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 on the Gospel of Matthew in that of all the Gospels, his is the most Jewish. Clearly whoever this Matthew was, He was a Jewish Believer in Yeshua that was well educated and knowledgeable in both Jewish Law and in the biblical Torah. Therefore Matthew will by instinct dwell more on things like the ongoing relevance of the Law of Moses in a Believer's life and he maintains an assumption that the reader is aware of the many nuances of Shabbat observance and is familiar with both Temple and synagogue operation and liturgy. Therefore we'll continue to spend considerable time unpacking the words of chapter 12 and revealing them in the context of 1st century Jewish society. 

Let's begin by re-reading just a small portion of Matthew. Open your Bible to Matthew chapter 12. 

RE-READ MATTHER CHAPTER 12:6 – 15

The backdrop of these verses is that Yeshua is being confronted by some Pharisees who object to Yeshua's disciples picking heads of grain in a field and eating them. They accuse His disciples of breaking Sabbath day laws at the direction of their Master. To sum up what we covered last week, the Pharisees' complaint is not that there is something wrong with the disciples' picking heads of grain from a field they don't own, and eating them. On the 6 other days of the week this would have not been prohibited. But on the 7th day Shabbat, the Pharisees considered what the disciples were doing as melakah; work. This was forbidden. 

The Pharisees didn't seem to directly confront the disciples, but rather their Master, Yeshua. This would have been rather standard for that era because it was understood that whatever practices and doctrines a flock of disciples held, it was because of their Master. Yeshua responded by telling the complainants to remember "what David did" on a particular Sabbath many centuries earlier when he and his men arrived at Nob, where the Tabernacle was operating, and asked for food. The priest there said he had none, but offered David and his men some of the week-old shewbread that had just been removed from the Sanctuary. They ate it. However according to one of the Laws of Moses, David was not permitted to do such a thing, because the shewbread was deemed by God as holy food, and thus could only be eaten by the priests. Clearly Christ saw no more wrong in it than Him allowing His disciples to pluck and eat grain on the Sabbath. 

I pointed out that while the Sabbath controversy with Jesus and His disciples entirely revolved around the matter of Sabbath, the incident with David at Nob did not. This is because in David's situation it didn't matter what day of the week it was; the shewbread was never to be eaten by laymen. Thus the common ground between these two incidents was the issues of food and of showing mercy on a Sabbath. The priest at Nob showed mercy; the Pharisees did not. 

Therefore Christ is demonstrating that the spirit of the Law (which is defined by its underlying foundational principle that we are to love God with all our hearts, minds, and strength, and that we are to love our fellow man as we love ourselves) is always to be the guiding light in determining how best to obey the Law of Moses. And the spirit of the Law reflects God's greatest quality towards humanity; mercy. 

So in verse 7 Yeshua publicly chastises the Pharisees (who considered themselves great and wise authorities on the Holy Scriptures) when He says: "If you knew what 'I want compassion rather than animal sacrifice' meant, you would not condemn the innocent". Yeshua is quoting Hosea 6:6. He is saying to the Pharisees: you read, you teach, but you don't know. Are you picking up on the fact that Yeshua is a confronter who doesn't mince words? Interestingly He likes to pick fights especially on Sabbath in order to make His points. Can you imagine a layman (which is what Jesus is in the eyes of the Pharisees) walking up to the stage of a Pastors' convention, taking the microphone, and admonishing his audience by saying: you read, you teach, but you don't know? This is of the greatest offense to these synagogue leaders who believe they are the repositories of biblical knowledge and are not to be challenged except by one of their own. 

So what did Yeshua expect the Pharisees to understand about the meaning of this Hosea quote that they apparently didn't? In Hebrew the word that is variously translated as compassion or mercy is chesed. Both English translations are correct. And both could apply to what Jesus has just taught that ought to be the reaction of the Pharisees to people who are hungry on the Sabbath. That is; compassion or mercy is to be shown to them by feeding those who are hungry no matter what day of the week it is. Sadly, much of institutional Christianity has declared that Yeshua is essentially saying that animal sacrifices are hereby abolished (along with the entirety of the Law of Moses). This is an issue of taking a biblical quote out of context and also of not knowing the Holy Scriptures and their meaning from a God's-eye view (just as the Pharisees didn't). 

