Bible Study series: Matthew 20:20-28. Their mother was way off.
A warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together. I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click on this link:
In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Matthew 20:20-28
20 At that time the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached him with her sons, bowing before him and asking something from him. 21 And he said to her, “What do you wish for?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine would sit, one on your right and one on your left, in your kingdom. 22 But in reply, Jesus said, “You don’t know what you are requesting. Can you drink from the cup which I am about to drink from?” They said to him, “We can.” 23 He said to them, “My cup you will drink, but sitting on my right and on my left is not mine to give; instead it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
24 Then the ten heard and were indignant about the two brothers. 25 Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the nations exercise dominion over them, and the great men exercise authority over them. 26 It won’t be like this among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. 27 And whoever wants to be first among you will be your slave, 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but instead to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:20-28)
Comments:
The background is Matt. 18:1-6, where Jesus says to become like little children, if they want to be the greatest. Jesus is on his way to die, but James and John want to know who will be the greatest. Oh, the irony!
Apparently, being the greatest was a live issue among the disciples.
20:
In Mark 10:35-45, the parallel version, only John and James request preeminence in the kingdom, but here it is the mother who is the main spokesperson. There is no contradiction. This is one of the few times that Matthew the Trimmer did not trim things. He included their mother. Matthew may have wanted to shield the two sons by adding the mother. In a way, this makes the whole family seem dysfunctional and power hungry, particularly after the pericope about the sacrificial death of Jesus (vv. 17-19). Jesus replied to the sons, however, even though they all three bowed before him.
Blomberg on the differences in the two accounts:
In v. 20 Matthew tells how James and John’s mother comes to Jesus. Mark mentions only the two brothers (Mark 10:35). Matthew would not likely have introduced their mother into the story if she in fact had not approached Jesus with this request, but even Matthew’s account suggests that her sons put her up to it, since Jesus shifts his address from the mother in v. 21 to the sons in v. 22 (“You don’t know what you are asking” uses second-person plural pronouns). (Comment on 20:20-23)
My view of Scripture: It’s very high, but I don’t believe in “total” or ‘hyper-inerrancy”:
Authority and Inerrancy of the Bible
Begin a series on the reliability of the Gospels. Start with the Conclusion which has quick summaries and links back to the other parts:
15. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Conclusion
The Gospels have a massive number of agreements in their storylines:
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
Celebrate them, instead of obsessing over the differences.
See this part in the series that puts differences in perspective (a difference ≠ a contradiction):
13. Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?
But the bigger picture is to not allow your faith to become so brittle that it snaps in two because of these puzzles. It’s time to stop demanding no discrepancies or else you will leave the Christian faith. Slow down and relax. The main message is clear. We must not seek for power and prestige but take the road less traveled: humility. Become servant-leaders.
Now let’s move on to the main point.
Bowing before him shows recognition that he is the King Messiah, and he will guide people towards the Messianic Age. She knew what the whole mission of Jesus was headed, so give her credit for that. It parallels the Canaanite woman’s honor of Jesus (15:21-25).
Osborne speculates that the mother is Salome and is the sister of Mary (the mother of Jesus) because Matt. 27:55 says that an unnamed woman, the mother of James and John, was watching the crucifixion from a distance. Mark 15:40 says that Salome was there. Then John 19:25 says that an unnamed woman was the sister of Mary (Jesus’s mother). If true, this would make James and John Jesus’s cousins. This would explain, in part, why he chose Capernaum as his adopted hometown and ministry base up north in Galilee. Zebedee and his two sons had their fishing company there. However, Matt. 27:55, Mark 15:40 and Luke 23:49 says any number of Galilean women were watching the crucifixion from a distance. So the unnamed woman could be one of them. Therefore, I am skeptical, but who knows? It could be true.
21:
“say”: more loosely it could be translated as “order,” but the word is the standard one for “say.” She believed that with one word Jesus could command the outcome for her two sons. Jesus had to correct her and tell her that his Father decided these matters.
The right and the left indicate positions of prominence. The twelve had just recently been promised thrones to sit and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Now the two sons’ mother wants the thrones to be on the left and right of the Son of Man.
“in your kingdom”: Normally, this term would refer to the Parousia or Appearing or Coming of the Lord. Normally, this is a time when everything is wrapped up and the New Messianic Age breaks forth. However, we must consider James and John’s mother’s limited perspective. Here they are heading for Jerusalem, and they may believe that Jesus will win the Great and Miraculous Military Showdown against the Romans. When that happens, James and John’s mother want to shove everyone else aside and see her two sons sit next to Jesus on his right and left.
See v. 1 for more information about the kingdom.
And click back to Matthew 19:28-29 for a discussion of Jesus’s clear teaching on This Age (now) and That Age / Kingdom Age (future). His eschatology was streamlined, much more so than the standard American, end-time, Bible prophecy teachers tell us with their bloated charts.
The data have been moved to this post:
What Jesus Really Taught about End Times
I prefer to follow Jesus and the apostolic community in their Epistles. They were united in their streamlined eschatology. Don’t believe it? Click on the Matt. 19 link and scroll down to vv. 28-29.
Or click here:
Rapture = Second Coming and Happens at Same Time, on Last Day
It explores the Gospels and also the Epistles (main passages).
22:
Ignorance pursues power and glory, without the going through suffering first. One day an older student in my class said to me as I was teaching: “I’m going to be where you are!” She meant my leading the class and teaching. To her it seemed so glorious and privileged. I replied, “Great! I hope so too! But are you willing to go through what I had to go through to get here?” The meaning was clear. I worked hard and sometimes suffered. Don’t expect leadership unless you are prepared to work for it and sometimes suffer for it. The head that wears the “crown,” even a tiny one, is uneasy.
