Matthew 11:1-19

Matthew 11:1-19 Jesus responds to John the Baptist and explains John’s role in God’s plan

Notice in verse 1 that Matthew does not tell us what happened when Jesus sent out the apostles.  This reinforces the idea that Matthew isn’t focused on writing an event-by-event history; he is focused on explaining how Jesus’s life and teachings are relevant to the Christian community he is writing for.  What matters most to Matthew here is not what the apostles did but what his readers might do.

Verses 2-6

What is the meaning of John’s question?

What does Jesus offer as signs, or what we would call “evidence,” in response to John’s question?

All of the signs Jesus offers involve physical healing except the last one.  Why does the fact that the good news is being proclaimed to the poor fit in a list of signs, and how is it evidence of who Jesus is?

How is this concern for the poor a sign that Jesus is the one sent by God?  How is being concerned for the poor evidence that a person may be aligned with or sent by God?

What does Jesus’s inclusion of the poor here suggest to us about our own relationship with the poor?

Notice that Jesus does not directly answer John’s question.  Instead, he provides evidence by naming deeds mostly deeds mentioned in the Old Testament) as things the Messiah would do.  John would have been familiar with those Old Testament passages and would have understood the conclusion Jesus is suggesting he reach.  Let’s take a look at two of those prophecies:

Read Isaiah 35:3-6.

According to Isaiah 35:3-6, what things will happen when the Lord comes to save his people?

Read Isaiah 61:1.

According to Isaiah 61:1, what things will happen when the Lord comes to save his people?

Jesus also names signs that are not listed in the Old Testament prophecies – signs that perhaps make his presence even more wonderous that what had been predicted.  What has he done that goes beyond those Old Testament prophecies?

Jesus raised a small number of people from the dead.  But for some people, the greatest evidence that Jesus is the Messiah is the fact that he himself rose from the dead.  Why is that powerful evidence of who Jesus is?

Verse 6 is not meant as a criticism of John the Baptist, but rather as a set-up for what Jesus says in verses 16-19, where he challenges those in his own time who have taken offense at him.

What are some of the things Jesus said or did that people took offense at?

In our time we also have people who take offense at Jesus.  What about Jesus causes people to take offense at him today, in our time? 

Have the words or deeds of Jesus ever been a stumbling block or problem for your faith?  If so, how did you deal with it?

Verses 7-15

Jesus shows a bit of wit as he speaks about John’s identity.  He is saying that the people knew that John was special, or they wouldn’t have gone out to see him and be baptized by him.

Jesus follows this by revealing John’s identity in biblical terms.  He quotes Malachi, the last officially recognized prophet, whose book is the last book of the Old Testament (last when the Deuterocanonical books are placed in their proper places).

Read Malachi 3:1.

What does Malachi 3:1 say that relates to John the Baptist?

Continue on, reading Malachi 3:2-3.

In this description (Malachi 3:2-3) of the messenger preparing the way before the Lord, what reminds you of John, and how?

Read Malachi 4:5-6.

In Mathew 11:14, Jesus explicitly connects John to Elijah by invoking Malachi 4:5.  What does Malachi 4:5 say?

In what sense is John the Baptist like Elijah?

In Luke’s Gospel (1:8-20), an angel appeared to John the Baptist’s father Zechariah and told Zechariah that he would have a child.  The angel uses language from Malachi 4:6 in describing John.  What does this verse say about John the Baptist?

Why does John the Baptist get so much attention in the Gospels?  Why is John important in the story of God’s plan to save his people?

John serves not only as a forerunner to Jesus but also as a link or bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Go back to Matthew and look at Matthew 11:11.

Jesus has now established that John is really important.  Why does he then say that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John?  Greater in what sense?  Is he talking about moral/spiritual greatnesss?  About what they could experience that John did not have an opportunity to experience?  Or what?

This question may be answered in a variety of ways, but most answers revolve around the fact that Christians who lived after John had the opportunity to know the crucified and risen Christ and experience the new life he brings in the kingdom of God, and John did not.  Barclay offers this: “But what was it that John lacked?  What is it that the Christian has that John could never have?  The answer to that is very simple and very fundamental.  John had never seen the Cross.  And therefore one thing John could never know – the full revelation of the love of God” (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, p. 7, emphasis in the original). It is our opportunity, blessing, and privilege to have experienced what John did not. We did not merit it.

