Acts 3-4 - On the Porch

Peter and John go up to the temple and enter by the famous "Beautiful Gate (Josephus “War of the Jews” Book 5 chapter 5 paragraph 3).  They heal a well-known lame man who begged regularly at that gate and leads him by the hand into the temple (Acts 3:8).  Everyone sees him walking and leaping and amazed, they follow them back out of the temple;

Acts 3:11

While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's.

On the Portico of Solomon, Peter addresses the crowd and quotes Moses from Deuteronomy 18:14-20:

Acts 3:22-23
Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ 

This is not simply a command to “Listen and obey”, where both actions are dependent on the recipient.  It is rather “Everything said by the prophet will be heard and should be obeyed”.  Only the second use of “listen” is subjunctive (a possibility), while the first is indicative (a surety).  

God will not fail to communicate.  Again from Deuteronomy 18:19, God says “I myself will require it of him”.  Everyone will hear this prophet!  

Still, however, many will not heed what is said and not experience His mercy, even when confronted by the visible power of God on the Day of Wrath (Revelation 16:1-11), which brings history to its conclusion.  

Again, in mercy it is a conclusion that will not come until the Gospel of the Kingdom is proclaimed throughout the whole world (Matthew 24:14).  

But at that conclusion, at the Great White throne (Revelation 20:11-15), again all will hear.  For those condemned, they will, however, still not heed.  There will be no repentance, but rather what Matthew describes a “gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:36-43).  To understand the phrase, see its use at the Stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:54).

You see this as well in Jesus’ description of Judgement Day (Matthew 25:31-46).  Those condemned are given a chance to respond to the charge but do not either acknowledge their inaction or request forgiveness, but rather deflect the charge saying “Lord, when did we see you . . .”.

You see in this the juxtaposition of mercy and justice.  No one will be ignorant of the charge and all that are damned will not be repentant.

Acts 1-2 - In the Upper Room

As a youth I had the opportunity to travel to Europe and work in Germany for a summer at the Torchbearer conference center called Klostermühle.  On the way there, my buddy Scott Sherman and I stayed in England in Otford Kent at Hildenborough Hall, which was a Christian teen ministry in the 70’s and 80’s.

We visited in the spring when the fields were freshly plowed and, on the surface, appeared what looked like the remnants of last year’s crop of potatoes.  They were not.  There were nodules of obsidian, which when split would reveal their glassy interior.  We were told that even after years of ploughing they would still surface.

That in mind, when describing the wonderful atmosphere of this fledgling church, Luke used a word with which translators struggle.

Acts 2:46
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, . . .

The word “generous” is also translated “simple” or “singleness” or “sincere” or “humble”.  It is aphelotēs, whose word picture is that of a stone-free well-plowed field.  It is where none of the stones are present, that would normally prevent a church from thriving.

In these chapters we saw the disciples recall their task (Luke 24:44-49), be chided by angels to get going because the Son of Man was coming back (Daniel 7:13-14), replace one of their own, be equip with the Holy Spirit and present the gospel for the first time.

This fledgeling church with 120 names on the roll, met together on Pentecost, the day after the Seventh Sabbath, that is Sunday.  They had already begun to meet on the first day of the week and it was their collective active passion (homothymadon).   This word is almost unique to Luke.  It is used three times in these two chapters (Acts 1:14; 2:1; 2:46).

Matthew 28 - Testimony, Authority, and Identity

With the events of the Passion Week, Matthew is very deliberate to note and capture testimony.  

In Matthew 27:51-56, he records the testimony of the soldiers and the women that were present for the crucifixion.  In Matthew 27:57-61, under the watchful eyes of those women the body was moved to the stone-closed tomb.  In Matthew 27:62-66, the tomb was sealed and guarded.

Then in Matthew 28:1-10, after dual-Sabbaths (sabbaton is plural, the high day (John 19:3) that starts the week-long feast of Unleavened Bread (Thu/Fri) is followed by the weekly Sabbath (Fri/Sat)), the women go on the first day of the week to embalm the body without a plan to open the tomb.

