Matthew 17:24-27 - "And when they had come to Capernaum, those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter..."

Matthew 17:24-27

I honestly forgot this story was even in the Gospels, it's talked about so little. Maybe the weird way Jesus obtained money to pay the temple tax makes modern day people feel uncomfortable. Asking Peter to fetch a coin from a fish's mouth is a bit too hocus pocus for us. We're fine if Jesus has his disciples get their breakfast in miraculous ways--dropping their net to one side of the boat and pulling up a haul of 153 fish (John 21:5-14). But when it comes to obtaining cold hard cash we're uncomfortable unless it's being earned by a day's work.

I'll come back to why I think Jesus chose to pay the tax in this unusual way. As for the rest of the passage, you might have noticed the footnotes in Bible Gateway tell us that the two-drachma tax is the temple tax. That's pretty important. Because from the exchange Jesus had with Peter, it's clear that he regarded himself and his disciples as sons--not strangers--who should have been exempt from this tax, but he consented to pay it anyhow so as not to give offense. The reason Jesus said they were sons was that the temple was his Father's house and the disciples were also a part of God's household. So actually Jesus, as the Son of God, should have been the one receiving the tax money, not paying it out.

Jesus' sufferings on earth were both great and small. One of his lesser sufferings was knowing he was a son but being treated like a stranger. The little indignities that he absorbed every day largely go unmentioned in the Gospel accounts, but you can imagine it was probably a daily occurrence. Even as a boy his parents scolded him for simply doing what a son ought to: hanging around his Father's house. I imagine twelve-year-old Jesus was mystified at Joseph's and Mary's distress. He probably thought, "Isn't that the whole reason you brought me to Jerusalem? Why else am I here?"

Humility is bending to these indignities and aiming instead not to give offense. "Give [the tax money] to them for you and for Me." Jesus paid taxes to his own Father's house. And perhaps the reason the stater was provided through the fish's mouth was to show that the Father was the one providing it for Jesus. Do you invite guests into your home then pay them rent to allow you to sleep in your own bedroom? Well, God the Father chose to pay taxes to his own house.

This shouldn't be a surprise. The humility of God is such that he also paid a ransom to buy back the very people he created. He had to purchase back what belonged to him from the start. And the price he paid for them was prohibitively high, even though the debt they incurred was owed to him. The one who should have been paid was the one who paid out the price.

Matthew 17:14-23 - "When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus..."

Matthew 17:14-23

Jesus' rebuke to this man with the demon-possessed son, and to the townspeople in general, sounds harsh until you consider that there were some unbelieving towns where Jesus refused to do any miracles at all. At least this crowd got off with a scolding, and the father received the cure he wanted for his son. For further insight into why Jesus had such a prickly attitude toward them, check the parallel passage in Mark 9:14-29 where it says Jesus reprimanded this father for saying "if you can do anything." The father was treating Jesus like a shot in the dark, a crapshoot, instead of the Son of God sent from heaven. Then after Jesus healed the boy and he lay still, the townspeople immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was dead. It was like they were waiting for Jesus to fail.

What distressed Jesus most about people's unbelief was that he was right there, in the flesh, doing miracle after miracle in the sight of all. If they didn't believe now, when would they? What would it take? So he says,"How long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?"

The disciples came to Jesus privately, recognizing their own part in the failed exorcism, but notice how Jesus was more gentle and fatherly with them. He told them the problem was the littleness of their faith, but he didn't treat them as if they lacked faith altogether. Now why did Jesus say the littleness of their faith was the problem, then go on to exhort them to have mustard-seed-sized faith? A mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds around. Was Jesus saying small faith was the problem, or was it the solution?

I'm not sure what the answer is. To me it sounds as if he's saying not only did they have little faith, but they lacked faith in their little faith. They failed to see that even small faith can do the impossible if you understood that it was not the quantity but quality of your faith that mattered. As the saying goes, it's not about the greatness of your faith, but the greatness of the God in whom you put your faith that counts.

