Analysis of Matthew 11:25-30

“Analysis of Matthew, Chapter 11, Verses 25-30,” by Andrew J. Schatkin My dear friends thinkers and you who reject political code words political hype and media lies and falsehoods, I ask and bid you to join with me in another intellectual quest where by the use of honest discernment and critical thinking we all together may attain to truth and facts. Come with me and lift the curtain of darkness and corruption that has descended on our society and let us all come to the light hidden by the forces of manipulative commerce and politics whose object is to fool and make fools of us all to gain from us power and money. You who choose to reflect I ask you to do so and find in the present intellectual rubble the sources of knowledge and truth which our system mightily seeks to hide from us all. Matthew chapter 11 verses 25-30 reads as follows: “At that time Jesus declared, I thank thee father lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes yet father for such was thy gracious well. All things have been delivered to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and any one to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” What then does Jesus mean to tell us here and how are we to understand and achieve an understanding of these most deep and profound series of sayings? This is a discourse and passage in which Jesus comes to us as a revealer of divine wisdom. The passage is broken down into three parts: a thanksgiving for revelation in verses 25 and 26; the content of the revelation in verse 27; an in verses 28-30, an invitation to the revelation. Jesus makes a most telling statement that god in his wisdom has hidden his gospel and message from the so-called wise and understanding of the world and has chosen children or the innocent as the vehicle of his message. Jesus means to tell us here that the so called smart, intellectual and perhaps wise and educated are not those he chooses for his truth but he tells us to look to children and perhaps the unsophisticated of the world as the vehicles of his revelation. He seems to say there that true knowledge and wisdom is not found in the super-sophisticated and educated and wealthy with power, but is to be found in children and in the tradesmen he chose as his disciples and called from their fishing boats to follow him. The use of the word ‘babes’ refers to the simple and uneducated and his revelation to those who the world sees as simple unknowing and uneducated we are told here is that divine choice and communication is a great religious mystery. Jesus also says that this was his gracious will of good pleasure in that this reflected god's election of the simple and uneducated to salvation. Jesus then makes clear that he is the personal agent of god and his receptacle and all things have been delivered to him. Jesus then says and the world may find this saying unacceptable that he has a unique relationship with the father and their relationship is one of mutual knowledge and love Finally, Jesus says that he is the giver of rest and comfort to those excluded by the Jewish society of the day. Jesus’s teaching is easier and lighter in saying and asking to learn from him the disciples are in a process of life-long learning and Jesus emphasizes his humility in saying he is gentle and lowly. In saying his yoke is easy, Jesus says his teaching is easier and centered on the essentials of righteousness and moral conduct. Ladies and gentlemen, I have proposed here some suggestions on how to go about interpreting this most significant passage and note in conclusion first he says and makes clear that it is not in the powerful and wealthy and best educated that are found his wisdom; it is not to these he has chosen to reveal his message of salvation and love but to children or best or better put the simple and uneducated. He says here the communication of divine wisdom and who it will be given is a mystery in the mind of god in eternity. Second, Jesus makes eminently clear the scandal of the gospel that the father and son are one in their mutuality with a reciprocity of knowledge and that father and son together are exclusive in their claim of divinity and godhood a message the world of today finds increasingly difficulty to accept and even opposes Jesus is the exclusive revelation of the father of the nature of god. Finally, Jesus reveals that he gives comfort and rest to the lowly and excluded of the world and that he is humble and lowly and all who come to him may and will find rest in their souls. I ask you my friends to give thought and reflection to what I have said here concerning the words and thoughts of the eternal god as he speaks to us in his word and from the mansions and precincts of heaven and urge you to return to these biblical verses and this passage and read, reread and reflect. My paltry words and thoughts and my attempt at interpretation are no substitute for the words of the living god.