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About Jesus Steve Sweetman This Section - Chapter 18 ch. 18:1-9 ch. 18:10-14 ch. 18:15-20 The
Greatest In The Verse
1 opens with the words “at that time”.
The time spoken of here is the event of the last chapter when
Jesus was confronted about not paying the temple tax.
The whole discussion concerning taxes and government prompted the
disciples to ask “who is the greatest in the Verse
2 tells us that Jesus called a little child to come and stand beside
Him. Once again, Jesus uses
an illustration to help explain His teaching.
In this case the illustration is a child. In
verse 3 Jesus says that unless “you change” and become as a little
child, you can’t enter the Jesus
says that if you want to enter the I
suppose there are many attributes to children that are important when
thinking of participating in the Children
are seen, and especially were seen back then, as those at the bottom of
the social scales. Most of what is about childhood is a humbling
experience. A child
doesn’t know certain things and therefore must humble himself
to ask questions. Children
must always be in the background and submit to their parents.
The list could go on and on to show how childhood is an a
humbling time of life. Jesus
is telling His disciples that they need to have this same humbling
attitude. Power and
authority does not make anyone great in the In
verse 5 Jesus says that whoever “welcomes a little
child like this in my name, welcomes me”.
There are two points here. One
is that Jesus is comparing Himself to a child in the sense that He has
humbled Himself to come to earth and then to die as a criminal.. Another
point is that we should welcome little children into our lives “in
Jesus name”, and when we do, we are in fact welcoming Jesus. The key
words are “in the name of Jesus”, meaning, as representatives of
Jesus. Many
people welcome little children into their lives, but not all people do
so as Jesus’ representatives. If
we don’t welcome a child in the name of Jesus, we are not welcoming
Jesus. We
need to understand the word “welcome” as it is used in this context.
It does not mean merely to say high to someone.
It’s not a greeting, like a hand shake.
It’s a receiving, or a taking in.
It has to do with hospitality, welcoming someone into your home,
as in a child without any parents. Basically,
Jesus is saying, “if you take one of these children into your home to
care for him as my representative, you’re taking me into your home”.
In
verse 6 Jesus tells those listening to Him that if they bring harm to
any little child who believes in Him, it would be better for him to
drown in the sea with a large stone around his neck so he’d never to
surface. These are serious
words. Jesus’
words speaks of punishment. People
will be punished for their sins at the end of this age if their sin has
not been taken care of by giving their lives to Jesus. In
verse 7 Jesus says “woe to the world because of the things that cause
people to sin”. We sin
because there is that sinful nature within us.
We also sin because those in the world do things that cause us to
sin. There are countless
things we see daily that tempt us to sin.
Jesus says, “woe” to them that tempt us.
Jesus
realizes that such things will come.
He knows that sin is in the world.
He knows that people will do things to make us sin, but He says
“woe” to those who cause people to sin. When
Jesus uses the word “woe”, He is using it as a warning.
He is warning those who cause people to sin.
They will be punished for what they do. Jesus
says some drastic words in verses 8 and 9.
He says that if your hand, foot, or eye causes you to sin then
cut your hand or foot off your body, and gouge out your eyes.
He then says that it’s better for you to enter life, meaning,
the next life, without a hand, foot, or eye than not make it to the next
life at all with Jesus. Jesus
is using exaggeration to make His point.
He’s serious about what He’s saying.
He’s not telling people to cut off their hands.
If he was, you’d see Him helping His followers to do just that.
He’s attempting to show the seriousness of sin and the
importance to avoid whatever would cause you to sin.
So
in the past five verses, Jesus is addressing both the one who causes a
person to sin and the one who sins.
Both are responsible for what they do and will be held
accountable for their actions. The
Parable Of The Lost Sheep (ch. 18:10 - 14)
In
verses 10 and 11 Jesus says that we should not look down on little
children. Although children
are not adults, they need a measure of respect that is due to them.
The
intriguing thing that Jesus says here is that children’s
angels are in heaven and see the face of God.
The Jews believed that each nation had a corresponding angel
associated with it. The
seven churches of Revelation might suggest, depending on how you
interpret it, that they have an angel.
Some people suggest that each and every child has an angel
because of this verse. Others
go farther and say that everyone has a corresponding angel in heaven.
There’s not much
written in the Bible about such things so I do not believe that
you can build a strong teaching on this subject from this one
verse. Note
the words "see the face of my Father."
This begs the question to be asked, "do angels see God's
face?" In John
1:18 Jesus tells us that no one has ever seen God, except His Son, who
is Jesus. So how do we fit
John 1:18 with Matthew 18:10. Well,
one way might be that John 1:18 means that no man has seen God.