They found the tomb open and the guards gave them testimony of how the angel opened the tomb.  Then the angel bid them to enter the tomb and see the place where Jesus had lain.  No aspect of the events should be missed.  All must be witnessed.  The angel instructed them:

Matthew 28:5-7 

“Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”

Then Jesus himself appears and confirms the instruction.

“Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

But instead out of fear they locked themselves in a room that night and waited for Thomas to arrive (John 20:19-25).  There Jesus appeared again and repeated the core of his teachings:

John 20:21-23 

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Then with "Doubting Thomas" in tow, they obeyed and went to Galilee.  If they were vocal and obedient about the command, this may have been where more than 500 disciples gathered to see the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

Matthew 28:16-17 

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

They went to "the" mountain, possibly the very one where His ministry began, where He delivered the Beatitudes; where He spoke as one with "authority" (Matthew 7:29); from where He began a ministry validated by miracles demonstrating that authority (Matthew 8:9, Matthew 9:6, Matthew 9:8).  

But this day He declares His authority.  The verb "given" (didōmi) is in the aorist tense and translators vacillate between using present or past tense in English, because it is not done with respect to time.  This authority is rooted in eternity and His identity.

Matthew 28:18-20 

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you , , ,

With this authority, He commands them to make disciples and baptize them in "the" name (singular) of the Triune God.  There is only one name.  God revealed it in Exodus 3:14 as the great "I AM"; the self-existent eternal one (Yᵊhōvâ)

In the line that follows, Jesus declares His identity by using that name:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 

He did not say "will be with you".  The verb "am" (eimi) is in present tense and is stretched across all time (See for example John 8:56-59).  Something a simple man cannot do.  In this phrase He declares Himself to be the Son of God.

Eight days later (length of a round trip to Galilee) they once again lock themselves in the room in Jerusalem (John 20:24-29).  This time with Thomas.  Jesus once again appears to them and invites Thomas to touch His wounds.  

Thomas could only reply “My Lord and my God!”.

Matthew 27 - Victory Song

Before being placed on the cross, wine drugged with Gall (cholē), or myrrh (smyrnizō) as Mark describes it (Mark 15:23), was mercifully given to the condemned by wealthy ladies of Jerusalem in response to Proverbs 31:6.  Jesus did not take advantage of this.  It was designed to dull the pain and shorten the process.

Matthew 27:33-36

And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there.

Instead, the process of crucifixion is intended to takes days.  Soldiers are present to prevent actions by spectators that would hasten the death of the condemned.  So, those that came by tormented Him instead with words.

Matthew 27:39-44

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads. . . save yourself . . . come down from the cross . . . come down now . . . let God deliver him now . . . And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

At the ninth hour Jesus cries out:

Matthew 27:45-46

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This is the first line of a Psalm that the hearers of this cry would have sung and would have been familiar. (Psalm 22).  It is a prophecy of this very crucifixion.  It foretells the:

• Mockery, including wagging of the head (Psalm 22:7-8)
• Piercing of His hands and feet (Psalm 22:16)
• Dividing garments by lot (Psalm 22:18)
• Thirst (Psalm 22:15)

But it also contains a prayer:

Psalms 22:20

Deliver my soul from the sword,

my precious life from the power of the dog!

And it concludes with the victorious answer to that prayer “. . . that he has done it.” (Psalm 22:29-31).

That victory plays out in His next breath.  His last.

Matthew 27:50

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

Jesus, just as He did in the Garden, before the High Priest, and before Pilate, confounded their plans.  Detainment without a fight.  Trial without testimony.  Sentencing without defense.  Here too on the cross, if he had He followed man’s plan His body would have succumbed to the heat, the pain, and the fatigue and would have died silently.

But instead, in full control, He bid His soul depart, in a shout of victory.

Matthew 27 - The Potter

In the previous chapter, when Peter denied Christ, Matthew dropped in a word without fully explaining it.  

Matthew 26:69

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.”

Who else was "also" in the courtyard that was with Jesus?  Peter gained entrance to the courtyard of the High Priest because of another disciple, who knew the High Priest and was known to the servants (John 18:15-17).  