God's message through His Prophet Hosea and through Yeshua is that the only reason animal sacrifices exist in the first place is because humans do wrong. If humans always did right…. and chief among doing right is displaying mercy and compassion….. then animal sacrifices wouldn't even be needed to atone for wrongdoing…. for sinning. The principle is so simple yet profound that neither institutional Judaism nor Christianity in general seems to comprehend it. It also means that if humans obeyed God and always did right by displaying mercy and compassion, the ultimate sacrifice….. Christ… wouldn't have had to suffer so severely and go to the cruel cross. 

What is also interesting about Yeshua's response are the words: "you would not condemn the innocent". Yeshua is directly saying that although the Pharisees see the disciples as guilty for picking grain, God (and Yeshua) judges them as innocent. Although the commandment to observe the Sabbath law is worthy, there is a weightier law, a greater law, for God worshipers to show mercy and compassion to our fellow man. I want to be clear here: God is not some spiritual fascist dictator who says that special circumstance doesn't matter; obey My Laws to the letter, no matter what, or suffer the consequences. Most of the Laws of Moses that we are obligated to obey will have exceptions to the rule that happen occasionally. This is why it is so irreplaceable for humans to trust Christ, and thus to gain the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, such that we have a helping and guiding source who can direct us to obey The Law from a God-perspective. For instance; if every Shabbat Christ's disciples decided they would go out and pick grain to eat, this would become sin because mercy and compassion no longer apply. They are simply trying to find a loophole in the Law to do something they want to do. Common sense says that their motive in the action of picking grain every Shabbat would be wrong. If they know ahead of time they are going to be traveling on every Shabbat and naturally needing food, they could prepare in advance and thus obey the Law of Sabbath as well as complete their mission. Clearly Christ decided to lead these disciples of His somewhere on this particular Sabbath, and they (appropriately) obeyed; but this situation was outside the norm. Just as it was outside the norm for David to journey to Nob and need food on the Sabbath, and for him to eat the Tabernacle shewbread (the only food available) that he of course knew was, according to the Law, off limits to him. Perhaps since we're not told for what purpose Yeshua had the disciples traveling on Shabbat, at least one reason was precisely for Christ to have an opportunity to teach about the true intention of the Sabbath law and how to properly observe it in all its fullest divine meaning. 

The next verse has led to as much false Church doctrine as did the previous. Yeshua says: "For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath". The most widely accepted interpretation and application of this verse is: 'Since Jesus is the new Lord of the Sabbath, He can remake it to mean anything He wants to. And He has just essentially said that the old rules no longer apply'. Let's examine this closely. When Yeshua yet again refers to Himself by the favored title "the Son of Man", He is saying that He is divine. As I've shown you, this can only be referring to Daniel 7's Son of Man. Therefore, Yeshua is claiming He has God-given authority. 

Interestingly, we find these same words in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 2:28) but there are also some additional words in Mark that precede it. In Mark 2:27 we read:

CJB Mark 2:27 Then he said to them, "Shabbat was made for mankind, not mankind for Shabbat; 

These words are sometimes used within Christianity to validate a doctrine that Yeshua can completely redefine Shabbat; even doing away with it. Of the various interpretations of Christ's words that we find within commentaries and among denominations, I'd like to offer this thought instead. When we go back to the Creation story in Genesis, we see that God created Adam… humankind… on the 6th day. The following day (the 7th day) God ceased His creative activities and ordained the day as the Sabbath. Now please listen carefully: the Sabbath had in the past, and has in the present, and never will in the future possess meaning unless mankind exists to observe and obey it. Sabbath was not given to animals as an instinct written in their DNA. Sabbath was also not a God-given irresistible instinct within humans. Sabbath is a divine instruction, a Law, that comes with a moral choice: do it or don't do it. Doing it is obedience and it comes with a blessing; not doing it is disobedience and it comes with a consequence. It is true that humans are instructed to give their work animals a rest on Shabbat; but that is something humans are responsible to do and something that humans must direct. 

