Podcast: Behind the Scenes: Small Things, Big Impact; Who do you say I am? (Mat 16:13-20)

Good day, and welcome to North Raleigh United Methodist Church behind the scenes podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss this week's scripture and sermon.

My name is Kevin Van Hall.

I serve as the group's moderator.

And joining me today is one of the senior pastors here at North Raleigh, Kevin Johnson.

Hi, Kevin.

Hey.

Welcome.

Welcome, welcome.

Last week, Laura was here and she preached about what is unclean.

And we were continuing in Matthew's gospel and continuing with the series of small things, big impacts.

Last week we talked about, she talked about how Jesus was trying to talk about what comes out of the body is what's unclean.

It's not what goes in.

Make a better understanding, better clarification.

We're going to continue on that road a little bit today when Jesus is going to ask the disciples for a clarification.

Who am I?

Yeah.

Who do you they say I am?

Who do you say I am?

And looks for a clarification.

And a small little question like that turns into a huge answer transformation of a view of things to go forward.

So we are in the uh middle of uh Matthew's gospel, and that's where we are going to pick up today on uh from chapter 16.

Last week we were in uh 15.

We've already talked about Jesus feeds the uh five thousand, and then and that was in all the gospels, and then just before this, Jesus feeds the four thousand comes up in this gospel as well.

And that's pretty much where we are.

So what is going on at this time period right now in in in Jesus' ministry, Kevin?

And we're really getting towards kind of towards the close of his ministry, right?

He's gonna move from this this is in Saesarea Philippi up in the Galilee area, and it's pretty soon after there'll be the Mount of Transfiguration, and then they'll head towards Jerusalem.

And so, you know, Jesus is at kind of peaked popularity here if he's just healed, or if he's just fed 5,000 and then 4,000.

So we're in this big section of of teaching and conversation in the midst of Matthew spread amongst healing stories and everything, and um, and that's kind of where that's kind of where we are in this place.

And at the same time, all this uh teaching and miracles and preaching that Jesus is going on, he's constantly being uh hounded and questioned by the Pharisees all the time.

Uh just beforehand, uh and now they demand a sign.

And he tells them, um, you're not gonna get one.

Um basically, but so there's this it is coming to a head.

There's this uh conflict that's uh going on between the Pharisees and Jesus, but his ministry is growing, and we're gonna talk about why that's of significance at the last verse in today's uh reading.

But before we do that, I'm getting ahead of myself.

But why don't we pause for a minute of prayer?

All right.

Lord Jesus, we pray that you would open us up to what you would have to say to us.

Pray that through your word we would learn how to ask good, poignant questions, ones that demand answers of us, and ones that seek answers in you.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

So we've set the stage of where we are in Matthew, and so we're gonna be in chapter 16 and reading uh verses and discussing uh 13 through 20.

Yeah.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?

And they said, Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

He said to them, But who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood is not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Well, I love uh the encounter that Jesus has with Peter.

Again, Peter seems to be the front runner, the leader of the group, willing to step forward.

He was the one that stepped out of the boat, not scared.

Jesus, tell me, come out.

I'm on a come out.

So he again steps up in that leadership role, and Jesus tells him that not only is that what you received wasn't from man, but from above, but he also lays down the great um, you are the rock and you have the keys to heaven, which we're going to talk a little bit about at the end of the story.

So there's two stories going on.

Peter gets identified of who Peter is, but let's backtrack this up a little bit to where Peter identifies who Jesus is.

And I want to mention that I'm reading on the uh NIV New version where it says Christ, and yours is saying Messiah, especially at the last word, Christ.

What's the difference between Christ or Messiah?

Yeah, so I think it's important to understand.

So the difference of Christ and Messiah is language, right?

So literally, Christ was Greek, Messiah was Hebrew.

And and and so that's, I mean, uh contrary to what we uh think of in a curse word, Christ is not Jesus' last name, right?

Um so I don't know what they called him.

Uh they probably called him Jesus son of Joseph.

Yeah, Yeshua Ben Joseph or something, right?

Uh Ben Ben meant son of right.

And Yeshua being Aramaic.

Correct, for Jesus.

Jesus, for which is Joshua, which is the one who saves, which is another interesting piece.

But uh but also like a really common name, right?

So so it's really the difference of so so Messiah, you know, Hebrews are looking for a messiah during that time, right?

The Hebrew people's looking for uh a Messiah, looking for an anointed one.

Um granted, they had had other anointed ones in the past, David was a Messiah in that way.

Um, Samuel was doing the anointing.

