Part of a new weekly series on the book of Matthew. This week: Matthew 12:42
There was no more spirit in her.
After seeing all his wisdom, the house he built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters and their clothes, his cup bearers and the stairway he used to go up to the house of the Lord…
She was breathless.
He’d answered all of her hard questions. He hid no wisdom from her. The very wisdom granted to him by God. The same wisdom, wealth and splendor that would lead him a stray.
She said that his fame fell short of the glory of the truth. And she was breathless.
Something Greater Than Solomon Is Here
A Gentile woman of royalty left her kingdom and travelled a great distance to listen to the wisdom of Solomon. In response she gave him 25 tons of gold, spices and stones.
And it will be this woman–a non-Jew–that would rise from the dead and of Jews who rejected him. They would not go out of their way to see him. They blasphemed his miracles. They despised his ministry.
And something greater than Solomon was before them.
Jesus was the greater wisdom–the very truth of God, the Messiah–wiser than Solomon in all things. Solomon spoke about the nature of this earth, society and morals. Jesus spoke about spiritual truth on the eternal welfare of souls.
And the irony is that Jesus as God was the one who . He was the one who created the nature Solomon studied. Who preserved and governed the society he explained. And was the foundation for the virtues Solomon taught.
Loving the Lie More Than the Truth
But they did not want this wisdom. Instead, they wanted worldly wisdom. In essence, “claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” ().
In our own time, we are attempted to reject Jesus’ teachings in favor of intellectual giants and their intellectual achievements. Everyone has their favorite. Albert Einstein. Friedrich Neitsczche. Ayn Rand. Leo Tolstoy. Steve Jobs.
What they all share is their own brand of truth. A truth that in its essence rejects Jesus as God. That attempts self salvation without regeneration. That leads to depravity rather than morality. That leads to condemnation rather than hope.
We shall suffer the same fate as those Jews if we exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator.
Something greater than Einstein, Nietzsche, Rand, Tolstoy and Jobs is here. Wisdom that will exceed our expectations. Splendour that will leave us breathless. And our proper response should be reckless adoration.
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