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Lesson 39 Ch11
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Matthew’s Gospel is a Jewish account containing a number of Jewish cultural expressions that were inherently understood by Jews in that era but can be confusing to gentiles in the modern Church that is so many centuries removed. Taught by Tom Bradford.

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THE BOOK OF MATTHEW

Lesson 39, Chapter 11

From the panoramic view perhaps one of the main take-aways from all 4 Gospel accounts is that Yeshua was misunderstood by His own Jewish countrymen; and surprisingly by those one might think would have understood Him best. Since it is various individuals and groups of people that misunderstand who He is and what He has come to do, He employs several different methods to inform them. Yet at times His responses to questions asked of Him seem awfully cryptic not only to those He is speaking, but even to His followers that would come later; followers from all eras…. including our own. 

Chapter 11 of the Gospel of Matthew opens with just such an issue and oddly enough the person of interest who seems to be confused by who Jesus is: John the Baptist. Let's begin by re-reading the opening section of Matthew 11. 

RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 11:1 – 19

The setting is this: Christ has finished instructing His 12 Disciples for the time being, and sent them on their way to the Jewish people of the Galilee. He too is now traveling primarily around the Galilee to various towns and villages teaching and preaching, but doing it alone. Nonetheless, the crowds are ever present. Some miles away, John the Baptist languishes in prison, very likely at Machaerus, Herod Antipas's fortress city that lies about 15 miles to the east of the mouth of the Jordan River. Knowing that his end would happen there, soon, John uses two of his own disciples to take an urgent message to Yeshua. The message is: "Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else?" Even when we take into account the Jewish cultural aspect of this question, a plain reading is that John has doubts about Yeshua's purpose and mission, and about His place in redemption history. Yet Christianity so elevates the Baptist's person and status, placing him on a lofty pedestal of near spiritual perfection, that Christian Bible scholars more often than not have tried to find some other meaning to John's inquiry of Christ that side-steps the obvious. 

A most popular option among theologians is that Matthew is mistaken, or perhaps his words have been corrupted in the oldest Greek manuscripts we have of Matthew's Gospel. In other words, to easily solve the problem, it is dismissed; John's inquiry about Yeshua's identity never actually happened. Their rationale for this is because John is recorded as saying some things concerning Yeshua that seem to mean he is quite settled as to who Yeshua is. 

CJB Matthew 3:11 It's true that I am immersing you in water so that you might turn from sin to God; but the one coming after me is more powerful than I- I'm not worthy even to carry his sandals- and he will immerse you in the Ruach HaKodesh and in fire.

That is followed up by:

CJB Matthew 3:17 and a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with him." 

In the Gospel of John we read:

CJB John 1:29 The next day, Yochanan saw Yeshua coming toward him and said, "Look! God's lamb! The one who is taking away the sin of the world! 

All of these statements, assume so many Bible scholars, amount to John saying "here is the Messiah". So, reasons most Bible commentators that I have reviewed, there is no way John can say these things and then turn around later and ask if Yeshua is the one to come, or if there is another. Bottom line: he never said it. 

Another popular option is that John is sending a coded message to Yeshua, and even Yeshua's response to John is coded. The premise is that Rome was always on the look out for the next "Messiah" of the Jews. Not because Rome in any way saw this Messiah from a spiritual or religious perspective, but rather because they well knew that the Jewish people believed that their Messiah would be a great warrior leader that would lead them in a successful rebellion against Rome. Many would-be Messiah's had come and gone by Yeshua's day; and more would come after His death. Therefore the reasoning is that John and Yeshua were using coded words to communicate so that only Jews would understand but the Romans would be none the wiser. 

Several of the Early Church Fathers decided that John's question to Yeshua was but a veiled teaching lesson for the sake of his followers. That is, while John never actually doubted, the construction of his question was intended to instruct his followers in faithfulness. There are a handful of other options and solutions for what the Church has typically seen as this "problem" question of John the Baptist, but these should suffice to make my point.

I want to briefly address the two most popular solutions and begin by clarifying that the rather common claim that John had made statements proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah is no more true than saying that Jesus has publicly called Himself the Messiah. Such statements are assumed and often read back into the Gospel accounts, but they are not actually there.  Christians, in hindsight and using our unique brand of religious jargon, take the statements that God said from Heaven that this is His Son in whom He is pleased, and that John calls Jesus the Lamb of God, as equivalent titles to the title of Messiah. This is not necessarily true from a 1st century Jewish cultural viewpoint. In earlier lessons I have explained that all the Kings of Israel were called God's Son or the Son of God. In no way was "Son of God" considered an exclusive, or alternate, title for the Messiah.  For John, who after immersing Yeshua heard God's booming voice from Heaven making the pronouncement that Yeshua was God's Son, this could just as easily have meant to him that Yeshua was to be Israel's next earthly king…. which, by the way, was the nearly universal hope and expectation of the Jewish people, which kept Rome on edge. 

As for the matter of Yeshua being God's Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. The first thing we must look at is the fuller context of where the Baptist's statement to that effect is made in John's Gospel.

CJB John 1:28-34 28 All this took place in Beit-Anyah, east of the Yarden, where Yochanan was immersing. 29 The next day, Yochanan saw Yeshua coming toward him and said, "Look! God's lamb! The one who is taking away the sin of the world! 30 This is the man I was talking about when I said, 'After me is coming someone who has come to rank above me, because he existed before me.' 31 I myself did not know who he was, but the reason I came immersing with water was so that he might be made known to Isra'el." 32 Then Yochanan gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven like a dove, and remaining on him. 33 I myself did not know who he was, but the one who sent me to immerse in water said to me, 'The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, this is the one who immerses in the Ruach HaKodesh.' 34 And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God." 