CJB Deuteronomy 5:12-14 12 "'Observe the day of Shabbat, to set it apart as holy, as ADONAI your God ordered you to do. 13 You have six days to labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Shabbat for ADONAI your God. On it you are not to do any kind of work- not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your ox, your donkey or any of your other livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property- so that your male and female servants can rest just as you do. 

We are told by God to impose a day of rest upon work animals in the same way humans must impose days of work upon those same animals as needed. Even so, the rest that is given to work animals was ordained because if work animals are working, necessarily a human has to be working as well (work animals don't just do their work all by themselves). So Shabbat revolves around mankind. Therefore what Yeshua says in verse 8 is more proverb than instruction. He is making a point…. an instructional reminder… about the reason for the existence of Shabbat: who it is for, why it exists, and that it is all about humanity. 

This is such an important point that I want to take this line of reasoning a bit further. If mankind didn't exist, and only the Universe and God existed, then there is no point to having a Sabbath. Here's another way to think about it.  Why would God create a nearly infinite Universe if He also did not create sentient beings to observe it? As amazing as the Universe is, without intelligent life it is just there… existing… but for what possible purpose? Without humans to observe it and wonder in awe at it and (most importantly) give God the glory for making it, then it is a useless mass of objects, cosmic clouds, energy, and gases. Applying this to Shabbat, then it is self-evident and a profound truism that (as Jesus said) the Sabbath was made for the sake of man and not man for the sake of Sabbath. From a merely logical perspective, if man was made for the Sabbath, then Sabbath would necessarily have been created first; and afterward man to serve it. So this is not such a mysterious or difficult statement of Yeshua to understand after all. 

As for the direct connection of this line of thought to Yeshua's confrontation with the Pharisees, He's telling them that because they read, they teach, but they don't know, they have reversed the entire meaning of Shabbat. Because of the series of burdensome, non-biblical manmade rules and traditions about Sabbath, which the Pharisees have established or modified and laid it upon the backs of the Jewish people, they have made humans as though slaves to the Sabbath. They have declared that God only made humans in order to serve the Sabbath. That is not only illogical, it is a perversion of the mercy of God and of the divine purpose for a designated weekly day of rest and ceasing for the benefit of mankind.  

Thus when we read Yeshua's words from this perspective, and also read it in Mark, it becomes clearer. 

CJB Mark 2:27-28 27 Then he said to them, "Shabbat was made for mankind, not mankind for Shabbat; 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of Shabbat." 

The understanding is that because of the proverbial truth that Shabbat indeed was made for humans, and not that humans were created in order to serve the Sabbath, then the divine Yeshua is the Lord of the Shabbat because He represents the rest it provides for humanity. Yeshua is the very embodiment of Sabbath rest. 

Verse 9 ends the grain field confrontation with the Pharisees. Jesus and His disciples leave the field and go into a synagogue. Actually it says that Yeshua went into their synagogue. So the synagogue Yeshua went into was the one that some or all of these disciples of the grain field incident attended, or perhaps Matthew is speaking about the synagogue these particular Pharisees attended. When Jesus arrived, there was a man inside the synagogue who had a shriveled hand; there were, of course, some Pharisees as well that wanted to test Him. Was this the same group of Pharisees that He had been disputing with? Hard to tell, but I think so since they kept up the same line of question about what is permissible on Shabbat. So they turn and ask Christ if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath (in reference to the man with the shriveled hand).  Remember the context: as of this point in His earthly ministry Jesus is perceived by the Jewish public as a Holy Man; a Tzadik whose primary ability is to heal the sick and lame. He has done little to dispel that notion even though His regular Son of Man references to Himself are the strongest of implications that He is divine for those who have the ears to hear. 

We must notice that like with David wanting food on the Sabbath, this man with the withered hand did not have a life threatening situation that required immediate attention. So this right away tells us that again Christ is going to foment a confrontation with the Pharisees in order to make an instructional point. But the Pharisees know what they're doing. Pharisees didn't necessarily think healing on Shabbat was unlawful; the issue for them was the seriousness of the condition of the patient. In Mishna Yoma 8:6 we read:

"A case of risk of loss of life supersedes the Sabbath Law".  

