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1Transcript of Classes on Matthew by John W. Welch, December 2009 to April 2010

Matthew 21-23 18 Mar 2010

(Class welcome and announcements)

Comments Relevant to Matthew at Stake Conference (6-7 March 2010, Elder Oaks)

I sent you an email about our class for tonight, and the first thing I asked was, “Did you hear anything in Stake Conference that reminded you of things that we have been talking about in the Gospel of Matthew? Not just in these chapters but in any of the others as well.” If you want to remember just a few things that were said, Elder Oaks told us that we should write things down and actually make some resolutions about things. Sister Martin did you have anything - you are always so faithful with writing down good notes?

(Student) He told us that as members of the Church that we should be ready to bear our testimony at any moment and to bring the Savior into our lives on a constant, daily basis.

Do you think the Gospel of Matthew agrees with that? We have not come to Chapter 28 yet, but after the resurrection, the apostles are charged to go forth and bear testimony throughout the entire world.

(Student) We learned how husband and wife should be equally yoked.

We did talk about the yoke; “My yoke is easy and light” might work there. Anything else you remember. Wasn’t it a great conference? I cannot remember a time when we had standing room only in the Saturday night session and we were certainly well, well rewarded.

(Student) Elder Oaks …the phrase he used was…deeply religious and profound …

Yes! Very good. The Lord wants humility but not ignorance.

(Student) Elder Oaks said about the desires of the heart “Blessed are the pure in heart.”

It is not what goes in, but what comes out, Matthew uses the heart message four or five times, so that was right in keeping with what Elder Oaks had said.

(Student) He talked about Christmas cards. It is really hard to find a good Christmas card.

I saw an email from somebody who had actually sent Elder Oaks a Christmas card saying, “I am not going to make that mistake again.”

(Student) Was it a Christmas card or holiday greeting?

I think it was a holiday greeting. So at least there is repentance here.

(Student) Interestingly, Elder Oaks said this recession is not going to be over soon and that our children and grandchildren will have a lesser standard of living.

We will have to get used to that.

(Student) He quoted Harold B. Lee when he said, “This Church is not a retirement home for the righteous, this is a hospital for the sinner.”

That is why we have “Wards.” Love that one.

(Student) But it reminds me of the Savior saying not just “physician heal thyself,” but also “I am here”

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It is in Matthew Chapter 9 where he said, “I am not here to heal the well. The well hath no need of a physician.” Right out of Matthew. That was there.

(Student) Did he not also speak of coming unto Christ? But he really wanted us to follow Christ.

Right. Did you think of Matthew 9? It is just a few verses before this last one, when it talks about Matthew who was sitting there counting at the tollhouse and Jesus said, “Come, follow me.” And he went and followed. He used that very word. Good, good.

(Student) Talking about the Pharisees and hypocrites, he talked about the little boy who looked up at his dad who had been trying to impress the General Authority and asked, “What is going on here?”

How do we spell hypocrisy? That is a strong theme in the Gospel of Matthew too. Out of the mouth of babes, doesn’t it say? Right here in 21, in the temple, the babes? That fits too, doesn’t it?

(Student) He also said that we need to be self-starters.

The difficulty that this concept presented, especially for the Pharisees that Jesus lowers the boom on doesn’t he? I underlined in my notes in lots and lots of places. I think you get the point. What we have been studying for the last couple of months with Matthew is very pertinent. It is still the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe in the same gospel, the same organization, the same truths that were taught by the apostles, by the Savior himself when he was here, and isn’t it a blessing to have leaders of the Church who are so in tune with these principles.

They were made so relevant to us. Do you remember that Jesus talked about the man who takes out of his closet the old and the new? I recognized that these are eternal principles. They are old things, we all have heard them, but they were given a new flavor, a new presentation that really is timely, that people relate to very well.

I thought of one little note that I had. Elder Oaks started out on Saturday night saying that we are supposed to lead with the iron rod and not beat people with the iron rod. Do you remember that?

(Student) Or ourselves.

Or ourselves. Yes! The iron rod is mentioned in Psalm 2 Verse 8 or 9, if you want to open that up you might just want to mark it up. Let me make sure I have the right verse for you. Psalm 2, Verse 9. This is a coronation Psalm, where the King is being set upon his throne on the holy hill of Zion and so on, not completely irrelevant to the triumphal entry, but Verse 9, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.” The word here in Hebrew is break but a biblical scholar, not a member of the Church, pointed out to Latter-day Saint scholars that in the Septuagint, the Greek version, the word for break is to lead not to break. To lead! Thou shalt lead them with a rod of iron is the way it reads in some ancient versions. He thought that we would be interested in that because the iron rod in Lehi’s vision leads you to the tree of life and so I observed that here we have a scriptural example, not to beat or break but to actually lead. Kind of fun!

Let us turn to Chapters 21, 22 and 23 in Matthew. I hope you enjoyed reading them and well, let us look at these texts fairly carefully.

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Triumphal Entry

We begin with the triumphal entry. We call this Palm Sunday because as Jesus enters into the City of Jerusalem, people take branches off the trees and lay them in his path to welcome him, kind of like rolling out the red carpet for the coming of their great prophet and leader whom they love and revere. It starts here with the triumphal entry and by the end of Chapter 23, Jesus will be ready to withdraw from Jerusalem, go across the Kidron Valley, on to the Mt. of Olives where he will then weep over Jerusalem and prophesy about its destruction, give a few more final teachings, and then re-enter Jerusalem for the Last Supper.

