Episode 74 Matthew 16-17

Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan. Today I’m joined by my father, David Jackson. We are going through the book of Matthew. We’ve been doing this series for quite a while. Now we are looking at chapters 16 and 17 today, which is quite a pivotal piece. Really. I know in definitely in Mark its like the corner, that’s the middle. It’s how the whole book pivots on this, on this passage. and I think it’s similar in Matthew. You’re not quite the, you know, it’s not the exact middle of the book, but , there is still this whole, this is where, where we’re coming to. So chapter 16 starts started with the Pharisees coming and testing Jesus saying they want a sign straight after he’s fed 5,000 people walked on water and then fed 4,000 people from very little. Yep.

David: (00:44)
They sort of missed that.

Dan: (00:45)
Yeah. Yeah. Jesus seems to think they should have gotten that, but

David: (00:49)
Well, certainly the healings.

Dan: (00:51)
Yeah.

David: (00:51)
But healing all these people on both sides of the lake. yeah,

Dan: (00:56)
Yeah, yeah. It’s hard for the to know what they were thinking to go. Yeah. I need a sign. Did they come up from Judiea or something?

David: (01:02)
Yeah. No,

Dan: (01:04)
They just missed it themselves.

David: (01:06)
They missed it.

Dan: (01:06)
Missed it. Big time then Jesus, moves away from Capernaum again. Mm-hmm and he heads up to Caesarea Philippi. Is that the right

David: (01:17)
Caesarea Philippi.

Dan: (01:18)
Good. You got the right one. Yep. so up in Caesarea Philippi is where we’re gonna have Peter’s confession that you know yeah. Where else have we to go youré, your Christ. so why is this so important to start with, why is the location important for this stuff happening? Cause we’re gonna have the, you Peter’s gonna confess his, the Christ and they’re gonna go up Mount Hermon, which is right there. Yeah. And she’s gonna transfigure it on Mount Hermon and have Moses and Elijah period, all that kind of stuff. It’s quite a, a, some key events happening. Yeah. You know, God’s gonna speak again, which he hasn’t done since the baptism. Well least not anything

David: (01:55)
But Jesus. Not loud.

Dan: (01:56)
Yeah.

David: (01:57)
That’s right. Yeah. Now this is, this is brilliant. This is, you, you gotta picture Jesus is preparing his disciples for what he knows is gonna happen, but they don’t. So they’ve got it fixed in their idea that that we’re looking for the Messiah, the Davidic king, he’s gonna come and set up his kingdom in Jerusalem. Romans are gonna disappear. We’re gonna, you know, the people of Israel are gonna come back to Yahweh they’re gonna be a faithful generation. Like it was under Joshua and God’s gonna take care of all the bad guys. And the kings of the earth will start bringing tribute into Jerusalem. We’re all gonna be rich. You know, it’s peace in our time at last. So this is their eschatological, their end of the world view of how it’s gonna work.

Dan: (02:45)
So why not just align yourself with the life of Moses and Elijah?

David: (02:49)
Yeah.

Dan: (02:50)
Bit of a juxtaposition,

David: (02:51)
A bit of a juxtaposition. So Jesus has to take these guys aside and quietly. Remember, we’re keeping all the plans are secret from the enemy, but we’re gonna take these guys aside and let him in on the secret. Well, the secret is he’s gonna go to Jerusalem and he’s gonna get dead and rise again. And this is gonna come as a bit of a shock. It doesn’t work in their thinking. So the thing to watch in Matthew 16 is that Jesus uses three titles. So who do you say that I am? You’re the Christ, the son of the living. God cool. So we’ve got the Messiah thing, right The Davidic king, but Jesus refers to himself as the son of man and in a little and in a little while, we’re gonna go up to the top of Mount Hermon and God, the father is going to use O Isaiah’s words and say, this is my son.

David: (03:45)
Only the word son. There is the word for servant. And he’s identifying Jesus for the second time as the servant that Isaiah talked about who was gonna die. So how do you put together Messiah king ruling in Jerusalem, son of man, God, in, in human form, enthroned, in heaven, and he’s gonna die to pay for our sins. How can the one person do those three things? So in this text in Matthew 16, Matthew 17, all three titles are in play and Jesus is gonna reveal to the 12 that he is the Christ, the son of man. And he’s gonna tell him that he’s gonna die and rise again, but they didn’t hear that bit. Yeah. , they’re still in shock about the dying part. And Peter goes off his rocker as Peter tends to do as spokesman for all of us. Yep. no, no, no, no.

David: (04:44)
You’ve got the plan wrong. you know, the Bible says , let’s tell Jesus what the Bible says. you know, that’s not what the Messiah is gonna do. And he just goes, get behind me. And he calls him Satan and the word Satan means opponent. So Peter is standing in the middle of the road, opposing where Jesus is going. And he says, you follow me. You don’t block me. Get behind. So, okay. We’re all confused now. Yeah. And then he says, right, you three, follow me now. I, I used to think I about you when you were in the Bible. I used to think he went up the high mountain and I’m thinking, okay, it must have been breakfast time when they had this conversation and he’s gone for a walk up you know, up the hill. They’ve had lunch at the top of the hill and then they’ve come back.

David: (05:37)
You’re thinking of a hill, got a mountain. I certainly wasn’t thinking of Mount Hermon. So we go to Israel and we’re at Caesar Philippi. And where, where Peter’s having this conversation, you remember, there’s this big cave and there’s a temple to the Greek God Pan. And it’s the centre of Greek Roman pagan worship. Yeah. And you’re going, it’s also the source of the Jordan river and you’re going, yeah. We’re gonna go to the place where they worship the pagan gods and go and who am I? you know, you’re the Christ. You’re the son of man. Okay. We’ve got that bit right now. Let’s climb the mountain.

