The gospel according to Matthew notes that the crowds were amazed, ‘because [Jesus] taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law’. The irony here is that the teachers of the law were appointed by Jewish religious institutions and therefore, they had what we think of as real authority, whereas Jesus had none. We will see that Matthew understands authority differently – instead of coming from human institutions, divine authority comes from alignment with the heavens and the earth that God created. In addition, human institutional authority normally finds divine authority threatening and is hostile to it.

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Originally published on October 17, 2022

Transcript: https://brianpracticingforpeace.medium.com/meek4-he-taught-as-one-who-had-authority-a0215464356e 

Tim Mackie’s episode “Who can forgive sins”. E91: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/matthew-p16-who-can-forgive-sins/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_podcast

If you want to dig deeper, the following two “Tim Mackie” episodes dive into to stories I discussed in this episode:

E91 “Make me Clean”: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/matthew-p13-make-me-clean/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_podcast

E92 “Storms and Swine”: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/matthew-p14-storms-and-swine/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_podcast 

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