Matthew 12:22-50 --- Mark 3:20-35 --- Luke 11:14-36

Matthew 12:22-50 --- Mark 3:20-35
Luke 11:14-36

Matthew 12:22-50

Jesus and Beelzebul (Mk 3.19b—30; Lk 11.14—23)

Matthew 12:22 Then they brought to him a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see. 23 All the crowds were amazed and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” 24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons.” 25 He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. 26 If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? 27 If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. 29 Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered. 30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

A Tree and Its Fruit (Mt 7.15—20)

33 “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

The Sign of Jonah (Lk 11.29—32)

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. 41 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!

The Return of the Unclean Spirit (Lk 11.24—26)

43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”

The True Kindred of Jesus (Mk 3.31—35; Lk 8.19—21)

46 While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” 48 But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Mark 3:20-35

Jesus and Beelzebul (Mt 12.22—32; Lk 11.14—23)

Mark 3:20 Then he went home; 20 and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” 22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” 23 And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

28 “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

The True Kindred of Jesus (Mt 12.46—50; Lk 8.19—21)

31 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” 33 And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Luke 11:14-36

Jesus and Beelzebul (Mt 12.22—32; Mk 3.19b—30)

Luke 11:14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute; when the demon had gone out, the one who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” 16 Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? —for you say that I cast out the demons by Beelzebul. 19 Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. 22 But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his plunder. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

The Return of the Unclean Spirit (Mt 12.43—45)

24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

True Blessedness

27 While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!”

The Sign of Jonah (Mt 12.38—42)

29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! 32 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!

The Light of the Body (Mt 6.22—23)

33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”

Videos and more ...

American Minute
by Bill Federer

In the 3rd century, Emperor Claudius the Goth not only commanded the Roman gods be worshiped, but temporarily forbade marriage, because he believed single men made better soldiers. Legend has it that Valentine, who was a bishop in Italy, risked the Emperor’s wrath by refusing to worship idols and for secretly marring young couples. Saint Valentine was dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and have his head cut off on February 14, 269AD. While awaiting execution, it is said he prayed for the jailers’ sick daughter, who miraculously recovered. He wrote her a note and signed it, “from your Valentine.”

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.

Proverbs
by D.H. Stern

Proverbs 18:12-13

Before being ruined, a person’s heart is proud;
before being honored, a person must be humble.

To answer someone before hearing him out
is both stupid and embarrassing.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

My Utmost For The Highest
by Oswald Chambers

The discipline of heeding

What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. --- Matthew 10:27..

At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God’s hand until we learn to hear Him. “What I tell you in darkness”—watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there, keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason of the darkness, but listen and heed. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.

After every time of darkness there comes a mixture of delight and humiliation (if there is delight only, I question whether we have heard God at all), delight in hearing God speak, but chiefly humiliation—‘What a long time I was in hearing that! How slow I have been in understanding that! And yet God has been saying it all these days and weeks.’ Now He gives you the gift of humiliation which brings the softness of heart that will always listen to God now.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

An Old Man
the Poetry
of R.S. Thomas

An Old Man

Looking upon this tree with its quaint pretension
Of holding the earth, a leveret, in its claws,
Or marking the texture of its living bark,
A grey sea wrinkled by the winds of years,
I understand whence this man's body comes,
In veins and fibres, the bare boughs of bone,
The trellised thicket, where the heart, that robin,
Greets with a song the seasons of the blood.

But where in meadow or mountain shall I match The individual accent of the speech
That is the ear's familiar? To what sun attribute
The honeyed warmness of his smile?
To which of the deciduous brood is german
The angel peeping from the latticed eye?

The Poems of R.S. Thomas , (Fayettesville: University of Arkansas Press), 1985

Take Heart
by D. Wallis

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.” --- Matthew 27:46–47

I find in [Jesus Christ] the loneliness of grandeur. Jesus was supremely lonely, because he was supremely great. There is a type of character with which we are all familiar that makes few demands on the love of others. It is severe. It aims at self-sufficiency. It will not lean hard on anyone. And while we may admire that type of character—and do so justly for it is often noble—we must remember it is not the character of Christ. It was the passion of Christ’s heart that people should trust him. It was the yearning of his soul that people should love him. In those rare moments when he was understood, he was thrilled to the finest fiber of his being.