(Student) Jews welcoming him like he said. It was mainly the Sanhedrin that persecuted him, but the Jews loved him. It was the Sanhedrin that really crucified him.

That is right. That is how I read it and not even the Sanhedrin. We know that there were people in the Sanhedrin who were favorable for Jesus. Nicodemus was one of them and Joseph of Aramathea probably also. He is right there. How else would he have known and been involved?

(Student) It is like the difference between Germans and Nazis…

Yes, exactly. Even the word Jews, the Iudaioi - when John uses it, and he uses it the most of the four Gospel writers, he seems to be using the word Jews not to mean the people in the province of the area of Judea. He seems to be referring to a political party, people who called themselves Iudaioi, or Jews, whatever they were. It is like Pharisees, Sadducees, Iudaioi, Herodians - these were different political parties. All of them are Jews. The Pharisees are Jews, I mean in the sense that we would think of them, so Matthew does not use the word, The Jews in that way, or even very often. So when we say who was it that is the driving engine behind the plot? They have to scheme, they have to try to find a way to put Jesus to death - it is the Chief Priests, a very, very small group.

What does it say about Jesus’ reception? Look at Verse 10. All the city is moved. They are all, wondering, “What is going on?” That does not mean that the whole city is following Jesus, but they are all very interested, and how could you not be? This is the Passover preparation time and all of a sudden, you have people shouting and obviously a great tumult, an event, a hullabaloo is coming. People are really getting excited about something. Everybody wants to know who he is. There is a multitude, so there are a lot of people. These are the people lining the streets saying, “Who is he? Who is he?” and they say, “This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth, of Galilee.” So they are receiving him, welcoming him as a Prophet.

(Student) He came on a mule. How many of them realized that that was the symbol of …?

The arrival of a king?

(Student) Like Solomon. How many got that?...

Well, the verse that you are quoting or that you are referring to is verse 5, in which Matthew says “This was done that it might be fulfilled as the prophet had spoken, that the King shall come riding seated on an ass.”

(Student) Meaning kingship?

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More coming in humility and peace, and as a king. That is what it says, “Thy king cometh unto thee.” That is the prophecy in Zechariah. How many people - your question - would have recognized that? We do not know. I am sure that some did. Lots of people now have a heightened expectation, “Will the Messiah come?” There are people who remember the prophecies at the time of the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus. There are people who knew and followed John the Baptist who had said, “I am here to prepare the way.” Where have those people gone? They went down to Jordan, they were baptized, many of them probably lived in Jerusalem or around because it says the whole land or region of Jerusalem had come down to see John. So there are people who are probably searching the scriptures, there are people who are talking about this. I think there were quite a few who would have noticed that.

It is interesting that Matthew, who was especially alert, any time there is a fulfillment of a prophecy, stops and spells it out for us ignorant folk who otherwise would not pick it up. But Mark and Luke both refer to the triumphal entry. They give the description, but they do not talk about the prophecy. Why not? It says “Thy King cometh unto thee,” so if Luke is writing more to the gentiles, this may be a prophecy that is more pertinent to the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, the city of the great king. Maybe he leaves that out thinking that would not be as relevant to his other audience. I would argue that Luke and Mark do not leave it out because they are not aware of it, but because they have other reasons for not putting it in.

(Student) “These things understood not his disciples at first, but when Jesus was glorified then they remembered it…to some degree they knew what was going on but…afterwards, maybe when they got the Holy Ghost.

That is a good point, and the same kind of thing happens after the resurrection on the road to Emmaus. They begin looking at the scriptures, and they say, “Ah, we now see this has all happened.” I think that is also something for us to realize. Some people would have recognized that, they would have gotten a hint, they would have known the scriptures, but John may be saying, “This was not something that we schemed.” We did not say, “Let us go and find an ass that he can ride on so that we can fulfill this prophecy.” That looks a little bit too contrived. It is a strong testimony, and I think that is why it says that in the beginning of this, they record that Jesus told them to get the ass. Where do they find this ass? Jesus says, “Go, here, here is what you will find. You will find an ass with her foal - with a colt, and you will ask the owner and here is what he will say...” It was not something that they designed.

(Student) Would you explain what it is for?

Here is what he will say. “The Lord needs it.” Perhaps the owner knew the scripture and thought, “Oh, maybe that is what he needs it for.” I do not know. My point is just that this is a fulfillment and not some kind of retrospective.

(Student) Verse 9 says there were multitudes that went before him and cried “Hosanna to the Son of David.” That indicates to me that “Son of David” was the king, who was also the prophet. The multitudes knew what was going on.

Four times in these chapters, Jesus is called Son of David and, of course for us, that is a great confirmation of his kingly and divine mission but for some people like the chief priests, that is very threatening.

(Student) What was the sacrifice and why symbol of a foal ass?Matthew 21-13. 18 Mar 2010 (file 100318)

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The sacrifice? Just that. He rode on a young donkey. Why did he have to come riding on this poor little donkey, which was maybe only six months old? It is not a full-grown donkey. Even full-grown donkeys are not that big. Have any of you ever ridden on a donkey? Wayne? Comfortable? Do you put a saddle on a donkey, by the way? No. It is not very comfortable. I had an option to ride a donkey but I preferred to walk, so I cannot really speak from experience on this. I wonder if it was a colt, a young donkey because it had never been used as a beast of burden. It was in a sense pure. It had never carried any load. This would be its first load.