Matthew does this again in Matthew 27:3-10.  Judas in his guilt attempts to return the money that he received for betraying Jesus.  Rebuffed by the priests, he throws the money into the temple.  This left the chief priests with a problem.

Matthew 27:6
But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.”

To keep from bringing guilt upon themselves, they eventually used the money to purchase "the" field in which they found Judas had hanged himself.  This discovery and transaction took time, for it appears that his body was not buried in a timely fashion (Acts 1:18-19).

Matthew 27:7-8

So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

This event was the fulfillment of yet another prophecy (the last mentioned by Matthew).  

Matthew 27:9-10

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me.”

Confusingly, what follows is cited loosely from Zechariah instead of from Jeremiah.  Matthew, rather than making a mistake, is for a third time omitting the full explanation and drawing those familiar with the passages into their fulfillment.  Read both.

Zechariah 11:12-13

Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.

Jeremiah 18:1-4

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

The LORD God is “the potter” and worthy of His wages.  The sovereign work of the potter ordained Judas for damnation (Romans 9:21).

Matthew 26 - Another Master

 In Matthew 26:6-13, a woman anointed Jesus in a very expensive act of worship.  

Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table.

John 12:1-11 tells us that woman was Mary and that the event was the celebration dinner following the resurrection of Lazarus.  It was held at Simon “The Leper”, who we can infer was healed by Christ.  Please note that Martha was still serving, this time happily.

The disciples were all indignant, though John’s Gospel adds that Judas, because of his own greed, spoke up for he was in charge of the moneybag and regularly stole from it.

“Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

This woman and her act of worship has a permanent place of honor.

This honor is multiplied by the contrast of the very next event (Matthew 26:14-16).

Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

This act of betrayal has a similar permanent place of infamy.  Matthew connects these two events as Judas leaves one master to follow another.  

Please reflect back on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:24) and impossibility to serve both.

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Matthew 24:3-25:46 - The Olivet Discourse

In its entry for the Olivet Discourse, Wikipedia lists seven different opinions as to which generation is the subject of the Lesson of the Fig tree.  Here we will add an eighth.

Matthew 24:32-35
“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes ten-der and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

• The early part of the prophecy (Matthew 24:1-8) is “but the beginning of the birth pains.”, what we would call false labor.  Those pains that send many an inexperienced couple to the hospital early, only to be sent home.  

• The next part (Matthew 24:9-14) is tribulation-filled, and con-tains the multi-generational preaching of the Gospel to the whole world, what we would call labor.

• The last part (Matthew 24:15-28) describes a time so terrible that it has to be brief, what we would call the delivery.  

Please note that the parable does not compare the budding of the tree to those early events, but rather it compares the tree coming into full leaf, with “all these things”.  The parable simply reinforces that the end would be brief.

But why did He use “this generation” rather than “that generation”?  

He is speaking prophetically from His celestial vantage point and dur-ing the entire prophecy those awaiting these multi-generational events are referred to as “you” and those unprepared for them as “they”.  There are multiple generations of “you” and “they”.  In a simi-lar way he moves forward the generational marker of time and used “this” generation.  

Said a different way, in His divinity He is not restricted to the current moment, from which we must look forward to “that” generation.

If was not until He reached the end of the prophecy and spoke from their shared terrestrial perspective of “that” day.

Matthew 24:36
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

____________

Unfortunately because there are no comma in Greek, there are also alternate views of the final judgement and its use of the word "these".

“Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

In the section Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus describes the final judgement, during which only two groups are formed.  This is key because of His later use of the phrase “least of these”, represents the opposite group, not an unnamed third group.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 

Another key is the word “inherit”, because of it He will call them “brothers”.  And please let the word "blessed" invoke memories of the Sermon on the Mount.  Surprised by their place in the will, the King had to explain how they were generous to Him.

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

He called “brothers”, those who share in the inheritance, because they were generous to the least of “these” (those not called “brothers”).  The righteous, by definition, loves the sinner, for those that hate the sinner are not righteous.

Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

The opposite is said to those who are not “brothers”.  They will be condemned for their lack of selfless love for the righteous.