Peter walked on the water – Matthew 14:29
Peter …
walked on the
water. This divine power inherent in Jesus is transferred to his disciples by faith. Peter's ability to walk on the water while focused on Jesus is a picture of the new humanity in the new creation that Jesus is bringing in to being through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. This ability is dependent on Peter faithfully looking to Jesus. When he looked instead to his circumstances his faith wavered and he began to sink (Matt. 14:30). Jesus then calls his disciples to believe in him wholly by calling them "
little faith" (Matt. 14:31; cf. 6:30; 8:26; 16:8; 17:20).
Son of God – Matthew 14:33
Truly you are the
Son of
God. This response, along with worship, is the proper faith-filled reaction to seeing Jesus' power. Matthew describes Jesus as the Son of God eight times at very important places in the story (4:3,6; 8:29; 14:33; 26:63; 27:40,43,54).
Healing – Matthew 14:36
touch the
edge of his
garment …
healed. This may be a reference to Malachi 4:2 where those who revere God experience healing from as the sun of righteousness rises "
with healing in its
wings" (or "edge of garments"). In Acts 5:15 this healing power is transferred to Peter whose shadow brings healing to those who believe.
Unwashed hands - Matthew 15:2
They do not
wash their
hands when they
eat. The Jewish people of this time period had developed many traditions about purity that were rooted in God's law but often added other requirements and prohibitions (Matt. 23:25-28). Some of these concerned what foods to eat and the importance of washing one's hands for ritual purity. This statement from the Pharisees stands in sharp contrast to Jesus's compassionate feeding of the multitudes in need (Matt. 14:13-21) – Jesus cares for people out of compassion; the Pharisees and scribes were only concerned about following the traditions about hand washing. See further on 15:11.
Dedicated to God – Matthew 15:5
"Whatever
help you would have
received from
me is now a gift
given to God." The Jewish rabbis developed specific traditions about declaring property or money as "dedicated to God," which meant they could not be used for any other purpose. Jesus pointed out that this tradition should not be used to prevent people from doing what God himself has clearly commanded — that everyone should honor their parents by taking care of them.
Isaiah's prophecy – Matthew 15:8-9
Well did
Isaiah prophecy about you. Jesus quoted these words from Isaiah 29:13 that teach a main theme in Matthew — external righteousness is insufficient for godliness; God sees and cares about the inner person, the heart, most of all (Matt. 5:8, 48; 6:21-24).
Clean and unclean - Matthew 15:11
Nothing that
enters into the
mouth defiles. The point of 15:1-20 is that God sees and cares about the heart or inner person. The question of hand-washing before eating arose in 15:2 and is concluded in Jesus' clear teaching in 15:10-20 — nothing outside of a person is about to defile the heart. Whether a person is clean or unclean is not an external matter, but is a matter of the heart. What a person eats with their mouth does not determine purity, but what comes out of the mouth because this reveals the heart (see also Matt. 12:31-37).
Related Resources
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.