But you don't want to make the mistake of thinking faith is all about sending concentrated brain waves toward getting what you want, like the power of positive thinking, or Luke Skywalker dislodging his lightsaber from the snow. Jesus could heal sickness and exorcise demons because the sin that brought those conditions upon people would be paid for in his blood. He asked people to believe in him because his power to do miracles was rooted in his curse-reversing death. So this story concludes with Jesus telling his disciples that he must be handed over, killed, and raised on the third day. They grieved. They didn't understand that these miracles they rejoiced in were inseparable from the cup Jesus had to drink.

Matthew 17:9-13 - "As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them..."

Matthew 17:9-13

Many times we have seen Jesus swear people to secrecy, whether it's about his various healing miracles or Peter's confession that he was the Christ. Matthew has already explained in 12:15-21 that Jesus' ministry was not an advertising campaign. While it's true he didn't take every measure to hide his miracles, nevertheless the theme of his ministry was to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 42:2: "He will not quarrel, nor cry out; nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets." The Suffering Servant would not try to control the airwaves. He let others draw their own conclusions, whether they thought he should be worshipped or murdered.

I do wonder though if Jesus' command to "tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead" was more than just about being low key. Peter, James and John didn't seem to have a clue what the vision was all about, and perhaps Jesus knew they wouldn't until he rose from the dead. What could they possibly say about it in the meantime? "Hey everybody! You'll never guess what we just saw!" It would be all about them and how special they were to witness something spectacular, making the other disciples jealous. The apostle Paul was famously humbled by a thorn in the flesh to keep him from boasting of visions he saw (2 Cor. 12:1-10). Jesus may have imposed silence on his disciples to restrain their pride as well as their ignorance.

The disciples responded to Jesus' command by asking him about Elijah. At first that seems pretty strange. You have to consult Mark 9:10 to see that they got there because Jesus' admonishment led them to debate about the resurrection. I imagine it went something like this: "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead." "Did he just say 'rise from the dead'?" "I think so. What does that mean?" "I think it means this, I think it means that, blah blah." "Hey, wasn't Elijah supposed to rise from the dead?" "That's what the scribes say. He was supposed to come before the Christ." "So where is he?" "He never came! Maybe the scribes are wrong." "Say, Rabbi, why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"

Jesus answered by first affirming that the scribes were correct. "Elijah is coming and will restore all things." He spoke of Elijah in the present and future tense as a way of confirming the truth of this statement. But then he immediately switched to the past tense to reveal that the prophecy about Elijah already happened. "But I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." Jesus used their inquiry as an opportunity to reiterate what he knew was so hard for the disciples to swallow: that he also would suffer and die. John the Baptist was the great, much-anticipated Elijah--look at how they treated him. Was it so hard now to imagine the same happening to the Christ?

John was truly Jesus' forerunner in every way, even in suffering a cruel fate. Every other disciple of Jesus followed him in losing their life. Only John the Baptist had the unique honor of preceding him. No wonder Jesus praised John as the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (11:11).

Matthew 17:1-8 - "And six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother..."

Matthew 17:1-8

The two other times this story of Jesus' transfiguration is told in the Gospels (Mark 9:2-8 and Luke 9:28-36), it always follows right after Jesus said something to the effect of "some of those standing here will not taste death until they see the coming kingdom of God." That's important to note because otherwise you're thinking, "Well, that never happened. Here we are two thousand years later, the disciples are dead, and Jesus still hasn't returned in glory."

The transfiguration that Peter, James, and John got to witness apparently was the revelation of the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Normally we think of Jesus' second coming as a time and space event. It will happen in the future. He will come with the angelic host. The final judgment on mankind will take place. But evidently all that is just so much window dressing because the essence of the coming kingdom is centered on Jesus himself and the revelation of his glory.

