Hey, everybody, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour podcast and I did a wedding this weekend in Tennessee, but the night before the wedding, I went to the father of the brides cabin out in the woods of Tennessee, which is gorgeous, and we were doing guys stuff playing pool throwing darts and things like that. Eventually, it's my time to do this, and I don't know a lot of these guys really well. We don't have any kind of history with playing sports or anything together. And so I go up there, and I'm not a darts guy at all, but I've thrown a few things in my life,

and so I aimed at the thing I wanted to hit, and then I threw it at them. Now I hit a couple of real close to the bulls eye on my third one hit in the red circle, and everyone got all excited. But I was really, really hoping in that moment that nobody would step up and be like, no, you're a fraud. That was not enough for me to be convinced that you're any good at throwing things. Do it again. Let me see what you're doing, because I don't think I could have backed it up. I know I got a little bit lucky. I know I can get a dart in the zip code of the middle of a dart board,

and I hit that spot. Yeah, I looked out. Whereas the owner of the house, he's legit, and he was throwing bulls eyes all night long from what I hear I had to bail out early. And if along the way anybody had asked him to prove it after a good shot, he probably could have proven it. And at some point, he probably would have been like, how many more times do you need me to prove it? It's my house, my dart board. I keep hitting the bulls eye. What more do you want from me? Likewise, in Matthew chapter 16, in what feels like a passage we've already done once we get the religious leaders coming up to Jesus

and being like, hey, we're going to need to see a sign, which is weird because of how everything he's done for like all these pages right here in this Bible is getting ratty, by the way. We are ripping through this thing together. It'll never be the same. But he's been doing miraculous signs like again and again, it's so many bulls eyes. How many more do you guys need to see before you're going to believe this thing? Well, the text holds it out as though the truth of the matter is they need to see infinite signs because they're never going to believe it. They're not into it. They're not interested. That's not why they're asking. They're

trying to put him on the spot and they're trying to make him subject to them. We are the gatekeepers of truth and reality. You, very publicly, Jesus, do not pass through the gates of approval without us us sharing you through. And even their demand for a sign was an assertion of their superiority, the superiority of their understanding of God and religion and everything over Jesus. But the funny thing is,

they can't do anything. They can't hit any bulls eyes. They can't bring anybody back from the dead. They can't feed 10 people with a couple of loaves of bread, let alone 4,000 or 5,000. So it's really interesting. I mean, it's the bitter critic scenario that we see unfolding here with these guys like, it was William Shatner. Yeah, it was Bill Shatner had a song about this and Jeff's on vacation. So we're not going to get that song at the end, which is a disappointment. But William Shatner on his live read poetry.

He had one that was like an old West showdown song down down down down down down down down down down down that kind of feel. And in this half spoken word, half song thing that he has on the album. He's having a showdown with his critics and the critics are like the tattler who gets all upset and angry because Bill Shatner said something naughty or that he shouldn't have said and the do nothing guy who has never accomplished anything but sits on his armchair and criticizes people who actually do things.

It's a really enjoyable song and makes a really good point about the person who can't do, but certainly you can criticize. And that is what this little passage is evocative of to me and we're only going to get through one verse today and the verse goes.

Matthew 161. The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. Now this sour verse comes right on the heels of Jesus just having fed 4,000 people miraculously with I get them confused. I don't remember how many. Okay, seven lobes and a few small fish. And that comes on the heels of Jesus hanging out with people outside of the religious supervision of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

He's on the decapolis side of the sea of Galilee, the Gentile side, the eastern side where it says Matthew 1530, great crowds came to him bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled the mute and many others and laid them at his feet and he healed them.

The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well the lame walking and the blind seeing and they praised the God of Israel.

And then Jesus sends those crowds away and he gets in the boat and he goes back across the lake as we discussed I think last time around into Jewish territory. There was any question about where this ambiguous town of Magadan that is mentioned in the last word of chapter 15 is that we get a glaring context clue at the beginning of chapter 16 because the Pharisees and Sadducees who are of course Jewish religious leaders are on the scenes were back in Jewish territory.

But on real time to you and me it seems like almost no time at all is passed between the beginning of chapter 16 where we have a confrontation with the religious leaders who are now demanding a sign and the beginning of chapter 15 where we have a confrontation with the religious leaders who are upset about hand washing but a lot of time is passed between the beginning of 15 and the beginning of 16 and we get a couple of context clues that point us to that one is how long it takes a human on foot to walk all the way up to tire and side on and back down to the eastern side of the

sea of Galilee and then take a boat across the sea of Galilee and get to some mysterious place called Magadan where they're now having this disputation together but also we get what might be a clue from a descriptor of what was on the ground in Matthew 14 during the feeding of the 5,000 with Jewish people on the sea of Galilee where Jesus says Matthew 14 19 and he directed the people to sit down on the grass I think Mark refers to it as the green grass.

And then in Matthew 15 after all of this travel has gone on and presumably time has elapsed verse 35 has Jesus telling the crowd to sit down on the ground I think yesterday or the day before I speculated that this was simply a geographical difference could be maybe the stuff is just greener around the sea of Galilee and dryer to the east of it that adds up with my experience there but it's also possible that this is just indicative of an early spring feeding of the 5,000.

And then stuff drying out as it is want to do in these kind of climates and getting more of the crusty brown grass and hard ground by the time we feed the 4,000 I don't know maybe maybe not whatever the case enough time has elapsed that we've got a little different collection of religious leaders who've now showed up to get after Jesus that being the Pharisees and the Sadducees and they are going to get after Jesus about something they've already gotten after him about one other time that being a we need our own miracles now we want

to see these things and I've already alluded to it like we're circling around and around here like five times today but Jesus has already done a lot of miraculous things and all those miraculous things don't seem to quite be getting it done for this crowd they are looking at the bulls eyes and they're like hey prove it they did the same thing back in chapter 12 when the Pharisees not the Sadducees will get into that tomorrow but just the Pharisees were like okay yeah well we need to see a miraculous sign from you and then Jesus tells them off in a way that is very similar to the telling off the

Pharisees about to dish out here in chapter 16 but I mean there are miracles all over the place earlier in chapter 12 let alone in the previous passages including a miracle they didn't like he just made a guy's hand grow back at a thin air in chapter 12 just like half a page earlier and the Pharisees were like yeah I don't know I didn't like that miracle do a different one that we might like better at some point Jesus looks at this he's like you guys are not asking because you're actual

you're trying to make some kind of dumb point you're trying to assert your authority you're trying to demand that I prove it again and again and again and whereas if anyone had pushed me over the last weekend here to throw another bulls eye I don't think I probably could have delivered I think the luster would have come off very quickly and everybody would have been able to say that beginners luck but I put the darts down and walked away confidently as though that's just the kind of thing I can do whenever I want and called a good it was a facade and it could have been

exposed by someone simply saying prove it it sure looks like here though we have enough of a track record that if somebody is even remotely aware of the stuff that Jesus is doing in front of everyone that is perfectly testable and

they're still asking for more like give us our own will do it this other way what about this other way that there's a problem with their character and there's a problem with their agenda that is how I read their behavior compromised that is that is how the text holds out their behavior compromised that is they're trying to test Jesus something will break down more tomorrow and if the factual raw materials that we have in front of us in Matthew are accurate that I think any emotionally healthy people looking at their behavior and continued demand for signs.

In the face of an unending litany of signs well I think you should come to the same conclusion the clearly there's some ulterior motive and something is off with these guys and what we're really getting here is some kind of weird passive aggressive controlling nonsense that we will break down more thoroughly next time around.

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