Matthew 18:10 - 14
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. [11] [a]
12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
Questions:
ReplyDelete- Does verse 10 say that we have guardian angels?
- Why would the man be happier about the one sheep? Why would he leave the 99?
http://www.gotquestions.org/guardian-angels.html says:
ReplyDeleteThis is the key passage regarding guardian angels. There is no doubt that good angels help protect (Daniel 6:20-23; 2 Kings 6:13-17), reveal information (Acts 7:52-53; Luke 1:11-20), guide (Matthew 1:20-21; Acts 8:26), provide for (Genesis 21:17-20; 1 Kings 19:5-7), and minister to believers in general (Hebrews 1:14).
The question is whether each person—or each believer—has an angel assigned to him/her. In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel had the archangel (Michael) assigned to it (Daniel 10:21; 12:1), but Scripture nowhere states that an angel is “assigned” to an individual (angels were sometimes sent to individuals, but there is no mention of permanent assignment). The Jews fully developed the belief in guardian angels during the time between the Old and New Testament periods. Some early church fathers believed that each person had not only a good angel assigned to him/her, but a demon as well. The belief in guardian angels has been around for a long time, but there is no explicit scriptural basis for it.
To return to Matthew 18:10, the word “their” is a collective pronoun in the Greek and refers to the fact that believers are served by angels in general. These angels are pictured as “always” watching the face of God so as to hear His command to them to help a believer when it is needed. The angels in this passage do not seem to be guarding a person so much as being attentive to the Father in heaven. The active duty or oversight seems, then, to come more from God than from the angels, which makes perfect sense because God alone is omniscient. He sees every believer at every moment, and He alone knows when one of us needs the intervention of an angel. Because they are continually seeing His face, the angels are at His disposal to help one of His “little ones.”
It cannot be emphatically answered from Scripture whether or not each believer has a guardian angel assigned to him/her. But, as stated earlier, God does use angels in ministering to us. It is scriptural to say that He uses them as He uses us; that is, He in no way needs us or them to accomplish His purposes, but chooses to use us and them nevertheless (Hebrews 1:7). In the end, whether or not we have an angel assigned to protect us, we have an even greater assurance from God: if we are His children through faith in Christ, He works all things together for good (Romans 8:28-30), and Jesus Christ will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5-6). If we have an omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God with us, does it really matter whether or not there is a finite guardian angel protecting us?
http://www.alliancenet.org/tab/the-parable-of-the-lost-sheep-part-four-0 says:
ReplyDeleteThe parable tells us many important things about God. We have already looked at two points: 1) God cares for us individually, and 2) God understands our weaknesses. In today’s lesson we look at the third and fourth point.
3. God seeks us when we stray. Doesn’t God have anything better to do than to hunt for lost sheep? Apparently not! He does other important things too, of course. He runs the universe. He directs the flow of history. He sets up kings and brings kings down. But there is a sense in which all these other actions are only a backdrop for the drama of salvation, which means that seeking and saving lost sheep is the most important thing God does.
Remember that Jesus is described as “the lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). This means that God created the world as a stage upon which the drama of salvation would be acted out. Moreover, when Jesus came he described his mission by saying, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10).
There is one more thing while we are thinking about how God seeks us: God does not wait for us to come back, because we would not. “There is no one who seeks God” (Rom. 3:11). “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
4. God rejoices when we repent and return to him.
We think of this as a story chiefly about the son; we even call it the parable of the Prodigal Son. But it is actually about the father, who represents God. What it tells us is that the Father was longing for his son, waiting for his return, and that when he saw him coming, he ran to him, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
Never think that if you go back to God, you will find him reproachful, angry, distant or vindictive. Everything God has done is for your salvation, and no one in all the universe will be happier at your repentance than God.
My 2 cents:
ReplyDeleteWhen I see this parable, I have thought of it, from my pharisaic viewpoint, as Jesus going after rebellious people and not paying any attention to me who has been faithful (you know, going to church and stuff).
Now, I think it's like this: We are all constantly wandering away and isn't it great that Jesus doesn't let us go too far.
It goes back to the beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit - only then will they see God.
Until we see ourselves as the one sheep (that we are) instead of the 99, we will never understand God's passion and love for us.
If we take pride in ourselves that we are the 99 (who go to church, don't smoke, don't drink or go with the girls that do), we puff up and lose sight of God. It's not until we see our sin (of pride, or idolatry, or judgement of others, or not thinking that we are desperately in need of God), that we can come to repentance and be found by God. The unrepentant will always still be lost. God will not find us until we see ourselves as lost, alone and without hope (outside of Him).
I get the feeling that this is what this parable is about.
http://www.neverthirsty.org/pp/corner/read1/r00573.html comments on why verse 11 is missing:
ReplyDeleteMatthew 18:11 does not appear in several current Bibles such as the New International Version, the New Century Version, the Contemporary English Version, and the New Living Translation. The verse you are referring to as follows:
For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. (NASB) Matt. 18:11
However, the verse does appear in the New American Standard Version, the New King James Version, and the King James Version, for example.
Why Is It Missing? The verse is missing from some of the Bibles because the passage does not actually appear in the best early Greek manuscripts which contain Matthew. It is important to remember that the New Testament was written in Greek. These original documents called "autographs" were copied and passed from one person to another. In the process of making copies, errors would occur sometimes. Sometimes words were misspelled, words were left out, and on rare occasions, some copyists would insert some words. Today there are more than 5,000 thousands ancient manuscripts of the New Testament in our possession. By using a process called Textual Criticism we have been able to determine very accurately how the original"autographs" should read. A better explanation of textual criticism and the accuracy of our Bible is available from an article at the following link, "How Accurate Is The Bible?" The conclusion of that article says that the Bible is 99.9% accurate. There is no other ancient book in existence with so many copies and with so little error. The Bible is really unique. The Bible is very accurate!
Textual criticism has determined that verse 11 should not occur in Matthew 18. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, edited by Frank Gaebelein says that verse was "Omitted in the earliest witnesses of the Alexandria, pre-Caesarean, Egyptian, and Antiochene text types" (Vol. 8, p. 401).
Another Thought. It appears someone borrowed Luke 19:10 and copied and modified it into Matthew 18. Here is both Mathew 18:10 and Luke 19:10,
For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. (NASB) Matt. 18:11
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (NASB) Luke 19:10
The only difference is the phrase "to seek." While Matthew 18:11 should not exist in our Bibles, it is not an inaccurate statement. It captures the sense of Luke 19:10.
Conclusion: God has helped us to keep His Word very accurate by preserving thousands of manuscripts. By employing textual criticism, we have been able to keep it pure. Thank the Lord for His Word!