Notice a couple of points in this passage. First, it is twice maintained that John the Baptist didn't know who Yeshua of Nazareth was. Second, after immersing Yeshua and hearing God's pronouncement, John's conclusion is NOT that Jesus is the Messiah (in the sense of being the divine Redeemer of Israel). Rather it is that "This is the Son of God". Again; to Jews of that day that phrase "Son of God" meant an anointed Israelite king. The Spirit descending upon Jesus that was illustrated and compared to a dove coming to rest, WAS Yeshua's anointing. Customarily, for centuries, a new king of Israel was literally anointed with olive oil (usually by a Prophet or the High Priest). The purpose of this anointing with oil was to symbolize the Ruach HaKodesh…. the Holy Spirit…. descending upon that king (the same thing that happened to Christ). In fact the English term "Messiah", which is often mistakenly said to mean Savior, is in fact a transliteration of the Hebrew Word mashiach; and mashiach literally means "anointed one". So biblical Israelite kings (and prophets) were regularly referred to as anointed ones, "mashiach", messiah, because they were indeed specially anointed with oil for service to God. A King of Israel was considered to have been sent or set apart by God, and in a sense adopted by God, and thus always in the Old Testament he was termed a Son of God. 

No doubt John understood that Jesus was more than a typical Israelite King or Prophet. And, He was more than a typical Tzadik. But we do NOT find John ever uttering the word "Messiah" as the identification of Yeshua; and neither do we find (to this point) Yeshua uttering that word about Himself. Let me be clear so that there can be no mistake: I am not saying that this should bring doubt to our minds about Jesus as Messiah. We have the benefit of 2000 years of hindsight, and so we know firmly, without reservation, that Yeshua is God's divine Messiah and Our Savior. However this was not at all understood among the people Jesus's ministry encountered up to the point of John the Baptist's execution, because Jesus had not clearly said so….. even though Bible academics often try to put those words into John's and Yeshua's mouths. 

As for the issue of John identifying Yeshua as "the Lamb that takes away sin". Lambs had been used for centuries virtually daily, by the thousands, as sacrifices burnt up on the Temple altar to take away the sins of the penitent Jews who brought them. Therefore it is questionable to me that John was envisioning Yeshua in the same light as the Passover Lamb of the Exodus because the Passover Lamb had little to do with sin. Rather, the Passover Lamb had to do with delivery from bondage from an oppressing nation, and God averting judgment from His faithful worshippers. Christians sometimes try to mince words and say things like "in the Old Testament sins were atoned for, but in the New Testament sins are taken away". That is a contrivance that attempts to make "sins atoned for" and "sins taken away" as having a fundamentally different meaning. In fact, in the Yom Kippur Scapegoat ritual, a goat is sent off into the wilderness to its death as symbolic of sins being taken away and returned to their source.  But that doesn't mean the end of sin itself, as it is sometimes taken among some Christian denominations to mean. 

Here's the point: John the Baptist sent his message to Christ about whether He was the one to come, because he simply wasn't certain as to exactly what or who Yeshua was. Just as today there are vast gulfs among denominations and various solid Bible commentators in their understanding of the Book of Revelation concerning how those ancient prophecies about an Apocalypse that is still future to us are to going to play out, so it was for the Jews of Christ's day about the nature and identification of a Deliverer that would be sent from God. They didn't have the insights and hindsights that we have today to know precisely who Jesus was, or how to identify the true Savior; or even exactly what he came to do. The Jewish people had a number of prophecies (that were even ancient to them) to try and glean information about a Messiah; but for them, interpreting those prophecies could mean a number of different things….. even though in the end history would show which one of those interpretations  would turn out to be correct. But it wasn't for the lack of trying. 

John the Baptist (despite being rather weird) was an ordinary man. It's only that God used him in an extraordinary way, and His cousin Yeshua held him in the highest regard. But John had faults and quirks and frailties and seems to even have gotten some things wrong. Apparently he was also kind of hot headed, imprudent, and had a hard time controlling his tongue, because he was arrested and put in prison for the crime of publicly denouncing Herod Antipas's marriage to Herodias. Why would he do that? For what good purpose in service to God might that have served? If John truly understood that Yeshua was the divine Messiah, why would he continue to maintain a separate flock of disciples of his own that openly questioned why Yeshua's disciples would believe different things about fasting, prayer, mourning, etc., than they did? Things simply weren't sorted out enough, just yet, such that John could have a settled understanding of Yeshua. Therefore, we need to give the imprisoned John a break, and at the same time trust the Scriptures that we claim that we do. The man was under incredible stress, knowing he had days, at most, to live; and he simply did not know if Yeshua was the "one to come" or (as great a miracle worker and teacher as He was) was He a precursor to another. 

In fact, what did John mean by asking Yeshua if He was "the one to come"? I can only surmise that he means the one that he firmly believed he was supposed to make a way for in the wilderness, and to his mind he had already accomplished this task. And if that was to be the peak purpose of his life's labors, and his service to God, wouldn't he want to know for certain if Yeshua was that one? Or if maybe another prophet like himself might also be making a way in the wilderness for yet another person to arrive? So when we re-make John back into a real person, and stop injecting Christian doctrines and dubious assumptions into the equation, we can properly understand what is taking place in this scene. And this conclusion is further verified when we read Yeshua's response to John. 