Dan: (06:14)
Yeah. But a week later,

David: (06:16)
it is. Yeah, it is a week later. He’s I reckon I, I did a little calculation in there. Luke says about eight days. He, Jesus doesn’t travel on Sunday on Saturday rather. So six days he’s traveling, they go up a mountain. It says six days. And I’m thinking, okay, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. He’s up there getting ready for the Sabbath and eight days roughly a week. Yeah. That’s Luke’s account. Well, hang on a minute. Where does he take him? 30 kilometre hike up. That’s that’s if you were on a high wire, if you’re actually walking and it’s more like 50 or 60 K. Yeah. And you get up and you’re climbing not two, 2000 metres.

Dan: (07:11)
Yeah. It’s pretty

David: (07:12)
High. It’s pretty high. So you get up there. It’s snow covered. Forgot to mention that and we’re camping and all of a sudden Jesus starts glowing. So you gotta imagine the backdrop of the snow and he’s glowing. And if you have, if you’ve got the key of the old Testament, you’re going Yahweh Mount Sinai, Moses face glowing, except it’s all of Jesus glowing. It

Dan: (07:42)
Elijah too. Both of them got to see God, you know, Moses is a lot more than Elijah, but Elijah gets to see back, right.

David: (07:49)
Yeah. And as he goes off and they’re both doing it on Mount Sinai. Yeah. But we are on Mount Hermon, which is at the other end of Israel now. Okay. What are we doing here? This is the place where the Canaanites believed Baal and El and Asherah and all their pagan gods were cavorting with one another and building palaces and, you know, having sex with everything that moved be they gods or humans. this is the place where evil happens. All your superstitions are here and Jesus goes up there. And these gods are having babies called sons of God. And there’s one mad group of Jews at the time who thought angels arrived down there and went and had sex with women. And that was the beginning of all our problems. So Hermon is a really significant place. This is where the sons of God, mm. you know, the fallen angels were doing supposed to be doing their thing and all of that mythology and Jesus, God, the father comes along and says, no, this is my son. Forget those other ones. This is my son. Right? The Hebrew says, when did God ever say to an angel, you are my son. Hebrew is one, five. This is my son. Yeah. Listen to him.

David: (09:10)
Elijah. Is there Moses, is there? What do they have in common? You can’t find their body. Moses dies

Dan: (09:21)
Up on a mountain,

David: (09:21)
Up on a mountain. And God says, don’t bother going, looking for him. Mm. Elijah doesn’t die. He goes straight up to heaven. Now let’s think son of man in heaven, ruling, son of David on a throne in Jerusalem ruling servant of the Lord, this is my servant. Mm-hmm dead. How does it work? Answer resurrection.

Dan: (09:46)
Yeah.

David: (09:46)
So he is got the three up there. And the thing that they’re gonna discuss as they come down the mountain is what’s resurrection. Cuz that’s the key to who Jesus is. He is the one who will rule from heaven. He will come back and rule on earth and he will die to pay for our sins, but he will rise again. And he is the whole package. And we’re gonna go to the most significant places where people believe rubbish and go, no, this is the one.

Dan: (10:19)
Well now that sounds like a good place to stop. There is a little bit more the left in the story that we were gonna chat about. But that’s the last bit is just about Jesus coming down and healing a demoniac. Yeah. at the end there it’s

David: (10:32)
ING on the

Dan: (10:32)
Cake. Yeah, that’s right. It’s kind of like, you know, you come down disciples, haven’t done it. You know, you can only do it by prayer. And so actually my pastor preached on this not too long ago. And he was saying, he was actually talking about how the disciples by coming to Jesus, they are in fact praying by coming to him. And then he says, it comes out by a prayer out You get yep. and then the last little bit in chapter 17 is the paying the tax for the temple. Oh, which I think links really well with the resurrection stuff. Yeah.

David: (11:01)
Yeah. It does. You, you know, the, you’re paying a tax to support a building in Jerusalem and God hasn’t been in that building since five 20 BC, when they put it back up again, it’s an empty box and you’re paying the temple tax, which they invented for the second temple. and Jesus, there’s a great controversy about who’s supposed to pay the tax. They get to Peter’s house. They’ve had this big hike. They’ve been, you know, 50, 60 kilometers north. And they come down, they’re home, their wives and kids are all waiting for them. They get to Peter’s house and the Pharisees are waiting. Do you pay the tax? and Jesus just walks straight past them into Peter’s house and ignores him and leaves Peter to say, yeah, we do go away. And he goes inside the house. Jesus says, yeah, go, go fishing.

David: (11:53)
you, you you’ll find the money there. I’m not the people who’ve donated money to support Jesus, the real temple. We don’t take their money and pay for an empty box. Mm. Go fishing and you just, you love the, the wit in the way Jesus deals with these twisted demented people who want to take out the one who’s come to save them. but I just, I like that picture that we’ve arrived at Peter’s house back down from the mountain from Caesarea Philippi. And it’s like this big, fair. I, I, I picture what follows here. like a big family, barbecue at Peter’s place with the 12 disciples and their wives and kids, you know, we’re home and he just gathers these ducklings together and they’re having a little family clan gathering

Dan: (12:48)
Well, that does bring us to the end of this episode. Yeah. If you would like to come and grab the study notes for this episode, please head to trainingforliferedeemed.com/74. If you enjoy the episode, please leave us a review and make sure you hit the subscribe button and come back and join us next week. As we continue to look through the book of Matthew.