Week Five: Matthew

Congratulations on reaching the halfway point of the Community Bible Experience!  What is God doing in your life through this reading plan?  Do you feel like you are interacting with the Bible, rather than reading a textbook?  Do you find that what you have read is sticking with you, coming to mind throughout your day or your prayers?  Have you shared this experience with friends outside of Penn Valley?

Do you realize that we got halfway through the plan having read only one Gospel so far?  We will spend all of Week Five reading Matthew.  Matthew was written to prove Jesus as the promised Messiah to Israel.  To accomplish this, the genealogy was drawn from Abraham to David to Jesus, the circumstances of Jesus's birth and life were frequently tied back to prophecy, and descriptions of Jesus often mirrored the life and work of Moses.

If Matthew served to demonstrate Jesus as the Messiah, then it was also required to describe the Jewish leadership's response to Jesus's proclamation.  God's chosen people already had a long standing history of denying Him or defying Him in the face of very glaring evidence.  Their reaction to Jesus as fulfillment of prophecy was no different.  Instead of worshiping their Redeemer, they sought to destroy Him.

Knowing how He would be received, Jesus continued His appointed ministry.  Matthew described crowds of thousands whom Jesus taught, healed, and fed.  But true to their history, the Jewish people quickly became apathetic to His message and returned to sin.  Meanwhile, those who pursued Jesus intending to catch Him in a lie became more aggressive.  When the hearts of the Jewish people closed to the Word of their Savior, Jesus closed their ears as well.  He began to preach only in parables, that only those who believe in Him might understand.  Those who refused to listen when He spoke clearly were fully blocked from His message of grace and salvation.

Thankfully, we who read Matthew today have been supplied with the dialogue between Jesus and His disciples that followed those parables.  We have the benefit of Jesus's own explanation of these parables, that we might believe and accept our Redeemer.  How does your relationship with Jesus impact your ability to relate and discern His Word?

Continue to think about our five book club questions:

1. What's something you noticed for the first time?

2. What questions did you have?

3. Was there anything that bothered you?

4. What did you learn about loving God?

5. What did you learn about loving others?