Three shelters – Matthew 17:4
Three shelters. Peter's suggestion that they build three shelters referred to the time of the Exodus when the Israelites lived in tents in the wilderness. This came to be remembered as the Feast of Tabernacles/Sukkot (Lev. 23:33-43). Peter must have believed that the kingdom of heaven was coming to the earth at that moment and thus the expectant Jews would celebrate with this appropriate feast (Zech. 14:16).
Jesus' sonship – Matthew 17:5
Voice out of the
cloud. This was the second time when God speaks from the heavens to affirm Jesus' sonship and divine authority. The first was at another crucial event and turning point in the book, at Jesus' baptism (Matt. 3:16-17). In both cases God the Father affirmed the unique Father-Son relationship he has with Jesus, confirming Jesus' authority over all the earth — "Listen to him."
Elijah's coming – Matthew 17:12
Elijah has
already come. The Jewish expectation was that the mysterious prophet Elijah (who never died but was taken up by God to heaven, 2 Kgs. 2:1-18) would come back as a herald of the coming of God's kingdom (Isa. 40:1-11; Mal. 3:1-18). There is a double sense in which this came true through Jesus: Elijah returned and met with Jesus at the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-11) and Elijah came figurally in John the Baptist who played the role of herald (Matt. 3:1-5; 17:13).
The second prediction - Matthew 17:22
The
Son of
Man will be
delivered into the
hands of
people. This was the second of three times (Matt. 16:21; 20:18-19) that Jesus predicts his own future suffering, death, and resurrection, reminding his hearers of his purpose.
Teaching for the Church - Matthew 18:1-35
This chapter contains the fourth of Matthew's five major teaching blocks, this one giving instructions for life together among Jesus' disciples, the church. The placement of these instructions is modeled after the OT story. Even as Moses led the people through the wilderness (with a miraculous water crossing and feedings) and then gave instructions for how to live well together, so too Jesus has reformed the people of God through similar activities (chapters 14–16) and then gave them directives. The focus of this block of teaching is on living with each other in humility and with forgiveness and mercy toward each other as the primary virtue.
The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? - Matthew 18:1-4
The disciples' question to Jesus about who is the greatest in the kingdom is a natural human question, but it also reveals the disciples' limited understanding (little faith). The same question will come up again in 20:20-28, and this provides a kind of literary frame to chapters 18–20. These chapters together give various instructions about the life together of the people of God in the kingdom. The answer Jesus gave to the question of who is greatest was similar both times — it is the humble and the servants who enter the kingdom and who are its true leaders.
Stumbling blocks – Matthew 18:8-9
If your hand or
foot causes you to
stumble,
cut it off ... Jesus' strong words were not meant to encourage self-harm but to shock his hearers into realizing how important it is to pay attention to things that can cause someone to not enter into eternal life. There are "stumbling blocks" that can make a person fall and not stay on the "
narrow path that
leads to
life" (Matt. 7:13-14). In other places in Matthew Jesus described some of these stumbling blocks — love of money (Matt. 6:19-24; 19:23-24), love of the praise of others (Matt. 6:1-21), or causing other people to sin (Matt. 18:6-7).
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