Uh so you've had other ones, but you know, David was the the the greatest of the kings and stuff in that kind of messianic tradition.

But really, it was there was also this sense that they were looking for the one, right?

They were looking for the the Christ, uh the the messiah.

And uh there have been a lot of false messiahs, a lot of people proclaiming to be it all along the way, um, even other messiahs during Jesus' time, right?

We we we hear people around and around him talking as if they were the messiah and things like that.

Remember, there's a guy healing at one point, and the disciples say, Hey, should we stop him, right?

And whoever is not against me is for me, right?

That kind of conversation.

Um Yeah, so I think I that's the main difference, is really one of language.

So Christ was Greek.

When when this is written in Koine Greek, it would have said Christos or or Christ, and when it was probably originally said in Aramaic or Hebrew, it would have been said Messiah.

So I remember my early days of church learning that Jesus the Christ versus John the Baptist, where Jesus the Christ is the one, our savior.

Okay, but if you're saying that uh Messiah is the anointed one, Christ actually just means Greek of the Anointed One.

So is Peter really declaring him as the Savior or just as the next anointed one that God has sent us?

I think that if Peter would have just said you are the Messiah, then yes, it would have just been you are the one who is sent to us.

But instead he also goes on to say, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

And I think those two things together give us that kind of you're the one.

You're the one we've been waiting for.

You are to to call someone God's son, especially when right before this, Jesus said who who the son of man is, right?

And I've always thought I I found this interesting when we were reading it just now, and I just wrote this down, you know, Jesus is asking them a general question, who do people say the son of man is, right?

And I've always thought Jesus is saying, Who are people saying, who are who is everyone around saying I am?

Right?

Okay.

And it's that'd be one way to interpret it, right?

And so, well, you know, you're some people think you're John the Baptist.

Remember, he died, and maybe you're like the reincarnation of him or Elijah or or Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

But I think instead, it's actually he's saying, Who throughout history if people say who do people say that the Son of Man figure in the Old Testament is?

Who?

Okay.

Because I always thought he just said 4,000.

Who are all those people over there say I am?

Correct.

But that's not what it says.

He says, Who do people say the Son of Man is, right?

And then he says, Who do you say I am?

Right?

So he's then saying, Who do you say I am?

And I'm wondering, while reading that, is the first question not one that says all those people are wrong about who they're saying the son of man is?

But then what he's doing is digging deeper and saying, Okay, Peter said, uh disciples, who who do you say that I am?

Right?

Because they could have said right back to him, well, you're the son of man, right?

Because that's what he's been calling himself.

And so, but instead it digs it deeper into this new identity, right?

And so I don't know if that breaks anything open.

I don't know if you'll hear anything about it Sunday.

It was sort of, I don't know if it's just a I just had a cup of coffee at 2 30 in the afternoon insight.

So like I'm not sure.

But um, but I find that an interesting possibility.

I I've always thought of it as Jesus is saying, Who do they say I am?

And then who do you say I am?

But that's not the question.

The question is, who do they say the Son of Man is, and then who do you say I am?

And I just found that an interesting possibility of interpretation there.

Excellent.

Excellent point.

I have not thought about that or picked that up uh before.

I think we pass over that first question so much to get to the second question to get to Peter's response.

Yeah, but I do think I do think Jesus' first question is interesting, right?

It's it's almost like.

I think it might be a genuine question.

Rather than being a setup question, I think it actually might be a genuine one.

Hey, who do they say son of man is, right?

Are we on the right track here, right?

And when they're saying Elijah or John the Baptist, I mean, those were forerunners, they were in the right, they're in the ballpark of the right answer, right?

So it's not necessarily that it's wrong.

And I think maybe what Jesus is doing is trying to get an identity conversation started.

And then to say, and who do you say I am?

Well, you're the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Um and I and we're talking, I I don't I'm not sure if Peter even knows the fullness of what he's said, right?

Right.

I don't think he came up with that on his own.

That's why after that he says, Blessed are you.

Like, like that didn't come from your head, Peter.

That that's from the Father, right?

I mean, that's essentially what he says, right?

Yeah, flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you, but my father in heaven.

Um Yeah, and and then and then we get to this conversation about well, I don't know if you want to go there, but but go into what what he calls Peter, right?

Right.

So he says the rock, and I'm gonna build my foundation on on the rock.

And he's like, are you building it on Peter, or are you building on what Peter said or what now Peter believes, or now this we're gonna go forward from that point on who I am and build forward my new church in this new direction?

You can almost see it as that Jesus knows that the church is gonna go off in a different direction other than just changing the Jewish tradition.