There is a place where in Deuteronomy Chapter 21 you have a law that Jeannie mentioned. If you go out of your village and find a dead body, and you do not know who has committed the homicide, the law required all of the village to be brought together. You each had to swear that you had not done it. Then you had to find a calf, a young heifer that had to be female. You had to take it into a little gully, and it had to be one [a heifer] that had “never been wrought upon.” It had never been used for pulling anything or carrying any burden, and that animal was then pure enough that it could be sacrificed to cleanse the land from the pollution of that homicide.

I do not know whether the idea that this is an animal that had never carried something could then somehow symbolize the sacrifice, the pure sacrifice of Jesus that would be taking place only a few days later, that he is being borne by an animal so pure. He is coming into Jerusalem on an animal. Under the Law of Moses, on the day of atonement, what they would do is they would transfer their guilt ]to the sheep, the scapegoat, and then they would drive the scapegoat out of Jerusalem so it is reversing that by bringing in the atoning lamb of God in this triumphal entry.

We call it triumphal, but it is never called that in the Bible. It is not to be confused with the Roman triumph. When you won a battle, you then were entitled to a triumph, which was a great parade when you entered with your soldiers into the city. I do not think that is what is going on here. Your point, Ewan, is that he would have been on a horse if it were that kind of a triumph. It is triumphal however, in the sense that he is being received in honor, ironically, so popularly, so much that, of course people will begin immediately to get very nervous about the situation.

How about the two donkeys? Have you ever seen pictures of Jesus riding and they have him riding on two animals? In Christian literature, Christian art, the artists often actually tried to paint Jesus riding straddling two of these donkeys. Riding one is uncomfortable enough, but it does say that they took their clothes, and so some artist will paint pictures with all the clothes kind of strapped around these two animals, and then Jesus is somehow sitting in the middle on a kind of hammock. Now, I do not think so, but it does say that he came sitting on an ass and a colt - the foal of an ass. There is an and there, which is a little bit odd. The Greek here has the and but the Hebrew reads a little differently, so the two ways to get around this little problem, one is, the (kai) the and in Greek can mean even, so he will come riding on an ass even the colt - the foal of an ass. So it may be emphatic or have a parenthetical there instead of two animals.

(Student) What about the JST version.

That is the second way to deal with it. What does the Joseph Smith Translation say?

(Student) “And brought the colt and put on it their clothes and Jesus took the colt and sat thereon.” That seems more logical.

That is right. The problem has arisen because of the translation, and Joseph Smith made it clear that he was riding on the colt, just on the one.Matthew 21-13. 18 Mar 2010 (file 100318)

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(Student) Such a small detail would not have escaped Joseph. It obviously stood out to him as something that might bother us.

Well, I find that often Joseph Smith was very astute and very inspired. He is able to go to places where there were translation problems and he offers a clarification. This is a place where the problem really comes out of a translation difficulty going from the Hebrew to the Greek, and Matthew quotes the Greek because he is writing in Greek.

(Student) We need to remember that he was under the power of inspiration.

I am sorry! That went without my saying, but I am glad you picked it up. It is another case of Joseph being right on target. How about that?

Good, we got through. But wait a minute; we did not do what we were supposed to do. Do you learn anything from the triumphal entry? What does this mean in your life? Did any of you think about that?

(Student) I was thinking that there were people saying “Now we will be free from this Roman rule, hooray, our ruler is here,” and I was thinking how many trials in my life do I pray and pray and pray that the trial be removed, and yet the Roman rule is not removed. Christ is not changing the situation but he will change the hearts of the people that want to be changed.

Yes, for those who have willingness and can see. I like that. Did any of you think where you would have been in Jerusalem if this had been happening? Would you have been there welcoming and accepting? You would hope so. Or would you have been home getting ready for Passover? All the women were probably home cleaning up to be sure there was not any crumb of leavened bread anywhere in the house and missed the whole thing.

(Student) I had the great blessing of being in the Galilee on Palm Sunday on our way into Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, they guard all the palm trees because people want to strip them bare. In the area of Galilee, it is not a problem, so I very discretely, knowing I was coming into Jerusalem, collected a palm frond, and we took our long journey into Jerusalem. We actually arrived at sunset so all the festivity and tradition, and lore was done for the evening and I had a quiet moment right at sunset to bring my palm frond and lay it…

What did the palm frond mean to you in that setting?

(Student) Well, the fact that I had gone to such lengths because I thought ahead knowing that he was coming. I thought of those who were caught off guard, who were there on that very day and all of a sudden, he was coming. Those who knew, and those who did not quite understand, and they may very well have done the same thing - stripping trees, taking off their jackets, and doing everything they could in case this was the Messiah, and those then that had the spirit speak to them and testify. I had that same feeling.

Wonderful. What kind of tree was it, by the way, that they used here in Matthew? Matthew 8. It says branches of trees. Well, if it is a palm frond, those are not coconut palms, not there. They are date palms. The date palm always represented the tree of life. It is one of the tree of life symbols in the ancient near east, but the other kind of tree that they may have had close at hand. Olive trees. So maybe it is the olive tree and the symbol there also of the tree of life.

(Student) Fig tree?

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Yes, and there is one that was really already available for service! Well, it is a great moment, and we will welcome the Savior again sometime, and so just because we missed the first one does not mean we will miss the second one.

We may have been there? That is a good thought too. But as I asked you, “Where would you have been?” I hope we would be prepared to be there - to be alert - to be ready - and to be excited about him coming. What an exciting day it will be. I suppose some will run for cover but I would want to be on the front lines.

(Student) It was a nice experience when Elder Oaks on Saturday evening, not Christ but a special witness of Christ, came down and looked into as many people’s eyes as he could and shook their hands. Maybe that is what it is going to be like.

