It is strange to be reading and not yet understanding why. Doing so reminds me of just how many horrid bible studies I had in my evangelical past ... booklets with inane and even asinine questions. The latter were those which asked what the verses meant to you personally, how you might apply them to your life, what qualities in the text should you emulate (or not), how you can use them to be the light of Christ to others to help lead them to salvation. SIGH.
So, Matthew 4.
Repentance.
Hmmm....
The first part is the temptation of Christ. Recently, we had a sermon on this, though I am not sure if it was from this Gospel or not. And, yes, I gave into temptation and looked up the passage in my Gospel harmony. Again, I find it interesting the absence of John. I also think that Mark must have been the most terse writer around back then. He writes in two verses what Matthew explores in 11 and Luke does in 13.
I am not sure what temptation has to do with repentance other than temptation oft leads to the need for repentance, contrition (terror) over the sins with which we struggle and faith in the promise that, even so, we are still forgiven.
[I will say that the glutton in me snickered when I read that Jesus fasted for forty days and nights and then He became hungry. I would have been hungry about hour four.]
As for the rest, I have many thoughts that add up to nothing, really:
- In the last chapter, the sum of what I thought you could say about Jesus was to expect the unexpected. He simply is not what mankind imagined the Son of God would be. I mean, there are miracles and such, but there is no sense of royalty about Him, no proper understanding of His place in society, I think you could say. He was not the type of messiah folk imagined. So, in verse 12, I read that when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He left. He left not to go rescue or defend the chosen one to herald the Son of God, as one might expect Him to do. Instead, Jesus left to continue about His business.
- The writer in me always ... smiles ... that Jesus would tell fishermen He would make them fishers of men. Words. God uses words so very perfectly.
- Verse 17 is the only place where repentance is mentioned: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Actually, I do not really know what the second part means, what it means when Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
- So, after gathering some disciples, Jesus goes about Galilee teaching, proclaiming the Gospel, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people (verse 23). To me, to me, I find it significant the distinction between disease and sickness ... for I think Jesus healed the mind as well as the body, the darkness that can bind us.
When I was in graduate school, working on literacy studies, I was struck one day about contextual clues. Basically, we do not actually read or have to know every word in a sentence in order to understand meaning. In reading the fiction books I devoured in my non-academic time, I started to notice just how many words that I thought I knew, but could not give a definition if asked. So, I started a personal dictionary:
On all my books, both fiction and non-fiction, I started keeping sticky notes on the inside cover. Whenever I came across a word that I could not actually define, I wrote it down. Later, I copied the word into this journal, looking up and then writing out the definition(s). I numbered each word and then I also created an alphabetical list on my computer, a printout of which I kept in the back of the journal as an index. I also started working to incorporate the words that I was learning into my own speech and language.
It might not make sense for someone who is closing in on 36 years of being a child of God, but I have realized that I use words of faith and cannot actually define them. It is deeper ... more ... than merely the difference between how evangelicals understand a word and how the pure doctrine teaches that word (i.e., salvation and baptism). It is not really knowing what the words repentance, faith, belief (believing), and trust mean. Not where I can define them for you. And, whilst Luther states clearly in the Large Catechism that a person could spend her whole life studying baptism and never fully plumb its depths, this isn't about wanting to know everything. It is about knowing something. Something that is true. Something not told to me, but something taught to me, using Scripture and the Christian Book of Concord.
So, I think the three thoughts left looming largest in my mind after reading the 4th chapter of Matthew are:
- What does Christ mean when He said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."? Is the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God the same? What does that preposition for mean here? Is it the definition that means a connection to time or place? Now is the time repentance can take place because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Or is it the definition that means a reason or cause? Because the kingdom of God is at hand repent. [Remember Mary's Myrtle translation for hosanna in the highest: You up there in heaven save us now? I need another translation.]
- I find it ... interesting ... that Jesus ministry was not about putting Law on people, but about teaching, proclaiming the Gospel, and healing. Especially the healing part. It seems to me that people forget that part, that people stray from that to focus more on do this and do not do that.
- What does it mean to proclaim the Gospel? To announce it officially or publicly? Can anyone proclaim the Gospel or is it only Jesus who can? Or is it that His proclamation is the one that matter, matters still? Did the disciples turned apostles proclaim the Gospel or actually really just spread that which already had been proclaimed?
I have actually read Matthew chapter four several times between my last homework post and this one. For one, I read it on Saturday night whilst I was sitting in the church pew waiting for the vigil to happen. Because I was there so long, I read chapter four several times and then started just reading through Matthew. I got to chapter eight. So, I am torn about jumping ahead now to chapter 16 (my next assignment) or trying to read through from four to 16 for context. Normally, the literacy studies expert would certainly think that would be the best course of action. But, since I read things wrong and understand little and can get distracted and distressed, I am leaning toward jumping ahead and focusing on the four chapters by themselves. After all, it is not as if I can even tell you a single thing about the other chapters I read Saturday night. I have already forgotten them. SIGH.
Looking at my word journal, I would think anyone reading my blog would find me pusillanimous and would note my fugacious redoubt of hearing the Living Word, rather that hearing be ever efficacious in obviating the assaults of my foe, puerile
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
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