The Pharisees won't come along.

I'm gonna, you're the now the rock, and we're gonna build our church from you, from our disciples, and we're gonna grow it his new church this way.

I always thought that, okay, he's just saying, Peter, you're solid as a rock.

You're, you know, this is where we're gonna go forward with build my foundation on rock, not on sand.

Yeah.

But it's almost like I'm reading this, like going, he's understanding that we're going in with a whole new church in a total, totally different direction.

Yeah, well, we got to think so church, right?

The the word for church in Greek is ecclesia, right?

Ecclesia is is based on the word cole in Greek, which would have meant the called out ones, the ones who are kind of it just was really a gathering, right?

So there's a gathering, there'd be an ecclesia, uh, a rotary club in the in the first century world, and there'd be an ecclesia uh sewing club and an ecclesia, you know what I'm saying, right?

The ecclesia was, you know, bowling league, whatever, right?

So, so, but then he's saying, hey, I'm gonna build this ecclesia, this church, on you, Peter, right?

So the early church, what do they take this to be?

Well, Peter's the leader, right?

The disciples have heard this in that moment.

So we see that in the book of Acts.

We see Peter is de facto leader.

Is the leader.

Of course he is.

Jesus has given him the keys and everything like that.

What happens after that, right?

Well, that's how we get the tradition of the Pope, right?

So the Pope has the keys of the kingdom, right?

In in you know, sim symbolically, right?

But those have been passed on.

The the Catholic Church still teaches, right, that the Pope stands in for Peter, that every priest then is standing for the Pope.

And so there's this apostolic succession since um, you know, I think and I I've I've been thinking about the Pope a little bit last couple weeks.

Um, because I don't know if you saw the White Sox.

Uh they're not my team, I'm a Cubs fan.

But the White Sox, so so the Pope's a White Sox fan.

Oh, I know.

Okay, yeah.

And the and the Pope and the White Sox last week gave away Pope hats for all 40,000 fans.

So all 40,000 fans were in big Pope hats with the White Sox logo on it.

And it's pretty funny.

You need to look it up.

But anyway, that's an aside.

But I've been I was thinking about the Pope some this week.

So um but squirrel.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, I mean it's related.

So anyway, and um but I I I think I think that the tension holds here, right?

The same question goes.

Well, was Jesus intending to build this on Peter and have this man made like this succession of men actually who carried on Peter's line somehow that way?

I could see how the church could interpret that, but I could also see how it's in his confession, right?

In his confession of you're the Christ Son of Living God, and we're gonna build this thing, and it's gonna, you know, eventually it's gonna divert some from it it's at least gonna take it, it's gonna take a severe turn from where this Jewish movement was.

It's not gonna be the exact same.

Yeah, it's gonna be different.

And so often we think Matthew is the true Jewish traditionalist and Luke is the Gentile, and we're gonna get the Greek.

But this entire passage is nothing but Greek.

Peter, which we think is oh, that's his name, actually, the Greek, which is Petros, or Petra, Petra being a bedrock, and Petros being a stone.

Yeah.

So I would want to think that he's talking about Peter and Petra as in the bedrock, the stone, the foundation, versus just your your solitary rock.

So we get that Greek coming in here.

We also get the Greek coming in of Christ.

We also get the Greek coming in of Hades.

Of Hades, yeah.

I was just gonna say that.

Versus Sheol, which would have been SHEL was the pit, the death where all the dead went.

Um and and and now we yeah, we're getting this Greek term of Hades, right, which we know from Greek mythology and everything like that.

So we're getting this kind of the mixing of the cultures, if you will, in that, in a way that would not have happened in straight Hebrew.

Right.

So obviously the the Gospels were written well after the fact, and a great amount of care went to jumping it pretty much all into the Greek or during their translation when they're translating, it definitely makes the emphasis on the Greek.

Am I reading something into that, or is that something there with the whole uh keys to heaven?

Yeah, something keys.

Now we've got the whole theology of heaven and hell that didn't exist before.

Sure.

So I think a couple things on that.

Regarding it being in Greek, right?

I think the important thing to remember is like when we say Jew and Greek, or we say Jew and Gentile, it really means in Jewish terminology there were Jews and then there was Greeks.

The rest of the whole world was Greek.

Modern civilization, exactly.

Didn't they know what other exists?

So so to them, the Greek world, the Hellen, you know, when we look at the Hellenistic world, when we look at the Holy Roman Empire later, all of those, like it was everywhere, right?

I mean, everywhere.