Very personal, isn’t it?

(Student) It happens constantly at the MTC, the apostles are the arm of Christ, testifying as special witnesses. People worldwide are extensions of the arm of the apostles.

That is very good, and the Twelve Apostles bear the keys. For those of you who were at the B.Y.U. Studies Symposium, or would like to follow it online, you can hear that we now have much clearer, stronger historical documentation for the day Joseph conveyed authority to the Twelve. I think it was March 26. Maybe we ought to have a celebration. I will double check that. But in Nauvoo, March 26, 1844, Joseph Smith spent all day in counsel, in the morning with the Twelve and in the afternoon with the slightly larger council. We now know that in the morning of that session, of that council session, Joseph Smith rolled the authority off his shoulders on to the Twelve. We have never had quite known exactly the day. People had talked about it, but of course some people, like Sidney Rigdon, we now know were not in the morning session. So he did not have first-hand knowledge that Joseph had done that, and would not believe when Brigham Young said, “We have the keys,” that it had actually happened. With the Joseph Smith Papers Project, we now can document in a lot of ways Wilford Woodruff’s testimony that he recorded. We have the sound. You can go download Wilford Woodruff’s testimony. It has now been enhanced - this was in 1897 - Thomas Edison had invented a recording device that recorded on wax cylinders the testimony of Wilford Woodruff and here he was, 1897, that is 53 years later, saying, “I was there, and this is what happened.”

When you say the apostles have the keys, they really do.

The Cleansing of the Temple

Let us go to the next event, which is sometimes called the cleansing of the temple. What do you think about this? You always hear about it in any speech that is ever given about getting angry, right. Jesus said in Matthew 5, “Do not get angry. Whoever is angry is in danger of the judgment.” You remember when we did that in the Sermon on the Mount and then people say, “Well, we can get angry, Jesus got angry. Right?” Is that true?

(Student) I have really been looking forward to you explaining this. I do not believe the Savior was ever out of control if we are defining anger as being out of control I do not believe that happened.

You have explained it for me. We just have to look at Verse 12. There is nothing in Verse 12 that says Jesus lost his temper. Nothing that says he is angry, nothing. I mean it says, “And Jesus Matthew 21-13. 18 Mar 2010 (file 100318)

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went into the temple of God.” This was his first stop. He has come into the city, he goes straight to the temple, into the temple precinct, and he casts out all them that sold and bought in the temple. The word here for casting out is the same word that Jesus uses when the salt has lost its savor. It is good for nothing except to be cast out and trodden underfoot. This is not a pleasant thing, but you have to wonder how many people were there who were buying and selling and what is that selling all about? These are people who were selling lambs, pigeons, doves, animals to be sacrificed, and somehow, Jesus is clearing them out and saying, “I need you to leave.” Does he have a whip? There is nothing in the text that says he does. You might wonder, “How did he get them to go?” But if he is coming with a large group of people and he is, of course, a presence, with his own word, he could have said, “Time for you folks to take a break. We have got some things we need to do here.” Maybe he drives them out, but I do not think it was something where he--- he is not having his disciples act like the Gestapo here.

(Student) It does say that he overthrew the tables…

That is right. So there is some furniture and things like that. He is knocking a few things over. But is he mad as he does it?

(Student) If he knocked something over, I think he is mad.

Do you? Think he is angry? Well, I do not want to wrest the scriptures here, and we will see that in Matthew 23, Jesus is not happy with the Pharisees.1

I do not want to make Jesus sound like he is just a peace and love kind of guy at all times. The last question for tonight’s reading was, “In these chapters do you see Jesus reproving with sharpness, but then showing forth an increase of love?” There is sharpness here. He knocks over some tables and moves some chairs away. If he has a lot of people with him, he may be just clearing out room so they can talk. I do not - you are not buying this?

(Student) Is there any reference here of significance of the fulfilling of the Law of Moses, the law of sacrifice?

How so? Jesus will be the sacrifice, so we do not need these animals.

(Student) We do not need all the animals there, and if this is symbolic of that and … does that mean he knocked the tables over?

I will look but let us maybe not spend a lot of time on this. You wanted me to explain it so I am doing my best.

1 Sister Jones inserted the following note: [Brother Welch - transcriptionist comment: Repeatedly, in working with early Ch. Hist. (JSPP) the point was made, we cannot interpret Joseph Smith’s day & culture in context of today’s culture. Likewise, we err when we equate Jesus’ behavior (a God) to man’s predicted behavior in a given situation. As a parent, I have found my little children wreaking havoc with things or in a place that is off limits. I love the little children, am not angry, but wishing to teach, quickly and firmly remove them from the forbidden scene, quickly remove or confiscate their forbidden acquisitions - bringing a swift halt to their erring behavior, which reinforces a teaching - thou shalt not - in this place, with these things that are forbidden. Love and patience does not embrace in any way willfully turning ones back on wrong-doing. Jesus was teaching in a way all would get a strong message - like imprinting little children’s minds - swift and firm, in control, deliberate - as a parent would remove a little child from mischief. I get a little concerned when we try to explain Jesus’ behavior in the context of present-day, predictable human nature - with all our frail, human weaknesses. The smartest and greatest among us now, and then, are as little children to the Savior - even that is a grossly understated comparison. Please forgive my intrusion.]Matthew 21-13. 18 Mar 2010 (file 100318)

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(Student) There is the control factor here, because with anger, physically you are out of control.

