The Bible Study Podcast, episode 445. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Matthew with Matthew 18.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. We're continuing on the study of Matthew with Matthew 18.

You may remember Matthew 17. We had Jesus being transfigured as he goes up the mountain with Peter, James, and John, and then he comes back down to disappointment of the other disciples having trouble being able to cast out a demon. And then he predicts his own death, and then we lead to this.

At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

He called a little child to him and placed the child among them, and he said,

Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children,

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes this lowly position of this

child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name,

welcomes me. It's an interesting segment here. And one thing that we should be aware of is that in both

Matthew's Gospel and Mark's Gospel, mentioned this thing happening right after the

Mountain of Transfiguration.

I don't think that's a coincidence.

Let's just assume that all of the disciples are regular people with regular feelings just like the rest of us.

What do you think happened when three of them were invited on this special trip to go up?

They see Moses and Elijah.

They're sworn to secrecy, not to tell anybody.

And they come back down, and the other disciples have just failed.

Do you think any conversation happened about who might be greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

Mark's Gospel says that there was a disagreement among them who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

This is not a rhetorical question.

This is Jesus settled this for us. You know, Peter, James, and John,

we're your favorites, right? We're going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, right?

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