Yeah, west, east, north, south was part of the Hellenistic world from where Israel was located, right?

And so I do think that there's an element of either the gospel writers and or Jesus and his disciples even um speaking in terms that broaden this out.

At the very least, we know Paul does that, right?

We know that Paul is going to speak intentionally in Greek terms.

Not not so that he appeals to Greek people, quote unquote.

It's so that he appeals to all people because that was that was the language, right?

That that was it.

I mean, and and and and to that end, the disciples, Jesus, they would have known that language as well.

They're they're they would have been able to speak Koine Greek, it was common.

That was the the equivalent of being able to speak English in the marketplace today, right?

It was in the global marketplace.

Um so this that's one thing about it.

Uh regarding regarding heaven and hell and teachings about that, I mean Jesus has far less to say than we want him to say about these things.

Far less.

So even here, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

I think he's saying that that nothing is gonna stop his church, right?

And that even the worst the the hottest fire, late later in another term he'll call it Gehenna, which was simply the garbage dump outside where they burnt everything.

Uh our our image our images of heaven and hell, and I've said this here before, I'll say it again, are from Dante's Inferno.

Yeah, medieval times really pushes this whole uh angels and wings on clouds in all of us.

Our images of heaven and hell are from that.

Now, does that mean those things aren't true?

No, it doesn't mean that.

It just means that they're not always biblical, right?

So is Jesus saying, well, like, I don't think he's making some grand proclamation here about heaven and hell and all eternity with it with that.

I think he's making a proclamation about the power of the church, right?

And then Jesus is gonna give Peter, he gives him the keys, and what are the keys to?

Well, they say basically, like, you can bind and loose in John 20, when Jesus gives this same power to the disciples, when he breathes the Holy Spirit on them, he's gonna say, Whatever you forgive, someone is forgiven, whatever you don't forgive is not forgiven, right?

He gives them somehow this like this power of pardon from God.

And so, so I mean that becomes a the power of like confession and absolution and freedom in that, right?

So, um so so anyway, all of that is wrapped up in it.

So I don't I just don't think it's an I don't think it's an explicit teaching about heaven and hell or anything like that in this case.

Yeah, it's it's just in metaphors that keys that unlock and they would understand the gates.

Every city and the towns at in that time period, due to the wars and tribal feudings, um, we're surrounded by walls and gates.

Yeah.

And in order to get into anything, you had to pass through the gate.

So there's literally, if you want to join my church, you got to come through the found, build up the foundation of Peter.

It could be literally saying that, but even death isn't going to destroy my my church, my kingdom of heaven.

We often said so often that's how Matthew spoke.

Kingdom of Heaven would never never didn't want to say God.

Um and being bound in heaven or or loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven.

Um and he says bound on earth, he doesn't say bound in hell or Hades.

So we again like Talk about, I think we take some of these things and we build on it maybe a little bit too much.

But tell me what we're building on and what why does Jesus say don't tell anyone that he was to Christ?

Well what we're building on, I mean, you know, so this this idea of whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

And whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

I think it's a reminder that I mean for me, it's like what part of it is what we do in this life matters.

That there's eternal, that somehow we are eternal beings, and and and what we do has consequence.

So I think there's something within that.

Um I would have to look up more about the concept of binding and loosing again, because that's a those are terms from that time and that world, and in all honesty, I did not have the time to look them up today.

So we could go into it.

I mean, I think you know, there's other spaces where, like I said, forgiveness and stuff gets tied in, but um, but I think that's one piece of it.

The question about you know, verse 20, then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone he was the Messiah.

So that's interesting because because in Mark, in Mark, Jesus has what's called the messianic secret.

In Mark, all over the place he says, This is who I am, don't tell anyone, right?

Or whenever whenever a miracle's done, then he tells the disciples, yeah, that happened, but don't tell anyone.

Or he teaches, he tells the Pharisees off, the Pharisees go away, and Jesus says, But don't tell anyone that I'm the Messiah, right?

He he does it 20 times in Mark.

In Matthew, not as much, but it's interesting.

He does it here the next chapter, he's gonna do it right at the end of the transfiguration.

Um and so I do think there's something to does he not want them to tell him so that his ministry can continue?

Because if they go on saying he's the messiah, or or let it end.

Yeah.

Or I mean, is he gained enough following if everyone is convinced he's messiah, they're not gonna allow him to get put on the cross.

Yeah, so right, yeah.

I mean that that is a thought of it, yeah.

Or or or it becomes I mean, people thought that the Messiah was also going to be like a warlord, right?

That was how leaders functioned in that.

