Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr19/olbpnt1.zip/PNT.001/V00200

Text File | 1993-04-21 | 23KB | 586 lines

00200
 # Mt 7:28
    \\The people were astonished at his doctrine.\\ At his
 teaching. No wonder they were astonished. The whole world still
 wonders as it studies this sermon.
 (PNT 49)
00201
 # Mt 7:29
    \\As [one] having authority.\\ He spoke, not as a man, with
 human doubts and limitations, but as one who was omniscient. He
 came from God, and spoke as one divine; not as a human,
 hesitating, halting, limping expounders like the scribes, the
 interpreters of the Scriptures.

    On what are you building, my brother,
       Your hopes of an eternal home?
    Is it loose, shifting sand, or the firm, solid rock,
       You are trusting for the ages to come?

    Hearing and \\doing\\, we build on the Rock;
       Hearing alone, we build on the sand;
    Both will be tried by the storm and the flood;
       Only the rock the trial will stand.--H.R. Trickett.

 (PNT 49)
00202
 # Mt 8:1
  SUMMARY OF MATTHEW 8
  \\Miracles at Capernaum and on the Sea\\

  The Leper Healed
  The Servant of the Centurion Healed
  Great Faith
  Sitting in the Kingdom with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
  Children of the Kingdom Cast Out
  Following Christ
  The Storm on the Sea
  The Disciples in Terror
  The Storm Quelled at His Voice
  The Gergesene Demoniacs Healed
  The Swine Perish in the Sea
00203
 # Mt 8:2
    \\There came a leper.\\ Compare
 # Mr 1:40-45 Lu 5:12-15
    Leprosy was a dreadful and hopeless disease. It begins as a
 skin disease, defies medical skill, and is a kind of living
 death. Dr. Schaff says: "Near the Jaffa gate of Jerusalem I saw,
 in 1877, these miserable creatures with withered limbs imploring
 aid, and visited a hospital of incurable lepers." There are
 various forms of the disease, but white leprosy seemed most
 common among the Hebrews. With it the sufferer became white from
 head to foot. The leper, by the law of Moses, was regarded
 unclean, was separated from the people, was regarded as death,
 and the disease was a type of sin. See
 # Le 13:1-12 2Ki 5:27 Nu 5:2
 (PNT 49)
    \\Lord.\\ An expression of faith, as well as the words that
 follow.
 (PNT 49)
00204
 # Mt 8:3
    \\Touched him . . . immediately his leprosy was cleansed.\\
 To touch a leper was forbidden, and carried ceremonial
 defilement, but at the touch of Jesus the source of the
 defilement fled, and the leper was clean. At the touch of Jesus
 all impurity flees.
 (PNT 49)
00205
 # Mt 8:4
    \\Tell no man.\\ This was forbidden until the man was
 officially declared to be healed. He could not enter society
 until the priests had so declared. To blaze the story abroad as
 a miracle of Jesus might prevent such a declaration on account
 of prejudice. Besides, the Lord often forbade noising abroad his
 cures, for various reasons, chiefly because the multitude so
 thronged him.
    \\Offer the gift that Moses commanded.\\ See
 # Le 14:10,22,30,31
    \\For a testimony.\\ An official proof of the miracle.
 (PNT 49)
00206
 # Mt 8:5
    \\When Jesus had entered Capernaum.\\
    See note on "Mt 4:13"
    His return to the place he made his home after the Sermon on
 the Mount and healing the leper. Compare
 # 7:1-10
    \\There came to him a centurion.\\ A Roman military officer,
 corresponding to our captain. All Palestine was under Roman
 military government at this time, with headquarters at Caesarea,
 and soldiers in every leading town. This centurion probably
 commanded the company stationed at Capernaum. He was, of course,
 a Gentile. We learn from Luke, he came to Jesus, not in person,
 but by Jewish elders, whom he supposed would have more influence
 with the Lord.
