Day 295 (Matthew 18) - Year 4
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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

Today we open with the disciples bringing a debate to Jesus about which one of them is the most awesome. I think there's a chance that the special attention Jesus has been showing to Peter, as well as James and John, the three guys in his tightest inner circle, may have caused the others to start comparing themselves to them. It's a natural human response, but as usual, Jesus points out that the natural human response is often the opposite of the upside-down kingdom response.

He says humility is connected to greatness, and if they aren't humble, they won't be in the kingdom at all, much less be the greatest there. God values humility, which is a stark contrast to the ancient view, where humility equals weakness. In this chapter, Jesus often uses children in his illustrations. At this time, children are viewed more like property. So by using them as an illustration, he's showing the value of children as humans and image bearers. He shows how they should be treated with care.

Then he seems to draw a correlation between children and his disciples, referring to them as little ones. Some commentators think the phrase used here is referring to all believers, and others think it's referring to new believers. And for whoever that phrase is referring to, Jesus indicates that there are angels who watch over them while also being in the presence of God. By the way, the word angel means messenger. They're sent to speak and do the will of God.

When it comes to things that tempt us to sin, Jesus says we should take notice of what those things are and avoid them at all costs. He uses some pretty intense hyperbole for these illustrations, cutting off your hand, plucking out your eye, because sin is a big deal, and those who love God should take their own sin seriously. He also hints at the fact that we can cause others to sin in verse 6 when he says, "'Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, so someone can cause someone else to sin.'"

Bear with me here. Yes, scripture teaches that each person is responsible for their own actions. But God also points out that we don't live in a vacuum. Our sins and actions impact others. Western society is a very independent culture as a whole. But the culture of the ancient Near East had a much wider grasp on human responsibility. To be clear, that perspective doesn't remove the burden of responsibility from the person committing the sin and put it on the instigator. Instead, it becomes more of a shared responsibility. But

But let me be clear on one other thing. This doesn't mean that if someone sins against you, that you're responsible for it. This isn't victim blaming. That's a different scenario entirely. And in that instance, the blame is only on the sinner's shoulders. Not every scenario has two guilty parties. Sometimes people just sin against other people without an inciting incident, which is why it's a good thing that Jesus spends some time today telling us how to respond to people when we've been sinned against. Verses 15 through 20 mark out a process for us.

Here's what it looks like. Step one, go talk to the person just between the two of you and see if you can resolve it. By the way, there is no step zero. There's no space allotted for us to talk to others about that person and how they've sinned against us. Step one is to go to the person.

If step one doesn't resolve things, then we move to step two, and that's our first opportunity to involve other people. That's when Jesus says we should take one or two others with us to have a conversation with that person. This isn't an ambush. They should know this is coming based on the conversation you had with them in step one.

If step two doesn't resolve things, then take it to the church for resolution. And again, we shouldn't blindside the person with this. That's not loving them well. If step three doesn't resolve things, then the church has to exercise discretion that's above my pay grade. I'm glad I don't have to make these kinds of decisions because they sound terribly difficult. Fortunately, Jesus promises to be with them in their effort to reach unity. And he says that two or three should be able to agree on how to handle the situation. He promises to give them guidance toward that end. By the way,

By the way, you may have noticed this is a verse that has been wildly taken out of context. But even in the hardest outcome here, Jesus says things should still be done in love. Think about it for a second. Jesus is telling them to treat the person like a Gentile or a tax collector. We've seen him ministering to both kinds of people, associating with them, eating with them, seeking them out. Even Matthew, the man who's writing this, was a tax collector when Jesus sought him out.

So while this does seem like a call to remove them from the church, it doesn't seem like a call to wholesale excommunicate them and tarnish their name and reputation. This is a call to love them well and share the gospel with them, but to prevent them from being divisive in the church until they repent or the problem is resolved.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that he goes straight from this message about how to deal with someone who sins against you into a message about forgiveness. Peter brings it up, actually. He wants to know how many times he has to forgive someone who keeps committing the same sin against him.

Jesus tells a parable about a man who has great debt. He's repentant and wants to make things right with his master. His master forgives him a huge debt. It amounts to about four to six billion dollars in today's money, roughly 150,000 years worth of wages. The guy gets his huge debt forgiven, then turns the corner and runs into a guy who owes him about a thousand bucks. This man is also repentant and also wants to make things right. He isn't flippant or rebellious or in denial, but

But the man who had the huge debt forgiven won't forgive this small debt. In this parable, we're the one who owes $6 billion. Our sin debt is so massive we could never pay it, not even in 150,000 years, because in that time we'd just keep sinning more. And God is the generous master who forgave us. So when Peter's friend sins against him seven times, Jesus is like, you seriously have no idea how much you sin against me, do you? Let me tell you a story.

Jesus could have disconnected the two halves of the parable and made them two entirely different sets of people. But the fact that it revolves around this one man in the middle seems to point to something interesting. It seems to show that forgiveness is our response to God, not the person who sinned against us. We respond to our forgiveness by forgiving those who are repentant. We extend what's been given to us. If we don't do that, then we probably don't really understand what we received or how much we were in debt.

Jesus adds a little weight to this at the end of the parable by saying that forgiveness has to be from the heart. In scripture, the heart is the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and will. It's like a combination of your mind and your heart. So this could be referring to feeling forgiveness, but more likely, it's referring to making a decisive effort to continually choose forgiveness even when you don't feel it.

My counselor once told me that forgiveness is not a destination. It's a decision to embark on a journey, over and over, to keep putting one foot of forgiveness in front of the other every time the wound rears its ugly head. What was your God shot today? Mine was just this one line in the parable of the lost sheep. Verse 12 says, If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?

God pays individual attention to his kids. He notices what's happening and he acts. He moves toward us when we run away. He comes to carry us back. And the next verse says he rejoices over us. He's not far off. He's not inattentive. He's actively working on our behalf, even when we're running away from him. I'm so glad he finds us and brings us back because he's where the joy is.

Christmas is just around the corner. In fact, I know some of you already have your tree up, and there's no shame in that. There's room for all of us here. But whether your tree is up by Labor Day, or if you don't even bother to hang a wreath, we can all agree that Christmas is about the joy of God the Son coming to earth.

And if we've learned anything in our reading plan, it's that he's where the joy is. So we want to give you a few ways to carry what we've learned here into your Christmas decor, if you have it, and maybe even spread the joy to some others as well. We've just stocked our store with some very classy Christmas ornaments. They're shatterproof, so even your cat can't ruin them. Hopefully.

We'd also love to be your Christmas card this year. So we've got He's Where the Joy Is Christmas cards for you in packs of 10. You can check it all out at thebiblerecap.com, then click on the store link. And maybe by next year, we'll have gotten around to doing that accurate nativity you've all requested.