thou son of God?” It was better that this man was unable to speak than that he be forced by the demon to blaspheme the presence of Jesus.
Another way of thinking about this demon-possession which might make more sense in a modern context is to understand how when a person’s mind is racked with evil, many times they stop saying good things to those around them, their prayers fall silent, and they no longer praise God. Both evil and pain have a way of enlarging the self such that thought for God or thought for one’s neighbor become crowded out by insults against others, declarations of how unjust the world is and claims that one has been unfairly victimized. Many times the emotional awareness of such a person becomes so calloused they don’t even notice the pain their words cause to those around them.
The mute man was brought to Jesus by others who had faith that Christ could heal him. We saw this happen before with the paralytic. Jesus in His grace accepts those who come to Him themselves as well as those who are brought to Him by the faith of others. This is one of the reasons why Paul instructs believers to remain in their marriages to unbelievers in 1 Corinthians 7 when he says, “If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.” While each person must turn to Christ himself, there is tremendous power in the faith of others for assisting in this project.
The power of the faith of others also underlies the biblical doctrine of intercessory prayer. Scripture says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” This means the faithful can intercede on behalf of those who need it and temporal mercies may be granted them on the basis of the praying person’s faith. Also notice how the faithful brought this mute man in immediately as the healed blind men were going out. Christ had no opportunity for a break, but He demonstrates endurance in doing good works. Paul encourages us to be the same way when he says in Galatians 6:9, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” In Jesus we see an abundance of mercy and divine grace which can never be exhausted. As Christians it’s our desire to depend on this abundance sourced in Jesus when we ourselves endeavor to do good things in this world.
As we’ve noted before, when Jesus miraculously heals someone the results are immediate, comprehensive, and permanent. That’s one of the ways we can tell the difference between fraudulent healers of today and the true apostolic gift of healing we saw in the first days of the Church. Through His Holy Spirit God may elect to miraculously heal people today, but there are no human beings on earth who have the gift of healing after the fashion of Christ or His apostles. If such a person existed, he could walk into a hospital and effortlessly heal entire cancer-wings. This would be headline news all over the world and the person would be worshipped as a god overnight.
The same kind of immediate healing happened in this passage with the man who was stricken mute. Right after Jesus exorcised the demon, without any hesitation at all, the man began to speak again. When Jesus heals He does so by eliminating the root cause of the symptoms. He could have just enabled this man to speak without removing the demon, but Jesus was more interested in the health of this man’s soul than He was in merely correcting for symptoms. He broke Satan’s power over the mute man’s soul and this is what allowed him to form words and sentences once again.
Unlike with the two blind men, this man who couldn’t speak was healed in front of a crowd of people. When the crowd witnessed the miracle, they marveled and declared, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” Even though the people were impressed with Jesus and admired Him, it’s likely most still came short of believing in Him. Winning favor with the public through some rare gift or ability is not the same as earning their trust. You can also lose their trust even if you still have a rare gift or ability. Israel experienced more wonders and mercy than any other place on the planet, but Christ healing the mute man was something unheard of anywhere. Not only did Christ confirm His own authority with these kinds of miracles, but He simultaneously discredited the frauds who only pretended to be able to work miracles. The difference in Christ’s results versus a fraud’s results is so obvious and self-evident that spiritual hucksters couldn’t survive for long in the presence of Jesus.
Where Moses the man of God worked miracles for the masses of Israel, Jesus worked miracles for specific individuals. If Jesus is satisfied by helping one person at a time then we should be as well. Often pastors and other Christians feel discontent or impatient when their work is only helping one person at a time. We want to see results and we (perhaps inappropriately) measure these results according to the number of people we’ve helped. Indeed Jesus shows us the pathway to impacting a crowd very often runs through impacting a single individual. We should not view ourselves as too important for such work.