Jesus pulled back the veil of his humble fleshly garb, and his entire body from his face to his clothes poured forth blazing light. This is what is means for the kingdom of God to come. The king is revealed in his true glory. Apparently what also got torn back was the veil that separated this world from the world to come, because suddenly Moses and Elijah were hanging out with him chatting, a preview of post-resurrection life.

A lot of people think that life in heaven will just be a return to the Garden of Eden, with a lot of trees and eating fruit and petting animals. But this vision tells us that Jesus' glorified existence, and the existence of everyone who shares in it, will not be about continuing to live in a regular fleshly body that doesn't die. It's about receiving a resurrected body that is full of light, power, and immortality (1 Corinthians 15:42-45, 52-54). Your glorified body is suited for a higher existence in the heavenly kingdom, right alongside the angels. When Jesus preaches the promise of eternal life, this is a picture of what it is.

Remember when the apostle Paul had a similar encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus (Acts 9:3-6)? It changed his life. In a flash he understood that all his law-keeping was a massive dung heap because he saw Jesus in resurrection glory. Immediately he comprehended that Jesus, not the law, was the way to eternal life.

That's probably what should have happened to Peter, James, and John, but these three were a bit slower than Paul. Instead it ended up being an awkward moment of Peter blathering on about making three tabernacles, because, well, we've all been there. That moment when you feel like you're supposed to say something even though you don't know what, and you end up blurting out something stupid. To make things worse, God the Father rebuked Peter's three tabernacles idea, sending them all diving to the ground in fear. It's another instance of the raw honesty of the Gospel writers. I mean, what a disappointment that the moment of The Big Reveal ended up crumbling into a scene of awkwardness and embarrassment. When it was all over, I could just picture the three of them frazzled, bewildered, and probably wishing they had made a better showing in front of Bible celebrities like Moses and Elijah.

But in the end they did get it. John would later say, "We beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Peter would say, "But to the degree you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation" (1 Peter 4:13). They saw Jesus' glory and wanted to pass it along to the rest of the saints. If only you had been there, you would have seen Hope itself. If you had seen what we saw, you would find courage in your sufferings. And yet you can see him. With eyes of faith you can see what we saw. "And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible, and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8).

Matthew 16:21-28 - "From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem..."

Matthew 16:21-28

The usual commentary on this passage is, "Look how fast Peter went from confessing Jesus as the Christ to becoming a mouthpiece of Satan! It just goes to show that one moment you could be doing great things for the Lord, and the next thing you know you are siding with the enemy. See how pride goes before a fall?" And so it does. I don't think Peter did a 180 within, say, five minutes of the magnificent confession we saw in the previous passage. It's possible several days or even weeks passed between these events. But it was no accident that the gospel writer placed this story of Jesus rebuking Peter immediately after the story of his giving Peter high praise. Certainly the contrast was meant to be both jarring and instructive.

But what interests me is the instruction that follows. There seems to be a loosely connected train of thought in Jesus' discourse. He goes from rebuking Peter for failing to understand the necessity of his death and resurrection to telling the disciples that they must not save their lives otherwise they will lose their souls. Then he says the Son of Man will return in glory to recompense mankind for their deeds, adding that some of the disciples will have a chance to catch a preview of said Second Coming very soon. I know it seems like Jesus often makes trapeze-artist-type leaps in thought. But instead of going along with it in lazy indifference, how about we try to unpack it a bit?

After Peter protested Jesus' disclosure that he must be killed and then rise again from the dead, I expected Jesus to turn to his disciples and instruct them on the doctrine of the atonement. "Guys, don't you see why I need to die? The sins of the world need to be paid for, man! I'm the Lamb! You'll die in your sins if I don't do this. You may not like it, but it is what it is." But instead Jesus instructs them on why they need to be willing to die. Now this is a familiar passage where we know he's talking about the cost of discipleship, but I think we assume that he isn't addressing Peter's protest directly. We think maybe he's just leaping to this topic because "while we're on the subject of dying, let me give you some more bad news, which is that you're also gonna have to die if you follow me."

