Matthew 11:2-11 extends in two directions, one regarding the identity of Jesus and the other regarding the identity of John the Baptist.
Matthew 11:2-6 is a pronouncement story concerning the question of John the Baptist. The story is from the material Matthew and Luke share.
In context, Matthew is closing out his treatment of the emergence of Jesus' preaching, teaching and healing ministry (4:12-11:1) and opening up a more dialectical section in which he focuses just as intently upon the response Jesus' works and words evoke as on the events themselves. The crowds and the disciples lap up Jesus' words and deeds. However, the religious authorities are growing more restive and rigid, convinced that Jesus' ministry poses a threat to them and the status quo.
This passage expects us to have some basic understanding of John the Baptist. Despite his harsh appearance and demanding message, John’s preaching appears to have been popular with many of his contemporaries (Mark 1:5; 11:32; Matthew 3:5), and the Jewish historian Josephus reports that many Jewish people had a high regard John (Antiquities 18.5). John’s practice of baptism, moreover, made the ritual of initiation into the body of the elect available to women as well as to men (who, through the ritual of circumcision, had formerly been the only full members of the covenant). Prostitutes and tax collectors, as well as soldiers, were among those who responded to John’s call to repentance and baptism (Matthew 21:32; Luke 3:12; 7:29). As radical as his message appeared, John rooted his message firmly in the prophetic tradition of ancient Israel. The teaching of John finds it parallel in many ways by the collection of oracles and writings in the book of Isaiah. Matthew also records that John, like Jesus after him, took an aggressively critical stance toward the Jewish leadership of the temple in Jerusalem (named in Matthew as the Pharisees and Sadducees, 3:7; but cf. Luke 3:7-14), who also came to John for baptism, provoking a scathing rebuke from John. There is no question, however, that John intended his message of repentance to extend to all segments of Judean society without distinction, including the king (Mark 6:18), which is why, at the start of this passage, John is in prison (v. 2). Matthew 14:3-4 record the reasons for John’s imprisonment. According to all three synoptic gospels (Matthew 14:3-4; Mark 6:17-18; Luke 3:19-20), Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, had John imprisoned John because of his criticism of Herod. He was also tetrarch from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39 of Galilee and Perea (the area of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea centered around Jericho). From the complicated family history of the Herod's, the New Testament records that John had rebuked Herod for marrying (or desiring to marry) Herodias, wife of one Philip (but probably not Herod’s half-brother Philip, who was tetrarch of Batanea, Trachonitis and Auranitis, who was never married to Herodias). Herodias was the half-niece of Herod. Jewish law (Leviticus 18:6-16; 20:21) prohibited such a union. John’s repeated reminders of this fact (Matthew 14:4, “John had been telling him”) resulted in his imprisonment and eventual execution (Matthew 14:3-12 and parallels).
That John surrounded himself with a circle of disciples was neither remarkable nor unknown to the gospel writers (e.g., Matthew 14:12), and John’s lifestyle, including his disciples, may have been the model for Jesus’ own ministry later. The circle of John’s disciples may also have furnished some of Jesus’ disciples, and the similarities between the two leaders may have caused some confusion and perhaps even rivalry among their followers.