That might then exclude angels.
If that were so, then angels might see God as it appears they do,
at least as it is written in the NIV.
Kenneth
Wuest, in his translation does not use the word "see".
He uses the word "contemplate" instead, and for good
reason, because the Greek word in this passage could mean
"contemplate". It
comes down to a matter of translation, and how you translate this word
in the context of Biblical thinking.
Wuest might have felt that when Jesus said "no one" has
seen the Father, that meant, "no one including angels", and
that presupposition would force him not to use the word "see"
in this verse. The
question over angels actually seeing the face of God is hard to answer.
I don't have an answer at this time.
If you read various translations you will notice that almost all
of them take a different slant on this issue.
There does not seem to be a general consensus, so in my thinking,
at this time, I do not believe we can say conclusively that angels
actually see the face of God. We
also should remember, that God is a spirit.
Jesus told us that in John 4:24.
Does a spirit have a face would be the next question.
The word face might just be figurative, therefore somebody like
Wuest might be right when he says angels contemplate the Father, or, as
other says, stand in the presence of the Father.
I don't think God has a face as we know it, at least a human like
face. Therefore I'm not
convinced that we can take Jesus' words literally here.
In
verses 12 and 13 Jesus relates a short parable.
A farmer has one hundred sheep and one gets lost.
He leaves the ninety nine sheep on the hill-side to find that one
lost sheep and when he finds it, he’s happier about that one found
sheep than he is about the rest of his sheep
In
verse 14 Jesus says that in the same way, that is, with the same concern
that the farmer had with one lost sheep, so God the Father has
concerning little children. It
would seem to me that God has a special place in his heart
for children because they cannot stand on their own.
They need adults to care for them.
They are defenseless and certainly need special care.
It is those kind of people, defenseless people,
that God takes special interest in. A
Brother Who Sins Against You (ch. 18:15 - 20)
In
verse 15 Jesus says that “if a brother sins against you, go and show
him his fault, just between the two of you”.
There is some discussion over the words “against you” because
in some manuscripts they can’t be found.
So Jesus is saying one of two things.
He’s either saying if a brother sins, show him is fault, or, if
your brother sins against you, show him his fault. If a brother sins against you, then to restore the relationship it is important to go and show him his fault. There
are ample examples in the New Testament where a brother sins, but
not against you, and still someone shows him his fault.
Paul even encourages that in Gal. 6:1.
So whatever way you take Jesus’ words here, there is Scriptural
evidence to show someone his sin. One
thing to make clear is that Jesus is talking about your brother sinning
against you. I don’t
believe that Jesus is saying, “if your brother irritates you”.
It must be a clear sin, whether it’s against you or not.
Beyond
the clear sin, Jesus calls this sin a fault.
In English I believe we can say that all sin are faults, but not
all faults are sin so to speak. We
must confront the brother in private.
That makes sense. The
exposing of sin to all other people can cause worse problems, so that is
why you confront the brother privately. Jesus
then says that “if he listens to you, you have won your brother”,
meaning, your relationship has been restored.
The restoration of relationships is the goal to confronting the
brother of his sin. With
this in mind, you speak to the sinning brother in such a way that he
will listen and change his ways. We
need to do as Paul says in Gal. 6:1.
Paul tells us to humbly approach your brother in such matters.
Humility will produce better results than aggressive
confrontation. I’ve
seen this take place, but many times without success.
I think one reason why we don’t see the success when we do this
is because we have the wrong motives.
Our motives must be to restore the relationship, not merely to
point out your brother’s sin to him, or prove yourself to be right.
In
verse 16 Jesus says that if your brother doesn’t listen to you, then
take two or three other brothers with you and try again.
Two or three brothers will provide witnesses that might well be
needed. The Law of Moses
required two or three witnesses to make an accusation legal.
The approach must still be the same.
The two or three come in humility. In
verse 16 Jesus says that if the offending brother refuses to listen to
you and two or three others, then “tell it to the church”.
The word “church” is the Greek word “ecclesia”, which
means a gathering of people. In
my thinking this would mean tell it to those people who this brother is
joined to in the Body of Christ. That
might not be the whole church in any one locality.
Then
Jesus says to treat the offender as a pagan or a tax collector.
The Jews treated tax collectors with distaste.
They refused to associate themselves with a tax collector. This
would tell me something about the sin of the offender.
I don’t think Jesus is speaking of little minor sins or
offenses. In order to treat
a person as a pagan or tax collector, this has got to be a very serious
sin. I don’t believe Jesus
is telling us to make a big deal over every little sin, or else we’d
have no one left in the church. In
verse 18 Jesus says that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in
Heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven”.
