Matthew 13

Thank you.

Matthew 13, 22, the one who received the seed that fell among the thorns, it's the farmer sowing his seeds, is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it,

making it unfruitful.

Deceit

It doesn't mention any kind of a prior marriage or anything like that.

But what we can say is that in Matthew 13, verse 56, we are told the names of of these four brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude.

Now those four, you mentioned James, those four are called the brothers of Jesus.

And yet, here's the amazing thing, that James and Joseph could not have been in any way whatsoever the half-brothers of Jesus because they are the sons of a different couple.

James and Joseph, mentioned in Matthew 13, verse 56, are the sons of a woman named Mary, but she is Mary, the wife of Clopas, who's also known as Cleophas or Alphaeus.

And you see her standing next to whom? She's standing next to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, in John 19, verse 25.

She is a close relative, it seems, of Mary, but she's certainly not the mother of Jesus, and she is the mother, of James and Joseph.

It should not stop in a song.

your advancement is how you prove that you truly love him the manifestation of his grace in and through your life are we together now did the bible not say in matthew chapter 5 from verse 13 it says ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt has lost its saltiness or is several it says wherewith is it salty again it is good for nothing except to be thrown down and to be trampled under foot of men Then he says, you are the light of the world.

You are a city that is set on a hill that cannot be hidden.

He says, neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but that they put it on a candlestick and it gives light to everyone in the room.

And this idea of teaching, if you look at Matthew's gospel, it seems to have, it's broken like into five major teaching blocks, teaching discourses.

So we just talked about the Sermon on the Mount between chapters five to seven, but then you have the mission discourse, it's often called in Matthew 10, and the kingdom parables, which are all assembled in Matthew 13.

Then you have this discourse, which is kind of given to the whole community in Matthew 18.

And then you have all the woes and judgment and that whole eschatological speech that is done in Matthew 23 and 25.

I like this verse.

It jumped off the page at me when I was reading through the book of Matthew here recently.

Matthew 13, 52 says, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

And that's what I felt like as I was studying the book of Enoch.

Like this book was a privilege.

They both tell the same story, but Kings is emphasizing northern Israel.

Chronicles emphasizes southern Israel.

The four gospels will tell the same story about Jesus, but Matthew emphasizes Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, while Luke emphasizes the humanity of Jesus, and John is emphasizing his divinity.

The disciples are tremendously concerned because their hero is leaving them, and the only thing they want to know is this.

They say, Lord, You know, what is the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And they already knew that the end of the age referred to the day of the Lord, the day that God would destroy the wicked within the kingdom of heaven, going back to Matthew 13.

And so like any of us who have dear friends that are going to leave us, and we depend upon those friends, the greatest concern that we had was, when are you coming back? What will be the sign of your coming? What will be the sign of the end of the age when you return, this time as lion rather than as lamb? You came the first time as lamb, you'll return as lion.

And so Christ very carefully goes through and lays down the Olivet Discourse.

I read the verse and you can talk a little bit, but it brings a little bit about the mustard seed, right? I have this here.

Jesus says in Matthew 13, 31, 32, that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

And I was like, what does that mean?

So I think what happens a lot of times is people give, I'm not going to use a mustard seed because it's not so maybe relevant to Western culture.