The goal of the Pharisees was to entrap Christ. As was typical of Yeshua, He answered their question with a question of His own, and then proceeds to provide the answer to His question. So in response He asks the Pharisees that if a sheep (a farm animal) were to fall into a pit on a Shabbat, would the sheep's owner work to the take the sheep out? This, to us, is a rhetorical question because the common sense answer would seem to be: "Yes, of course". However as with the issue of healing on a Sabbath, whether to remove a farm animal that had fallen into a pit on Sabbath was not of consensus opinion among the Jews. The Essenes and the author of the Book of Jubilees would have said: "one should do neither". One should not heal (no matter how dire the situation), and one should not remove a farm animal from a pit (even if the animal was going to suffer or die). If we can apply the thoughts of the Mishna to Yeshua's day, then very likely the most accepted answer among the Pharisees as to whether Yeshua was permitted to use His Holy Man gifts to heal the man with the withered hand was "no" because the man's life was not in danger.  And the same logic would also apply to the farm animal in the pit. If the animal wasn't gravely injured, then it probably should be left there. So while we might say that it is only logical and merciful to take the animal out of the pit, the people Yeshua was debating with would not have agreed. Yeshua is intentionally provoking the Pharisees and openly challenging their doctrines. 

There is one other aspect regarding Yeshua's attitude regarding the value of farm animals: He was from the Galilee. The Galilee was the breadbasket of the Holy Land, and the bulk of the people living there were poor farmers and herders. These people lived a simpler life than their Jewish brothers in Judea, and had less interest in long winded theological debates and the tiny nuances of doctrines and traditions. Of course a Galilean would take a farm animal out of a pit on Sabbath; both for the sake of mercy on the animal and because it was valuable and he couldn't afford to lose it. 

So, reasons Christ, if you agree a sheep should be rescued from a pit on the Sabbath (something He believes ought to be agreed to), regardless of its condition or the danger it may or may not be in, then because a human life has such greater value than a farm animal, healing a human ought to occur on the Shabbat. What is permitted on the Sabbath is to do good, says Jesus. Here's a note to the wise: "to do good" does NOT mean to do whatever your own heart or emotions tell you to do. "To do good" always means to do God's will; to do what is righteous. This statement "to do good" is similar in nature to the one He pronounced earlier (recorded in Mark) that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is, it is proverb. A proverb is a statement of general truth. It's not a strict rule or a law, or something that has no exceptions. He is also once again using the standard Rabbinical debate and Scriptural interpretation method of Kal V'homer: light versus heavy. When two or more laws seem to collide in a particular situation, how does one choose what to do? So it comes down to what the weightier matter of The Law dictates. Once again Jesus puts compassion and mercy (in the form of healing, or even rescuing a trapped animal) as weightier… it is of a higher righteousness… than following the letter of Sabbath Law that one should do no labor (or more in tune with the real issue Yeshua is contending with… Jewish Law and tradition about the matter). So Yeshua tells the man to hold out his disabled hand, he does, and instantly it is healed. 

What is the reaction of the Pharisees to Jesus healing this man on Shabbat? Verse 14 says that they determined to do away with Him. Why? Because He made some claim about Himself that they couldn't tolerate? Did they disagree with Him over Jewish tradition regarding Sabbath observance? Or was it because He showed them up, and they couldn't have some Galilean riff-raff… even if He was a demonstrated miracle healer… threaten their authority? Either way, the matter of Jesus being the divine Messiah never enters the discussion because at this point Christ has not said He is, and no one seems to suspect He is. Simply put: this was a personal matter. He had publicly offended the wrong people and done it more than once. Christ sensed the danger and immediately left the area. 

Let's read more of Matthew 12.

RE-READ MATTHEW 12:15 – 29

The first several of the verses we have just read have to do with Yeshua's status as a servant. We are told that Yeshua left the area of the Sabbath controversy at the grain field, but was followed by large crowds. The people who formed the crowds were Jews looking for this Jewish Tzadik to heal them; and that He did… all of them. Those words are really of a summary of Jesus's ministry to this point. I've mentioned before, but in order that we don't lose the overall flow of what is happening thus far in Matthew, the attraction to Jesus has been 2 things: first and foremost His miraculous ability to heal physical infirmities and to exorcise demonic possessions. Secondly, people followed Him to seek His wisdom. The second matter, alone, put Jesus into direct competition with the Pharisees and Scribes. 