(Student) I think when I get angry with my kids, I cannot think rationally. You assume a fight or flight response, the blood leaves your brain and it goes to your fists or your feet, you are going to fight or you are going to flee. I do not see Jesus doing this. I do not see his frontal lobe shutting down and him throwing a tantrum.

(Student) Moreover, when you are that way, the spirit leaves…

Yes. The overthrow - the word is just to turn over, but overthrow seems a little more - turned them upside down, it tipped them over.

(Student) He could have just very calmly said to them in a certain way, “Depart” and we can see how they could have just cowered and walked away.

It is possible. I guess that is my main point. It is this idea of him whipping and driving people out. I think he does it---

(Student) Christ’s mind is shown in his disapproval. It reminds me of times when my children were young, playing board games and getting mad at each other and I just came over and said, “You are done.” Tipped their checker game over and said, “Go to bed.” I did not lose control and beat them, but I made it clear I did not approve and they were done. That is the way I see that.

That is good. He also has prophecy on his side, right. He has the words of Jeremiah, who says, “It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” It is kind of as you are saying with your kids. They were convicted. They knew what was going on. He looked around and said, “You know, this is not a house of prayer,” and maybe they voluntarily said, “Let us go get a cup of tea,” or something.

(Student) It was kind of thing that would make--- well, tables and benches of those days are pretty sturdy pieces of furniture, thick pieces of wood. If they were being resistant, by tipping them over, he made it very clear that this is no longer an option. However, it is the next verse that makes it very clear that the Savior kept his temperament. It did not startle or offend the others who were worshipping in the temple. It says “and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them.” If it had been some fit of rage, I cannot imagine that had come to be healed spiritually or physically would have felt that.

Yes, and keep reading, “And the children…” There are children in the temple, and they are not scared by what has happened.

(Student) It is all done in slow motion.

(Student) In preschool, [when guiding children, we are taught this idea of discipline, avoiding anger.]

Does not have to be, but it has to be firm and it has to be right and the timing is good.

(Student) We cannot imagine that the Lord will not reprove us betimes with sharpness when moved upon by the Holy Ghost. I think this is an instance where he is showing who he is and what authority he does have. It is a different thing we do when we become angry than what he did. I think there times when he is angry as Jehovah, but it is moved upon by the Holy Ghost. It is righteousness, and that is what we are aspiring to do.

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Very good.

(Student) Did he go into the temple twice and turn the tables over? In John Chapter 2:15, it says that he did make a scourge, of small cords and drove them all out of the temple and he poured out the changers money and overthrew the tables…was that at the first of his ministry?

That is - John presents that event at an earlier time.

(Student) At first, he calls it his "Father’s house" then this time, it is "my house."

My house, because that is right.

(Student) It is similar when he casts out devils. By his power and authority, he forces them to leave. Is there any similarity of language?

Yes! I would think so. Yes! the -

(Student) Talmage uses the phrase, righteous indignation.

(Student) Christ is coming as the Messiah. He knows this is his job. He knows this is the time and so if we put this in that context, he knows that in order to have happen what needs to happen, he has to rile up those in charge. He has to upset the order of things. I think this is a time when he comes and he says, “Look, you guys in here are a den of thieves.” …and he is...whether it is calmly or whether he does it with a raised voice, I do not know. However, the point is, he is exercising his authority here, and this he knows will cause a stirring among the Sadducees who controlled the temple and what goes on in there, and this will lead to the crucifixion.

That is right. If you look just a few verses down, Verse 23, what is the response of these people that Jesus has now – he has their attention. What do they ask him? “By what authority do you do these things?” Now, one last thing on John. The Gospel of John has Jesus in the temple many, many times, going to Jerusalem throughout his ministry. Matthew only tells us of this last time, because this is the culmination of the building up process to which this gospel has been leading. But as L.D.S. scholars believe, if Jesus did this twice, the first time he went in, he may have had to use a whip and some force because nobody knew who he was, but he had done it once, and when he comes back in a second time, they would have remembered him. Right? I had not thought about that before but that may explain why he could just come in, said, “You know, I gave you a warning once; you have not changed and now I’m using even stronger language than before.”

(Student) Come and take it all.

Especially if the first time you lost a whole bunch of money as it spilled out all over the floor - grab your bags and run!

(Student) In our temple, the clothing rental would always be in the annex. One day they changed things, and moved it inside. We were scared to death. We were looking around nervously. They were not a den of thieves though.

Let us reflect for just a minute or two. I think you get the point of this. There are lots of lessons for us in our own lives on how we can restrain ourselves when we might feel like anger is necessary, when we are frustrated , when we have told the kids several times and they still have not obeyed, maybe there are some personal lessons for each of us in the story. Also, as Rita is saying, we need to be very careful that we do not turn the Church into a den of thieves. We Matthew 21-13. 18 Mar 2010 (file 100318)

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cannot have financial motivations for the things that we do. Nephi says, “For the laborer who works in Zion shall work for Zion, and they who labor for money shall perish.” So that principle I think, is something that especially in today’s commercial world we have to be very careful about, and for that reason I think the Church is so wise. When we have youth activities, when we do things, we do not charge the kids for this right. We do not put on youth activities from which people are excluded because they do not have the money or the financial ability, to participate. Money is not the factor, the driving factor. It goes back to what Jesus said about serving two masters. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Here you have Mammon right in the temple and it is “My Father’s house,” a house of prayer, and that is what the temple should focus on.

(Student) Look at all those commercials in between conference sessions.

Does anyone want to answer that?

(Student) It always has set wrong with me.