The Pharisees who stood by while Christ performed this miracle were unable to discredit the legitimacy of it. Obviously Jesus had authority over demons if He could exorcise them when no one else could. The Pharisees tried to accuse Jesus of deriving this authority from Satan himself. They said, “He casts out demons by the ruler of demons.” We see Jesus rebuke this accusation further on in Matthew’s gospel when He says, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?”
The claim that Jesus was colluding with Satan had crossed a new boundary of blasphemy for the Pharisees. These were wicked men who had gone from bad to worse. Such is the case with evil men and imposters: scripture says they will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. Remember how the Pharisees started with complaints about Christ dining with tax collectors and sinners, then they accused His disciples of not fasting, they were appalled that Christ should forgive sins, and now they claimed He’s in collaboration with Satan. Their accusations grew progressively worse as corruption continued to fester in their hearts. The more thoroughly evil possesses you the stronger your enmity with Jesus.
Scripture names blasphemy of the Holy Spirit as the only unpardonable sin. The text isn’t clear as to what exactly such a heinous sin would look like — but I suspect it’s not far away from the sin of accusing Jesus of being allied to Satan. For the Pharisees to think such a thing they would have to be so far gone that when they look at Christ they see the worst of all evils. To look upon the divine Source of light and life and see the worst of all evils speaks of a heart that may be unrecoverable. The Pharisees failed in their efforts to undermine the authority of Jesus, so all they could do is say His authority came from Hell. Let’s continue with verses 35-38:
Mat 9:35-38
35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.
37 Then He *said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
38 “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”
This passage brings us to the end of chapter 9 and also to the conclusion of the specific accounts detailed in this particular circuit of preaching. We see the same literary technique used in Matthew 4 where the passage opens by highlighting that Jesus was going throughout all the villages and cities, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. In both tours of His ministry He was healing every kind of sickness and disease. So we were elegantly ushered in to the Sermon on the Mount as well as some of Christ’s most notable healings, and now we conclude those events with an equally elegant departure.
By the grace of God we were given insight to the wisdom of Christ’s sermons as well as testimony to His miracles which serve as proof of the authority of His teachings. These things were written for us so that we might believe. Jesus didn’t let the false accusations from the Pharisees intimidate Him or slow Him down in His work. He continued on despite the noise and focused on His preeminent mission to preach the gospel. Christians stand to learn from this today — especially as our culture continues to decay. The job we are tasked with as missionaries of God is to preach the gospel no matter what. Even if it falls on deaf ears and even if our listeners are so blind they’re unable to see Jesus for who He is. In this case we simply dust off our feet and move on to the next city, preaching the same good news everywhere we go.
Preachers and teachers need not depend on the powers of persuasion for the work of saving souls. All the power is already resident in the gospel as Christ has presented it. We don’t need to change anything and indeed we are prohibited from doing so. We should not feel the pressure to do God’s work of conversion for Him. Jesus is the One who converts souls by the power of His Holy Spirit working through the preaching of His word. There’s a reason the Bible has outlasted empires. There’s a reason scripture cannot be snuffed out despite the most violent efforts on behalf of authoritarians throughout history. God will preserve His word, God’s word is sufficient to fully transform your soul, and God has ordained the preaching of His word as the primary vehicle for doing so.
That’s why Jesus simply preached wherever He went. He didn’t set up schemes or elaborate sales techniques — He preached the gospel with the boldness of one who has the authority to do so. He has given us this same authority today and so we should preach it with equal courage. It’s also worth mentioning that Jesus preached in impoverished villages just the same as He preached in wealthy cities. He also performed miracles and healed people even in marginalized areas. People who are pushed aside and overlooked are equally precious in the eyes of Jesus as are those who wield great power in this world. The rich and the destitute stand on equal footing in Christ Jesus. The aristocracy and the peasantry are held in equal consideration. Poverty does not excuse sin any more than wealth justifies it.
