February 14 / Matt. 11:2-19

Posted byFred 4 Comments on February 14 / Matt. 11:2-19

Matthew 11:2-19

I got my undergraduate degree from a public institution, the University of Illinois. I was pleased to learn that this public institution offered a pair of Old and New Testament courses as fulfilling the Humanities General Studies requirement (and I certainly did not want to take Shakespeare courses!). It was in this NT course (taken out of sequence) that I wrote a paper about John the Baptist entitled “Born of Woman, No Man Greater”. That paper marked the beginning of my study of the Bible. It was also because of this NT course that I met a young man (Jim) who later led me to the Lord. We were in a Chemistry class together and I had brought my NT textbook, the Oxford Annotated Bible to class with me. Jim had already taken the NT course and recognized the OAB. That book started a conversation that terminated some three years later with my “born again” experience. So today’s reading brings back happy memories for me.

And again, David mentioned this very reading in his sermon today. Echo!!

See also: March 29 / Matt. 11:2-19

Join the Conversation

4 Comments

  1. I have to say that this reading has more question marks for me about what Jesus is saying than any other we have read. For example:

    • “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” Is Jesus saying that He knows that He is not the Messiah of most peoples’ expectations and He will offend a lot of people (including John the Baptist, Pharisees, even Peter — later when he argues with Jesus about Jesus’ saying He must die)? Most are expecting a religious King coupled with a secular King to return the Israelites to spiritual and earthly glory.
    • “…among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Is Jesus saying that there are no humans in the Kingdom of heaven yet (because they have not yet been redeemed – soon but not yet)? Jesus came to save the living and the dead.
    • “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” ???? Is Jesus saying that starting with John the Baptist there is extreme turbulence in the Kingdom of heaven about what is about to go down? A monumental and earth shattering event about to happen and the Kingdom of heaven is in extreme turmoil?

    More questions than answers for me.

    1. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m struggling with these versus to understand a message.

      1. Excellent! Great questions, Lou, and struggling with the passage is the right thing to do, Bruce. Asking the hard questions and really wrestling with challenging answers is necessary for finding the real Truth. All too often, we just “accept” the things we think we understand without putting in much effort to understand the more difficult bits. I can’t say that I have nice tidy answers or a clear explanation to make sense of everything Jesus said, but I’m pretty sure that just walking away “in agreement” is insufficient.

    2. Good comments, all of you. Lou, to your first question below, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” I often find that a double negative expression (“not offended”) can be partially understood by turning those two negatives into a positive: “Blessed is the one who is positively moved by Me.” It doesn’t explain the original statement fully, but it does take us further down the road to understanding. And yes, I can see Jesus giving a nod to the Pharisees as one group that will not be blessed because they are fully offended!

Leave a comment