 # Lu 7:3
    These elders interceded more readily because he had built
 them a synagogue, either to secure favour, or because he was,
 like Cornelius, a devout man.
 # Lu 7:5
    In the ruins of Tel Hum, supposed to be Capernaum, are yet
 found the foundations of a synagogue, one known by certain
 characteristics to have been built in the Herodian period, and
 there can hardly be a doubt that it was the one built by the
 centurion, and in which Christ often preached. See "Edersheim's
 Jewish Social Life," page 255.
 (PNT 50)
00207
 # Mt 8:6
    \\Lord, my servant lieth at home sick with the palsy.\\ Luke
 says his servant "was dear unto him," and the whole account of
 Matthew indicates intense solicitude. Paralysis, or palsy, was a
 common disease in those days. See
 # 4:24
    Alford says, "The disease of the text may have been tetanus,
 or lockjaw, which the ancient physicians included under
 paralysis." Luke says that "he was ready to die."
 # Lu 7:2
 (PNT 50)
00208
 # Mt 8:7
    \\Jesus saith to him.\\ Luke tells us that he started at
 once, but was interrupted by what follows.
 (PNT 50)
00209
 # Mt 8:8
    \\The centurion answered.\\ Through friends whom he had sent
 for this purpose.
 # Lu 7:6
    \\I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof.\\
 This humility was partly due to his consciousness that he was a
 Gentile. Rigid Jews did not hold social intercourse with
 Gentiles, and the centurion may have supposed that so holy a
 Jewish teacher as Jesus would hesitate to come under his roof.
    \\Speak the word only.\\ "Speak only a word" is the idea, and
 "my servant will be healed." Not even Martha thought that Jesus
 could have saved her brother Lazarus without going to him.
 # Joh 11:21
 His faith was great.
 (PNT 50)
00210
 # Mt 8:9
    \\For I am a man under authority\\, etc. The meaning is: "If
 I, in my subordinate station, am obeyed, how much more thou, who
 art over all, and whom disease serve as their master." As he
 could say, "Go," to a soldier and was at once obeyed, so Jesus
 could say, "Go," to the disease, and it would obey him.
 (PNT 50)
00211
 # Mt 8:10
    \\When Jesus heard [it], he marvelled.\\ There are two cases
 in the Lord's history where he is said to have marvelled; here
 and in
 # Mr 6:6
 In one case he marvels at the faith of a Gentile; in the other
 at the unbelief of the Jews.
    \\I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.\\ The
 greatness of his faith is shown in his lofty conception of the
 power and dignity of Christ. This great faith was found, not in
 Israel, but in a Gentile. In one case beside, that of the Syro-
 phoenician woman, also a Gentile, the Lord commends the
 greatness of faith.
 # 15:28
 (PNT 50)
00212
 # Mt 8:11
    \\Many shall come from the east and west.\\ The terms "the east
 and the west," are taken to indicate the regions that are far away,
 the whole world.  Gentiles as well as Jews.
    \\Shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.\\ The
 Jews were accustomed to speak to the delights of the Messiah's
 kingdom as a feast with the patriarchs.
    \\The kingdom of heaven\\  The saints of the past enjoy the
 kingdom of Heaven together with us.
 # Eph 3:6 Ps 22:27 Heb 11:39,40 Rom 11:17
 There is unity and fellowship within the body of Christ of all the
 members of all the ages.
 (PNT 51 edited)
00213
 # Mt 8:12
    \\But the children of the kingdom.\\ Many Jews, natural
 children of Abraham, the "Father of the faithful," heirs of the
 promises made to him.
    \\Cast out.\\ Cut off from the chosen people of God.  Because they
 rejected their Messiah, in whom all the promises centre.
 # Deut 18:18-19
    \\Into utter darkness.\\ Much of the history of the Jews for 1,900
 years has been a fulfilment of this passage.
    \\There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.\\ There is a
 hint at the wretchedness of a future state of punishment for these
 unbelievers.
