Matthew Chapter 10

WOMEN"S BIBLE STUDY CHAPTER 10
As we sat together on Thursday night, we discussed what we would use to remember this chapter. I admit, I was a little stumped. We decided to use 10 SENDS OUT THE 12. 
In this Chapter Jesus gives His disciples authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and the ability to cleanse and heal all manner of illness and sickness . He tells them to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons. He says " freely you received, freely give" 10:8. He told them not to gather money for their journey. Not to take a backpack or even a change of clothes. He tells them to go only to the cities of the children of Israel. No gentile cities, no Samaritan cities. He says to shake off the dust from their feet of any cities that do not receive them. Then He says that It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for those cities that do not receive them. The story of what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah is in Genesis 19:1-29. Read those verses if you are not familiar with that passage.

He goes on in verses 16-42 to say some of the most important verses of our faith while speaking also of things that were to happen to the disciples in the future.
If I had been one of them, I would have been afraid. They were told of persecution and rejection and even told that they were not to fear death. (10:28). Some day we may be called to face death rather than denounce our savior. Many people around the world are. But, I think that most of us face fear of rejection, fear of embarrassment, fear of our lives changing if we share Christ as we should. A lot of times we are "paralyzed by fear" but not in the way we see it portrayed in the scary movies. I mean that our Christian lives become stagnant, shallow, cut off from a fresh water source like a stagnant pond. Jesus in our lives is meant to flow from us like "rivers of living water" (John 7:28)  

Martin Luther Said:
Let goods and kindred go
This mortal life also
The body they may kill
God's truth abideth still
His kingdom is forever

 They were also told that they were worth much more to God than any of the little sparrows that crowd in my barn for warmth in the winter. I'm not sure that that would have been a comfort to me in their situation. He also told them that the hairs on their heads were all numbered (10:30) Not counted, numbered. There is a hair #240, on your head. I find this idea positively amazing.                                                                              

I don't want to go on and on but there are a few more things I want to mention. This was a group of 12 men listening to Him. I'm sure some had probably zoned out by now and missed some of what He was saying. They were people just like us remember . This group included Judas, who betrayed Jesus. I have wondered about the miracles they performed and if any were performed by Judas. But I digress. The  verse I actually want to point out is 10:38. We are so familiar with this verse that we don't give it a second thought. But, think about this verse from the perspective of the 12 men that were standing there listening to Jesus tell them how to get ready for their journey. He says " And he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me". This verse means a lot to us, but it didn't mean anything to them. Jesus had not taken up any cross at that point. I am sure that they did not know what He meant by those words. I consider it a miracle that Matthew remembered Him saying those words and wrote it down for us. By the time Matthew recorded those words , it meant a lot to the disciples too. 

One  last thing about this chapter, I believe that verse 10:39 is a promise. Nothing better than losing your life,as you know it, and being right where God wants you. The day we got the call from the state of Vermont asking us to become parents for our daughter Hannah, was the day that this verse became real to me. As I spoke on the phone with the placement coordinator for Child protective services I could hear the Lord saying to me "lose your life","lose your life" over and over again . Well we lost our lives as we knew it that day. The next day we were the scared parents of a very sick infant. Our lives have never been the same. We have seen and continue to see miracles on behalf of this little "fatherless child". The Lord has taken very tender care of her and we have been privileged to watch Him work.

So, for this chapter we will remember 10 SENDS OUT THE 12. If you want to, you can also remember that if you DOUBLE THE 12 , YOU GET 24. In chapter 24, Jesus is again speaking to the disciples and He says many things that are similar to some of the things He says in this chapter. But you don't have to remember that because we will eventually get to chapter 24.

Chapter 9 we are remembering VERSE 9:9  JESUS CALLS MATTHEW, DOUBLE THE 9 AND YOU GET18, in verse 9:18 we start the story of Jesus healing the woman with the issue of blood and Jesus bringing the little girl back to life.

Chapter 8 verse 8:8 I AM NOT WORTHY FOR YOU TO COME UNDER MY ROOF, BUT JUST SAY THE WORD AND MY SERVANT WILL BE HEALED. Story of the faithful centurion, also remember, LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR OWN DEAD AND PIGS OVER A CLIFF.