He healed all who came to Him but also warned them not to make Him known. I don't think the meaning of this is all that difficult. It is that He already knew the Pharisees were plotting His demise; that is why He abruptly left the area. He of course didn't want to be found; He didn't want His location or itinerary known. So He told people not to say anything about Him. 

Verse 17 is a statement by Matthew the Gospel writer in order to explain all that Christ had been doing and saying. He then goes on to quote from Isaiah 42:1 – 4.  This is a loose quote, and not an exact one. From Isaiah 42 through Isaiah 53 we have the "Suffering Servant" chapters. If we had the time it would prosper us to study those 12 chapters. However as regards the Suffering Servant matter, it must be noted that in the Book of Isaiah at first the Suffering Servant is definitely the sovereign nation of Israel. At other times it represents the people of Israel. And at still other times it can only be referring to an individual; a single person. And that person… that one particular Suffering Servant… is the Messiah. As David Stern rightly points out, this progression of the meaning of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah reveals the close association of Messiah Yeshua not only to the land and nation of Israel, but also to the Jewish people. I would take it one step further and say that it shows that Christ is the epitome, the ideal, of a perfect Israel. He represents all that Israel was meant to be, but had never become because they were and are, just as is the rest of humanity, too fleshly, disobedient and corrupt to attain the lofty goals set out for them through the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and by the Covenant of Moses.  

Let's discuss these few verses from Isaiah that Matthew quotes. The quote opens with: "Here is My servant…" When we look at the Hebrew the word translated to servant in English it is eved or ebed (same word, just pronounced slightly different). It means slave or servant. In the Greek of the New Testament (pais) it means the same. It is not a negative term as we think of the term "slave" or "servant" in the modern West; rather it simply means a person who serves (and most often, it is voluntary servitude). So in the case of Yeshua as the Father's servant, it is that Yeshua voluntarily serves the Father's will, according to the Father's purposes and plans, and not His own. Yeshua sits in a divine hierarchy below the Father. The terms slave and servant cannot be taken in any other light. I have previously asked you to see Jesus in terms of an agent; an earthly representative of the Father. Christ carries the authority of the Father, but He is not fully equal in rank, and He carries only the range of authority (although it is very wide) that He is given. No one gives the Father His authority; no one sets boundaries or limits on the Father. Authority is inherent in Him as the Creator and author of all things. 

So in this passage from Isaiah it is God the Father who characterizes Yeshua as His servant whom He has chosen. And it is also that all the healing activities Yeshua has been doing are viewed by Matthew as a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies. When we look back to Matthew chapter 3, we find that when John immerses Yeshua the heavens open and God thunders: "This is my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with Him". So while those words are not identical with Isaiah 42, the sentiment is the same. However in Matthew 12 we get the revelation that the "Suffering Servant" is also to be identified as God's own Son. There is no doubt that to Matthew, Isaiah 42 verse 1, which was made some 700 years before the birth of Christ, is at last fulfilled in the announcement of Matthew 3:17. 

Next we read that "I (God) will put my Spirit on Him". Back to Matthew 3 we read: "At that moment Heaven was opened, he (John) saw the Spirit of God coming down upon Him (Jesus) like a dove". More direct fulfillment of Isaiah, even down to the detail of the Spirit "on" Him….not "in" Him….. is spoken. We could spend an entire lesson talking about the nuances of the Holy Spirit being upon someone as opposed to being in someone. However in this case, since Yeshua is seen as the repository of the Holy Spirit on earth during His ministry, perhaps it is less a matter of precisely where the Holy Spirit resides (upon Christ like with a garment, or in Him as if He were a container) and rather it is about how and when it came to Him in the first place. It could also be that an exact literal fulfillment of Isaiah (I will put my Spirit on Him) was manifested with the image of the dove descending upon Yeshua, for the sake of God's worshipers in order that they (and we) might positively identify God's Son and our Messiah as Yeshua of Nazareth. 

After God putting His Spirit upon Yeshua, the next words in Isaiah are that He (this Suffering Servant) will announce justice to the Gentiles. I want to begin with the final word of this phrase: gentiles. In Hebrew the word is goyim. It indeed can be properly translated either as gentiles or as nations. If one understand the biblical meaning of the term "nations" it makes translation of goyim more clear about how it should be used in various verses. 

