Monday 29th August - Matthew 16

Today’s chapter is Matthew 16, you can read it here

Tom writes:

My atheist mate thinks v28 shows Jesus being wrong. “Jesus claims the world will end within a life-time of him. It doesn’t. The supposed “all knowing God” doesn’t know much. The church has never recovered from this embarrassment.” My atheist mate is wrong, but then so was Peter, so there is still hope for him. The mistake of my atheist mate, Peter and billions of people since is to make the “Son of Man coming in his Kingdom” synonymous with the “end of the world”. With this framework, when Jesus comes into his glory, cellos play, clouds break, calves skip and all that is wrong is instantly turned right. It’s a vision of global cataclysm and universal delight all rolled into one Big Moment. It’s a bit like what we saw John the Baptist expecting back in chapter 11. It’s a bit like what Peter now expects - the glorious, victorious Age of the Messiah comes instantly and totally, bringing destruction of all evil, elevation of all the righteous and freedom from all suffering before you can even blink your eyes… right? Wrong. What Jesus wanted to teach Peter and what the Holy Spirit wants to teach the church is that the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom looks small and foolish, and is in the midst of an opposing Kingdom that is louder and brasher and hence gets all the headlines. In short, the Coming of the Kingdom of Jesus looks like the cross - it is like one seed falling to the ground in a vast forest, but with that seed one day becoming the biggest of them all.

Delight is arriving but it is easy to miss because evil is allowed to carry on, for now. Jesus’ Kingdom came in the resurrection, and yet the resurrection came into the midst of a wicked and adulterous generation who systematically ignored it, opposed it and tried to shut it down. We still live in such a time - a time when Jesus Kingdom is Now here and Not Yet fully here. In the future, the consummation of the kingdom will occur, and then All Will Be Made Right. But for now we live as Kingdom people in the midst of another Kingdom. And so we should expect sparks to fly as the other kingdom jostles against us. We should expect hardship and mistreatment and being misunderstood. But we should also expect glory. Jesus’ kind of glory; the glory of perfect obedience in the midst of corruption. The glory of losing your life for Jesus sake even while everyone else is fighting over the world. That is the abundant, authority-filled life in this age. So are you perfecting obedience in the midst of your hardship? Or are you, like my atheist mate, letting your mistaken assumptions about how God works, push you away from real faith?

Question for reflection

When God makes his Kingdom available to you, how will you spot it?