Nothing can be simpler. But it is just possible that this passage is not to be taken so much personally as in connection with the Church. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. In many ways this is one of the most difficult passages to interpret in the whole of Matthew's gospel. All turns on that which was suitable to such a God, the giver of His own Son. "If he will not hear the church, will not stand to their award, but persists in the wrong he has done thee, and proceeds to do thee further wrong, let him be to thee as a heathen man, and a publican; take the benefit of the law against him, but let that always be the last remedy; appeal not to the courts of justice till thou hast first tried all other means to compromise the matter in variance. 19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. They were the great congregation and church, in the midst of which Christ sung praise to his Father: and since the whole of this advice, and these excellent rules are given to them, and they are spoken of in the next verse, as having the power of binding and loosing, they may well be thought to be meant here; and that the design of Christ is, to instruct them how to behave, in case of offence to one another; that the reproof should be first private, and if it did not succeed, to be made before one or two more; and if that did not do, the whole body was to be acquainted with it; and which rules hold good, and are to be observed by all Christian men and churches, in all ages: though no doubt but allusion is made to the Jewish customs, in rebuking before the multitude, or carrying of a private case, after all other means used were ineffectual, to the sanhedrim. Matthew 16:18), this word means "a called out assembly of people." "And forthwith when they were come out of the synagogue they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John; but Simon's wife's mother was sick of a fever, and anon they tell Him of her. Go to the offender first! The reason I consider to be plain; and the same principle applies to various other parts of our gospel where we have two cases mentioned, where in the other gospels we have only one. Jesus is not condoning prejudice by naming these too classes. It is a difficult saying. The point in the beginning of the next chapter (Matthew 20:1-34) is not reward, but the right and title of God Himself to act according to His goodness. I think that it is important that we have, and somehow can conceptionalize this. Do roots of these polynomials approach the negative of the Euler-Mascheroni constant? God's readiness to answer the church's prayers (Matthew 18:19; Matthew 18:19); If two of you shall agree harmoniously, touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them. The term has a metaphorical use at times (Job 38:17; Isa. Regardless of how many times offenders do them wrong, believers must still forgive them (Matthew 18:21-22). 16: But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. I am to have the spirit of forgiveness.And then Jesus went on to illustrate it. Toward the end of Matthew 18 we know Peter understood the implications of what I am proposing: Lord, how often do I have to forgive? (Matthew. to forget His ancient people. (iv) Finally it stresses the supreme importance of the child. You say things I have always felt, but never had the courage to speak them out. This ridge-like plateau is narrow, only a few miles across. This does not mean the disciples should receive him or her warmly as Jesus received such people (Matthew 8:1-11; Matthew 9:9-13; Matthew 15:21-28). Thus He points out the utter moral incongruity of fasting at that moment, and intimates that it was not merely the fact that He was going to be rejected, but that to conciliate His teaching and His will with the old thing was hopeless. Such a sinner shall suffer a fate worse than death. In the reception of the little children this is plain; it is not so generally seen in what follows. Start FREE. It is not a statement that some men are hopeless; it is a statement that Jesus Christ has found no man hopeless--and neither must we. Their angels hold their faces before the Father continually, and He isn't willing that any perish. But be careful that you're not the cause of the offenses. God has forgiven you so very much, all of your past sins. He sets forth the sign of the prophet Jonah, the repentance of the men of Nineveh, the preaching of Jonah, and the earnest zeal of the queen of the South in Solomon's day, when an incomparably greater was there despised. He will own them. The sheep has no one but itself to blame for the danger it had got itself into. The presence of Christ in the assemblies of Christians, Matthew 18:20; Matthew 18:20. It is true, we have only one in Mark, as in Luke; whereas in our gospel we have two. I am so thankful I have discovered your site and books. And so, for example, there's a governing body that has authority to make judgements on . I do not pretend to say this was the only purpose served; far be it from me to think of restraining the Spirit of God within the narrow bounds of our vision. He goes to raise the dead, and the woman with the issue of blood touches Him by the way. . Examine the Scripture, and you will see for yourselves. He was about to go off on a campaign. The Christian is constantly aware that he is responsible for the effect of his life, his deeds, his words, his example on other people. 