Exclusively published to the Touchstone website each week, these Daily Reflections are brief commentaries on the lectionary readings contained in the St. James Daily Devotional Guide. The reflections are penned by Patrick Henry Reardon, editor of the Daily Devotional Guide and a senior editor of Touchstone. Father Reardon provides here a very brief directional clue for one of the readings each day. Long-time readers of the Daily Devotional Guide will find these reflections an additional help to their reading of Holy Scripture which they can print and keep with their Guide.

The Daily Reflections will be updated weekly.

Sunday, March 3

Matthew 16:1-12: Once again, Matthew’s text here reflects certain concerns that arose in Judaism (and consequently among Jewish Christians) after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Foremost among the Jewish groups who lost credibility in the aftermath of that event was the party of the Sadducees. This group, it was generally believed, had been excessively compliant with the Roman powers for over a century, too compromising, too little disposed to speak up for the people as the Pharisees had done. Consequently, after the year 70 the Sadducees came into bad odor among rank-and-file Jews. Moreover, this party was bound to lose power, because their power had been concentrated in the temple priesthood, which was put out of business by the destruction of the temple. In Matthew we observe (three times in these verses and elsewhere in 3:7; 22:34) explicit criticisms of the Sadducees that are not found in the other gospels. Mark (12:18) and Luke (20:27) mention the Sadducees only once each. Matthew clearly shares this popular Jewish attitude toward the Sadducees.

Monday, March 4

Matthew 16:13-20: This text presents the definitive answer to one of the major questions of this gospel, the true identity of Jesus: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Because this confession of faith was (and still is) regarded as the foundation stone of the Christian Church, the nickname "Rock" (perhaps closer to nickname "Rocky" in English) was given to the man who made that confession of faith, Simon Bar Jonah (or, in English, "Simon Johnson"). It was in Simon’s fishing boat that Jesus was earlier confessed to be "truly the Son of God" (14:33), so that his boat becomes in the gospels a great symbol of the Church. The great prominence of this "Rocky Johnson"(Kephas in Aramaic and Petros in Greek) among the Twelve Apostles is indicated by the fact that his name appears first in every single New Testament list of the Twelve, and he is the one who normally and habitually acts as spokesman for the others.

Tuesday, March 5

Matthew 13:18-23: In Matthew’s version of this parable-interpretation, one notes his special emphasis on “understanding” in verses 19 and 23. According to Matthew, a special type of understanding is characteristic of true discipleship. Thus, Matthew omits both references to a failure of understanding on the part of the disciples in Mark 4:10, 13. And at the end of the parables, in Matthew 13:51, the disciples admit that they do understand what the Lord has been saying. For more evidence of Matthew’s emphasis on understanding as a characteristic of discipleship, one may compare Mark 9:9-13 with Matthew 17:9-13; and Mark 9:30-32 with Matthew 17:22f.

Wednesday, March 6

Matthew 17:1-13: The Lord’s transfiguration repeats the revelation made at His baptism, where the Father’s voice identified His Son. This revelation of Jesus’ unique relationship to God is the primary substance of the Christian faith, as we have just seen in Peter’s confession. Matthew has already treated this matter in 11:25-27, and he continues the theme here. This relationship of Jesus to God is the source of the "authority" (exsousia) with which Jesus teaches and heals and forgives sins and sends forth the Church in mission at the end of this gospel. While Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration is substantially identical to that of Mark (and both are quite different from Luke’s in emphasis), he does omit Mark’s reference (9:9f) to the disciples’ lack of "understanding" with respect to the return of Elijah. This omission fits a preoccupation that we have already seen in Matthew.

Thursday, March 7

Matthew 17:14-23: Whereas Matthew greatly simplifies and shortens Mark’s version of this story in the narrative parts, he actually amplifies the Lord’s "saying" in verse 20. He does this in two ways: (1) He inserts here the Lord’s reference to faith as a mustard seed, a dominical saying found in quite another context in Luke 17:6. (2) Jesus here speaks of the disciples’ "small faith" (oligopistia). We saw earlier that this New Testament expression, "small faith," either as a noun (here only) or an adjective, is found almost exclusively in Matthew; cf. 6:6; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8 (otherwise only in Luke 12:28). Faith, according to Matthew, is understood as trust in the authority (exsousia) of Jesus (8:9-13; 9:2). Miracles are said to be worked by faith (9:20-22, 28f). In three scenes where Mark and Luke do not do so, Matthew portrays Jesus as saying, "as you have believed, so be it done to you" (8:13; 9:29; 15:8).

Friday, March 8

Matthew 17:24-27: This account, found only in Matthew, once again shows a special solidarity between Jesus and Peter, inasmuch as the taxes of both are paid by the same coin. In spite of his being called "Satan" by the Lord, then, Peter did not fall from the Lord’s favor; indeed, he was chosen as one of the three disciples who witnessed the Lord’s transfiguration at the beginning of this chapter. In this text, as in every other New Testament passage that speaks of his fishing, we may wonder about Peter’s actual skills as a fisherman. In every single gospel account, whenever Peter catches a fish, the event is regarded as a miracle. (In the present instance we are not even told that he bated his hook.)

Saturday, March 9

Matthew 18:1-9: Here begins the fourth great dominical discourse in Matthew; this one is devoted to what may be called "rules for the congregation." It begins by the memorable scene in which Jesus holds up the faith of children as a model for adults. Far from refusing children access to Jesus until they arrive at the explicit and doctrinal faith of adults, Jesus admonishes adults to model their own faith on the more elementary faith of the child. Because children are the most in danger of being scandalized, this topic of children leads naturally into the subject of scandal, and in this connection come the Lord’s statements about millstones and self-mutilation. The latter are certainly to be understood by way of hyperbole.

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