Don’t you know where the off button is? Why don’t we rename that the “Amen button?”

Amen, click. It works for me.

Well, how about the den of thieves? You know if you go back and look in Jeremiah, just check your footnotes, you will see that it does not say thieves in Jeremiah. It says, “You have made my Father’s house a den of robbers.” What is the difference between a thief and a robber? All of you that remember when we were doing the Book of Mormon and the Book of Helaman and the Gadianton robbers, is there a difference? Yes. In this prophecy, Jeremiah talks about a den of robbers. These are the Gadianton robber-type people, these are the bandits, these are people who work in groups, they work with violence, they are criminals, they are outlaws, and these are the worst. When Jesus is crucified between, it says two thieves and you remember we also have the story of Barabbas and he was a robber. The word for thief and robber here in Greek is always the same word and it is always robber. What happened was that the King James translators, when they translated Matthew 21, did not talk to the people who were doing Jeremiah. Even though Matthew is quoting Jeremiah, they did not bother to correlate - no crosschecking on this. It should be robbers here. You do not have dens of thieves. Thieves work one at a time quietly, in the night; they steal things. Robbers work in the broad daylight and especially in groups and here you have a whole group of people.

What are they doing in the temple? Well, in order to buy your lamb or your animal for sacrifice, you had to pay for it with a temple shekel. People were coming from all over the world to Jerusalem so they might come with Egyptian money, they might come with Greek money, and there was no standard currency anywhere. Different currencies had different amounts of silver or gold in them and it was hard to know how much is this coin actually worth? There was no international currency exchange. You could not look up on the ticker tape to find out what the exchange rate is today, so you had people who would weigh the silver or the gold, and usually the amount they would give you was just the value of the raw metal, which was usually a lot less than the face value of the coinage. Coins become worth more because of inflation and so on. Anyway, they were usually giving people a very poor exchange rate, and they had a monopoly on this because the only place you could get temple shekels was from these guys. So it is the people who have traveled so far who have come and they need to be able to change their money and these robbers are taking advantage of that. I think that is what is so offensive in this, and

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why Jesus says, “You know the prophecy here fits you.” It is a real insult to be called a robber. - Barabbas was a bad guy.

(Student) Are shekels in existence now?

Yes. I do not have any. I do have a tetradrachma, not with me. I will pass these around if you want. Here are nine or so Roman coins. These are denarius - denarii.

In a few minutes, we will talk about them coming and asking Jesus, “Shall we pay taxes?” You had to pay Roman taxes with Roman coins, and each one of these was worth one day’s labor and it was this coin exactly that was handed to Jesus. He said, “Whose picture is this here? Oh, gee, it looks like Caesar to me. Well, give him his coin, then.” So take a look at those.

(Student) It must be the root for like the Spanish...

Yes, it is. But there are shekels and a shekel was worth about four of these coins.

The Poor Fig Tree

Let us go on, then, to “How about the fig tree? Does anybody want to say anything about this poor fig tree?

(Student) It is unproductive.

“By their fruits ye shall know them.”

(Student) When the fruit is not there, it did not fulfill its purpose.

So, be fruitful. Why does Jesus have to…?

(Student) It was already dead.

You think it was dead?

(Student) It had the appearance that it was a good tree, but it was not.

It was putting out a lot of leaves, but you could see that by the time the leaves were there the early fruit should already have been present.

(Student) I love figs.

We had fig trees and avocado trees in California and there were some seasons when they just did not bear. Trees go through a cycle, and they just decide they are going to take the year off, but it can be partly because of the weather and many factors. I think the hypocrisy point is right, but why does he curse the tree? Why does it wither?

(Student) Is the fig tree a symbol of Israel?

It was, more than that. It is in the story of Adam and Eve, and it is a symbol of fertility. The fig has so many seeds in it. I think when he curses the fig tree…I mean, why a fig tree? Of course, we have no way of knowing what symbolism they may have seen in it. However, he could be saying to the Jews, and the fig tree does represent the House of Israel here, at least many have said that it does, but he is saying, “Your posterity, your line, your seed is finished because the law is now being taken away from you. The cursing is… I do not know that it is a cursing so much as just saying, “I am passing judgment, and symbolically you can see what is happening. Your world is going to wither.” That would have been very dramatic to the people who saw it. Matthew 21-13. 18 Mar 2010 (file 100318)

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Except I suppose for the poor farmer whose tree it was. I wonder if Judas, who had the money bag said, “Oh, here are a few shekels for your tree. Thanks for the visual aid.”

The Authority Question

The next story is about them asking about the authority. I referred to this a couple of months ago when we first started talking about Matthew. Do any of you remember when we talked about this parable of the two sons? Let us look at it a little more carefully. You know, he is asked, “By what authority,” In verse 24, Jesus answered, “I will also ask you one thing which if you will tell me, I likewise will answer your question, by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it, of heaven or of men?” Now, they have a hard time answering this question. Why? If they say it was by man, if it is just that John did not have authority except from man, they are going to offend all the people who thought that John was of God. They would fear the people. Notice the word fear there. There are people starting to get really scared, and we will see the word fear, fear, and fear over and over again in the account of the buildup to the crucifixion of Jesus. We will talk about that more another time but just remember that people are starting to get scared, and when they get scared, they do not always act rationally, so they answered and said, “Well, we cannot tell.” He said, “Well, okay, I’m not going to answer you directly either,” but he says, “Here, how about a parable.” So he does not answer the question straight out but he is now talking about where he got his authority.