Starting in verse 4 Jesus tells John's 2 disciples to take back with them both what they have seen with their own eyes, and what they are hearing; that is, what they are witnessing along with the testimony of others. So, not surprisingly, they no doubt saw Christ do at least some of the miraculous things they had until then only heard about. But more, for proof of who He is, Yeshua characterizes His deeds in a way that at least the more learned Jews might have understood (and I assume He believes John would understand). He goes on to say that He has healed the blind, made lame people to walk, cleansed the unclean from Tzara'at, cured the deaf and even resurrected dead people back to life. This is not a random choice of accomplishments. What Jesus does is to list a series of prophetic fulfillments in Him (in verses 4 and 5) that are taken from several messianic predictions in the Book of Isaiah. 

CJB Isaiah 26:19 Your dead will live, my corpses will rise; awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the morning dew, and the earth will bring the ghosts to life. 

CJB Isaiah 29:18 On that day the deaf will hear the words of a book, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.

CJB Isaiah 35:5-6 5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped; 6 then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the mute person's tongue will sing. For in the desert, springs will burst forth, streams of water in the 'Aravah; 

CJB Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of Adonai ELOHIM is upon me, because ADONAI has anointed me to announce good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted; to proclaim freedom to the captives, to let out into light those bound in the dark;

Included is the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1 because of the mention of Good News to the poor. But I don't want you to miss the matter of freedom to the captives. This isn't about the Baptist being in jail because clearly Yeshua has no intent of finding a way to get John released. Rather this is about the messianic prophecy of Psalm 68:18 that Paul would rightly understand and speak about in Ephesians 4:8. It referred to Yeshua, after His death and resurrection, descending into Abraham's Bosom to let the righteous dead free that they might go to Heaven. 

Verse 6 (which continues the response to John's inquiry) concludes with: And how blessed is anyone who is not offended by Me. Although this is a general statement, Jesus was still reacting to John's question. We find the same words in Luke 7:23, so these haven't come from Matthew's own mind. Yeshua has pronounced a beatitude… a blessing….to end His 6 brief clauses about who He is. Ben Witherington III has noticed that when you convert into Aramaic those 6 clauses plus the blessing that ends them, you get something quite poetic. It is becoming more and more clear among Bible historians that Aramaic was widely spoken among the Jewish people in Jesus's time, and Jesus was fluent in it as well. 

English translations of verse 6 vary widely from meaning how blessed is anyone who is not offended by Me, to how blessed is anyone who is not offended because of Me; even how blessed is anyone who doesn't stumble over Me. Frankly, I'm not certain how best to take the meaning although I don't understand why John might be blessed by not being offended by Christ; Christ has certainly not said anything offensive to him that is recorded. If Mr. Witherington is right and the words of Christ were originally said in the form of Aramaic poetic saying, that may be the key behind properly understanding the meaning behind Yeshua's words. Therefore I want to put forward one intriguing possibility. 

One of the issues that may have caused John the Baptist to doubt or be offended (so to speak) that Yeshua was the Messiah is because John believed that Judgment Day was supposed to have arrived along with the Messiah; and as of his jailing it certainly hadn't. For Jewish society of his day, it wasn't miracle healings that were the expected sign of the Messiah, but rather the Messiah would be God's hand of judgment on the Romans who were oppressing the Jews, and secondarily upon those Jews who were viewed as wicked. So one has to reasonably imagine that John is making the calculation that if Yeshua were the Messiah, then where is the divine judgment? And if there is no judgment, then probably Yeshua is NOT "the one who is coming" (which would have been a great disappointment to John). John expressed His view on the relationship between the Messiah and Judgment Day in Matthew back in chapter 3. 

CJB Matthew 3:1 It was during those days that Yochanan the Immerser arrived in the desert of Y'hudah and began proclaiming the message, 2 "Turn from your sins to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!" 3 This is the man Yesha'yahu was talking about when he said, "The voice of someone crying out: 'In the desert prepare the way of ADONAI! Make straight paths for him!'" 4 Yochanan wore clothes of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Yerushalayim, from all Y'hudah, and from the whole region around the Yarden. 6 Confessing their sins, they were immersed by him in the Yarden River. 7 But when Yochanan saw many of the P'rushim and Tz'dukim coming to be immersed by him, he said to them, "You snakes! Who warned you to escape the coming punishment? 8 If you have really turned from your sins to God, produce fruit that will prove it! 9 And don't suppose you can comfort yourselves by saying, 'Avraham is our father'! For I tell you that God can raise up for Avraham sons from these stones! 10 Already the axe is at the root of the trees, ready to strike; every tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown in the fire! 11 It's true that I am immersing you in water so that you might turn from sin to God; but the one coming after me is more powerful than I- I'm not worthy even to carry his sandals- and he will immerse you in the Ruach HaKodesh and in fire. 12 He has with him his winnowing fork; and he will clear out his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn but burning up the straw with unquenchable fire!"

So John is loudly and unequivocally proclaiming that when the Kingdom of Heaven arrives, so does God's judgment. And that the one John is paving the way in the wilderness for …. the one whose sandals John is unfit to even carry…. will be the same one who winnows the Lord's harvest and burns up the straw (the chaff, the unrighteous) with a terrible fire.  All of these were common Judgment Day terms and beliefs in the 1st century so obviously John is speaking about Judgment Day and the divinely sent one who will usher in the Apocalypse. So the problem is that Jesus is here but God's judgment isn't. The Kingdom of Heaven has arrived, but the apocalyptic End hasn't happened. Yeshua's response essentially says to John: right aisle, wrong pew. Yeshua lists Isaiah's messianic prophecies that He has publicly fulfilled, and so essentially tells John to draw his own conclusions. Yeshua isn't bringing the judgment with Him that Isaiah and other Prophets foretold and the Jewish people expected. Instead, for now, He is bringing with Him the other things Isaiah spoke of: the good things. The Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven accompanied with things that must come before Judgment Day: healing and miracles. 