 (PNT 51 edited)
00214
 # Mt 8:13
    \\As thou hast believed.\\ The centurion believed that Jesus
 could heal his servant by speaking the word.
    \\In the very same hour.\\ At the moment these words were
 spoken the servant was well.
 (PNT 51)
00215
 # Mt 8:14
    \\Peter's . . . wife's mother.\\ Compare
 # Mr 1:29-34 Lu 4:38-41
    Peter, whom the Catholics make the first of the popes, was,
 therefore, a married man. See also
 # 1Co 9:5
    Malarious fevers are still common in the vicinity of
 Capernaum, due probably to the adjacent marshes.
 (PNT 51)
00216
 # Mt 8:15
    \\Touched her hand.\\ He could heal by a word, or by his
 touch. At his touch the fever left her.
    \\Ministered.\\ Was well, and able to prepare a meal for the
 Lord.
 (PNT 51)
00217
 # Mt 8:16
    \\They bought to him many.\\ See also
 # Mr 1:32
    \\Possessed with demons.\\
    See note on "Mt 4:24"
    \\Healed all that were sick.\\ The sick were diseased in
 body; the demoniacs were spiritually diseased.
 (PNT 51)
00218
 # Mt 8:17
    \\Spoken by Isaiah.\\ In the beautiful picture of the Messiah
 in
 # Isa 53:1-12
 (PNT 51)
00219
 # Mt 8:18
    \\Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him.\\ The
 multitudes had gathered to listen to his teaching, or to behold
 his miracles. The sea was only six miles wide, and the Saviour
 often crossed it in order to secure retirement. There is no deep
 recess in the eastern hills; no towns along its banks
 corresponding to those in the plain of Gennesareth.
 (PNT 51)
00220
 # Mt 8:19
    \\A certain scribe came and said . . . I will follow thee.\\
 Compare
 # Lu 9:57-62
    Though this scribe belonged to a class which, as a body,
 rejected Christ, he was disposed to be a disciple, as in
 # 8:21
 but had not counted the cost.
 See note on "2Jo 1:4"
 (PNT 52)
00221
 # Mt 8:20
    \\Jesus saith to him.\\ He rejects not this man's offer, nor
 refuses him the liberty to follow him, only he will have him
 know what he is doing and "count the cost."
    \\The Son of man.\\ It is the name by which the Lord
 ordinarily designates himself as the Messiah--the Son of God
 manifested in the flesh of Adam; the second Adam.
    \\Not where to lay [his] head.\\ He, as the "Son of man," did
 not possess what the humbler animals claim, a home.
 (PNT 52)
00222
 # Mt 8:21
    \\Permit me first to go and bury my father.\\ There are two
 views.
 (1) That his father was already dead, and he wished only to
     attend the funeral and properly observe the last rites. If
     this view is correct, the Saviour meant to teach that the
     duty to the Lord is higher than any earthly duty, and when
     one has to yield to the other it must be the lower one.
 (2) The view is also held that the disciple asked that he might
     be permitted to remain at home until his father's death and
     burial, and then follow Christ. That is the more probable
     view. It was the case of "loving father or mother more than
     me."
 (PNT 52)
00223
 # Mt 8:22
    \\Follow me.\\ The highest of all duties, now discharged by
 becoming his disciple, obeying him and making his life our
 example.
    \\Let the dead bury their dead.\\ Those spiritually dead will
 attend to the last rites of them who have died naturally.
 (PNT 52)
00224
 # Mt 8:23
    \\And when he had entered into a boat.\\ Compare
 # Mr 5:1-21 Lu 8:28-40
    Boat is a better rendering. It was a small open row boat.
 (PNT 52)
00225
 # Mt 8:24
    \\There arose a great tempest in the sea.\\ Mark says, "A
 great storm"; Luke, "There came down a storm of wind";
 # Mr 4:37 Lu 8:23
 the word used by Matthew implies a tornado. The Greek word
 denotes a sudden and violent gust of wind, such as frequently
 bursts on the lake. All travellers describe the storms as very
 sudden and violent caused by the cold air that rushes down from
 the mountains into the heated depression of the lake.