Jesus also taught in synagogues which demonstrates for us the importance of gathering together in worshipful assembly. You can be certain each of these synagogues had their own issues and their own share of corruption. This didn’t prevent Christ from preaching there nonetheless. We need to be careful about leaving a church on account of the corruption of sinners. There is sin and corruption in every church and if we use the presence of it as an excuse to leave then we’ll just repeatedly leave churches until we arrive at the false (and dangerous) conclusion that Church itself is unnecessary.
But why would Jesus preach to Jews at synagogues when His message ran counter to what they believed? Likely it’s because synagogues presented locations where people were gathered with an expectation to worship and to listen. The apostles did the same thing even after the Christian Church was formed. They still preached in synagogues as well because they understood the wisdom of being salt and light. It’s deeply unwise for us to use flaws or blemishes as justifications for abandonment. If you don’t like your church then start doing what you can to change it.
Being salt to preserve that which is good and light to guide the world means being patient and loving enough to hold fast the potential of a person or a community of people. This applies to church just as much as it applies in your marriage. A small amount of encouragement faithfully practiced across time has the power to transform entire organizations. That’s what it means to make the best of a situation, and very often the best is better than you could have imagined.
Next we’re given something of a preamble to Jesus commissioning His disciples to go out into the world as apostles and preach the gospel of His kingdom. Scripture says He took notice of the multitude. So these were crowds of people who had followed Him in the wake of His miracles, but they were also entire populations of cities and towns across the land. Jesus surveyed synagogues packed with people, city gates which saw traffic all day long, and houses with entire families who needed to hear His message. This was the fruit of God’s covenant with Abraham, that God would make Abraham the father of many nations.
Jesus looked on all these people with great compassion. We know Him as the Great Physician and we’ve already witnessed remarkable healings in this chapter alone — but His compassion at this moment was less about their physical maladies and more about the lack in their souls. They were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. The people lacked vision. They had no sense of meaning or purpose and were ready to perish because of it.
These were all the same people whom Christ descended from Heaven to Earth to save. They were the same people for whom He went to the cross. God is merciful to those who recognize the desperation of their condition as lost souls. He has great pity for those who are self-righteous and fail to recognize their need for a Savior. To look on a miserable, sinful, self-destroying soul who doesn’t even know what he’s missing invokes sorrow in the sight of God. As Christians we should share God’s sorrow. The primary target of all the grace of God is a person’s soul. When we are compassionate towards another person’s soul, we reflect the compassion revealed by Christ Himself at this moment.
When a person’s soul is lost or troubled you see many reflections of this disorder in their body and personality. Frequently they are stuck in cyclical, self-inflicted material poverty. Pay careful attention to how I’m qualifying the poverty here: it must be cyclical and self-inflicted. Poverty by itself is not an accurate reflection of a person’s spiritual condition because many times there are saints who suffer from destitution. For the troubled man, his poverty is a consequence of his lack of responsibility and this lack of responsibility is a reflection of his disordered soul.
It’s also common for the spiritually astray to be vexed when it comes to the larger questions in life. They’re not able to answer questions like, “Why am I here? Where did I come from? What is my purpose?” Inability to answer these questions often leaves a person struggling to inform other areas of their daily life. Viktor Frankl said, “A man with a why can overcome any how.” But the opposite is also true. Lacking purpose will crush your motivation even if the tasks at hand are relatively easy or enjoyable. Scripture says the people whom Jesus had compassion for were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. This dispirited weariness is absolutely the consequence of failure to evaluate the proper answers to the big questions which inform the rest of your life.
These people whom Christ saw as He traveled through the cities and villages wanted help for their souls. The only spiritual authorities available to them were the scribes and Pharisees, whom Jesus already debunked as failing to understand the kingdom of God. The Pharisees burdened these poor people with unrealistic traditions established by elders. Then when the people failed to measure up to the inappropriate standard, the same Pharisees derided them and accused them of being unrepentant sinners. To live under the instruction of a Pharisee meant being crushed by demands which you were not equipped to satisfy, while being left ignorant of the spiritual underpinnings of religious law. Jesus came to fulfill the law in part by teaching His followers the original purpose of the law which was for spiritual edification — not for a standard of performative holiness.
