The Bible Study Podcast, episode 451.

Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Matthew with Matthew 21.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast.

I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

We continue on with Matthew 21. We were

halfway through last week when we ran out of time, starting in verse 18. Jesus curses a fig tree.

Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road,

he went up to it, but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, may you never bear fruit again. Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. How did the fig tree wither so quickly, they asked? Jesus replied, truly, I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this

mountain, go throw yourself into the sea, and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive

whatever you ask in prayer. So just to put this in context again, we are in Holy Week. We are in

that week between Palm Sunday and Good Friday and Easter.

And on one of those days, Jesus is walking from Bethany where he's staying, probably staying with Martha and Mary and Lazarus, his good friends out in that city outside of the city walls.

And he's coming in and he sees a fig tree.

And he's going to pluck some figs from it and eat, except that the tree has only leaves.

The tree is just decorative in a sense that what fig trees are for is to produce figs.

Now, there's kind of two different points you can go to in this story. One is that Jesus is talking about faith. Two is that he's talking about fruit. So let's talk about fruit

first. I mean, the lesson for us is that we also are supposed to bear fruit. We also are not just supposed to go to church to be

decorative. We are called to a faith that is going to end in the Great Commission here in Matthew,

just to give you a little spoiler here about going and making disciples. We are called to do that,

all of us. That wasn't just something

that was meant for the disciples, just meant for the apostles, that we are called to service.

We are called to bear fruit. And then the second point here is the disciples, and one of the

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