Chapter 7, JUDGING , plank in the eye and Prophet, fruit inspection.

Chapter 6, PRAYER, Lord's prayer is here and Worry,Jesus says not to worry.

Chapter 5, BLESS YOUR HEART, The beatitudes are here and the "adultery in your heart" verse is here.

Chapter 4, THINK FAST, Jesus fasts for 40 days and 40 nights, He appoints 4 APOSTLES, Peter Andrew, James and John.

Chapter 3, H2O, John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and we see the TRINITY as Jesus comes from the water.

Chapter 2, JESUS TURNS 2, THE WISE MEN COME AND HEROD SLAUGHTERS THE 2 YEAR OLDS.
Chapter 1, first 17 verses are genealogy and TURN THE 18 ON IT'S SIDE AND IT LOOKS LIKE A SWADDLED BABY. It's the Christmas story.

So, keep reading! Move on to Chapter 11. Remember to read it as many times as you can and practice the memory tools we are using. Pray for remembrance, and start sharing what you remember with your family. Your kids are bound to be impressed. !!!God bless you.
Love
nancy   

Matthew Chapter 9

We are going to use  9:9 as the first thing to remind of what is in this chapter. In that verse, Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector ( and author of this book) to follow Him. After this, Jesus heads off to dinner with Matthew and his friends, who were very unacceptable people to the Pharisees.
 In the first 17 verses of this chapter, Jesus is making a very important statement to all of the people he came in contact with. He was teaching them that He had come to bring something different to their relationship with God. It was not going to be the same old burden filled religion that they had lived under for so long. We also see that he reacted differently to each group of people depending on who they were and what they needed. Matthew had rejected his Jewish background so he was probably surprised and pleased to have Jesus ask him to be a follower. The fact that Jesus wanted to have dinner with him and  his "sinner" friends was down right shocking. Especially to the Pharisees who were just waiting for Jesus to mess up and break the rules about who a pious Jew could eat with.
Both the Pharisees and John the baptist followers had questions for Him about His behavior. The Pharisees wanted to know why He was eating with those people, and John's followers wanted to know why He was eating at all. 
He told the Pharisees that he was there for the sinners, the needy, the sick. He wasn't there for the holy people who had it altogether and didn't need Him.
He told John's followers,(who by the way included Peter and Andrew according to John chapter 1) that right now, He was what was important. He was going to be His disciples main focus until He was gone.
Then He goes on to tell both groups that what He was doing was not going to be able to be put into the old Jewish religion. Just like grape juice before it ferments, the new relationship with God was going to need new boundaries, new room to expand, new ideas, new thinking. 

From verse 18-26, he goes on to prove what He was saying in an amazing way. A ruler of the Jews comes and bows down before Jesus because his little daughter had died and He wanted Jesus to come and touch her so that she would live. He was asking something of Jesus that he knew none of the leaders, or priests from the temple would do. Touch a dead person. ( Num.19:11-22)     That job would have been reserved for a close family relative or a paid undertaker. Any person who touched a dead body would be unclean for a week and was required to go through a process of ceremonial cleansing.
The second astonishing thing was that a woman with an issue of blood came right up and touched Jesus, which also made Him unclean according to the law. (Lev. 15:19-33). 
I think that it is very significant that Jesus touched or was touched by both of these people after using the analogy of unshrunk cloth and new wine. There had to be people in the crowd who considered Jesus unclean after the woman with an issue of blood for 12 years, had touched Him. And yet we don't have any mention that Jesus was now considered unclean and that He would have been considered  to be unclean for a week.
In normal circumstances, the ruler from the temple would have never invited an unclean Jesus to touch his little daughter, but he was desperate. The concerns of the world always pass away from us when we are desperate. Jesus could have raised the little girl without touching her but He had to touch her. He had to show them that their rules and traditions did not pertain to Him. He was the fulfillment of all of their rules and traditions. He was the healer and the cleanser. 
He goes on from there to touch,  and heal, 2 blind men.  The blind men did not care at all that Jesus had just touched a woman with an issue of blood and a dead person. All concerns paled in the light of them receiving their sight.