How were John and the Jewish people to untangle this? Understand: the idea of a 1st and 2nd Latter Days didn't exist in the minds of Jewish religious authorities. The idea of 2 separate appearances of a Messiah wasn't widely known or accepted. In the 1st century the main proof of a man being the God-sent Messiah was that the End of Days and judgment upon Rome would come with him. It is these very same issues that vex Christianity to this day, and has elicited all kinds of beliefs and Church doctrines concerning the sequence and timing of Christ's advent, whether or not the End Times has already happened, whether or not the Kingdom of Heaven is here now, is there going to be a Rapture of Believers….. and I could list a dozen more issues that are unresolved (to put it nicely). 

So taking all of this into consideration, in John's eyes who is Yeshua? And perhaps who is He even in the eyes of Yeshua's own disciples? The expected Judgment has not happened. The world has not ended. Yeshua hasn't named Himself as the Messiah nor even as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. He has also not said He is the Prophet Elijah. But…. He has said that He is the Son of Man.  It's no wonder that John is a bit confused. And I'm not at all sure that the answers Yeshua sent back to John's inquiry sorted things out for him.

Jesus is continuing to teach His people and His followers what Scripture says about Him and what prophecies He will visibly fulfill, versus what Jewish traditions say about a Messiah (especially that he would lead the Jews into a successful revolt against Rome and into a new Golden Age of Israel). He is doing the amazing things that prophetic Scripture says He would do, as opposed to introducing Himself by title and counting that as sufficient proof.

I want to pause momentarily in hopes of making an impact. What the Jews believed in Christ's day, they trusted as truth. They thought.. they were certain… that they were correct and that their belief in their correctness about a Messiah was well founded because the vast majority of Jewish society agreed. But as Yeshua was regularly demonstrating to them…. especially in His Sermon on the Mount…. they didn't really know Holy Scripture. The average Jew got his and her religious training in the local synagogue, operated mostly by the Pharisees, who had their own interpretations, agenda and set of doctrines. Whenever Scripture was taught, it was taught through this lens and intended to fortify and validate the doctrines that they already held; certainly not to hold those beliefs up to the light of the Bible to examine them. It is the same today within the institutional Church. 

CNN took a poll at least a decade ago and most regular Church goers they polled listed a series of Christian platitudes that they claimed were biblical in their source, when in fact most were not. I can tell you from first hand experience that several years ago at a preparation course for door to door evangelism, very few who came could define the term "sin" beyond "anything God doesn't want you to do". I knew people who thought that Christ was the first Christian. I knew others who said that there was no point to studying the Bible because if God felt they needed to know something, their Pastor would tell them. The Church today is very much like the Synagogue was 2000 years ago. The Bible is present but mostly in name only. Rather, it is the interpretation of the Bible that is taught and few of the congregation know what is actually in The Word itself. Therefore the understanding of what a Messiah is, what He does and why He does it, who God is, the moral principles we are commanded to live by, what is ahead of us and more are taught not according to Scripture, but according to Christian traditions. Such a folly cost the Jewish people of Yeshua's day dearly because they couldn't square what they were taught to believe versus what Jesus showed them was actually there in the Torah and the Prophets. 

Seed of Abraham Torah Class isn't Jesus. But, it is our purpose to help as many Believers, Jew or gentile, as much as possible to have their eyes opened to God's Word. When we learn His Word, then our questions (like John's question to Yeshua) get answered. But more, when we heed His Word we learn how to obey God, which He says over and over is the basis for our relationship with Him. We also inoculate ourselves against confusion, fear, untruths and heresy that can costly us dearly even when we are so very certain we have our spiritual houses in order. 

The message Yeshua was sending back to John must have been in the form it was brought to Him: verbally. It may well have been that the 2 disciples John sent asked Jesus John's question publicly and so Christ answered publicly. Verse 7 continues with Yeshua having some things to say about John the Baptist to the crowds. Likely this took place after John's disciples left. Interestingly we see that the subject changes from "who is Jesus" to "who is John". Thus after using the response to John as a public teaching about Himself as the Messiah, now Yeshua wants to say some things about John. Or, it could also be that, as some Bible scholars claim, verse 7 begins a different and separate episode and since it concerned John the Baptist Matthew simply inserted it here. You be the judge. Either way, the following verses contain the same meaning.

Yeshua asks the crowds who they went out to see (when they went out to see John the Baptist). This question is meant to get the people to think. It also assumes that some or much of the particular crowd He was talking to had indeed gone to see and hear the Baptist, and had been immersed by Him. Otherwise the "what did you go out in the desert to see, reeds swaying in the wind" seems disconnected. It makes me think that Jesus had traveled south a ways so as to encounter people (a crowd) from Judea, where the desert was located (in contrast the Galilee is hilly, fertile, and has the large fresh water Sea of Galilee for fishing). Reeds were usually located in shallow bodies of water or along river banks; but such sights were commonplace. So the meaning is kind of a gentle sarcasm that says "obviously you didn't travel out into the desert wilderness to see something you could see every day". Or, Jesus continues, did you go out to the desert to see some well dressed person? More gentle sarcasm. A well dressed person was usually a king or a prominent wealthy aristocrat. But not only would people not usually travel just to get a glimpse of them, but such a person of status and wealth certainly wouldn't be standing around out in the barren desert wilderness, so the people wouldn't have foolishly gone seeking someone like that, which might just happen to be out in the desert. In our day, we would say it is a no-brainer. 

