Matthew 23:29-36 Serpents
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: August 4, 2019 Matthew 23:29-36
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
(Understanding the Text) Here is the last woe to the scribes and Pharisees. First they were admonished because they hurt others with their beliefs by piling on difficulties and barriers that kept those people from truly knowing God. Then they were admonished for focusing on the gift instead of the giver. They were focused on their own actions rather than the purpose and author of those actions. Then they were admonished for making their outsides look good while doing nothing about their insides. They were not following God in truth, but were trying to fake it. Now, Jesus tells them that though they prided themselves on their heritage, it was a heritage of evil.
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) The Jews believed that they were saved because they were children of Abraham and that they were better than the Gentiles. Jesus is telling them that their very words demonstrated that they were worse than the Gentiles because their heritage was one of killing the prophets sent from God. They even prided themselves that they were better than their ancestors, and Jesus told them that they were not. I think it is interesting that Jesus doesn’t condemn them for killing Him. Instead, He condemns them for killing the representatives that He is going to send to them.
Jesus is telling them that they can prove the truth of their beliefs by how they receive the people that He will send them. They identify closely with their forefathers, and Jesus agrees with them. They are just like their ancestor’s who killed God’s representatives. But then He says, “Therefore.” He knows they are sinners like their forefathers, and He will treat them with no less mercy. He will send them prophets and teachers and wise men to try to keep them from hell, or Gehenna. He tells them that they are a bunch of poisonous snakes who are bound for the trash heap and burning, and then He tells them that He will send prophets to them to help them escape. Of course, He predicts that they will reject His offer of salvation, but He makes it anyway, just as God sent Isaiah to King Ahaz to turn him from the wrong path that he was choosing.
(Understanding the Text / Prayer) The two men listed are the first and the last to be killed before Jesus’ incarnation. Abel was the first, and Zechariah was the last. At first, I thought that the Bible had no record of Zechariah’s death because I could not find one with the right father’s name, but the commentaries say that it is the Zechariah in 2 Chronicles. “Jesus here spoke of all the righteous martyrs of the Old Testament. Abel was clearly the first, and in the way that the Hebrew Bible was arranged, Zechariah was the last. 2 Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew Bible, and Zechariah’s story is found in 2 Chronicles 24” (Guzik). In other words, Jesus was saying that the same thing would happen to those He sent out. He knew that He was sending His followers to death and destruction. He didn’t flinch at it for Himself. I pray to face life with the same unflinching trust and hope in the Father as Jesus did.