The people fainted for lack of spiritual nourishment. The religious elite fed them with husks and ashes while denying them the bread of life. As a Christian it’s an operational imperative to understand neither your soul nor anyone else’s is designed to satisfy spiritual duty, resist sinful temptations, and bear the afflictions of life independent of the word of God. The scripture is your necessary spiritual nourishment. Without it you will begin to grow weak in all domains of spiritual discipline. The word of God is the plumb-line which protects you against all manner of deception by providing the only foundation of objective truth upon which you can be absolutely certain.
Not only did these people lack the word of truth, but they also lacked community in the form of spiritual leadership. They had no spiritual fathers to bring them up in the things of God. They didn’t have any spiritual guides to walk before them and lead them through confusing challenges. One of the reasons scripture compares human beings to sheep is because sheep have a proclivity to lose their direction and go astray. Once astray and off by themselves, their exposure makes them vulnerable to attack by predators and it’s also very difficult for them to find their way back home without a guide. A cardinal principle for Christian compassion is to remember that sinners are the same as lost sheep. They need the help of a shepherd to bring them back. A common mistake in the Church is for Christians who are not lost and who have a shepherd to project this kind of strength onto sinners and then blame them for refusing to shape up.
Notice how Jesus declares these people to be lacking shepherds even though those roles were in fact occupied by scribes and Pharisees. He’s pointing out the truth that having a false teacher is worse than having no teacher at all. It’s worse because instead of wandering astray, these people were being intentionally led astray by those who claimed executive authority over spiritual truth. As part of Peter’s redemption Christ commands him to feed His sheep. Well these Pharisees not only failed to feed the flock, but they took advantage of every opportunity to fleece them. They were using the lost sheep to extract their own benefit from them.
Two of the major prophets in the Old Testament, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, prophesy woes unto these kinds of false teachers. God speaks through Jeremiah and says, “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!” And then God speaks to Ezekiel, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock?” Scripture is clear about spiritual teachers being held to a higher standard of accountability than those who are not teachers. This is why Christ so roundly condemns the scribes and Pharisees: because they were abusing divine authority to divide and destroy the same flock whom Christ called Peter to feed.
So what did Jesus do when He saw these lost people? He turned to His disciples and He encouraged them to pray. Jesus made a steady practice of prayer during His ministry on earth. A good rule for Christians to follow is this: any person who captures your attention in the form of pity is also a person you should pray for. If you pity them you should also pray for them. Before Christ established the Church and sent out His apostles He spent a great deal of time in prayer.
Once Christ established that His disciples should be praying, He then began to describe the reality of the situation on the ground. The lost sheep desired good preaching, but there were few good preachers available. The kingdom work was already laid before them and there were countless opportunities to do good things — but there weren’t enough workers to do it. This would have been an encouraging word for the disciples to hear because it meant the soil was fertile to receive the gospel. From time immemorial there have been multitudes of lost people who needed instruction, but it wasn’t always so common for this many of them to desire it.
This was a moment in history where those who were ill-informed had some sense that they were and they wanted to correct the problem. You see this happen most frequently after some major event like a war which leaves entire populations questioning what they got wrong. This is the fertile ground upon which the truth re-asserts itself. It’s the same cycle of collapse and restoration we see articulated in the book of Judges. It’s a collective shift in the order of our affections such that we begin to see the value in belief-systems and the apprehension of objective truth. These fertile moments, usually characterized by vexation and destitution, lead to a renaissance of the things of God.