Do not agonize over verse 12.  The scholars consider it to be puzzling at best and offer a wide variety of interpretations of it.  The “violence” could be the violence suffered by John at the hands of the Roman government, or the sufferings of Christians in Matthew’s day (perhaps as a parenthetical insert by Matthew), or the apocalyptic sufferings to come; but some commentators consider it to be allegorical, referring to the self-discipline that Christians must embrace as followers of Christ.

Verses 16-19

Jesus contrasts what was said about John and what was said about Jesus, to show the hypocrisy of those who rejected both John and Jesus.

What was the impression of John among those who did not respond to his preaching?

What was the impression of Jesus among those who did not respond to his preaching?

Are there ways that we can become naysayers, rejecting preachers or teachers who seem too severe but also rejecting those who seem too soft?

Scholars disagree about the meaning of verse 19.  Luke records the saying differently (Luke 7:35), saying that wisdom is vindicated by her children.  That form of the statement might suggest that John and Jesus are the children of wisdom.  But Matthew’s version offers a different interpretation that draws on the Old Testament practice of personifying wisdom as a person (see, for example, Proverbs 8-9 and Wisdom 7:22-8:21).  In that view, Jesus is the embodiment of wisdom, and his works vindicate his claims.  If we follow that interpretation, verse 19 reaffirms the point of verse 2: that Jesus’s works demonstrate that he is “the one,” the very wisdom of God.

Would it be fair to say that when someone is claiming to be offering words of wisdom, the deeds or actions that come from following that word of wisdom might be a helpful guide to whether the claim is actually wisdom or nonsense?  Explain.

How do Jesus’s actions give us reasons to believe his teachings, so that we can be confident that he is providing wisdom from God?

If Jesus is the wisdom of God, what might you consider doing, or doing more of, to grow in that wisdom?

Take a step back and consider this:

In Matthew, 11:4-5, Jesus tells John the Baptist to judge him by his actions.

The Christian community today mostly does not do the things that Jesus did: we mostly don’t give sight to the blind, make the lame walk, heal lepers, open the ears of the deaf, or raise the dead.  To deal with this problem, people often spiritualize the statement, as though Jesus was talking about spiritual blindness, for example, rather than physical blindness.

However, the Christian community, down through the ages, has shown the same concern for people’s physical needs, even though they have mostly not addressed those needs through miraculous signs.

For example, Christians, and especially Catholic Christians, have created countless hospitals and other health care institutions to connect people with medical professionals who use the medical truths God has allowed scientists to discover, to bring healing to many people.  I can support those good works, and I can support efforts to ensure universal access to health care.

Second, Christians have found countless ways to carry out the last sign that Jesus offered to John: to proclaim good news to the poor.

Healing can involve meeting both people’s spiritual needs and their physical needs.  Similarly, good news can come to the poor both in the spiritual form of the spoken gospel and in the physical form of actions that meet their physical needs.  The apostle James tells us: “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16, NABRE)  Why should someone believe our gospel if we do not show an active, effective concern for their pressing physical needs as well as their spiritual needs?

World Concern, a Christian nonprofit organization that provides disaster response and community development in many countries around the world, puts it this way: “Food is a basic human need and an essential part of bringing the whole gospel to a village. A mother cannot hear the gospel over the cries of her hungry child” (“Food & Nutrition,” World Concern, https://worldconcern.org/food-nutrition, accessed 25 Aug. 2024).  The whole gospel addresses the physical and spiritual needs of God’s children.

This is not the first time we have seen Jesus express concern for the poor.  Repeatedly throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes his particular concern for the poor and suffering of the world.  Part of sharing the good news of Christ is showing his concern for the basic needs of others.  We are called to present his love to others by being his hands and feet as the Body of Christ in this world.

How can you show concern for the whole person as you consider the poor around you?  How can you bring the good news of Jesus both in words and in actions that address their basic human needs?

What is your church doing to meet the basic needs of the poor?  What more might it be able to do, perhaps with a little help from you?

What international Christian organizations, like World Concern, might you support to extend, in the name of Christ, God’s helping hand to those struggling to meet their basic needs?

Many Christians support the work of Catholic Relief Services and/or World Vision, both of which are large, highly respected relief and development organizations that effectively address the basic needs of millions of people around the world every year.