Matthew: Through Old Testament Eyes
Chapters 13-17
Jesus was a Master story teller effectively using parables to help people understand what the Kingdom of Heaven/God is really like. In 13:10 the disciples asked Jesus why those lower stories were so crucial in His ministry. All three gospels record this event, but only Matthew includes Jesus’ quote from Isaiah 6:9-10 and His declaration that it’s now fulfilled,
“Go, and say to this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, turn and be healed.”
By contrasting functioning eyes and ears, Jesus directs our attention to lacking an understanding heart; the religious leaders physically heard, but did they know He was speaking to them? Or better yet, is He speaking to us? You can’t understand the spiritual truths of His teachings without the Spirit and you can’t have the Spirit without faith. Their hearts had grown insensitive, unfeeling, hard, even rebellious. Those leaders just got an ear-full, undoubtedly giving them more fuel for their fiery plan of destruction.
Matthew’s heart was becoming alive as the Scriptures were fulfilled right before his eyes, attentively listening to Jesus and even catching the reference to Ps. 78:2 driving home the point of parables. I think Jesus desired the religious leaders to make the right connections, out of His great grace gave them many opportunities, but their ability to take rote learning of the Bible and use it in real life was nonexistent. Their positions will slowly be fading away because of that heart condition.
Without any Old Testament references in Chapter 14 we move into 15 finding several examples of rote learning vs. heart understanding. Using their manmade traditions like hand-washing and the divine commandments of honoring your parents, which they used a loophole to escape, Jesus quoted Is. 29:13-14 indicting them for only legalism and not true worship of God: they’re hypocrites, only two-faced pretenders and He hit the mark: Bull’s eye!
The leaders became offended, another group (in Chapter 16), the Sadducees, has now joined them as Jesus publicly exposed their hypocrisy; the only recourse is to ramp up the plan to stop Him; suffering and death is on the horizon.
In Chapter 17 Matthew uniquely records a conversation between Jesus and the disciples (vs.9-13) after His transfiguration discussing the parallels with John the Baptist and Elijah. He captures every teaching moment showing them He’s the Messiah and the way has been prepared; Matthew doesn’t miss it. Just as John suffered for his teachings, He will as well, and they were now understanding. Ahhhhhh
Lastly, only Matthew records Jesus miraculously paying His Biblically mandated taxes (Ex. 30:11-15) called a ‘ransom for life’, a wonderful foreshadow of our Savior giving His life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28); the religious leaders were foiled, yet again.
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