The Boundless Works of Jesus
As John says, a complete record of Jesus’s ministry would be impossible. To write them down one by one would be a mammoth task. John could’ve recounted another seven miracles—or another seventy. He could’ve included dozens of volumes of sermons, like we have for Charles Spurgeon and some of the other great preachers. If he wanted to, John could have told us what Jesus was like as a child: “He did many other things…” Yet John has told us about what is most important: the saving work of Jesus.
We want to know more about the bad stuff sometimes: the gossip, the bad news, someone’s dirty secrets. Other times we want to know about good things like the intricacies of creation or the complexities of God’s Word.
When it comes to Jesus, we might also be curious. What was it like for him to grow up in Nazareth? How did He get along with his siblings? You can Google “childhood stories of Jesus” and find a whole collection of apocryphal tales. About his ministry too, we’re curious: What was Jesus really like? We know that He cried—but did He laugh? Or what was He doing between the day that He arose from the dead and when He ascended?
If we can’t let go of such questions, we should read John 21:25. There John writes,
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
This verse comes at the very end of the Fourth Gospel as an editorial aside. John wants us to know something about the story that he’s told as a witness of Jesus’s ministry. He acknowledges that in telling the story, he has had to be selective. When it came time to put pen to papyrus, he had to pick and choose.
When we place John’s Gospel alongside Matthew, Mark and Luke, we see how accurate his comment is. For among these four Gospels, John’s is quite different. For instance, he records only seven specific miracles, while the others record many more. There are important things absent from John’s gospel, like Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, and his parables, the first Lord’s Supper and the risen Jesus’s departure from earth. Compared to the other three Gospels, it’s obvious that John is only a partial account.
This is even more obvious when we set John’s 21 chapters alongside Jesus’s life. Just consider how long Jesus’s ministry was: roughly three years, more than a thousand days. Jesus used those years as full of opportunities to do his Father’s will: teaching, healing, helping, interacting with his disciples and crowds and Jewish leaders.
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Uprooting Bitterness, Part 2 of 3
Life is filled with bitter tasting experiences, but pain and loss don’t have to define us or turn our hearts bitter. We don’t have to respond like Naomi, who resisted God because his plan differed from hers—because her life turned out differently than she expected. Instead, like Ruth, we can respond in humble, childlike faith and rely on him to provide and show us the way. Our response to life’s turnarounds will make us bitter or it will make us better. The choice is ours.
Life in this fallen, broken world can be very hard, even dangerous at times. Therefore, we all face various kinds of bitter tasting experiences. That’s what we began thinking about in the last post. Today, I draw your attention to two more levels of biblical awareness that will help you to uproot bitterness in your heart.
Be Aware of the Reality of Bitter Tasting Affliction
In the Old Testament, we meet a woman who experiences a great deal of pain and loss. Her birth name is Naomi, but later in life she asks people to call her Mara, which means bitter. Why is that? What bitter tasting affliction brought such pain into her life? How did she get to this point? Before we rush to harsh judgment, let’s try to put ourselves in her shoes.
The affliction begins when famine prompts a man to move his wife and two sons fifty miles east, from Bethlehem to Moab—from the land of promise to the land of pagans. While in Moab, all three men die (Ruth 1:3-4). But before his sons die, they marry Moabite women. The Moabites were descendants of one of the incestuous unions of Abraham’s nephew Lot (Genesis 19:37) who then became the enemies of Israel and corrupted them with their abominations (2 Kings 23:13). Therefore, God’s law forbade their entrance to God’s assembly (Deuteronomy 23:3). The marrying of Moabite women was unwise due to the tendency of unbelieving wives to lead men of Israel into idolatry, the most obvious example being King Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-3). Knowing this, we may conclude that the family’s move to Moab was not a good one. But, as always, the Lord has a bigger purpose and plan in mind. Something beautiful is happening behind the scenes which no one in this family can see. —a plan that will bring redemption out of brokenness, and beauty out of ashes.
With all three men dead, Naomi reverses the direction that she and her husband had taken ten years earlier. She turns her back on the graves of her loved ones and heads home, making a clean break from the tragedy that had befallen them in Moab. On the way, she tells her daughters-in-law to return to their people, for the “hand of the Lord has gone out against me,” and pronounces a blessing of God’s kindness upon them (Ruth 1:8). Though Naomi’s faith struggled, she still knew that God was kind. And even though he had dealt bitterly with her, she ensures her daughters-in-law that he will be kind to them.
Though Naomi’s faith in the goodness and kindness of God toward herself waned, she understood the bedrock truth of God’s sovereignty in her times of trial. She was then able to tell others. However, knowing this is true and resting in it don’t always coincide equally. During bitter experiences, we may still doubt the Lord.
Be Aware of How Bitterness Operates in Your Heart
Naomi’s response to her afflictions reveal three ways bitterness operates inside us.Bitterness skews your view of yourself. “Is this Naomi?” the women in town ask the one who now wears a bitter countenance (Ruth 1:20a).