 (PNT 52)
00226
 # Mt 8:25
    \\Lord, save us: we perish.\\ The Lord was awakened out of
 sleep with these words. Their language is that of extreme
 terror.
 (PNT 52)
00227
 # Mt 8:26
    \\O ye of little faith.\\ According to Matthew, he
 characterizes them as of "little faith"; according to Mark he
 asked, "How have ye no faith?"; according to Luke, "Where is
 your faith?"
 # Mr 4:40 Lu 8:25
 The spirit of the rebuke is the same in all the accounts.
    \\Rebuked the winds and the sea.\\ Mark gives the very words
 of the rebuke: "Peace, be still."
 # Mr 4:39
 (PNT 52)
00228
 # Mt 8:27
    \\What manner of man?\\ The words express astonishment at
 this new proof of his control, not only over demons and disease,
 but also over the winds and waves, which obeyed him at his word.
 (PNT 53)
00229
 # Mt 8:28
    \\Into the country of the Gergesenes.\\ Compare
 # Mr 5:1-21 Lu 8:26-40
 Gergesa has been identified on the east shore of Galilee; the
 "steep place" and "tombs" are still seen. It was a village in
 the district of the Gadarenes. The Lord landed here after the
 storm. The ASV has "Gadarenes" in Matthew, and "Gerasenes" in
 Mark and Luke. The simple explanation of this difference is that
 Gadarenes and Gerasenes are different names for the inhabitants
 of the same large district, so called from Gadara and Gerasa,
 two cities of that region; while Gergesenes in the name of the
 people of a smaller district within the other, and named from
 the city of Gergesa.
    \\Two possessed with demons.\\ Mark and Luke mention only
 one, the fiercer one, who spoke with the Lord.
    \\The tombs.\\ The tombs were caves, natural or artificial,
 cut in the rock of the hill side, and, hence, suitable for a
 shelter.
    \\Fierce.\\ So violent as to be dangerous.
 # Mr 5:1 Lu 8:26
 (PNT 53)
00230
 # Mt 8:29
    \\They cried out.\\ This account shows:
 (1) That demoniacal possession was not simply bodily or mental
     disease.
 (2) That evil spirits actually took possession of and
     controlled human beings.
 (3) That these controlled the actions and organs of speech of
     their poor victims.
 (4) We learn elsewhere that sin prepared the way for the
     entrance of the demon.
    \\Thou Son of God.\\ The demons, like the devil, recognized
 him.
    \\Torment us before the time.\\ These words show that they
 expected the final triumph of Christ.
 (PNT 53)
00231
 # Mt 8:30
    \\An herd of many swine.\\ According to Mark, 2,000.
 # Mr 5:13
 They were an unclean animal, kept probably by Jews in violation
 of the spirit of the Mosaic law; or, if by Gentiles, kept in
 violation of God's law for the land of Israel.
 (PNT 53)
00232
 # Mt 8:31
    \\Permit us to go away into the herd of swine.\\ Why this
 request we do not know; perhaps it was malicious; perhaps to
 have an animal habitation.
 (PNT 53)
00233
 # Mt 8:32
    \\Go.\\ Permission, not a command.
    \\Ran violently . . . into the sea.\\ Maddened, the swine
 rushed down the steep declivity into the sea. If we knew all the
 facts we would see more fully the righteousness of the Lord's
 permission. Perhaps the loss of the swine was a punishment.
 Perhaps it was to show that evil works its own destruction.
 (PNT 53)
00235
 # Mt 8:34
    \\The whole city came out to meet Jesus.\\ Filled with wonder
 and fear by the story.
    \\Besought [him] that he would depart.\\ Partly from awe of
 one with such power; partly, perhaps, from fear of loss of more
 property. The Lord, bidden to depart, never returned. In this
 fact is a significant lesson. Mark tells us that the healed
 demoniac became a preacher of Christ in his own country.