First, Jesus focuses on the identity of the Messiah in verses 2-6. 2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah, used here as a descriptive title for an individual and his role, not as a semi-proper name for Jesus himself, thereby reminding readers that it was this Messiah that John's own ministry announced. Referring to Jesus as “the Messiah,” with no other identifier (v. 2), is rare in the New Testament (cf. Matthew 1:17), simply because Jesus’ identity as the Messiah was at the heart of the debate about him, and the gospel writers did not take that identity as a given. Hearing what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come. This phrase recalls the Baptist's own earlier preaching recorded in 3:11. Through his role as the one proclaiming this "coming one," Gospel writers identify John the Baptist as the new Elijah (an identity Jesus will again announce in 17:12 when he says, "but I tell you that Elijah has already come ..."). Or are we to wait for another?” The passage is important as another allusion in support of Matthew’s abiding theme that Jesus conforms precisely to the hopes of the Hebrew Scriptures. For some scholars, it seems doubtful that the Baptist, who was expecting a judge to come with fire and whirlwind, could have framed such a question. On the other hand, adherents of the Baptist were asking just such questions about Jesus even in the time of Matthew. Matthew is pointing out to them the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in the Christian community. First, in response to the question of John the Baptist's disciples, Jesus summarizes the events that have marked his ministry up to this point, events that point to his messianic identity and mission. 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. The list of achievements in verses 4-5 is from Isaiah 35:5-6, 29:18-19, 26:19, 61:1. Jesus is executing his earthly mission, giving signs of the divine rule as identified in these verses.[1] The lordship of God means salvation, beginning in the public ministry of Jesus. Since the role of John the Baptist continued even while the ministry of Jesus began, Jesus could have viewed himself in a similar way in relation to the kingdom of God. However, even though Jesus could refer to the mighty acts accompanying his message, as he does here, these signs could not offer unequivocal confirmation. Only the resurrection could do that.[2] The sign here is one that God freely gives, as over against other settings in which people demanded signs from Jesus, and Jesus refused to give them.[3] The list of achievements includes lepers, which, though there are no references in the prophets to lepers, there is the story of Naaman in II Ki 5:1-19. This section is apologetic, designed to demonstrate that these activities fulfill ancient prophecies. The same list is in Matthew 10:8 and a condensed version in Luke 10:9. Further, the list recaps some of the most dramatic events that thus far have marked his public ministry. (See Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 9:27-31; 9:2-8; 8:1-4; 8:32-33; 9:18-26.) Note that in this saying, the early community was trying to help those who heard Jesus’ message but did not know whether to believe it. The reference to the Hebrew Scriptures is not proof. They call for faith. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” This highly unusual blessing one can render literally as "blessed is anyone who is not scandalized ..." or "... caused to stumble ..." by me. The reputation of Jesus was socially reprehensible, and Jesus was open to support from all quarters. Jewish tradition envisioned the way of righteousness as a metaphorical "way to walk" - the halakah. Anything that might cause another to fall from that straight path was a serious offense. The language of Jesus' blessing foreshadows the way his ministry will grow, pushing the envelope of seemliness, scandalizing religious officials (15:12), his own family and old neighbors (13:57), and even his closest disciples (26:31,33). The historical setting deserves attention in that because those who stand with Jesus now, before the resurrection, do not have unequivocal confirmation, Jesus blesses such persons.[4]
Matthew 11:7-19 is a saying of Jesus, a testimony by Jesus concerning John. The text is from the material in common between Matthew and Luke. The relation of Jesus to John the Baptist is by no means clear from the New Testament accounts about them, but it is clear from such passages as this that they were close. Barth will invite us to look upon John as the last in a series of Old Testament witnesses and the first in a series of New Testament witnesses.[5] The baptism of Jesus by John suggests to some that Jesus began as a disciple of John.