And it is when we think how people misunderstood him and were blind to all that he was and all he lived for that we realize the loneliness of Christ. To crave for love and, craving, not to find it, to have one’s every action misinterpreted, to feel that one’s dearest do not sympathize, to long for trust and to be met with scorn—for certain natures quivering with life there is no loneliness that can compare with that, and such was the loneliness of the Redeemer. I do not imagine that had you seen the Christ you would have said, “There goes a lonely man.” The Pharisees never thought to call him lonely. They called him the friend of publicans and sinners. But the ecstasy of joy that filled his soul when one understood him and cried, “You are the Christ,” betrays how unutterably lonely he had been. Was ever anyone misunderstood like this man? “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—and they thought he was calling for Elijah. It is only when you remember that, and all akin to it in the Evangel, that you come to feel how awful and unceasing must have been the loneliness of Christ. --- George H. Morrison

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers (27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

Teacher's Commentary
by Lawrence O. Richard
The Pharisees

     The name comes from a root meaning “separated.” The movement apparently began some two centuries before Christ, and focused on resistance to hellenization of the Jews. The Pharisees were earnestly concerned with the Law and with keeping its minutest detail. But the Pharisees tended to emphasize the “oral law” of the Torah (Pentateuch). This oral law was composed of a vast number of interpretations and explanations of the Old Testament, which over the years continued to grow and grow. Tragically, the oral law increasingly focused on trifling details. For instance, the command not to work on the Sabbath was expanded and illustrated with hundreds of explanations and exceptions. According to the Pharisees’ oral law, a person was allowed to spit on rocky ground on the Sabbath. But he could not spit on soft or dusty earth; the spittle might move the dirt and that would constitute plowing, for it might make a furrow! Thus the oral law often robbed the written Law of its real message—a message of godly concern for others. Jesus once rebuked the Pharisees for their practice of “giving” all of their possessions to the temple (to be taken over after their deaths), and then telling poor parents or other relatives that they owned nothing with which to help them. God’s command to “honor your father and mother” was thus pushed aside in favor of this merely human tradition.

     We can see in the New Testament many evidences of the Pharisees’ scrupulous concern for the minor details of legalism (Matt. 9:14; 23:16–19, 23; Mark 7:1–13; Luke 11:42). What we often miss is that the movement itself did have healthy roots.

     The Pharisees had separated themselves from the rest of Israel because of a deep concern for righteousness. They yearned for the arrival of the kingdom in which God and His ways would be honored in holiness. Until that time, in search of personal holiness, the Pharisees joined communes of others with the same longing. These Pharisees were neither educated nor upper-class men. Instead, they were characteristically middle class, without formal education in the interpretation of the Law. In their closed communities they lived under the direction of a scribe (an expert in the Law), and they sought to separate themselves in order to find righteousness by keeping the whole Law. This high level of commitment won them the admiration of the common people, and gave this group, which in Jesus’ day numbered about 6,000, great influence.

     Later Paul would write something about the Jews which was characteristic of the Pharisees: “For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (Rom. 10:2–3). In their attempt to find righteousness through legalism, they missed the Old Testament’s message of righteousness through faith (cf. Gen. 15:6). The Pharisees became so committed to their own notions of what God’s will must be that when the Son of God appeared to reveal the Law’s true meaning, they refused to listen. For the Pharisees to respond to Jesus would have meant admitting that the principles on which they had built their lives, and which gave them their distinctive identity, had been wrong. They simply could not and would not abandon themselves, even though it was God who called.

     We can sympathize with the Pharisees. Some of us too have had an honest concern for the things of God without real understanding.

     But then Jesus confronts us, and calls us to abandon all that we once held dear and true that we might rebuild our lives on Him, and learn His kingdom lifestyle. Too often we too hold back. Dare we surrender all we thought we had and were in order to become something new, just because the King commands and promises?

     The Pharisees would not, and could not, make this surrender. They insisted on holding on to their own ideas rather than submitting to the King. Their rebellion against the lordship of Jesus led, not only to their own destruction, but it contributed to the suffering of the nation that they influenced.

Richards, L., & Richards, L. O. (1987). The Teacher's Commentary (323). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.

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