It’s better to do ministry among lost people who seek the truth than it is among self-righteous people who dispense with it. This hunger for truth is such a virtue in the Church that every pastor should be actively working to maintain it. But how can you do such work? I think one way is to repeatedly point out the association between pointless misery and the lack of understanding. When you take an inventory of your life leading up to this moment, ask yourself how much pain was caused by not knowing what you needed to know when you needed to know it. Now understand that this pain never needed to happen. Yes it’s part of who you are at this moment and so you need not regret it. But if you had fostered within yourself biblical wisdom at an earlier stage in life you could have evaded this misery with great skill and decisive agility.
You live during a blessed time if you live in the midst of people who love good preaching. Pastors and church leaders should embrace this advantage and work to bear fruit from it. The Church tends to spread and grow under the pressures of persecution. Those who steward the Church absent these pressures may need to be more intentional about establishing proper disciplines so we aren’t lulled into a state of complacency.
This is especially true during times when the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few as Jesus said. During these times, as stewards of the Church, we should be busy at the work as often as we are able. Part of the problem with the people Christ surveyed was that there were no reapers to gather in the harvest. So the fruit of spiritual expectancy and readiness to embrace the things of God just fell to the ground where it would rot. It’s toxic for the Church when good works stand still and good opportunities are left untaken. This causes a church to become stagnant. A stagnant church does nothing for the world outside of it and corruption begins to fester from within. Much of this can be avoided if the gathering commits themselves to keeping busy by advancing the kingdom of God. God gives us the strength and we use the strength to work the harvest.
By beginning His instruction to the disciples with an encouragement to prayer, Christ is trying to instill proper reaction to difficult circumstances. When times are hard, even before you get desperate, you should react with a habit of prayer. The more difficult the trial the more you should pray. Developing this reaction will help you resist complaining or submitting to a spirit of fear.
Building a healthy reaction of prayer means keeping yourself tuned in to the current affairs of the Church. Escapism is tempting and you might want to withdraw yourself from the world. But as Christians we are called to have a sufficient understanding of the times so that we know what to pray for. As stewards of the Church we must know what to do during each circumstance and part of the role of the Church in this world is to function as a sense-making apparatus. The Church should be in the business of making sense of what happens around us, because the Church has the only correct narrative to do so.
Notice how Jesus refers to God as the Lord of the harvest. In John 15:1 Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” The harvest of the fruit of the gospel — all the saved among humanity — belong to God. So when we work the harvest using the strength that He gives us, we do this work with the knowledge that our service is for God and our efforts bring Him honor. We are God’s fellow workers as He brings in the harvest. It’s best not to confuse this fellowship as a joint-venture insofar as us having any actual authority over the harvest. God is in control of the entire enterprise and the outcomes are in exact accordance to His specifications. This means you can’t save someone’s soul — only God can do that.
God orders everything concerning the harvest as He pleases. He determines when and where the laborers will work. He determines how long each laborer will work for. So you can take heart when a prominent minister passes away because you can be certain God determined it. It’s not as if the harvest is in danger because the minister is lost. We are set free to do the work of God and advance His kingdom because we can trust that in the final analysis everything works out precisely how God planned it. So we don’t need to be afraid of making mistakes that have eternal consequences. If anyone depended on our own efforts for salvation then no one could possibly be saved. As followers of Christ we can take comfort in knowing that God orders all for the absolute best possible outcome.
So if it all depends on God then why should we put in any effort to begin with? The most basic answer is because Christ commanded us to. The faithful Christian needs no more reason than that. In fact, if I’m faithful enough, I can operate with the understanding that my efforts save no one and yet I work with such consistency and urgency entirely because Jesus commanded me to. Ministry is hard work and it’s the kind of work which must be done in its season. God has prepared the hearts of some people to receive the gospel at different times than others. We must be diligent in our work to continually preach the gospel with the understanding that God will open the hearts of those who need it at the right time.
While ministry is difficult work, it is also pleasant work. It’s especially pleasant when you see the joy which fills the hearts of those who turn to Jesus. Scripture details the impact of a person being reconciled to God when it says, “The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness; They will be glad in Your presence As with the gladness of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil.” It’s also the case that laborers who work the harvest should receive wages for doing so. Not all ministry circumstances follow this biblical pattern, and unfortunately there are many mistreated pastors. But in a properly ordered Church, the shepherd of the flock is taken care of sufficiently that he can focus on the work of the ministry.