Second, Jesus focuses on the identity of John the Baptist. Jesus praises the prophetic role of John the Baptist as a holy harbinger of the messianic man and age (vv.7-11). That John is now in prison while Jesus immerses himself in public ministry testifies to the truth of Jesus' words in v.11. Verses 7-11 are also from material common to Luke and Matthew, containing a testimony by Jesus concerning John the Baptist. Jesus’ rhetorical questions to the crowd about John attempt to help the people focus and refine their thoughts about John and, in so doing, recognize his role as a herald of the kingdom of heaven. There are three rhetorical elements, a series of questions and declarations, a citation from scripture, and a riddle about the social status of John. They offer vivid images with an ironic edge. The hearer too must hear the question and refuse to comfort oneself with the thought that he or she is not in the same boat as the imprisoned Baptist. Jesus asks what this pilgrimage to the Baptist really means. 7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? An echo of Isaiah’s words (42:3) about the “bruised reed” who is also a prophetic voice in the wilderness through divine aid and protection. The image may also denote psychological fragility or instability, which John’s dress and demeanor doubtless suggested to many of his contemporaries. The reed is a symbol, a weathervane that points first in one direction, then in another, and moves with every breeze. People did not follow John because he was like a weathervane or a follower of fashion. Jesus offers a critique of leaders who sway with the wind. Jesus offered straightforward speech. It is lively figures of speech. Why would anyone venture into the ancient wilderness in the first place? To see a reed shaken by the wind is something quite ordinary, not really worth so long a trip. The implied answer is no. 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.[6] Of course, fancy clothes were the opposite of what John wore. The implied critique of a well-dressed nobility is consistent with the sayings of Jesus that favor the poor. Jesus had little concerned for food and clothing. John was not a follower of fashion when it came to clothes. If the crowds did not go out to gawk at a deranged unfortunate, then perhaps their expectations were equally wrong in the opposite direction: They may have been anticipating someone from the inner circle of the religious establishment. Such a person, Jesus says, is for the comfort of royal palaces, not the harshness of the wilderness. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. Jesus proposes an alternative reason for the crowds’ interest in John. Having eliminated two false expectations on the part of the crowds who flocked to see (but not to follow) John, Jesus then offers the correct understanding of John’s role, as prophet. Thus, a real possibility is that they hoped to find a prophet there. The appearance at this time of different dissentient persons and communities in the uninhabited regions of Judea and Galilee is well known. 10 This is the one about whom it is written in Malachi 3:1, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ Loosely citing the prophet Malachi, Jesus identifies John as the messenger who prepares, by cleansing, the way of the eschatological judge. The numbers that submitted to the cleansing of his baptism, thereby preparing the way for the deliverer, evidenced the success of John’s preaching. With the coming of the Baptist the age has come that will fulfill all the expectations of the prophets. 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Note that Jesus refers to John as the greatest among all human beings. Having granted the essential correctness of the people’s perception of John as a prophet, Jesus makes the startling statement that even though John was superlative as prophet and sui generis as a human being, he is less than the least in the kingdom of heaven. In a single statement, Jesus both shatters the accepted dogma of prophetic adulation and radicalizes the value of the kingdom of heaven. The disciples of Jesus belong by nature among the least. Lowliness is the sign of the new age. John is greater as a precursor to the new age.
By deflecting the questions of John’s disciples about Jesus’ identity, and by undermining the people’s expectations about John’s identity, Jesus can focus his hearers’ attention on the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom is the common point of reference for both Jesus and John, as the substance of both their teaching and their ways of life, and thus the source of their identities.
Jesus points to his healing ministry and then to the poor having good news preached to them as signs of who he is. The type of healing ministry to which Jesus refers is not one in which most churches engage today. However, are there signs to which they can point that people are experiencing the liberating, healing, and guiding presence of the Spirit? Are people growing in their knowledge of God, finding freedom, discovering their purpose, and making a difference through the various ministries of the church?
Authenticity, integrity, and sincerity are qualities every age value. Such qualities can be hard to find.
In the first part of the first century AD, several people in Israel claimed to be the Messiah. A man named Judas of Galilee led a bloody revolt against a Roman census in the year 6. Simon was a slave of Herod who became a messianic figure when he rebelled in the year 4. Theudus attempted a revolt against the Romans in the 40s. The Romans killed him. Consequently, I do not fault John the Baptist for wondering about Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:3).
Human beings naturally ask questions. Look at the wonderment of a little child in its eyes before it can speak. The child's great word when it begins to speak is why. Every child is full of every kind of question, about every kind of thing that moves, and shines, and changes, in the little world in which it lives. That is the incipient doubt in humanity. Respect doubt for its origin. It is an inevitable thing. It is not a thing the adult needs to crush. Doubt and questions are part of our humanity. Doubt is the prelude of knowledge.[7]
Jesus invited the messengers from John to look at what he does. Do not just listen to an ad that tells you how good the coffee is. Drink the coffee. Do not just accept the ad for the car. Drive the car. We find authenticity in actions, and not just words. He does not just talk the talk. Jesus walks the walk. He is real. He is the authentic Messiah.
