Today’s passage is Matthew 16:1-12.
When the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign, he says they can’t interpret the sign of the times and the only sign they’ll get is the sign of Jonah.
Jesus warns the disciples against the teaching of the Pharisees, but they have trouble understanding what he means and he berates them for their slowness.
Neither the Pharisees nor the disciples understand what Jesus is talking about and he is gentle with neither of them.
The Pharisees are highly educated while the disciples are uneducated. But neither can understand. They have Jesus in front of them teaching them about God and the kingdom of heaven but they don’t understand. His metaphors are too hard.
Knowing God does not come easy. The surest way is to read and meditate on the Word. For years.
On Wednesday, Pastor Kim said the best education is reading the Bible, the word of God. That’s why QT is so important for me. It is the practice of reading the Word and interpreting myself in its light.
I thought about Jesus teaching me with his word.
Like the Pharisees, I sometimes just don’t want to look at myself with God’s eyes.
Like the disciples, I’m sometimes just too dense and I wish God could be clearer. I struggle with unfamiliar metaphors.
Today one of my teachers came to me to tell me that an uncle he was close to just died of heart failure. An hour later he got another mail telling him a cousin he’d grown up with was just killed in a car accident. I could see from his eyes that he was ready to cry. I could tell from his body language that I couldn’t hold him.
I trust that God let me interpret the situation correctly.
I briefly shared the time my best friend died and three months later my first wife died. I could see my shared loss helped steady him.
I told him to forget teaching for the afternoon and go grieve, go think about what a good death is.
Tomorrow I will share more deeply with him. He is far away from his hometown in Canada and his wife is away.
Life is hard.
Lord, let me be the yeast you need for helping this suffering teacher.