But what if this instruction about costly discipleship was a direct response to Peter's protest? That is, Jesus was confronting Peter's reaction against a deeper principle: he only wanted to be a part of this program for the triumph, not for the suffering. Peter's concern was not just for Jesus but, more viscerally, for himself and what he's signing up for. This was not about Peter's failure to understand the doctrine of atonement, but his aversion to the principle upon which the entire kingdom of God operated. Salvation emerges out of damnation. Life is born out of death. Suffering must precede glory. When Peter exclaimed, "Lord, this shall never happen to you!" he was also saying at a deeper level, "May this never happen to me!" As human beings our problem with the gospel isn't necessarily solved by getting educated about doctrine. Quite often it's about challenging our heart to relinquish it's death-grip on this life, this world, the flesh and its idols.

Which makes it more incredible when Jesus follows up with "the Son of Man...will then recompense every man according his deeds." At first this seems like a slight disconnect with the costly discipleship discourse. That's because we normally think of evil deeds in terms of lying and stealing and sexual immorality and the like. But not taking up our cross? Not despising our own life? Not dying to this world? That's how Jesus describes the deeds that will be judged. He is saying evil is bigger than cheating on your taxes or even committing adultery. This is about cosmic principles at war with each other, where we must choose sides. Jesus has come to call us out of this world, out of enemy territory. Coming to him means nothing less than putting to death everything you hold dear. To reject this calling is not a neutral position, it is siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. That choice, and all the evil deeds that come out of it, is why the Son of Man will return to judge the world.

Matthew 16:13-20 - "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He began asking His disciples..."

Matthew 16:13-20

Jesus waited until we were sixteen chapters deep into Matthew's Gospel to ask his disciples this critical, fundamental question: "Who do you say that I am?"

This strikes me as odd. You mean, all the way up to this point he wasn't indoctrinating them with the correct answer? He wasn't catechizing them daily? "Question: Who is Jesus of Nazareth?" "Answer: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" He actually waited until the disciples spent quite a bit of time observing him, seeing his works, witnessing his interactions, doing ministry for themselves, having him save their bacon a few times, and then he came to them with the question: "Who do you say that I am?"

This is not someone who's interested in hearing only what he wants to hear. This is someone who's interested in what you really think after you've had plenty of time to process. After you've had a chance to develop enough trust in the relationship to be totally honest with him. Jesus actually wants you to weigh the evidence and come to your own conclusion about him.

He didn't even land the question on his disciples right away, but first asked them what other people were saying about him. Was Jesus just warming up to the subject? Getting the ol' icebreaker going before closing in on what he really wanted to know? Probably not. By asking them to list the theories being generated by the rumor mill, he was allowing the disciples to sift through their own hearts. "Well, some say John the Baptist, but we know that's not true. Some say he's Elijah come back from the dead, but we know John had the spirit of Elijah, so it's not that. Jeremiah? But our Teacher is not claiming to be any old prophet. The way he talks about God being his Father and all the miracles we've seen? No, this is big. This is waaaay bigger than even Jeremiah."

Jesus' wise approach was rewarded when Simon Peter confessed, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Because then he could respond, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." You got that straight out of the mind of God himself, Simon. See how you have been chosen for this blessing? And if you think that's exciting, well it's only the beginning. You are the first among many who will make the same confession. In fact, from now on I will call you Peter, which means rock, because your confession will lay the rockbed foundation for my church that I am building. Many will come after you confessing me as the Christ, and the power of my name is so great not even Hades itself can prevail over it. It is so great you will wield it on earth with the authority of heaven itself."