Jesus also complements John the Baptist for being an authentic messenger in the spirit of the prophets. In particular, he fulfills what Malachi had prophesied. John was no palace officer of the king. He was a prophet in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Messiah.
One of the best explorations into moral value of authenticity I have read is philosopher Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 1991. He (p. 75) points out that it would be hard to find anyone whom we would consider as being the mainstream of our Western societies who, faced with their live choices, about career or relationships, gives no weight at all to something they would identify as fulfillment, self-development, or realizing their potential. Yet, the struggle with individualism and self-fulfillment can lead to loss of meaning, the struggle with instrumental reason and technology can lead to loss of appropriate ends for their use, and the trend toward a paternal government can lead to the fear of loss of freedom.
The point is, authenticity is a hot item today. We tend to gravitate toward what we think is authentic.
The Truman Show is a 1998 drama and comedy that raises the question of technology, especially television, as a means of challenging a real experience with the world.
Jim Carrey stars as Truman (True-man) and Ed Harris as Christof. A young man discovers his whole world is fake, that a television tycoon adopted him, and that his whole life is on TV, 24/7. The movie suggests that we accept the world as presented to us. A TV producer named Christof, whose control room is high in the artificial dome that provides the sky and horizon of Seahaven, controls Truman’s world. He discusses his programming on talk shows and dismisses the protests of those who believe Truman is the victim of a cruel deception. Truman will gradually realize the truth of his environment.
In one scene, (53:00 to 55:20), Truman (True-man) tries to have an honest conversation about life with his wife, Meryl. She thinks he needs help. “Why do you want to have a baby with me? You hate me.” “That is not true, Truman.” She turns around, finds a box that serves as a placement add, and she starts talking like an advertisement about a cocoa drink made from cocoa beans from Nicaragua. Truman asks to whom she is talking. She continues with her advertisement that it is the best drink ever. Truman continues to wonder: What is happening? She says he is having a nervous breakdown. She picks up knives, and says he is scaring her. He says she is scaring him. He grabs her and holds her around the neck. She looks up into the ceiling camera, “Do something.” “What? Who are you talking to?” Finally, his friend knocks on the door, and the tension lessens, but she says, “How can you expect me to go on under these conditions?”
In the end (1:32:00 to 1:33:14) Truman finds the door out of his TV world. Christoph wants to talk to him before he leaves. “Who are you?” “I am the creator … of a TV show that gives hope to millions.” “Who am I?” “You are the star.” “Was nothing real?” “You were real. That is what made you so good to watch. Listen to me, Truman. There is no more truth out there than there is in the world I created for you. The same lies, the same deceit. But in my world, you have nothing to fear. I know you better than you know yourself.”
In the end, Christoph does not know him as well as he thought. Truman will leave to find a new life for himself, apart from the world television (technology) created for him.
One of the points of the movie is that technology reached a point where it could create an artificial world. Technology itself could create an artificial world in which we might choose to live. Max Weber said that technology could become an iron cage for the individual. As the Truman Show demonstrates, yes, it can. His point was that we make the iron cage for ourselves. Others have the concern that it can lead to flattening of experience, as if the fact that we share common technology reduces depth and variety of human experience. I am not sure about that. Technology can lead to the affirmation of ordinary life, including the relief of suffering. Nothing says we have to surrender to the iron cage of technology.
The value of authenticity has also led to challenges in the business world. Here is where authenticity can get complex. The May 2007 issue of Fast Company Magazine has an article by Bill Breen, “Who Do You Love?” The subtitle refers to the appeals and risks of authenticity. The author writes of a fabricated world of spun messages and concocted experiences in which everything we encounter is for consumption. Advertisers and business executives can create authenticity for the purpose of consumption as well. "Authenticity is the benchmark against which all brands are now judged," notes John Grant in The New Marketing Manifesto. Or as Seth Godin quips in Permission Marketing: "If you can fake authenticity, the rest will take care of itself." Overloaded by sales pitches, consumers are gravitating toward brands that they sense are true and genuine. Hunger for the authentic is all around us. You can see it in the way mission-driven products like organic foods draw millions. The largest example in my life is Starbucks Coffee. Yes, I like their products. More than that, I like their attention to the entire process of growing coffee beans to the time it touches my lips. I like the way they treat their workers. Playing the authenticity game in a sophisticated way has become a requirement for every marketer, because the opposite of real is not fake--it is cynicism.