You think about Alexander the Great, right?

You think about people who were, you know, a a big leader was a warrior in in that world.

And so Jesus is coming what does he do?

He rides in on a donkey, right?

He he's no sword on his own.

Talking about the first being last.

He's he's overthrowing all sense of that, um, which I think should say something to us about our violent sensibilities and things today.

Uh but that's another podcast.

But like, um But indeed, right?

Jesus So Jesus is gonna overthrow that type of mentality about what a Messiah looks like.

So I think the same way, he doesn't want He doesn't want to be propped up in the way that people would think he should be.

Right?

And so yeah, so yeah, maybe maybe it's to not tell anyone is actually so that he can actually complete his complete his journey to the cross, right?

So well something to be uh questioned or thought of or like a lot of so many things.

Um soon as you find out one thing, you questioned uh clouds the judgment of another.

I don't think we'll ever have all the answers.

We try to answer some of them.

We just try to have a discussion as for the whole point of this podcast.

I try to ask maybe some questions that you might be thinking of out there and give uh the pastors here an opportunity to try to expand on that because we don't get that always in the sermons.

Yeah, and I would I would say I think it is important.

I think one one place we're gonna come to, right?

I I think that a lot of the point of this passage and of these past four or five weeks, right, is but it culminates here is the the power of a really good question, right?

The power of you know, sometimes the best questions are not very verbose, right?

Who do people say I am, right?

Five words, right?

I mean that's that's what we're talking about here.

Yeah.

That's a that's a it changes everything, right?

Will you marry me?

Pretty significant question, right?

Like I you know, um like some of the biggest questions that attacks, you know, what were you thinking?

Um right, these are questions that delve deep.

Um and I think sometimes we we we need to be we need to be curious, not in a way that like proves our own wisdom or smartness or something like that, but in a way that um that is open, that is vulnerable, that is that yeah, I I exactly.

I feel I believe if you're constantly questioning, then you're constantly learning.

When you stop questioning and you think you have all the answers, you stop learning, and I don't think we're ever meant to do that.

We're never gonna know all of it.

So we always need to um the more questions I ask, the more I search.

Yeah, and it helps me out.

I don't know if it helps um you out or or anyone else out there, but that's just my own personal um way of understanding things sometimes is literally just asking a simple question.

And a so simple question that Jesus asked uh the disciples uh goes a long way.

This passage it's got huge significance in our church.

Huge.

Yeah.

I mean, and Peter's confession, this is the first time it is flat out laid out of who Jesus is.

And I wonder what the other disciples were thinking at the time.

I just have more questions come into my head all the time, more I read and study and learn.

Peter might have answered.

Hopefully, I with Jesus' understanding, it was probably prompted by the Holy Ghost, not on uh Peter's own thinking.

But I would have loved to have been there when all this is going on around all the other disciples, and they they start looking at each other going, Is he?

Yeah, yeah.

That's great.

So just some things to think about.

That's what we do here at the uh podcast.

We try to uh open our minds a little bit, uh under understandings a little bit as well, and then I don't know, hopefully learn something along the way.

Something.

So you'll be preaching on this Sunday.

Probably got some uh some notes uh to think about.

Um are we concentrating on um the small question or are we concentrating on uh Peter's answer?

Yes.

I love it.

I love it.

Yes.

Yes, so tune in to find out whether you want to uh listen to the sermon on on the uh on the website is posted along with uh the podcast, or hopefully you can come join us on Sunday or live stream as well.

Come join us.

Yep.

Either way, it's your available.

Laura will be back uh next week as we continue on this uh journey of uh small things, big impacts.

And I did not write this is this is last week of the year.

This is the last week of the week.

Yeah, so she's gonna be launching us in for kind of the kickoff Sunday on August 30th, September 6th.

I'm gonna be preaching about Sabbath, and then we're gonna launch into a a series of on our church's new purpose.

And so we're gonna be talking about that for for three weeks and things.

So that's kind of where we're going.

But yeah, so we got a coup with kickoff Sunday being the a week from Sunday, we're gonna that's where we're gonna be.

Um so she's gonna be preaching from um from Exodus and the burning bush that week.

I'll be preaching on Sabbath the next week.

So we kind of got a little some one-offs, some special stuff, and then we're gonna launch into this into our purpose here.

We're gonna be talking about belong, become, be love.

And so we're gonna have a conversation around that.

That's outstanding.

I like that.

I like that subject.

I'm looking forward to it.

I hope you are as well.

Please come back and join us next week.

Until then, may the love of Christ be with you always.

So goodbye, everyone.