“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ““If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
– Matthew 16:24
Hi James and Ellen,
Are you always the first one to raise your hand in a class to answer a question that your teacher has asked? Are you always blurting out something without first thinking of what you are going to say? Are you always ending up with ‘pie on your face’ because of what you said? Are you a Peter? Peter was always ready to give a response to something that Jesus said. Peter seemed to be always saying something without first thinking of what he was going to say. Peter always seemed to be ending up with ‘pie on his face’ because of what he said. How well do you know Peter? Before Jesus told Peter to be one of his twelve disciples, Peter was a fisherman. Peter was one of Jesus’ first disciples. By how visible and vocal that Peter always seemed to be wherever he went with Jesus, it seems that Peter may have thought that he was one of Jesus’ best disciples. A day in Peter’s life is recounted by Matthew – who was one of Peter’s fellow disciples, in his Matthew Book – in Matthew 16. Matthew wrote his book to prove the case to his fellow Jewish compatriots that Jesus had been the awaited Messiah. Before Jesus told Matthew that he was to join His motley band of disciples, Matthew’s inauspicious vocation was being a tax collector for the Romans. Before Jesus told Matthew that he was to give up his day job to be one of his disciples, Matthew’s name was Levi. Before Jesus told Peter that he was to give up his day job, Peter’s name was Simon. Before Matthew had Jesus illogically make him one of His twelve apostles, Matthew was a city guy who lived and worked in the town of Capernaum – a town that is located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Before Peter had Jesus randomly tell him that he was to be one of His twelve apostles, Peter was a rural guy who lived near and fished in the Sea of Galilee. When Matthew writes about Peter, Matthew does not temper interchanges that Peter had with Jesus and that Jesus had with Peter.
Peter was real good at being impetuous and dense. One day in Peter’s life began with Peter in a boat crossing to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Before Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee by boat with His twelve disciples, Jesus warned His disciples about Pharisee and Sadducee yeast. Jesus prefaced his forewarning to His disciples by telling His disciples that even though they can tell by the redness of an evening sky that it is going to rain the next day or by the redness of the dawning sky that it is going be stormy that day that they will never be able to interrupt the signs of the end times. Guys who were Pharisees and guys who were Sadducees had just tried to test Jesus by asking Him for an end time, heaven driven sign so that . . . Jesus’ response to the Pharisee and Sadducee testers was to tell them that they are representing a wicked and adulterous generation that is always looking for some kind of miraculous sign that would . . . because Pharisees and Sadducees were out to sow discord among the Jew people group guys and gals, Jesus used yeast to illustrate their fomenting words. By the time that Jesus and His disciples got to the other side of the lake, the guys had deduced that Jesus was literally alluding to food when He mentioned yeast when Jesus was figuratively referring to yeast as being the false teaching that were being advanced by guys who were Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus’ reaction to His disciples’ not getting it what He meant when He said yeast in reference to Pharisees and Sadducees was to tell His disciples that they did not have faith – that their faith should be foundational against false teachings versus a faith that questioned where food would come from to eat.
The discussion moved on to Jesus asking His disciples a question. Jesus asked His disciples if they really knew Who He was. Peter jumped right in to tell Jesus that he knew that Jesus was the Christ – the Son of the living God. Peter’s reward for answering correctly that question from Jesus was being told by Jesus that he would be the ‘rock’ on which Jesus was going to build His church. Jesus then told His twelve disciples that many of the guys who were Jewish elders, Jewish chief priests and Jewish teachers of the law who were living in the city of Jerusalem were soon going to make Him suffer horribly before killing Him BUT that after three days, He would be raised back to life. Peter immediately jumped in again to tell Jesus that he will never let that happen to Him. Jesus’ response to Peter this time was to tell Peter to stop being a stumbling block for Satan and that Peter was to get behind Him. Verse 24 begins with Jesus stating what He expects from followers, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ““If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Even though Jesus strongly confronted Peter during a briefing about what was going to soon happen to Him and even though Peter denied that he knew Jesus as Jesus was being persecuted, Peter would become after the resurrection and then the ascension of Jesus, one of the most prominent early New Testament church leaders. When a teacher asked a question in a class that your grandpaa was in and if the question was not directed at your grandpaa, your grandpaa would never raise his hand to answer the question. If your grandpaa was asked to say something in a class, your grandpaa always wanted to think ahead about what he would say. Your grandpaa has a very hard time forgetting something that he has said in front of guys, gals and kids that was wrong. Your grandpaa sometimes really wishes that he could be a Peter – who could forget his gaffes without continually replaying them over in his mind. Are you like your grandpaa or are you like Peter.
Matthew 16 (1041)