So, asks Yeshua, why did they go out? Finally…. no more sarcasm but rather the answer to the question.  They went out to the desert to see a prophet. A man they believed to be a true prophet of God because of his sudden appearance at a time of national oppression and moral degradation within the Jewish religious system and among many segments of Jewish society. But also because of John's message that brought hope that the end of the long wait for a Deliverer had arrived.  Jesus says John is more than a prophet (more meaning a run-of-the-mill prophet) and then proceeds to quote from Malachi 3:1. 

CJB Malachi 3:1 "Look! I am sending my messenger to clear the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple. Yes, the messenger of the covenant, in whom you take such delight- look! Here he comes," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot.

In Matthew 11 verse 10, Christ plainly says about John the Baptist that he is the one about which Malachi speaks. Therefore John is that messenger. But there is more we need to take from this simple quote. Remember: there weren't chapters and verses in Yeshua's day. So the way to direct a person to a passage in Scripture was to quote a snippet from it. The hearer was then to proceed to find (or recall) the whole of the passage… not merely the snippet that was quoted. So when we read a bit further into this passage from the Book of Malachi we get to this: 

CJB Malachi 3:23-24 23 Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI. 24 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; otherwise I will come and strike the land with complete destruction." [Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI.] 

Thus the messenger is Elijah the prophet. Elijah never died and was taken up to Heaven still alive. In a couple more verses Yeshua will directly address that. In the meantime, Yeshua continues to extol the high place in God's eyes of John the Baptist by saying that among those born of women (a fancy way of saying of all human beings ever born), there has not arisen anyone greater than him. But then Yeshua colors that statement with a qualifier….. a "however". He says that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven will be greater than John. This is another of those statements that cause headaches for Bible scholars and heartburn for Bible teachers. Clearly Christ is making some kind of a word play to make a point. But what it is it? Bible academics have rightly pointed to the part of the statement that says "the one who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven" as the key phrase to unlocking Yeshua's meaning. So, what is Christ getting at about "the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he (John)"? All sorts of answers with their strange twists and turns have been put forward including that Christ was actually referring to Himself (if you can believe it!). But for me the obvious answer has been overlooked. 

CJB Matthew 5:17-20 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven! 

Yeshua is repeating a term He used in this famous passage from His Sermon on the Mount that had to do with an individual's eligibility for membership in the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as a member's status within a hierarchy of members of the Kingdom. 

Next week we'll begin with just how this might pertain to John the Baptist.

