Matthew the apostle wrote when Jesus and His disciples, “were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falls into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not cure him”, and in chapter seventeen and verse seventeen of his book, Matthew shares how Jesus declares, “O faithless and perverse generation” where we read:
Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation,
how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him here to me.
The verse reads, “Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, ...”. Matthew began with the word, “then” or “at that time and moment” “Jesus” which refers to “the Son of God, the Savior of mankind and God incarnate whose name means Jehovah is Salvation” “answered” or “responded and began to speak” “and said” which means “and uttered, declared and proclaimed”, “O faithless” or “O unfaithful, perfidious and incredulous” “and perverse” which means “distorted, turned aside, perverted and corrupt” “generation” or “rank of natural descent and successive members of a genealogy”. Matthew shared how Jesus exclaimed that the “generation” in which He was manifested was “unfaithful” and “corrupt”.
The verse continues, “... how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him here to me.” Matthew added the words, “how long” or “for what length of time” “shall I be with you” which means “will Jesus live and sojourn and exist with this generation”? “How long” or “for what length of time” “shall I suffer you” which means “will Jesus bear with, forbear and endure this generation”? “Bring him here” or “carry and move the man's son” “to me” which means “to Jesus. Matthew shared how Jesus rhetorically questioned what length of time He would be with these people and “bear with” them”, and He instructed His disciples to “bring” the man's son to Him.
When we meditate upon Matthew's words in this verse, we learn Jesus' view of the generation in which He lived. He considered them “faithless” and “perverse”, and He rhetorically wondered “how long” He would “be with” and “bear with” them. The implication is that He desires people to have “faith” and “align” with His way and understanding. God desires to have a loving, personal and holy relationship with every person through His Son Jesus, and those who “believe and trust” in Him shall find themselves in harmony with God as the “Savior” of the world.
Next time Matthew shares how Jesus, “rebuked the devil”, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.
Until
tomorrow…there is more…
Look for the daily devotional book
“Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation”, the
marriage book “So, You Want to Be Married”, “One Year in the
Sermon on the Mount” and the new poetry book "Random Mushrooms
Volumes I and II" and the new novel "Elizabeth County"
in all major bookstore sites, http://www.amazon.com
; http://www.barnesandnobles.com
; download to e-books, and find it locally at
www.mrzlc.com/bookstore.
No comments:
Post a Comment