Year 9, Day 190: Matthew 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Matthew 16 teaches an important lesson about humanity: we have difficulty seeing – much less believing – truth.  Nearly every story in this chapter is about this fundamental principle.

In the first story, the Pharisees and Sadducees come to Jesus and demand a sign.  The religious leaders themselves give us a great demonstration about our human difficulty.  We can readily interpret the word around us.  We know when it is going to storm.  We know when winter is turning to spring or summer is becoming fall.  Human beings are great at mastering the physical, tangible world around them.  In other words, we are masters of logic and science.  However, we struggle to understand deeper matters.  Humans struggle with faith – belief in that which we cannot understand.  We constantly ask for signs, which takes faith from the realm of that which we cannot understand and places it into the realm of that which we can see and predict.

In the second story, Jesus warns us to be careful of this.  The Pharisees and Sadducees indicate that they will only be willing to believe in that which they can see and know.  In other words, they will only believe in that which they can control and predict.  If there is one thing that is true about God, His omnipotence and omniscience means we can neither control Him nor predict His actions.  This is why we always say that God’s hand is best seen in hindsight.  If we take a position where we will only believe what we can completely understand, we risk taking up a position similar to the Pharisees and Sadducees when it comes to relationship with God.

The next pair of stories give us a perfect portrait of how this struggle exists even in someone who desires to believe and have faith.  In the first story, Peter declares his faith.  He confesses that he is willing to go beyond the level of understand of other people.  Rather than think that Jesus is Elijah or even John the Baptizer reincarnated, Peter confesses to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.  This confession gets praise from Jesus.  In the story that immediately follows, Peter then hears about Jesus’ impending judgment and death and rebukes Peter.  Even though Peter does believe, he struggles against his lack of understanding.  Rather that live out his faith, he chooses to live out what he understands.  Peter rebukes Jesus and tells Him that what He said will never happen.  Because Peter doesn’t understand and chooses to act against his understanding, he ends up on the wrong side of Jesus.  We see a perfect example that when a human chooses to only dwell in places where they completely understand everything, we risk missing God or worse.

The final story shows us why this is an important discussion.  Jesus tells us that we are to pick up His cross and follow.  He tells us that those who seek to save their life will lose it, but those who lose their live for His sake will save it.  Again we are faced with a struggle against understanding.  It makes no sense to be willing to lose our life.  It makes no sense to willingly give up our hopes and dreams and replace them with a pursuit of what God wants for us.  Yet, that is precisely what Jesus suggests.  If we choose the path of understanding, we will continue to pursue our own goals and dreams and risk missing out on God completely.

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