“What do you think about this? A certain man had two sons and he came to the first-born and said, “Go, son, go work today in my vineyard,” and he answered, “I will not.” The Greek word here is not the future, I shall not, or I will not, it is ou thellō, “I do not want to,” or, “it is not my will,” or “I would rather not.” Afterwards he repented. The Greek word here is not the word that is normally used for repent, he says he reconciled himself to the task and went and he came to the second and said likewise. He answered and said, I, and notice that your text there has the word go in italics. Why? It is added. That means that in the Greek it does not say I go, the Greek word there is just egō, I. I what? It might mean I go, I will go, or maybe it means I. It is all about me. “Oh, I will be the one who will be in charge. I will get the glory. I will be…” it could even be egō eime, I am. You can fill any of those words in there.

Wait a minute! When did a man have two sons? When? In the pre-existence. Where did Jesus get his authority? Council in Heaven. When he was called. When he was invited and when he said not my will, but I will submit and I will do as the plan requires. I think that that is the way Jesus is answering this question about his authority.

(Student) I think it foreshadows some things. When he is suffering in Gethsemane he says, “If it be possible remove this cup from me, nevertheless, not my will but thy will. He is repeating possibly what he said.

That is right and it is the same word in Gethsemane as we have here. Will. I will - (u-thello?) - says I will not - in other words I, it is, I do not wish it, it is not my volition.

(Student) Which one is Satan and which one is Christ?

Christ will be the first son and he is the one who says, “It is not my will but he goes.” The second one is Satan who says, (I sir - or aye sir?) but he does not go. It does not say why he does not go. He maybe does not go because he loses the war, but the outcome is that he was not the one who would end up going.Matthew 21-13. 18 Mar 2010 (file 100318)

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(Student) It appears that Jesus is saying, “You did not believe in John, and now that you have seen me, you have to repent first to be able to believe me and maybe even John too. The same is true in our dispensation; you have to be willing to accept the Prophet Joseph.

Very good and you have to be willing to repent. Jesus finishes up here by saying that the Publicans and harlots believed him, like you are saying, and so they will go into the Kingdom of Heaven sooner than “you guys,” the chief priests and the elders. Ouch. So again, Jesus is not pulling any punches here.

The Parable of the Husbandman

Let us just say a couple of quick things about the rest of these texts. Starting in Verse 33, we have this wonderful parable of the husbandman. This man is an absentee landlord who has a farm and he has rented it out to tenant farmers. You know the story. He sends his messengers to check on things and collect the rent, but they treat the messengers badly.

We have this parable in Matthew, we have it in Mark, and we have it in Luke. It is in all three synoptic Gospels. We also have this story in the Gospel of Thomas, another very early Christian text, and there is a later Jewish text that is related to it. This is one of the very best attested parables that Jesus gave and it is a crucial one. Why? Because of what happens in the end.

This tenant farmer, the absentee landlord obviously represents the Lord. There is a clear reference in the beginning of this vineyard story to Isaiah Chapter 5 in which Isaiah talks about a vineyard, and he asks, “What more could I do for my vineyard?” In the parable, too, the Lord of the vineyard builds towers, he strengthens the vineyard, and he does everything possible for it. However, the people who are running it have run it into the ground. So Jesus is not only criticizing them in the same terms that Isaiah had used, but then he adds that in the end, this absentee landlord sends his son, and his tenants say, “This is the heir, come let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance.”

(Student) That is evil. That is what Satan tells Cain to do to Able, and he does not get the inheritance. It is the same old lie.

Yes, it is the same old lie and it does not work legally. You would think that if the man’s son has died, his next of kin would inherit the property, but what they are saying here is, “We will seize on his inheritance.” If the absentee landlord is in another country and the son is now dead, they have nobody to resist them. The landlord is apparently unable to travel or he may be old. They may think they can get away with it. They have been, after all, in possession of the property for a long time. In any event, they kill the son. Now, is there any question in anybody’s mind who we are talking about here? No! When you get down to Verse 45, we read, “And when the Chief Priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.” There are people who wonder, who was really responsible for Jesus’ death? Who killed the son in this parable? It is the chief priests, right? Again, that it is not the whole nation of the Jews; it is not the Romans. It is spelled out very clearly here.

(Student) It is also clear in the parable they knew who he was.

Yes! They recognized him and that is why they killed him. In fact, in the same parable in the Gospel of Thomas, they do not recognize the servants at first, but there are three stages of people coming, and the more they recognize who they are, the more violent they get towards him.

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The Marriage of the King’s Son

Chapter 22 begins with the parable of the marriage of the king’s son. This is a strange story. I do not know if you noticed everything. The king is going to have a wedding feast for his son, and the son represents Christ. This is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. This is an important theme in the Book of Revelation. The king invites all these people and they make light of it, and so he sends servants out to invite more people, and they kill the servants. This is the killing of the prophets, or the apostles, who will be killed as they invite the whole world to come to the wedding feast of the Messiah. The King is upset and he says, “I will destroy these murderers and burn up their city.” That is a prophecy about the destruction and burning of Jerusalem that occurred about 37 or 38 years later. Then he says, “Go into the highways and invite everybody. Invite anyone who will come,” and a whole bunch came. However, one person comes without the garment.

We know that they wore important wedding clothes. It was not just a matter of showing respect, but the wedding festival was a religious festival. Rita found some nice texts on this. For the bride and groom, it was considered like a day of atonement; they were pure, they dressed in special garments, and all their sins were forgiven. I think that is a nice symbol; when you get married, you start over. Whatever you did wrong in the past you are starting with a clean slate.

