Psalm 134:1-3

My Shepherd met me foraging about in His green pastures and laid me down in Luke 9. The Mind of the Spirit engaged the spirit of my mind in verse 23:

Luke 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

I use this verse in the third phase of every devotion, when we are in the valley shadowed by His Cross. It is the context of His call to discipleship that arrested my attention this morning.

This passage parallels the account given in Matthew 16:13-28. So I went there to compare and coordinate the accounts. (I cannot present all of that here.) One thing stood out to me: there is no accounting of the Church in Luke. In fact, the only Gospel that uses the word translated Church is Matthew. Neither Ekklesia, nor its most common English translation, Church, is found in Mark, Luke, or John. It does not show up again until Acts 2:47.

The foundation of the church includes Christ, the chief cornerstone, the prophets, and the twelve Apostles of the Lamb (1 Corinthians 3:11; Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:14).

Jesus had named Judas as one of the Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:1-4). He indicated the “church” was already in place during His trek toward the Cross (Matthew 18:17-18). Judas lost his Bishoprick (Acts 1:20; Psalm 109:8), and so part of the foundation was missing, and Peter, sensible of this, led the church to vote in Matthias to take his place (Acts 1:21-26).

Peter’s criteria limited the appointment to one who had been with the Apostles from the time of John the Baptist and was indirectly selected by Jesus through the “lot” (vote) of the assembly. Paul was not identified by Jesus as the official replacement of Judas until Jesus’ call to Paul and the demonstration of the proof of His Apostleship (Acts 9; Galatians 1:1; see 1 Corinthians 9:2; 15:8).

Paul would later point out that he was not appointed as an Apostle by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, which indicates there was some controversy over who completed the foundation of the Lord’s Church.

Since the Spirit said the Lord “added to the church” on Pentecost (Acts 2:47), we must assume either that the Spirit acknowledged Matthias as a temporary stand-in, a placeholder, or that He is willing to identify the assembly as His Church, and add “lively stones” (1 Peter 2:5) to it, even while one of the foundation stones is missing.

Along the still waters, I reflected on the fact that in Luke 9, there is no mention of the Church in an account that in Matthew includes a declaration regarding Jesus and His Church, but that both passages include the essential call of a disciple: Matthew: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24); Luke: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). The question why Matthew is the only Gospel that includes Jesus’ declaration regarding His Church is interesting. It provoked me to think a lot about the interrelationship between the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

Matthew is the only Apostle of the three. Mark was likely the amanuensis for Peter and Luke for Paul. The fourth Gospel, John, focuses on the declaration upon which the Church is founded: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16, John 1:1-14—Jesus is identified as Christ in John more often than in any of the other Gospels).

Mark and Luke are supplementary to Matthew, providing a full accounting supporting John. Matthew is at the head of the Gospels, like John stands at the head of the Epistles.

It is often said that Matthew presents Jesus with a focus on Christ the King and His kingdom, while Mark and Luke present Jesus with a focus on Christ the Servant Saviour. John presents Him with a focus on Jesus being God manifest in flesh, Christ the King, and Saviour.

It’s fitting that Matthew would record the founding of His Church since his focus is on Christ the King and His kingdom.*

When I checked Mark, I noticed something else. Each of these accounts concludes with Jesus pointing to His coming Kingdom and says that some standing before Him would see His kingdom come before they died (Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1; and Luke 9:27). The Mark account was particularly interesting to me: “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1).

He was talking about the transfiguration that followed, “about an eight days after” (Luke 9:28—an expression like our “about a week later”), a little more specifically, “after six days” (Mark 9:2; Matthew 17:1), equivalent to about a week later. According to Mark, Jesus explained that the manifestation of Christ in His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah beside Him, was an appearance of the Kingdom of God on earth, manifest in “power.” The word translated as power is dunamis, which refers to the might of the King and His Kingdom.

Jesus instructed His disciples not to speak of this until after His resurrection (Matthew 17:9). Furthermore, we note that Jesus’ sensitivity about keeping secret the vision of the Kingdom of God manifesting in the Earth with “power” until after the “Son of man be risen from the dead” is found only in Matthew’s account (Matthew 17:9). His kingdom dunamis could not be revealed unto He had received “all power in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18) where the word power translates exousia meaning authority. This is what He announced after His resurrection.

In the valley, kneeling in the shadow of His Cross, the Spirit impressed me with the fact that He is risen, and we need to declare that Peter, James, and John have seen the kingdom of God come into the world with power (Mark 9:1). This is the coming of the kingdom of God “not with observation” that He talked about in Luke (see Luke 17:20). It’s the kingdom of God into which we are now translated (Colossians 1:13). The church is His ekklesia, organized within His kingdom and comissioned to conduct the King’s business.

It’s not a secret that Jesus made clear what we must do to follow in His steps, and exercise the power (dunamis—Acts 1:8) He has given to His Church (Acts 2) to execute His power (exousia—Matthew 28:18; see Matthew 10:1; Luke 10:19; Romans 13:1-6; 1 Corinthians 9:18; Ephesians 3:10; 6:12; Colossians 1:16; 2:10-15; Revelation 2:26; which is finally fully realized—Revelation 12:10) in His name: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

At His table, He anointed me with His oil and filled my cup with His grace. Goodness and mercy followed us into His harvest.

Praying for revival! 🙏

Going live asap:

https://rumble.com/v6ylhhe-shepherds-pasture.html

[*The word ekklesia (the English transliteration of the Greek word ἐκκλησία) refers to the summoning of citizens for deliberation and decision-making on matters of concern to the political affairs of a Greek City-State. He did not choose the word synagogue, which was in common use and would have been the expected choice. He purposely chose a word that in the historical context of His ministry would be understood by anyone as referring to a political body assigned the task of carrying out the business of a City-State within a “kingdom.” Jesus is King of His Kingdom, the Kingdom into which the Spirit translates us at the time of our new birth (Colossians 1:13). He has organized His disciples into ekklesias, to which is given the “keys of the kingdom,” and charged it with the responsibility to conduct the business of His Kingdom in the world today.]