Matthew 17:1-8
The characters in this story are Peter, James and John. It is interesting that Matthew identifies John as the brother of James. This would mean that James was more familiar to or had more authourity among Matthew's readers than John did. I did a small bit of reading to try to discover why and the best I can come up with is that James was older than John. One interesting aside: James is not mentioned at all in his brothers account of the life of Jesus. The other characters are Jesus, Elijah and Moses and the voice from heaven - obviously the Father. This passage is the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy at the end of Matthew 16 where he states that some among the disciples will not taste death unitl they see the Son of Man coming in the kingdom.
I've always been taught that Peter sees Moses and Elijah as equal to Jesus when he offers to build them "tabernacles" but the TNIV indicates that Peter is just being well-meaning: he wants to provide shelters for them, probably to protect them from the sun and heat. He probably wants to prolong the experience as long as possible - I mean how amazingly cool would it be to listen into a conversation between Moses, Elijah and the Messiah! - and didn't want anything to cause them to cut that conversation short. Whatever the case, it seems like Peter was taking the glory that only belongs to Christ and was trying to at least share that with the others and so God the Father steps in and reminds the three of them that the center of their attention and affection must be only Christ.
This is a good caution for us. In an age that worships celebrity, the Church is not immune from giving more credence and weight to the writings, sayins and sermons of our celebrities than the writings, sayings and sermons of Christ. This doesn't mean that there is not a lot we can learn from gifted teachers and writers. We must value and acknowledge the gifts they have been given and we must recognize that they have been given those gifts to help the Church reach maturity in Christ. However, we must not put them on equal footing, in word or in practice, with Christ.
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1 comment:
I agree, and yes it would have been cool to witness that. I find that too often the worship becomes more important than who we are actually worshiping, good points.
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