(Student) The end of all your troubles, but which end?

The garment that one guest does not have, has, I think, a lot of religious significance. People who come also have to be worthy to come and participate in this great wedding feast of the Messiah. Notice in Verse 12 the King sees the person without the appropriate garment. He is not angry, but he says, “Friend, how did you get here without a wedding garment?” It is almost as though he is checking their temple recommends at the door. “Wait a minute, how did you get here without having all of the worthiness to be here?” The man is speechless. He knows he should not be there, and because of that, he is cast out to where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Many are called but few are chosen. It seems a little harsh but we know that worthiness is important.

(Student) They went out into the highway and gathered people and said, “Come in, we have a feast for you.”

Everybody came in the front door; everybody came properly prepared, except for this one. Somehow, he thought he could sneak in without going through all of the proper preparations.

(Student) However, Verse 10 said both good and bad came. They brought everybody in, both bad and good.

Well, they started out that way, but even the bad people must have come with the proper garment. Therefore, I am thinking that Jesus assumes in the parable, that as they are invited, they go, wash, and prepare, and they say, “We are going to the wedding feast of the King’s son.” It is not that they just walk in off the street. I think they come with dignity and if that means they had to be washed or baptized or whatever the requirements were, I think they did it. It is not that the program is hidden from people, we have just one person here who thought he could - that the rules did not apply to him, and he learned that they indeed did.

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(Student) This sort of reminds me of the story of Nimrod. The Lord had his temples that could help you ascend to God but Nimrod was going to do it his own way, and he was going to build the tower by himself. Maybe this person was coming in saying I am here, but I am here by my own means.

I think that is right. There are lots of applications to our own lives here. First of all, we do not want to treat the invitation lightly. We want to be sure that we keep ourselves worthy and even if we were not the first that were invited, anyone can be invited and if they will come properly prepared, they will be welcomed fully accepted at the wedding feast of the great King, so let us just be sure we are all prepared.

The next three stories, I think we may stop here, at least – well – we need to talk about them more, and I think we are out of time for right now, but let me just say that as the Pharisees take council, they say, “Let us see if we can trap him in his words. Let us entangle him in his words,” and they try three strategies. First they say, “Let us go get the Herodians.” Do you know who the Herodians were? These are the descendants of King Herod. This is the established political power. These are people who owned lots of land; they are very wealthy. Let us get the Herodians in here, maybe they can help us. They are the ones who ask Jesus about paying taxes, which is something the Herodians would have been interested in, but the Herodians are also pro-Roman, so if Jesus were in any way offending Rome it would be the Herodians who would be the ones to make that argument. That does not work, does it? Jesus is able to handle that one without much trouble.

The Pharisees then say, “Let us go get the Sadducees to do our dirty work,” and they are the ones who ask an absolutely ridiculous question. It reminds me of some of my law students asking these hypothetical questions, “What about this? What if we have this case?” Here we have a man who married a woman and then died, and his brothers, all seven brothers die. When was the last time this actually happened? I do not think Jesus took the question very seriously. We will talk about his answer next time a little bit. However, since that does not work either, the Pharisees finally say, “Well, I guess we had better go and ask our own questions.” They think, “This will be a hard question, ‘which is the greatest of the commandments’?” and Jesus, of course, is able to answer that one as well. Then he stumps them with a question, “Well, what about David’s son? How can the Messiah be David’s son when David himself spoke of the Messiah as his Lord? It does not seem to make sense, so you people get tangled around in your own words.” Jesus is able to tangle them in their own kind of trap.

Then in Chapter 23, lots of woes .Woe! Woe! Woe! This is not your really friendly, kind Jesus. He is kind but he is really calling a spade a spade here.

With that, I think it is time to quit for tonight but in every one of those cases, I hope we would not find ourselves in the positions of the people that are challenging Jesus, that are doubting his doctrine, and that are acting in ways that bring the displeasure, the curses, and the woes that Jesus pronounces upon them. I believe, and this comes back to what we were saying about his being angry, that even though he is pronouncing these curses (and these are hard words to hear) as soon as he finishes we hear, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen.” The love is still there as he desperately wishes that they would listen and follow.

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I hope that we will at least be able to learn from their bad examples and stay away from the pitfalls that we see here. Next week we will talk about what curses were involved and why Jesus uses them.

Next Thursday, we will go on into the arrest and the first part of the trial of Jesus. We will see how far we get on that next week, then the following Thursday is the Thursday before Easter so we will finish the Gospel of Matthew in the next two weeks. If you will read that, we will be in the Holy Week. We have Jesus in Jerusalem.

I hope you will enjoy your preparation for Easter by reading these materials as we continue to walk systematically, step-by-step, with Jesus to his eternal fulfillment of the mission and the authority that he received in the pre-mortal council.

I pray that the spirit of Easter will be with you. I pray that you will know that even though terrible things happened, it was all known by Jesus. He knew what those wicked tenants would do. He told them. It was something that did not surprise him. It was something that happened because it had to happen, and because he was willing to do it for our eternal salvation. What a blessing to have a Savior of that kind, a Savior who loves each one of us. I love the Lord. I know that you have the love of Christ in your hearts and as we sang at the beginning tonight, “All the world testifies that God is love.” And that message comes through loud and clear in the wonderful Gospel of Matthew and throughout the New Testament. I am grateful for this wonderful record—for the spirit that it brings, for the love and comfort that it gives us all and I testify to you of the truthfulness of these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Transcribed by Carol H. JonesEdited by Rita L. Spencer

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