1 Timothy 5:19-20 states: He never thinks that he can face life by himself. Here is one of these sayings of Jesus, whose meaning we need to probe or we will be left with heartbreak and great disappointment. "Upon this rock," says He, "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Those of the church that are presumed to be most capable of determining such matters; and he speaks ironically, when he says (Matthew 18:4; Matthew 18:4), "Set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church; those, if there be no better, those, rather than suffer an irreconcileable breach between two church members." . As we have often seen, it is Matthew's consistent custom to gather together the teaching of Jesus under certain great heads; he arranges it systematically. How New is the New Covenant? But at the end, when His disciples are in the extremity of trouble, in the midst of the sea, the Lord walks on the sea toward them, and bids them not fear; for they were troubled and afraid. "This man blasphemeth." "A religious person indeed, that becomes a collector of taxes, they first said, is to be driven from the society; but they afterwards said, all the time that he is a tax gatherer, they drive him from the society; but when he goes out of his office, lo! The Greek word is constantly so used as an expression of contempt, "This [fellow] doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." The Rabbis had a wise saying, "Judge not alone, for none may judge alone save One (that is God).". "Hey, He is here. I say to them point blank, "cut it off, not tomorrow, right now, cut it off, "Oh, but I"- don't, cut it off.I said, "If I were a surgeon and you came to me, and you said, "Oh, I am having these lumps under my arm, and they are sore, and they really bother me." If not, then Jesus words would mean little. The Lord hints at what the man's real desires were not Christ, not heaven, not eternity, but present things. To lose all for heavenly treasure, to come and follow the despised Nazarene here below what was it to compare with that which had brought Jesus to earth? In Judaea it was tragically easy for sheep to go astray. "Lord, save us; we perish," cried they, as they awoke Him; and He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea. In this we have another striking illustration of the same principle, because this miracle, in point of fact, was wrought long before the healing of the centurion's servant, or even of the leper. In an affair of such importance, two are better than one, and in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. one witness. Indeed he grew, for that baby became William the Conqueror of England. The Lord has nothing for them, or for Him, but to go right on to the end. When he began to make a reckoning one debtor was brought to him who owed him 2,400,000 British pounds. "Tell it to the church, that particular church in the communion of which the offender lives; make the matter known to those of that congregation who are by consent appointed to receive informations of that kind. I think each church leader needs to read these books, I may buy one for our leaders. . It is not enough that Israel be awakened from the sleep of death, and see aright. I say not how fax he had realized this profound truth; I say not that he could have defined his thoughts; but he knew and declared His command of all as truly God. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. To maim my own body, to me is a very repugnant idea. Some call it proof that the church will never be defeated. Peter, the good confessor of chapter 16, cuts but a sorry figure in chapter 17; for when the demand was made upon him as to his Master's paying the tax, surely the Lord, he gave them to know, was much too good a Jew to omit it. Or thou mayest, if thou wilt, break off thy friendship and familiarity with him; though thou must by no means study revenge, yet thou mayest choose whether thou wilt have any dealings with him, at least, in such a way as may give him an opportunity of doing the like again. Them that are without God judges,1 Corinthians 5:12; 1 Corinthians 5:13. Instead of giving her at once a reply, He leads her on step by step; for so He can stoop. Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click, to understand why. Subsequent, considerably, to this was the case of the centurion's servant, preceded a good while before by the cleansing of the leper. Little Jewish mothers wanting to set up their boys. detestable thing has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out They are hereby appointed; the church of Christ in the world exists most visibly in religious assemblies; it is the will of Christ that these should be set up, and kept up, for the honour of God, the edification of men, and the preserving of a face of religion upon the world. There is a certain difficulty of interpretation in this passage which must be borne in mind. Your book on authority should be mandatory for every believer! he is as a religious person F26.''. My soul may have been spared a great deal of malarkey. Thereon the Lord also has His word to say, first reminding Peter of his new name suitably to what follows. Where does the Baptist take his Pentecostal brother? (iii) There is the child's trust. He is perfectly content to be utterly dependent on those who love him and care for him. How to prove that the supernatural or paranormal doesn't exist? The question was not who or what came in the way; whoever appealed to Him, there He was for them. "For if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it will be done for them by my Father which is in heaven." What it may well mean is that the relationships which we establish with our fellow-men last not only through time but into eternity--therefore we must get them right.