Jesus is not talking about loosing people from demons here as
many think. The context says
nothing about demons. The
context is all about loosing and binding relationships.
If a relationship is restored on earth it is restored in the eyes
of God in Heaven, but if it isn’t restored, then it’s not restored
in Heaven. In
verse 19 we see Jesus saying that if any two of his disciples agree
together in whatever they ask the Lord for, their Father in Heaven will
respond positively. Inherent
in the asking though, is asking “in the name of Jesus’, or as His
representatives. This is not
a selfish asking. The whole
context of the New Testament is clear on this matter. There are many
verses that say that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name will be answered.
The point here is that it must be in Jesus’ name. It must be
according to His will as you represent Him on earth.
I believe the asking here is for things that will better portray
the There
is another way that some Bible teachers view the point about the two or
three who are gathered together.
They say it is in the context of the one who is offended bringing
the offender to the church. In
the Law of Moses it states that an offense must be settled with the help
of two or three witnesses. The
two or three here in Matthew, according to some the two or three
witnesses that would judge the offense.
The
Parable Of The Unmerciful Servant (ch. 18:21 - 35) In
verse 21 Peter asks Jesus a legitimate question when he asks how many
times he should forgive an offending brother.
This is a logical question in relation to what Jesus was teaching
in the last section. Before
we go any farther we need to understand how the Bible uses and views the
word “forgive”. Our
modern definition of the word forgive in terms of human relationships
means to “give up feeling resentment towards another”.
This is not the New Testament idea of forgiveness. There’s
another modern day meaning to the word forgive that is more appropriate,
but it’s not used in terms of human relationship, but is used in terms
of financial matters. If you
owe someone money, and if that loan is forgiven, then the money you did
owe is no longer owed. The
loan has been forgiven, or cancelled.
This is the idea that the New Testament uses when speaking of
forgiveness. When
the New Testament says that God will forgive our sins upon us repenting
and coming to faith, it means that God cancels the sin from His books.
He no longer holds your sin against you.
You are no longer accountable for your sin.
That sin has totally disappeared and God will not bring the
subject up with you. God
isn’t just refusing to resent you for the sin you committed.
He is wiping it completely out of His records.
So
when Peter asks how many times must he forgive an offending brother,
he’s not saying, “how many times must I stop feeling resentment to
an offending brother”. What
he is saying is, “how many times must I cancel a brother’s sin, and
act as if he had never sinned”. Peter
gives Jesus a suggestion by saying that maybe seven times is a good
number to stop forgiving. In
verse 22 Jesus begins to answer. He says that seven times isn’t
sufficient, but seventy times seven is more like it.
Does Jesus mean that we need to count until we’ve forgiven
someone 490 times, then after that, we stop forgiving?
No, Jesus isn’t saying that.
Common sense tells us that seventy times seven is to be taken in
the sense of “an indefinite” number of times.
You cancel the sin as long as it takes to fix the situation and
restore the relationship, because relationships are the important thing
in our lives. In
verse 23 to 35 Jesus tells the following parable.
There was a servant who owed his master lots of money.
The master called him in and told the servant that he was going
to sell him and his wife and family and all that he had in order to get
the debt paid back. The
servant fell to his knees and begged the master to give him more time to
pay. The
master actually cancelled the debt altogether, setting the man free from
the debt. The servant then
left his master and went right to a fellow servant who owed him money.
He grabbed this servant, shook him and told him to pay up.
The fellow servant couldn’t pay so the other servant had him
put in jail. Upon
hearing what had happened the master of these two servants called the
man in whose debt he had cancelled.
The master was extremely upset with him because even though his
debt was cancelled, he demanded that a debt due him must be paid
immediately. The master thus
threw this servant into jail. In
verse 35 Jesus says that this is how His Heavenly Father will treat
those who don’t forgive others. Jesus
actually says, “this is how my Heavenly Father will treat you …”.
The word “you” refers to the disciples. The
point is that God has cancelled our sins and he expects us to cancel
other people’s sin when they repent of the sin. What
we need to understand here is that God, through Jesus has cancelled the
sin of the world, yet this can only be appropriated when we repent and
give our lives to Jesus. If
there is no repentance and no faith, the sin remains in tact, even
though Jesus paid the price for it to be cancelled.
God does not ask us to do something He Himself does not do.
This means that a person who sins against us must repent of that
sin before we can cancel it. If
there is no repentance, the sin can’t be cancelled.
Yes, we do need to act lovingly and without resentment to that
offender even if he doesn’t repent, but holding back resentment is not
what forgiveness is all about. Forgiveness is not withdrawing
resentment. It’s
withdrawing the sin from our records and that can only take place after
one has repented of the sin.
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