Jul 18

Written by:
7/18/2010 12:04 PM 

                “And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region.” ~ Matthew 8:34

                What in the world did Jesus do this time? He must have done some catastrophic feat in order to get people this riled up, right? Well, to summarize what exactly Jesus did: He cast demons out of two possessed men and into a herd of pigs. The pigs then ran off a cliff and drowned themselves. So, the tenders of the herd of pigs ran into town and told the town folk what happened. The result of what the town folk did is the above verse in Matthew 8:34. There are two things interesting about this verse that I want to discuss.

                First, the verse specifies “the whole city came out to meet Jesus.” The whole city, really? Yes, everybody. Secondly, not only did they just want Jesus to leave their town or their city, but “they begged Him to depart from their region” (emphasis mine).

                Consider what Jesus says later in Matthew: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?” (Matthew 18:12b) Based off of this Scripture and realizing that Jesus is comparing sheep here to lost people (souls), my calculations inform me that Jesus would leave 198 people who are already serving Him to find these two and release them from their demon possession.

                So, if Jesus had indeed cast demon out of these two people and saved their souls, then why would everybody from the town come out and beg Him to leave the entire region? Well, to be blunt…in a word: money. These pigs provided the town folks their livelihood. Jesus realized the need for salvation and the need for lost souls to be delivered, but the people could only see their means of living as being taken away. Some money is necessary to live on and the point of this is not to sell everything you have when you decide to follow Jesus. But, Jesus also warns, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?” ~ Matthew 16:26a

                The Gospel of Matthew is one of my favorites in the whole Bible, because it is written by a Jew to the Jewish nation to convince the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah that has been prophesied about in the Old Testament. Matthew quotes many Old Testament Scriptures and Jesus has many confrontations with the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees, which were the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ time.

                In the same way, the leaders of the modern day church can and should use the Gospel of Matthew as a guide to ensure that they (the church leaders, in whatever capacity) are ensuring they are looking at things from a purely Scriptural basis. Church leaders can get very set in their ways and miss what the Holy Spirit wants to do in the ministry that they have been chosen to lead. This can lead to doing things out of a duty and not out of love. Things done for Kingdom purposes out of duty more so than love will lead to malcontented leaders. Such leaders will burn out and lose their purpose for doing ministry.

                Let me leave you with two more Scriptures from Matthew:

                                23:15 states, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte (convert), and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” Well, those are some pleasant words, huh? This is a warning from Jesus. Jesus gives the scribes and Pharisees many warning throughout the entire 23^rd chapter of Matthew and in this specific verse, He essentially warns the religious leaders of making converts without the virtue of love.

                                22:36-40 states, “’Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and Prophets.’” Here Jesus is saying it all comes down to love: First, your love of God, and next, your love of people. Jesus goes on to state that the whole Bible and all of the teachings of it hang on love. Church, let’s start making our motivation love of God and love of people!