I believe that a lot of people received their "sight" that day. 

Jesus was so different from anything they had ever seen or heard of. He was compassionate, wise and unaffected by the heavy rules and burdens that the religious leaders had heaped on the people. (Luke 11:46). 
The Talmud contains a lot of these rules and regulations and is fascinating reading. You really get a sense of the impossible life these people were living in the days that Jesus walked the earth. 

she is a carousel fanatic!

The end of this chapter is hard for me to read. The demon possessed man who could not speak is referred to as the "dumb" man. Anytime this term is used it is hard for me. My precious daughter Hannah did not learn to speak until she was seven. She still struggles and her speech is hard to understand. We are always praying for a complete healing for our beautiful daughter. God is good.


Ok, so we are now a third of the way through the book of Matthew.
Once again, here is the list we are using to remember what is in our chapters.


Chapter 9  We are using verse 9:9 JESUS CALLS MATTHEW THE TAX GATHERER. Double the 9 and you get verse 18 this is where the story begins about the woman with the issue of blood and the mans little daughter being raised from the dead.

Chapter 8. We use 8:8 LORD I AM NOT WORTHY FOR YOU TO COME UNDER MY ROOF BUT JUST SAY THE WORD AND MY SERVANT WILL BE HEALED. It is the story of the centurion with the great faith . We are also remembering, LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR OWN DEAD AND PIGS OVER A CLIFF. Chapter 8 is the hardest one to remember but with practice we can do it.

Chapter 7 is JUDGING, plank in the eye and PROPHET, fruit inspection.

Chapter 6 is PRAYER , Lord's prayer is here and WORRY, Jesus talks about worry.

Chapter 5 is BLESS your HEART,  the beatitudes are here (sermon on the mount) and Jesus talks about committing adultery in your heart.

Chapter 4 is THINK FAST, Jesus fasts for forty day and forty nights. He also calls 4 APOSTLES, Peter and Andrew, James and John .

Chapter 3 is H2O, (the chemical symbol for water) John the baptist baptizes Jesus, and we see the TRINITY (3) as Jesus comes out of the water.

Chapter 2 is JESUS TURNS 2, WISE MEN COME, HEROD SLAUGHTERS THE 2 YEAR OLDS

Chapter 1 is the first 17 verses are genealogy and then is you turn  the 18 on it's side it looks like a SWADDLED BABY. It's the Christmas story.

Time to move to Chapter 10! Remember to read it as many times as you can. Practice these remembering hints as you fall asleep at night. Practice them as you sit at stop lights if the noise from the back seat is not deafening. Pray that the Almighty, Glorious Lord, will give you remembrance and diligence .

God Bless you sisters!
Love
Nancy 

Matthew Chapter 8

This is another amazing chapter in the Book of Matthew. The chapter starts with a recounting of a leper being healed. In verse 8: 4 Jesus tells the leper not to tell anyone about his healing, but to go show himself to the priest and to take the offering that Moses commanded for a testimony to them.

So, picture this. This man  had been pronounced unclean through a series of examinations done by the very priests he was now going to  visit. Using Lev. 13 as a guide, it could have taken them anywhere from 1 day to 3 weeks to decide if he had leprosy before he was put out of the temple and society as he knew it. He was now going back to those priests with 2 male lambs, a 1 year old ewe, a bushel of fine flour and about a pint of oil. On his first visit to the priests, they would have been required to ... well, in the interest of not making this to wordy... go to Lev. 14 and read what the priests now had to do for him according to the Law written by Moses. This was going to be a long drawn out process for the priests. They were going to have to confront the fact that Jesus had healed this man of leprosy, over and over again. It was going to require a lot of work on their part. It is possible, that Nicodemus (from John 3 and 7), came to faith because of this man showing up in the temple. And, from this man's point of view, he was just 1 short week away from being back in the house with his family. (how amazing for him)

