Matthew 16:1-12

Matthew 16:1-4 The Pharisees and Sadducees demand a sign

Who challenges Jesus here?

This is the first time the Sadducees have had anything to do with Jesus.  We see them joining with the Pharisees to challenge him.  This is a significant development because the Pharisees and the Sadducees were diametrically opposed on many issues:

• The Pharisees accepted the whole Old Testament, believed in angels and an afterlife, and followed the minutiae of ritual rules and traditions added over the centuries, while the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Old Testament), did not believe in angels or an afterlife, and did not follow the extra ritual rules the Pharisees cared so much about.

• Also, the Sadducees were the wealthy class of political collaborators, while most Pharisees avoided politics as long as they could continue their customs.

But here they are united by their opposition to Jesus.

What do you think the Pharisees and Sadducees are looking for when they ask for “a sign from heaven”?

A sign from heaven might be a voice from the skies or some other supernatural occurrence from above.

Jesus’s initial response in verses 2-3 does not appear in many of the early manuscripts, but it is considered part of the canon of inspired Scripture.

It is a clever reply because they are asking him for a sign from the skies (heaven) and he says they know how to interpret the natural signs in the skies but not the signs of the times.

Many people are familiar with the saying Jesus quotes in verses 2-3.  We know it as an old sailors’ adage: “Red sky at night, sailors delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning.”  Jesus is saying they know how to interpret the appearance of the sky to judge weather conditions, but they don’t know how to interpret “the signs of the times.”  What do you think he means by “the signs of the times”?

The signs of the times are the things going on in the world at any particular moment in history, where God is working or where his influence is needed.  The signs the Pharisees and Sadducees are missing are miracles and teachings of Jesus that are the signs that he has been sent from the Father and that the kingdom of God is at hand.

During the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the bishops urged the Church to interpret “the signs of the times” in the light of the Gospel.  Pope Francis was fond of using this phrase to call attention to the issues of the 21st century where Christians need to put Gospel values into action (for more on the signs of the times that Pope Francis thought were significant, see the Faith Explored study “Where signs of hope are needed today”).

What do you think the signs of the times are today in our nation or world – the things happening in our society or world where God is working or where God’s perspective is needed?  And what are the gospel values that need to be brought to bear in those areas?

In verse 4, Jesus refers again to “the sign of Jonah.”  He used this term in 12:39-41.  What is the sign of Jonah?

In the story of Jonah, Jonah was in the belly of the whale for 3 days and lived.  The “sign of Jonah” may be that Jesus will be in the tomb for 3 days and then rise back to life.  That will be a sign for those who doubt Jesus.  But considering that Jesus has just been addressing the issue of the Gentiles, the “sign of Jonah” may also be that God cared so much about the Gentiles in Ninevites that he sent Jonah to preach to them and call them to repentance; and God cares equally about the Gentiles in Jesus’s time.

The demand for a sign raises a philosophical issue.  If God wants people to freely believe in him and accept his authority in their lives, would the kind of sign from heaven that the Pharisees and Sadducees want support or undermine that goal of free acceptance?  More generally, why doesn’t God do dramatic things in our lives all the time, to show us that he is real?

Matthew 16:5-12 Warnings about the Pharisees and Sadducees

What is Jesus’s warning to the disciples in verse 6?

What do the disciples think he is talking about?

What is he actually talking about?  What is the “leaven” or “yeast” of the Pharisees and Sadducees?

Jesus is talking about the false teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees – their misunderstandings about who Jesus is and about what kind of life God is calling them to live.

Jesus had used leaven as a positive analogy in Matthew 13:33 (the kingdom grows like a batch of leavened dough), but now he uses it as a negative thing.  What is it the negative connotation of what leaven or yeast does that he is pointing to here?

Yeast corrupts what it comes in contact with.

In what ways are the disciples thinking too literally and missing the symbolism in the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000?

What is the symbolism he thinks they are missing?

The modern-day equivalent of the teaching of the Pharisees might be excessive legalism, while the modern day-equivalent of the teaching of the Sadducees might be materialism and the pursuit of power without regard for the spiritual.  How can you distinguish good teaching from corrupting teaching today?

Take a step back and consider this:

Although the Pharisees and Sadducees ask for a sign and Jesus refuses to give them one when they demand it, they have already had multiple signs –  including the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000.  The Pharisees and Sadducees are missing what is right in front of their faces.

The disciples are also missing what is right in front of them.  They think Jesus is chiding them for not bringing bread with them (verse 7) even though he has just recently shown that he can provide all the bread they will ever need.  They are too focused on the literal and physical, and they are missing the spiritual dimension.

In what ways might we, like disciples, miss the point of what Jesus is teaching, by focusing on literal, physical interpretations when Jesus is speaking at a spiritual level?

How might we be missing what God is doing or trying to do in our time because we are focused too much on our immediate physical needs and not focused enough on what God is trying to do spiritually in our world?