After the advent of Abraham and his pledge of allegiance to Yehoveh, the world became divided into two groups: Hebrews and non-Hebrews. Non-Hebrews are called gentiles. However once this division of humanity occurred, then the reality became that all nations on Earth consisted solely of gentiles (except for Israel…which did not yet exist until the advent of Jacob). Thus in Bible-speak a nation is automatically a gentile nation unless that nation is specifically Israel. So the Hebrew word goyim now means a sovereign nation of gentiles, or a group of gentiles in general. To me, the context of the Isaiah quote demands that the word is "nations". That is, the Suffering Servant will announce justice to the nations. 

What is this justice that He will announce? The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat; the word has a deep meaning that we don't have the time to thoroughly explore today. I go into great depth on the subject in a number of lessons on the Book of Exodus, so you can go to the TorahClass.com website, enter the word mishpat in the Search Box, and do some study on your own. What we need to understand for today is that there is mankind's type of mishpat (justice), and there is God's type of mishpat (justice) and they are not the same (although they should be, and in the Millennial Kingdom it will be). Mishpat runs closer to what we might call a judicial ruling… a verdict. And the verdict is that all of mankind is guilty of sinning, and of offending God, and so faces the death penalty for it. However God has provided for redemption; a means for not facing the death penalty. And here in Isaiah 42 we find that justice in the form of redemption is not only offered to Israel, it is for all nations… all gentile nations plus Israel. And the person who will announce that this type of justice has arrived is the Suffering Servant… God's Son… the Messiah, Yeshua. This person is God's agent for redemption, to all who will accept Him.

Next we see that it is prophesied that this person will not fight or shout. This means that He is not coming to form an army and free Israel from some kind of national oppression, nor is He coming to gain a reputation for Himself. Thus no one will hear Him on the streets. That is, He will not be standing on a soapbox yelling: "The End is Near". He will do His work (mostly) quietly, gently, and with the common folks. Only when He is confronted by the opposition leadership that is leading His people astray (Pharisees, Scribes, and later Temple Priests) do we see Him holding His ground and instructing them in their wrong doctrines. 

This gentle and meek quality of Jesus is what is meant by "He will not snap off a broken reed or snuff out a smoldering wick". That is, He is coming to heal broken people; even those whose faith is nearly gone (the smoldering wicks). The Suffering Servant is not coming to deliver them to the grave in condemnation, but rather to revitalize them… to save them. 

But then a very important word follows that statement… until. That is, for the time being He won't condemn the barely spiritually alive person. But in time, He will. When is that time? It is when He has brought justice (mishpat) through to victory. That is, it is God's justice to bring redemption to the guilty; and Jesus is God's agent to perform that task. And once He has done that, then the guilty (the broken reeds and smoldering wicks) will indeed be sent to their graves… their spiritual graves… if they refuse to reach out to Him. Please hear me: Christ has already brought God's justice to the world. It is done. What is left for Him to do is to snap off those broken reeds and to snuff out those smoldering wicks. This will happen with His second advent when He comes to punish and not to heal. 

Again to end the quote from Isaiah we read something about non-Hebrews (today we would say, non-Jews). "In Him the gentiles will put their hope". Here we should take the term gentiles (goyim) more as meaning gentile people rather than gentile nations, because it is individuals that put our hope for redemption in Christ.  

Since the next activity of Christ will be to return and lead an army of Believers in a real, literal, physical battle for planet Earth, then in the time between His ascending to Heaven back in the 1st century, to today in the 21st century, the job of healing those broken reeds and smoldering wicks has fallen to us; He has commanded it.

CJB Matthew 28:19-20 19 Therefore, go and make people from all nations into talmidim, immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the Ruach HaKodesh, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember! I will be with you always, yes, even until the end of the age." 

It is up to us as His followers, Jew and gentile Believers in Yeshua and worshipers of the God of Israel, to take the Good News of God's justice… His redemption… to the inhabitants of this world. But this news must be told in truth, not in pagan inspired doctrines that have crept into our faith. Otherwise, we preach a false Messiah, and not the true One. 

We'll continue in Matthew 12 next week.