And Peter did. In the name of Jesus Christ he healed a lame man (Acts 3:6-7) proclaimed salvation before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:12), and suffered a flogging (Acts 5:40-41). He judged Ananias and Sapphira for putting the Spirit of the Lord to the test (Acts 5:1-11). He raised Tabitha from the dead (Acts 9:36-41). He preached to Cornelius and witnessed the Holy Spirit fall upon Gentile believers (Acts 10:9-48). All this began humbly and stumblingly in Peter's simple confession of Jesus as the Christ. Not out of indoctrination or outside pressure, but out of the depths of his own heart, his own personal conviction. It started small and grew up big. Just as Jesus told us in 13:31-32:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds; but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."

Matthew 16:1-12 - "And the Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Him asked Him to show them a sign from heaven."

Matthew 16:1-12

In this passage Jesus rebukes both the Pharisees and Sadducees, and later on his own disciples, for their unbelief. Jesus scolds both groups for not knowing better: the religious leaders for not knowing how to read the sign of the times, and the disciples for fretting about bread on the heels of his two feeding miracles. One group is openly hostile toward Jesus, and the other are his friends. So what is the difference between the unbelief of the two groups? The first group Jesus would later refer to as sons of hell (23:15). The second group Jesus ends up commissioning to preach the gospel to all the world, even as they stand there doubting his resurrection (28:16-20). So how do we know if we have an unbelieving unbelief or a believing struggle with unbelief? How can we know if Jesus is going to respond to us with scary condemnation or with a fatherly scolding?

When the Pharisees and Sadducees asked Jesus for a sign, they did so because they were "testing him." It wasn't the first time either. The Pharisees along with the scribes had made it a practice to stalk and harass Jesus regularly. Back in 12:38-42 they demanded a sign from him and were denied. Jesus told them then that the only sign they would be getting was the sign of Jonah, and even gave a lengthy explanation of what that meant. So you can understand his curtness to them in this passage. He had been around this merry-go-round with them before. Not to mention the Pharisees were also going around publicly accusing him of casting out demons using satanic power (12:24) and were actively plotting his destruction (12:14).

So there's that history. But even aside from all that, their entire attitude toward Jesus in this encounter reeks of arrogance. "You're guilty until proven innocent." "You need to convince us on our terms, not yours." All the while pretending to be seekers who wanted to know the truth, who needed only one more sign to convince them, as if Jesus' very public mass healings and feedings and exorcisms were a paltry show. They came to him with a dishonesty, insincerity, and deceitfulness that made Jesus turn around and walk away. There was an evil agenda hidden behind those smiling faces. The reason they didn't believe is quite simply because they didn't want to.

The disciples by contrast did believe. Jesus called them "you men of little faith," not "you men of no faith." They did have a weak faith, but they did not come to him deceitfully. They were anxious to do things right, so much so that they got all tied up in knots over forgetting to bring bread for the trip. They thought Jesus would be disappointed because they were irresponsible. It never occurred to them that Jesus actually expected them to be irresponsible at times, and what really disappointed him was that they didn't console themselves with the realization that he could simply provide. Apparently they thought he provided bread for the multitudes because those people were pitiable. But to provide bread for themselves because they had been forgetful was, in their minds, not a good enough reason.

This reasoning sounds familiar, doesn't it? I don't want to ask God to provide for me if I was irresponsible. I was late getting out of the house. Should I pray that the meeting would start late? But I deserve to face the consequences of my actions, not treat God as a genie to get me out of another scrape! How can this be a time for faith when it should be a time for guilt and self-flaggelation? It never occurs to me that Jesus is more disappointed in my unbelief, in my assumption that he can't (or won't) help me, than he is in my laziness or forgetfulness.

So the unbelief of the disciples was of a completely different kind than that of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It had to do with the limits that they, in their little faith, put on Jesus' love for them. Jesus' rebuke to them was in the vein of what he said back in 6:30: "But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?" The unbelief of the Pharisees and Sadducees, on the other hand, wasn't even close to being engaged in the struggle to believe in Jesus' love for them. As far as they were concerned, Jesus had nothing to offer them. It was their job to judge him. Their unbelief was all about looking for grounds to discredit him, to ultimately drag him before the authorities and have him killed.