Matthew 14:1-12
What’s your first reaction to the passage?
This is shocking
1: John’s a
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist
—Matt 11:11
2: John’s doing
Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” —Matt 13:3-4
What questions does this raise for you?
Why do you think neither God nor Jesus does anything?
What are we meant to learn?
1: This is not the
Why not?
2: Our disobedient world will
All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations —Isaiah 65:2
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. —Matt 23:37
Can you think of other times those God sends to his world are rejected?
Our disobedient world will reject those God sends to it - but that won’t stop him.
Why does God keep pursuing our broken world?
How should we respond?
1: don’t
2: don’t
3: don’t misread
4: do
Which of these is easy for you?
Which is the hardest - and why?