 # Mr 5:20
 (PNT 53)
00236
 # Mt 9:1
  SUMMARY OF MATTHEW 9
  \\The Ministry at Capernaum\\

  A Paralytic Healed
  The Charge of Blasphemy
  Christ's Power to Forgive Sins
  Matthew Called
  Eating with Publicans
  New Cloth on an Old Garment
  The Daughter of Jairus
  The Woman with Bloody Issue Healed
  The Damsel Restored to Life
  Two Blind Men Made to See
  Preaching in the Synagogue

    \\He entered into a boat.\\ The last chapter left the Saviour
 in the country of the Gadarenes on the eastern side of the lake.
 He now returns to Capernaum.
    \\Came into his own city.\\ Capernaum, so called because,
 after leaving Nazareth, he made Capernaum his Galilean home.
 (PNT 54)
00237
 # Mt 9:2
    \\They brought to him a man sick with the palsy.\\ Compare
 # Mr 2:1-12 Lu 5:17-26
 A helpless paralytic, unable even to walk, but anxious to be
 brought to the great Healer.
    \\Seeing their faith.\\ That of the four bearers of the
 helpless man, and the man himself. The sick man and his friend
 showed their faith by overcoming great obstacles in order to
 come to Christ for help. Mark informs us that there was such a
 crowd that the palsied man had to be let down through the roof.
 # Mr 2:4
    \\Said to the sick with the palsy.\\ "Palsy" is a contraction
 of the word "paralysis." A disease which deprives the part
 affected of sensation or the power of motion, or both.
    \\Thy sins are forgiven thee.\\ The Greek is in the past
 tense. Possibly he had brought his sickness upon himself by
 means of his sins; but was now penitent.
 (PNT 54)
00238
 # Mt 9:3
    \\Certain of the scribes said within themselves.\\ They had
 scented heresy from afar, and came from Jerusalem to pry into
 the teachings of the Prophet of Galilee, as the people called
 him. See
 # Lu 5:17
    \\Scribes.\\ The learned class, the official expounders of
 the Scriptures, the theologians, the jurists, the legislators,
 the politicians, and, indeed, the soul of Israel.
    \\This [man] blasphemeth.\\ By professing to forgive sins,
 the prerogative not of man, but of God. If Christ were but a
 man, as they imagined, the scribes would have been right. And
 yet, so far, he had not said that \\he\\ forgave the sins, but
 merely declared them forgiven. This was the beginning of the
 opposition that ended with the cross. On the same accusation of
 blasphemy, now first made, the Sanhedrin condemned him to death.
 # 26:65
 (PNT 54)
00239
 # Mt 9:4
    \\Why think ye evil in your hearts?\\ They had said nothing
 aloud, but he read their hearts.
 (PNT 54)
00240
 # Mt 9:5
    \\Which is easier to say, [Thy] sins be forgiven thee.\\ To
 say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," was easy, for no visible
 result could test the saying. To say, "Take up thy bed and
 walk," was not apparently so easy, for failure would cover with
 confusion. He said the last, leaving the inference--If I can do
 the most difficult, then I can do the easier.
 (PNT 54)
00241
 # Mt 9:6
    \\But that ye may know.\\ By doing that which is capable of
 being put to the proof, I will vindicate my right and power to
 do that which in its very nature is incapable of being put to
 the proof of the senses.
    \\The Son of man\\ cannot simply mean a man, or a mere man,
 since the powers in question do not to men as such. The true
 sense is determined by Daniel, where the phrase is confessedly
 applied to the Messiah, as a partaker of our nature.
 # Da 7:13
    \\Hath power on earth to forgive sins.\\ "Authority"
 is a better rendering than "power," and it is so given by the
 ASV. He had "authority" from the Father who had sent him, and
 who had committed judgment to his hands on earth. Sins are
 against God, and therefore only God can forgive them; for in the
 nature of things only he can forgive against whom the offense
 has been committed, but Jesus was "God manifest in the flesh."