What does it take to be authentic? The article will explore the question for marketers. Authenticity constantly requires reinforcement, and it can come from a number of sources: artisanship, timeliness, relevance. But it is a brand's values--the emotional connection it makes--that truly define its realism. And there are four primary strands that draw out that connection.
Authenticity requires a sense of place, and in particular, a place with a story. Think of Juan Valdez, who sold the world on Colombian coffee. He was just an actor, of course, but it sure looked like he was from there. Think Starbucks, a company that tries to give an authentic Italian feel to its stores.
Authenticity requires a strong point of view. It emerges from people with a deep passion for what they are doing. Billy Graham has a strong point of view. Few people have received as much as admiration in our country as him, not because everyone agrees with him, but because they respect the simple, but strong, point of view he presents.
Authenticity requires serving a larger purpose. Consumers quite rightly believe, until someone shows them otherwise, that an ulterior motive governs every brand: to sell something. However, if a brand can convincingly argue that its profit-making is only a by-product of a larger purpose, authenticity sets in. One of the reasons natural and organic foods are popular with some is that people connect themselves to a larger purpose, “to change the way the world eats.”
[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 43.
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 456, 337,
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 201.
[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 337.
[5] Church Dogmaitcs IV.2 [64.3] 205-7.
[6] Vaage offers a unique interpretation of Luke7: 25. I mention it a footnote because I do not find it credible, but the reader might want to explore it further. I think it more likely that some modern academics are more comfortable turning John and Jesus into Greek Cynic philosophers than they are with viewing both as Jewish apocalyptic prophets. He proposes a new interpretation, one that finds the fact significant that John in v. 25 is opposed to the use of soft clothing and that such apparel is simultaneously and conversely said to be especially at home in royal dwellings and palatial life. The same terminology plus the more general theme of soft clothing and palatial life formed a standard part of the polemic waged by ancient Cynics against their own contemporary culture. The invective against softness formed part of the Cynics' wider campaign against the mores of the rich and lascivious. Thus, the suggestion is made here that perhaps those who went out into the desert to John thought that they would see the sort of person otherwise excoriated by the popular philosophers for lurid living, the sort especially prone to gather in the royal court like files at a banquet. Perhaps they thought for some strange reason that John too would be dressed like one of these sycophants, arrayed in cloth as purple as their prose, though John in the desert could hardly have been farther away from and more inimical to the official center of power and influence than he was. John appeared programmed for conflict with the highest civil authorities of the land, finding in them the most blatant instance of what was wrong with the surrounding culture. The greatest resistance to this interpretation of v. 25 will come from those who still want to see John as a prophet. However, John appears to have defined himself as a Cynic through opposition to the reigning culture as such. At the formative stage of Q, it was not the call to repentance or renewal of the religious patrimony of Abraham that especially distinguished John but, rather, his stance in the desert. In this chapter, John appears as a serious Cynic, critical of those around him and the cultural habits they pursued. John was to be found in the desert, on the social margin, aggressively pursuing another better life. Jesus is a more convivial, though no less demanding Cynic. Jesus was recalled as rather a bit of an imp: in Socrates' terms, a social gadfly, an irritant on the skin of conventional mores and values, a marginal figure in the provincial context of first century Galilee wh6se style of life and appeal to others was precisely to go a different way than the normal one.
[7] Henry Drummond, Listening to the Giants.
liked the authenticity part I think you should have played the application out more. Seems to end abruptly leaves me waiting for the next step.
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