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3 Things You Should Know about Matthew‘s Gospel
Matthew tells us that Jesus is the son of Abraham, by which he means not merely that Jesus is a descendant of Abraham, but that He is the promised seed of Abraham, the One in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18; 26:4). This “all nations” reach of the salvation that Jesus brings is very subtly introduced in the genealogy (Matt. 1:2–6) by mentioning four women: three of whom are gentiles (Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth) and the last of whom is the wife of a gentile (Uriah the Hittite, 2 Sam. 11:3). Then, after the birth of Jesus, we find that God has summoned gentile wise men by a star to come worship the One who is born the King of the Jews (Matt. 2:1–12, alluding to Isa. 60:1–7). When it comes time for this King to begin His public ministry, it is done in “Galilee of the Gentiles” for it is an “all nations” salvation that He brings (Matt. 4:12–17, fulfilling Isa. 9:1–2).
The first verse in Matthew’s gospel tells us three important things about Jesus that sum up a great deal of what follows.
1. Matthew is about Jesus, the Christ.
Matthew is a book about Jesus “the Christ,” that is, the promised Anointed One of the Old Testament, the Messiah (1 Sam. 2:10; Ps. 2:2; Dan. 9:25ff; see also Matt. 1:16–18; 2:4; 16:16, 20; 22:42; 23:8–10). Matthew’s gospel continues the story of salvation revealed in the Old Testament and is, most appropriately, our doorway into the New Testament. Matthew repeatedly refers to the Old Testament, even writing in its style.1
Matthew is, however, more than just a continuation of that story; it is its fulfillment—a point that is made with great emphasis. Ten times Matthew points out that what happened in the life of Jesus is the fulfillment of what the prophets had spoken (Matt. 1:22ff; 2:15; 2:17ff; 2:23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 27:9). Similarly, there are ten miracles in chapters 8–9 that demonstrate Jesus has complete power to bring His people the healing and salvation promised by the prophets (Matt. 8:17, citing Isa. 53:4; cf. Isa. 35:5). Matthew highlights this by his distinctive way of reporting on Jesus’ miracles, “healing every disease and every affliction” (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 10:1). It was not enough for him just to say, “every disease and affliction,” for he wanted to underscore that nothing could thwart His power—so, he repeats the adjective twice, “healing every disease and every affliction.” By the frequent use of the name “son of David” in connection with healings done by Jesus (Matt. 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30), he shows that His kingdom is one of complete blessing and deliverance for His people. Truly, He is the anointed Servant (Matt. 12:18–21, citing Isa. 42:1–3), the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, the fulfillment of all that the prophets foretold.
2. Matthew is about Jesus, the son of David.
Jesus Christ is also the promised son of David, the One whose kingdom would have no end (2 Sam. 7:13; Ps. 89:3ff; Isa. 9:7).
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What Does the Name Jesus Mean?
If you have been brought face-to-face with your sin and have come to believe that Jesus is your Savior, no name will be more precious to you than His. Though at one time you may have held Him at arm’s length, despised Him as nothing more than a profanity, or even thought that you could save yourself through good works, the name, the person, and the work of Jesus have now become dear, for you have drawn near to Him and experienced His compassion, kindness, and mercy.
When the angel visited Mary and Joseph to announce the birth of the Messiah, he gave clear instructions concerning the child’s name: “You shall call his name Jesus” (Matt. 1:21; Luke 1:31). Christ has many glorious names: King, Creator, Lord, Judge, Son of God, Son of David, Master, I Am, the First and the Last, etc. But the angel commanded that a very specific name be given Him at His birth—and we may wonder at the intention behind that choice. Why “Jesus”?
The name itself was not an unusual name. In fact, it is the Hellenized version of the Old Testament name Joshua. In Hebrew, it is Yeshua, and simply translated, it means “The Lord saves.” So of all the glorious names He might have been given, the name that would mark out the incarnate Son of God would be that which describes Him as Savior. Jesus’ name communicates His purpose: “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). As Peter would later proclaim, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
While Jesus’ name and ministry invite people into grace, many do not respond to Jesus Himself with warmth. His name is precious, yet so many treat it as peripheral, or even profane. During this Christmas season, then, we ought to ask ourselves, “What does the name Jesus mean to me?”
Profaned and Peripheral
Many people have no interest in the name Jesus, except perhaps as a curse word. They have no interest in Jesus as a Savior, they have not experienced Jesus’ power to change their lives, and they may even question whether Jesus really is who He says He is—but they still find the sound of His name to be a convenient interjection when they are surprised or angry. So they choose to profane the name of the incarnate God, who came to save us from our sins.
Yet it is not only the obvious offenders who profane Jesus’ name. Many people feel some respect for the name of Jesus, but their lives are busy, and so Jesus is ultimately sidelined. After all, there are places to go, people to meet, money to be earned, bills to be paid, and children to be raised. Jesus is just one of many obligations, and certainly not their chief desire. People thus have little awareness that they need to be saved at all, and they ignore the testimony of Jesus’ own name: that He has come to save them.
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