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    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 9, Chapter 4 As we work our way through the Gospel of Matthew and discover so many important details buried in the text, and also discover those present in Christian traditions and just as importantly in the ancient Jewish traditions, we are regularly going to…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 10, Chapter 4 Continued The Early Church Father Chrysostom said this about the temptations of Christ: "The devil begins with the temptation to indulge the belly. By this same means he cast out the first man, and by this means many are still cast down."  In…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 11, Chapters 4 and 5 Our previous lesson in Matthew chapter 4 left off at a time when Christ was gathering His first disciples. Teachers and Holy Men gathering disciples was nothing new; in fact John's Gospel says that Andrew was John the Baptist's disciple…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 12, Chapter 5 The Sermon on the Mount will be our topic for the next few weeks as it takes up Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. I think I can say without much objection that the Sermon on the Mount represents the most consequential…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 13, Chapter 5 Continued The richness and depth of instruction contained in the Sermon on the Mount is so breathtaking and yet foundational to the life of a Believer in the Father and in Messiah Yeshua, that after much time studying and researching it, I…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 14, Chapter 5 Continued 2 We have now completed studying 7 of the Beatitudes. It is usually said that there are 8 of them, but some Bible commentators say there are 9, and others say 10. My position is that the separating away of the…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 15, Chapter 5 Continued 3 I want to begin by acknowledging that we've spent the better part of 3 lessons covering only the first 16 verses of Matthew chapter 5; I know this is a very slow pace. I'm afraid that it is not likely…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 16, Chapter 5 Continued 4 Today we continue our careful and deliberate study in Matthew chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount. Last week we spent our entire time together on the pivotal verses 17 – 20 because these form the basis and the backstop…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 17, Chapter 5 Continued 5 We've been in Matthew chapter 5 long enough that a reminder of the setting and background for the Sermon on the Mount is in order.  The setting is the Galilee. It is the serene rural agricultural and shepherding center of…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 18, Chapter 5 Conclusion Despite the happy fiction that in Yeshua's day the Jewish people practiced a religion that was rather pure and Torah driven, in reality what they practiced was a religion based mostly on Tradition. Naturally the Jews were not a monolithic culture;…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 19, Chapter 6 Our duty, and our hope, as followers of the Messiah Yeshua is to place our feet into His footprints. The Sermon on the Mount is showing us the way. Matthew recognizes how crucial Yeshua's speech is and so takes 3 full chapters…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 20, Chapter 6 Continued We'll continue in Matthew chapter 6 directing our focus upon the Lord's Prayer of verses 9 – 13. Leading up to this prayer example that Christ presented to those listening to His Sermon on the Mount, He gave His listeners a…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 21, Chapter 6 Continued 2 As we continue today in the Lord's Prayer, we'll begin at verse 13. Verses 11, 12, and 13 are sometimes called the "we petitions". This is because of the use of the plural "us" to begin each of these verses.…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 22, Chapter 6 Continued 3 We ended last week by discussing Matthew 6 verse 19. Beginning with this verse and on into the first part of chapter 7 Yeshua deals with an array of matters that in modern vocabulary we would probably label as "social…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 23, Chapter 7 We have now completed 2 of the 3 chapters that Matthew devoted to Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount. Every now and then it is probably profitable to remind you that Matthew did not write in chapters; ending one and beginning another. Rather…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 24, Chapter 7 Continued As we continue in Matthew chapter 7, we will review what we covered in the prior lesson. Let's begin by opening our Bibles and reading the opening verses.  RE-READ MATTHEW 7:1 – 6 Around a century ago, Thomas Walter Manson, a…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 25, Chapter 7 Continued 2 Matthew chapter 7 concludes the Sermon on the Mount that began in chapter 5. I'm hoping that by this point a better understanding is being gained about the context and intent of Yeshua's long speech; a context that has been…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 26, Chapter 7 Continued 3 In our previous lesson in Matthew chapter 7, Christ continues His Sermon on the Mount by making this unnerving statement in verses 22 and 23. CJB Matthew 7:22-23 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 27, Chapter 7 and 8 We'll conclude Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount today, which we have spent 17 lessons studying because of its incomparable value, and we'll also open the door into Matthew chapter 8. But first let's take a look back on the all-important…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 28, Chapter 8 Continued As we delve deeper and deeper into Matthew's Gospel, to this point we have found three elements to be always present and repetitive; therefore it is crucial for us to notice them and to understand that Matthew has constructed his Gospel…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 29, Chapter 8 Continued 2 We took another extensive detour last week in our continuing study of Matthew Chapter 8 to explore some of the Early Church Fathers in order to trace their viewpoint on the all-important matter of Believers in Christ having an obligation…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 30, Chapter 8 and 9 We are in the midst of several miracle stories of Jesus. The first involved cleansing a man who had Tzara'at. The second was healing a house slave of his infirmities (at the request of a Roman army officer), without Christ even…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 31, Chapter 9 We're going to spend a little more time today with the story that opens Matthew 9; that of the paralytic man who was brought to Christ so that he might be healed. Let's begin by re-reading verses 1 – 7. RE-READ MATTHEW…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 32, Chapter 9 Continued The subject that we'll focus on to begin today's lesson is a dispute between John the Baptist's disciples and Yeshua's disciples, ostensibly over the subject of fasting; this is what Matthew 9:14 – 17 revolves around. We'll go forward today in…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 33, Chapter 9 Continued 2 As we continue in Matthew chapter 9, we left off last time with verse 27 that says: CJB Matthew 9:27 27 As Yeshua went on from there, two blind men began following him, shouting, "Son of David! Take pity on…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 34, Chapter 9 and 10 We'll conclude Matthew chapter 9 today and get into Matthew chapter 10.  