The cup refers to the OT imagery of judgment and retribution (Ps. 75:8; Is. 51:17-18; Jer. 25:15-28). Jesus was about to rise from the dead in power and glory and exact judgment on the Jerusalem religious establishment (Matt. 24:2; cf. Luke 21:22). But first he had to be crucified by the same establishment. James and John overlooked the suffering part, before the glory.
23:
Their confident response that they can—“we are able”—to drink the cup was about to be tested. James suffered martyrdom (Acts 12:2), and John suffered exile (Rev. 1:9).
Jesus’s authority came only from the Father. Soon, all authority in heaven and on earth will be given to him (Matt. 28:18). Even in that case, it was derivative for the Son of God.
“For Jesus, kingship is intimately ties up with suffering; it is through the cross that the throne will be achieved” (France, p. 758).
24:
The ten’s indignation shows they were concerned more about their missing a throne of prominence next to the Messiah than they were about the two brothers’ horning in. Maybe they were upset that they did not get there first.
25:
Jesus uses two power words; they signify dominating and exercising authority over others. This is what the pagans or Gentiles do. Of course, what would spring instantly to mind in their minds is the Romans. Over all, with some flareups, the Romans let the Jews follow their religious customs, provided they pay taxes. They also let the Jews have some authority, as long as they submitted to Roman law. If those two things happened, peace would break out everywhere, but it chaffed the nation of Israel to be ruled by pagans. The extra-pious saw the infiltration of pagan Roman religion, here and there.
26-27:
“it won’t be like this”: could be translated as “it must not be like this for you.” The future tense “(won’t be”) has an imperative force to it. “The citizens of the kingdom must never be like the Gentiles in a lust for power” (Osborne, comment on 20:26).
In the kingdom community, the opposite was supposed to happen. Those who want preeminence and be a leader must be a servant. The Greek noun diakonos (pronounced dee-ah-koh-noss) does not means a formal title, like deacon or minister, but it means a servant. The deacon and minister come later, and even then caution is needed. It is ironic that those two titles came to mean bosses in the church, at least for the more hierarchical denominations. Further, Jesus uses the synonym in this context: slave doulos (pronounced doo-loss). So clearly he did not means an official position of power.
The bottom line is not to wipe away structure and authority in the later church (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11; 1 Tim. 3; and Heb. 13:17), but to show what attitude leaders should have. Humble yourself first, and then let God raise you up and give you his authority (1 Pet. 5:6).
Slave / servant:
Slavery and Freedom in the Bible
In this context, the two words are synonyms.
28:
The Son of Man could have demanded, justly, that others serve him, but instead he came to serve others. How so? He came to give his life as a ransom for many. The Greek noun is lutron (pronounced loo-tron), and in Greek writings at the time, it most often referred to the purchase price for freeing slaves. It is their emancipation from slavery and into freedom. Jesus was the price that was paid to free his people and many others from their enslavement. Yes, it is true that there is never any mention in the NT of the person who was paid, but maybe we can say that it refers to our sin nature. He paid the price by becoming vicariously a sin offering and thereby paying the penalty for our sin, which was death. So the price and penalty merged, and it was death, and he paid that price by becoming a ransom. Remember: Jesus had just spoken of his death (vv. 17-19).
The christological aspect is the best-known issue in this verse. “Ransom” [lutron] has its background in the OT idea of the kinsman redeemer (Boaz and Ruth) but mainly in the idea of the payment made to redeem the firstborn (Num. 3:46-47; 18:15) as well as the Hellenistic idea of freeing a slave or buying freedom of a prisoner of war. It denotes a “ransom” payment and has two connotations here and in the parallel apolutrōsis passages (“redemption” –e.g. Gal 4:5; Eph 1:7, 14; cf. Rom 3:24; Heb 9:12), the payment (the “blood” of Jesus) and the freedom from sin that it purchases for people. (Osborne, comment on 20:28)
The background to this verse is Is. 53. There the Suffering Servant would suffer for his people. Is. 53:10, 12 talks about paying and suffering for the nation. He was the offering for guilt.
… Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt, (Is. 53:10, ESV)
For more discussion about the Suffering Servant being a guilt offering, see this post about Leviticus:
The Guilt Offering from a NT Perspective
And Is. 53:12 says that he bore the sins of many:
… he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Is. 53:12, ESV)
See my posts:
What Is Redemption in the Bible?
The rest of the commentary on v. 28 has been moved to this post:
Is the Atonement for ‘Many’ or ‘All’ People?
The cross changes everything.
I believe that healing is in the atonement, just like all sorts of other kingdom benefits are in it. Now the question is: Is healing guaranteed in every case? I have attempted to answer the question, though no ultimate answer is available to us on the earthly side of eternity. For a fuller discussion, see this post:
Why Doesn’t Divine Healing Happen One Hundred Percent of the Time?
GrowApp for Matt. 20:20-28
1. Study 1 Pet. 5:6 and combine it with this pericope (pronounced puh-RIH-koh-pea) or section. How do you humble yourself? What happens when you do?
RELATED
9. Authoritative Testimony in Matthew’s Gospel
1. Church Fathers and Matthew’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES AND MORE
To see the bibliography, please click on this link and scroll down to the bottom. You will also find a “Summary and Conclusion” for discipleship.
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 