In the next  8 verses we get the story of the centurion coming to ask Jesus to heal his servant.  In verse 8:8, he says "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof but just say the word and my servant will be healed" In verse  8:10, it says Jesus marvels at the statements of this Roman soldier and tells the crowd that He has not encountered such great faith in all Israel. Just a few verses later He calls His disciples, "men of little faith".
I have looked at this verse many times. This is the kind of faith I pray the Lord will give me. We will use this verse as one of the ways to remember this chapter. Verse 8:8 is; Lord I am not worthy to have You come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. This will help us to remember that the story of the centurion, is here.
In verse 8 ;14 we see that Jesus heals Peter's mother in law. Before I saw this verse, I heard pastors say that Peter was married. I used to think, how do they know that? Well here is how they know it. If you can remember  where this verse is, you too can sound very impressive.
The next thing I want to point out is verse  8:22. In verse 21 a disciple asks if he can wait to follow Jesus until after he had buried his father.
What makes this interesting is that his father wasn't dead yet. He was asking if he could wait until his dad was dead and gone to follow Jesus. Jesus says to him, "follow me and let the dead bury their own dead". I want to remember this statement by Jesus in this chapter because I want us to remember how Jesus thinks of the unsaved.  He considers them dead. Our unsaved loved ones are dead. We need to see the urgency of bringing them to life in Christ. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead".

Hannah and her precious little friends at the school talent show

After this, we have the account of Jesus calming the sea for the very afraid disciples. Am I wrong, or does just about everyone in the U.S. know this story? I'm including unbelievers in that question. The assumption that everyone knows this story, has made me think that we should know where it is. So it will also be included in our "remembering" of this chapter .

Lastly, in this chapter, we have the story of Jesus healing the demoniacs and sending the herd of swine  into the sea that He had just calmed. This was the region of the Gadarenes. The 7th son of Jacob was Gad. We read about the Gadites getting this land in the book of Numbers. These people should not have been anywhere near swine. I am sure that is why the whole town came out to ask Jesus to leave their region in verse 34.

So in Chapter 8 we will remember verse 8:8 LORD I AM NOT WORTHY TO HAVE YOU COME UNDER MY ROOF BUT JUST SAY THE WORD AND MY SERVANT WILL BE HEALED
 Peter was married.
FOLLOW ME AND LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR OWN DEAD.
CALMS SEA AND PIGS OVER A CLIFF 
I know that this is a lot for one chapter, but I'm sure we can do it.

Chapter 7 is JUDGING and PROPHET , both 7 letter words
Chapter 6 is PRAYER and WORRY, The Lords prayer is here and Jesus talks about worrying.
Chapter 5 is BLESS your HEART,  The beatitudes are here and this is where Jesus talks about adultery (and other sins) being a condition of the heart.
Chapter 4 is THINK FAST, Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 night, he appointed 4 disciples, Peter , Andrew, James and John
Chapter 3 is H2O, John the baptist, baptizes Jesus and we see the TRINITY  as Jesus come out of the H2O (water)
Chapter 2 is, JESUS TURNS 2, THE WISE MEN COME AND HEROD SLAUGHTERS THE 2 YEAR OLDS
Chapter 1 is, the first 17 verses are genealogy then TURN THE 18 ON IT'S SIDE AND IT LOOKS LIKE A SWADDLED BABY, IT'S THE CHRISTMAS STORY.

Ok, ladies, if you have been practicing,  you already know what is in the first 8 chapters of the Book of Matthew. Keep reading and keep practicing. We are fast approaching Chapter 9. At that point we will be almost a 1/3 of the way through this book. There are only 28 chapters in the book of Matthew. I'm very excited about this. I encourage you to make a list of the things and topics that you can now easily find in the bible when having discussions with other people.
SHORT LIST:
The Christmas Story
The beatitudes (sermon on the mount)
Jesus fasting and the devils temptations
Where you can find the Trinity portrayed in scripture
The plank in the eye verse
and there are more, make your own list. You will be surprised at what you can remember. Start showing your husbands and your kids.  
CAN YOU TELL HOW EXCITED I AM ABOUT THIS?*******
GOD WILL USE IT IN YOUR LIFE TO GIVE YOU CONFIDENCE IN HIS WORD, and  keep you meditating on Him. 
It's all good girls. Keep reading and keep practicing. Start reading Chapter 9 if you haven't already!
God is good.
Love
Nancy