What we've been reading in chapter 9 has all been occurring on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; largely in Yeshua's new hometown of Capernaum, itself a…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 35, Chapter 10 Miracles are at the foundation of biblical faith. It begins with Creation itself as a miracle. After all, how does a Universe that never before existed have a definite beginning? Yet beyond simply declaring something a "miracle", we tend not to think…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 36, Chapter 10 Continued As we continue today in our study of Matthew chapter 10 there's a couple of important context items to keep in mind. First, Matthew lived and wrote well after the events he is speaking about. He was not the Matthew (also…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 37, Chapter 10 Continued 2 The topic of what Christ signified when He called Himself "the Son of Man" is how we ended our last lesson. In the Torah Class study of the Book of Daniel, lessons 20 and 21, I spent extensive time explaining…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 38, Chapter 10 and 11 Of the several passages in Matthew chapter 10 that we studied last week, verses 26 – 31 dealt with fear, death, and the problem of evil. In context it had primarily to do with what Yeshua's 12 Disciples might face…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 39, Chapter 11 From the panoramic view perhaps one of the main take-aways from all 4 Gospel accounts is that Yeshua was misunderstood by His own Jewish countrymen; and surprisingly by those one might think would have understood Him best. Since it is various individuals…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 40, Chapter 11 Continued Perhaps one of the more important, yet difficult to capture, statements made by Christ is found in Matthew 11:11 – 15. Another comes at the end of the chapter that we'll get to later. We're going to get pretty detailed and…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 41, Chapter 11 Continued 2 Before we continue in Matthew chapter 11, let's back-up a wee bit and reset the context. The first 19 verses of this chapter were about John the Baptist in relation to his connection with Christ. First, he was the foretold…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 42, Chapter 11 and 12 We wrapped up the prior lesson with a message of awareness to a sad but dangerous reality within Christianity in modern times, in which not only is it acceptable within the academic branch of the Church for agnostics or even…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 43, Chapter 12 We closed last week with discussing the establishment, purpose and ongoing relevance of the Sabbath. This stems from the opening verse of Matthew 12. CJB Matthew 12:1 One Shabbat during that time, Yeshua was walking through some wheat fields. His talmidim were hungry,…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 44, Chapter 12 Continued While every chapter of the Book of Matthew is packed with important information for the Believer, chapter 12 is one of the meatiest of them all. This chapter also helps us to recognize something I highlight in the very first lesson…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 45, Chapter 12 Continued 2 Of the several things Matthew continues to underscore in his Gospel, here in chapter 12 we seen this growing contrast… an unfriendly polarization, if you would… between Christ and the leaders of the Synagogue. As we read let's always remember…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 46, Chapter 12 Continued 3 Last week in Matthew chapter 12 we left off with the thorny issue of what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit amounts to. And the reason that is important is because even Christ's death on the Cross can't atone for it.…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 47, Chapter 13 Matthew chapter 13 begins this way: CJB Matthew 13:1 That same day, Yeshua went out of the house and sat down by the lake; 2 but such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there while…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 48, Chapter 13 Continued We began last week's lesson with a somewhat long dissertation about the true nature of parables because in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13 is where Christ's use of parables begins in earnest. I'll briefly review.  One of the most important elements of…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 49, Chapter 13 Continued 2 Do you want to understand what the Kingdom of Heaven is like? Assuming you are Believers in the God of Israel and His Son, Yeshua, then little is more important in our faith journey than to pursue this understanding. In…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 50, Chapter 13 Conclusion "Communion with God by means of prayer, through the removal of all intruding elements between man and his Maker, and through the implicit acceptance of God's unity, as well as an unconditional surrender of mind and heart to His holy will,…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 51, Chapter 14 The first dozen verses of Matthew chapter 14 bring us back to the subject of John the Immerser; more specifically it tells us of his death. That he was in prison was already established back in chapter 11. Now chapter 14 begins…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 52, Chapter 14 Continued Keep your Bibles open and handy as we're going to do much reading today.  The beginning of Matthew chapter 14 was covered in the previous lesson. It is the story of the execution of John the Baptist. The request for his…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 53, Chapter 15 Today we start Matthew chapter 15. The first 20 verses represent perhaps one of the most controversial segments of any Gospel account. There is a parallel account of this same incident in Mark 7. We'll look it at as well because it…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 54, Chapter 15 Continued We'll continue this week in Matthew 15, one of the more challenging (and therefore controversial) chapters in the New Testament. At the same it is one of the most inspirational, instructional, and therefore among the most important for Believers to get…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 55, Chapter 15 Conclusion Before we continue in Matthew 15 today there's a couple of housekeeping issues I would like to get out of the way because I am regularly asked about it and enjoy the opportunity to offer an explanation. The first is my…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 56, Chapter 16 Who is Yeshua? What is Yeshua? This is a question that has yet to be fully answered to this point in Matthew, and even though most 21st century Christians think it is an answered and settled matter in The Church, it is far from…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 57, Chapter 16 Continued I began the previous lesson with the rhetorical questions: who is Yeshua? What is Yeshua? It is such a complex issue that as we go through this chapter I'll continue to weave-in some needed background about the historical Jesus so that…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 58, Chapter 16 Continued 2 We will continue to carefully work our way through Matthew in this chapter that is nearly a Gospel within a Gospel. Some of the more elite Bible scholars of the past make chapter 16 of Matthew among their most extensive…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 59, Chapter 16 and 17 Last week in our study of Matthew chapter 16 we ended with an important topic Yeshua raised beginning in verse 24, which is the high cost of being His disciple. Let's immediately go to our Bibles and read from verse…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 60, Chapter 17 We opened Matthew chapter 17 last week, which begins with one of the landmark occurrences within Yeshua's short ministry on earth: The Transfiguration. I promised that we'd try to untangle the meaning of it and we'll do that shortly. This is going…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 61, Chapter 17 Continued Last week we concluded our study of the opening portion of Matthew chapter 17 that focused on The Transfiguration. Truly this nearly unfathomable event of an epiphany of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus together is one of the most mysterious in the…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 62, Chapter 17 and 18 Last week we began to delve into the interesting story that ends Matthew chapter 17 about a certain tax collector coming to Capernaum where Yeshua was residing with Peter, and the tax collector asks the question " doesn't your Master…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 63, Chapter 18 We began chapter 18 last week and immediately the topic became humility. It is that humility is to be perhaps the chief virtue for anyone hoping to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Verses 1 – 14 are essentially an examination of Godly…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 64, Chapter 18 Conclusion We began to study Matthew 18:15 – 20 last week and shortly we'll re-read that section. Before we do that we need to set the context. This is necessarily going to involve some amount of sermonizing to go along with the…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 65, Chapter 19 We begin chapter 19 of Matthew's Gospel today, and it begins with a bang. Immediately some dicey subjects arise; dicey for the 1st-century Jewish community and they remain problematic for God worshippers to this day. The subjects are divorce, monogamy, and celibacy.