    I can forgive sins committed against myself, but not those
 committed against my neighbour, much less those against God.
 Christ's argument here affords a fair test of all priestly
 claims to absolve from sin. If the priest has power to remit the
 eternal punishment of sin, he should be able, certainly, to
 remit the physical and temporal punishment of sin. This Christ
 did; this the priest does not, and cannot do.
 (PNT 54-55)
00242
 # Mt 9:7
    \\And he arose, and departed to his own house.\\ It may be
 regarded as an enacted parable of sin and redemption. The
 paralytic typifies the sinner, by his original helplessness;
 # Isa 40:30 Joh 6:44 15:5
 faith was demonstrated by his earnestness to come to Christ in
 spite of obstacles;
 # Ps 25:15 86:2,7
 and the power of divine grace, in the ability to obey Christ's
 command, received in the very attempt to comply with it.
 # Php 4:13
 (PNT 55)
00243
 # Mt 9:8
    \\The multitude . . . marvelled.\\ Why should they not? "His
 name shall be called Wonderful."
 # Isa 9:6
 (PNT 55)
00244
 # Mt 9:9
    \\Saw a man, named Matthew.\\ Compare
 # Mr 2:13-17 Lu 5:27-32
 Such is the modest introduction of himself that Matthew gives.
 He was also called Levi.
 # Lu 5:27
    \\At the tax office.\\ He was a tax collector, a publican,
 whose business it was to collect the Roman taxes.
    \\Follow me.\\ Like Peter, Andrew, James and John, he was
 called from his business, and left at once. Like them, he was
 probably a disciple of John, and before this a disciple of
 Jesus, but now called to apostleship.
    \\Arose, and followed.\\ Thus promptly the call of Jesus
 ought always to be obeyed.
 (PNT 55)
00245
 # Mt 9:10
    \\Jesus sat eating.\\ At a meal.
    \\In the house.\\ The house of Matthew. Matthew made a feast.
 # Mr 2:15 Lu 5:29
    \\Many tax collectors and sinners came.\\ Matthew's old
 associates. Luke says they were invited.
    \\Tax collectors.\\ Collectors of the Roman tax, usually
 Jews, but hated because they collected a hateful tax, often,
 too, grasping and unscrupulous.
    \\Sinners.\\ Persons excommunicated from the synagogue. An
 unorthodox Jew would not eat with them. When the term "sinner"
 is applied to a woman it usually means an outcast.
 (PNT 55)
00246
 # Mt 9:11
    \\When the Pharisees saw [it].\\ They were not at feast, but
 were on the watch.
    \\Why eateth your Master?\\ etc. The strict Jews would not
 eat with Gentiles, and these classes were regarded by them on a
 level with the heathen.
 # Ac 11:3 Ga 2:12
 (PNT 55)
00247
 # Mt 9:12
    \\They that are well need not a physician,\\ etc. In other
 words, "If these people are as sinful as you allege, they are
 the very ones who need a Saviour."
 (PNT 55)
00248
 # Mt 9:13
    \\I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.\\ See
 # Ho 6:6
 The Pharisees had never learned the meaning of this passage,
 which teaches that kind hearts and helpful deeds are more
 pleasing to God than outward ceremonial. Sacrifice is right, but
 mercy is first in importance.
    \\I am not come to call the righteous,\\ etc. My mission in
 the world is to save sinners.
 (PNT 55-56)
00249
 # Mt 9:14
    \\Disciples of John.\\ Some who still held aloof from Christ,
 and really sympathized with the Pharisees.
 # Lu 5:33
    \\Why do we and the Pharisees fast often?\\ The Pharisees
 fasted twice a week, and these disciples imitated them. They
 could not understand why he did not require similar austerities.
 # Lu 18:12
 (PNT 56)