Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Challenge
- Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are. He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.
There are
three concrete examples of challenge in Jesus’ teaching in this chapter. The first one that we come by is the
Pharisees. They ask Jesus for a
sign. However, Jesus turns on them with
a high bar of challenge. He tells them
that if they can look at the sky and tell what kind of day it will be, they should
be able to look at Jesus and teaching and tell what kind of a person that He
is. Jesus is telling us that we should
be good at reading the environment and context around us, especially with
respect to spiritual matters.
Following
this theme, Jesus teaches the disciples to be wary of the leaven – that is, the
teaching – of the Pharisees. But the
disciples get it wrong. They think Jesus
is talking about their lack of ability to bring along some food for the
trip. Jesus challenges them to remember
how Jesus brought food out of nothing when He fed large crowds twice in the past. Again the challenge is present. We should know that the spiritual is more
important than the physical.
We end on a
really great note of challenge. Jesus
asks His disciples who they think that He is.
This is a bold moment. Are the
disciples able to claim that He is God’s Messiah in spite of the fact that all
of the religious leaders of the day are looking to do away with Him? They are!
They rise up to the challenge with Peter leading the way. In spite of all the hatred, or even
confusion, about Jesus’ identity, His disciples know that He is the
Messiah. Jesus gives them an opportunity
to be challenged and they rise up to meet it.
Part of being able to use challenge is not just to know when to give
challenge to cause people to think but also to use it to allow people to
succeed, even exceeding their own assumptions about what they can do.
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