…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 66, Chapter 19 Continued Marriage, divorce, polygamy versus monogamy, and celibacy… these were all important issues in Yeshua's time, and remain so in the modern era. While polygamy in the Western developed world is found only in smallish and offbeat remnants of our societies and…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 67, Chapters 19 and 20 In Matthew chapter 19 we find the story of the rich man who asked Yeshua how he could obtain eternal life. We find this same story in Mark and Luke as well, with only minor differences. Let's re-read it. RE-READ…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 68, Chapter 20 We began Matthew 20 last week and dealt with the Parable of the Fair Farmer who paid the same amount of money to workers that had labored from dawn to dusk equally as workers that had worked perhaps no more than an…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 69, Chapter 21 The first 20 chapters of Matthew have set the stage for what we'll encounter beginning in chapter 21. Those chapters could almost be set apart and in summation titled "How We Got Here From There".  Thus far we have learned much about…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 70, Chapter 21 Continued As we opened Matthew chapter 21 last week we read about what Christianity calls the Triumphal Entry. In this short but revealing action in Yeshua's life and mission, He enters Jerusalem riding upon a donkey, accompanied with the donkey's foal. This…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 71, Chapter 21 Continued 2 In Matthew chapter 21 Yeshua's journey to the cross is gaining speed as the proverbial snowball rolling down a steep hill. We find Him having now arrived at the place of His foretold and impending death: Jerusalem. In many ways…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 72, Chapter 22 Today we open Matthew chapter 22. It begins with quite a long Parable. Unlike some of the other metaphorical and symbolic illustrations that Jesus has been using to instruct and to reply, this is a true Parable in the Hebrew literary sense…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 73, Chapter 22 Continued Matthew chapter 22 records a series of hard-hitting verbal reprimands and instruction that Jesus had with some representatives of the Temple organization and others from the Synagogue organization. Generally speaking, these two organizations were populated and led by members of two…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 74, Chapter 22 Continued 2 When we follow Yeshua's career on earth and especially His Wisdom teachings, we find that just as in the manner our teachers taught us in elementary, High School and college, over time He built-up knowledge in His followers by starting…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 75, Chapter 23 In opening Matthew 23, if I were to give it a title, it would be "Exposing the Hypocrisy of the Leadership". It is an interesting reality that as a person gets older and knows that death is not far off, or at…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 76, Chapter 23 Continued Our study of Matthew 23 continues today, but bear with me before we re-open it's inspired pages. Early in the Book of Genesis we learned of a fundamental governing dynamic of God: He divides, elects, and separates. One of the most…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 77, Chapter 23 Continued 2 Because I had the great privilege of being raised in a Christian household from my earliest age, my family and I spent every Sunday in Church. Child Psychologists and most parents (especially moms) can verify that even when a child…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 78, Chapter 23 Conclusion As we inch closer and closer to Yeshua's death on the cross in Matthew's Gospel, there's so much context and background and many subjects that we encounter that are in need of explanation and fleshing out that at times we're going…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 79, Chapter 24 Before we dive into Matthew chapter 24, I think it is best to first offer you an exposition and summary of not only what we have learned thus far in Matthew about the crucial role that Jesus plays in Redemption History, but…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 80, Chapter 24 Continued Last week I installed a framework for us to try to better comprehend not only what we have learned thus far in the Gospels about Yeshua's role in Redemption History, but also about the several stages of it. And that beginning…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 81, Chapter 24 Continued 2 The Gospel of Matthew is a delight to teach because it offers such opportunities to provide application to our modern lives, as well as to prepare us for what lay ahead. Chapters 24 and 25 form what is nearly universally…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 82, Chapter 24 Continued 3 If the End Times matters to you; if where we likely stand in the timeline of Redemption History matters to you; then the study of Matthew chapter 24 and 25 are crucial to your understanding and I don't want to…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 83, Chapter 24 Continued 4 For the majority of New Testament commentators, the explanation of Matthew chapter 24 is among the most (if not the most) extensive required of all the Gospels combined. The main reason is because Yeshua speaks so considerably about the future…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 84, Chapter 24 Continued 5 Matthew 24:30 says: Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, all the tribes of the Land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with tremendous power…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 85, Chapter 24 and 25 Verse 42 of Matthew chapter 24 sums up perhaps Yeshua’s most indispensable teaching about the End Times: CJB Matthew 24:42 So stay alert, because you don't know on what day your Lord will come.  Awareness, alertness, and preparedness form the recurring…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 86, Chapter 25 Continued In our previous lesson we ended with delving into the fascinating and illuminating Parable of the Talents. The most common method within Christianity (and often within Messianic Judaism) to study or preach this parable is by using allegories to separate out…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 87, Chapter 25 and 26 Last week the ending portion of our study was essentially a word picture of the final judgment that also goes by the name Judgment Day. This is one of those things that isn’t particularly pleasant for a Pastor or Bible…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 88, Chapter 26 Last week we began what is popularly known as the Passion Narrative, which essentially dominates the remaining chapters of Matthew’s Gospel. The circumstances of leading up to Christ’s execution, burial, resurrection, and the immediate aftermath represents probably the most focused upon portion…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 89, Chapter 26 Continued When we closed our study on Matthew chapter 26 last time, we had been looking at the rather strange act of the common Jewish woman in Bethany that had just poured a great deal of costly perfumed ointment on Christ’s head.…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 90, Chapter 26 Continued 2 We open today with what is known as the very intriguing Last Supper. Clearly from the way in which this event is covered in all the Gospel accounts, each writer sees it as dramatically meaningful for those who love and…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 91, Chapter 26 Continued 3 In our previous study of Matthew chapter 26 we took a careful look at a rather peculiar ceremony that took place at an unknown location within the city walls of Jerusalem, with Jesus and His 12 disciples in attendance. It…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 92, Chapter 26 Continued 4 When we left off last time in Matthew 26, Yeshua had just been identified by Judas and betrayed to the Temple authorities. It was nighttime, a short time after the Last Supper, and so it occurred within the first few…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 93, Chapter 27 Matthew chapter 26 concluded with a mixed group of Jewish religious leadership, representing both the Temple and the Synagogue authorities, gathering at night in an official capacity at the High Priest Caiaphas’s home with one purpose in mind: to find false allegations…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 94, Chapter 27 Continued Verses 11 through 26 in Matthew chapter 27 have been perhaps the chief source for persistent anti-Semitism within our faith; and this has been so for as much as 1800 years. The question these verses have been alleged to deal with…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 95, Chapter 27 Continued 2 As we are nearing the end of our extensive study of Matthew’s Gospel and all that has been revealed about Jesus’s life and teachings along the way, we have arrived at the epic Redemption History milestone that had it’s beginning…

    THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 96, Chapter 28 END Today, we shall conclude what amounts to a 2-year study of the Gospel of Matthew. Although there are some additional facts and events surrounding Christ’s death, resurrection is far and away the central matter of chapter 28, as it ought to…