Part of what fosters an appropriate view of ministers is understanding they are appointed by God. Jesus is the One who makes pastors. The office of pastor itself was established by God. The gifts which contribute to the qualifications for ministry are given and developed by the Spirit of God. Ministers are also called by God to the work. So the motive force which drives a person to continue serving as a pastor is provided by God. He selects and calls whom He will. You might wonder about those who claim the title of pastor without actually being ordained by God for the work. Wolves in sheep’s clothing are not owned by Jesus real pastors. Scripture says a preacher must be sent in order to preach the gospel.
Despite the limited calling reserved for the pastorate, all Christians are obliged to pray that God would provide skillful, faithful, and wise workers to His harvest. This is a calling given to all Christians who love Jesus and love their neighbors. We should pray that the Lord would raise up shepherds who would work for the conversion of sinners and the edification of saints. Not only that these people would be raised up and called, but that God would give them a spirit to persevere in the work for as long as He intends them to. We should also pray that pastors may conquer the evil propagated against them by forces which seek to steal sheep from the flock.
We see Jesus instruct His disciples to pray for these things not long before He sends His apostles out to do the work of the harvest. Across the ages documented in scripture we see a pattern which tells us it’s a good sign when Christ encourages the people to pray for the kingdom of God. When a group of people are characterized by a posture of humility and desire for the Lord to work, this usually means He is going to perform some kind of special mercy. We mentioned earlier that this posture often occurs within populations after they’ve gone through some terrible tragedy like a war. They’re finally reduced to the humility of remembering they can do nothing apart from God.
So it’s part of Christian duty to pray that God would send workers to the harvest, but it’s also required of the pastors themselves that they should pray to be sent. Those who are called by God for the work of the ministry must present themselves before God and petition that He send them. A commission that is given in response to prayer is most likely to be successful. Taking it upon yourself to handle the holy work of ministry without being called is a pathway to disaster. When this happens, many times the rigors of the ministry are enough to deplete the will of the pastor. You need the power of the Holy Spirit to stand up against the evil of sinners, and sadly very frequently, the ignorance of sheep.
Scripture says the apostle Paul was a chosen instrument of God selected to bear His name before the Gentiles, kings, and the sons of Israel. The first thing we hear about Paul after His Damascus road experience is that he is praying to Jesus when Ananias is sent to him. So even Paul’s own evangelistic journey began in prayer. Not only should ministers pray for themselves to be sent to work the harvest, but they should also pray that the Lord will raise up other pastors alongside them.
One of the temptations of ministry is the all-too-human desire to be needed. This temptation often leads to sin including but not limited to abuse of power. The fewer the pastors the greater those who are pastors will be needed. If the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, then those who do work will have less competition and they’ll be in greater demand. They can drive higher salaries for themselves and they can enjoy a sort of VIP treatment. All of these things are incentives to resist more pastors being raised up. But Jesus calls us to pray for more ministers.
Pastoral humility requires that we beseech the Lord of the harvest for more workers even if that means those workers will eclipse ourselves. At the very heart of this humility is the desire for the advancement of God’s kingdom more than the advancement of your own cause. It’s an act of self-sacrifice of the kind most important areas of your life can’t thrive without. Self-sacrifice is what makes marriages work. Self-sacrifice promotes the well-being of the community. Self-sacrifice is necessary for the proper raising of children. Almost every important function of life demands that you sacrifice yourself. And Jesus Himself modeled this sacrifice on the cross for the salvation of many. As both Christians and ministers, Jesus calls us to walk a difficult road and to lay down our own lives for the kingdom. But we’re not walking alone. Remember the very next thing Jesus said after He gave us that Great Commission to preach the gospel and make disciples: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
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