Holy Boldness

God gives power to men

The bystanders who watched were stunned and commented not just about how powerful Jesus was but the fact that God “…had given such power to men.” (v. 8). Think about this. It is such a critical point. The people who watched this interaction between Jesus, the paralytic, and the religious authorities came away exclaiming that God was giving power to men, powers, it should be understood, that was always assumed to reside with God alone. Jesus did not just come to walk in His own special and unique authority but to restore the true calling and purpose of mankind to be healers, restorers, forgivers, lovers, repairers of the breach, to cultivate and subdue the earth. All men are meant to walk in authori ty, to steward the earth, and are even given authority to forgive sins. None of these measures could have been carried out by Jesus un less He was governed by the will of God and the fear of the Lord. God’s pleasure was Jesus’ internal plumb line. It kept Him challenging the status quo while remaining true to the scriptures and the eternal purpose of God. Jesus was not just reacting to the evil He saw around Him. He was moved and motivated by the purpose of God. This is so supremely important. The fear of the Lord is not reactionary. It is an internal drive to see God’s pleasure and well established in the earth. When Jesus invited Matthew, a tax collector, to be one of His disciples, it was another provocative act of Jesus, for tax collectors were despised as traitors of the nation of Israel primarily for their dishonesty and their collusion with Rome. Furthermore, Matthew had a rather unseemly set of friends. But Jesus did not mind being around them. When Jesus and His disciples sat down at the table with Matthew and his friends, the Pharisees took issue with it and confronted the disciples about their teacher’s poor choice of company. Jesus had a simple yet provocative answer to their accusing question, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician but the sick.” (Matt. 9:12) This is yet another one of Jesus’ logical and self-evident statements. He had an uncanny knack for stating the obvious so that nothing could be said in opposition. Friend of Sinners! - The Call of Matthew the tax collector

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