In this episode, Dr. Gurtner and Tyler cover the Calming of the Storm in Matthew 8:23-27. Focus on the method Jesus uses to preform this miracle, in order to help us realize what this passage is trying to tell us; that Jesus is God. When we are reading the Gospels, we can apply its message to our modern context only after we understand what the author was originally telling his readers.
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Dan Gurtner
Professor of New Testament Studies
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Tyler Sanders
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Courtney McCaa
Digital Media Specialist
What is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels?
Dr. Dan Gurtner takes on challenging passages and common misconceptions in the Gospels.
Tyler Sanders 0:03
This is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels with Dr. Dan Gurtner, Professor of New Testament studies at Gateway Seminary. I'm Tyler Sanders, and today we're looking at The Calming of the Storm, in Matthew chapter eight, verses 23-27. Dr. Gurtner, we're calling this podcast Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels. Could you tease that out a little bit? What does that mean for the Gospels in general? Why are we talking about that? And tell us what that means regarding this passage too?
Dan Gurtner 0:29
Yeah, in studying the gospels, we all believe that the Gospels are accounts about Jesus. We all believe, or many of us believe, that these are the inspired Word of God, that they're historically reliable, and I believe that they're completely without error in everything that they affirm. And yet, whenever we come to interpreting them, we try to look at them and apply them as metaphors. So we sort of pull them out, pull the stories out, as though...and we wouldn't actually say this, but we treat them as though they're not historical. As though they're symbolic of something. As though I'm one of the disciples and that this inclement weather that arises on the Sea of Galilee is representative of a hardship that is occurring in my life. And that the miracle that Jesus performs, is Jesus creating tranquility in the midst of my hardships. And maybe that is an appropriate application, or maybe that isn't, but the first step is we need to try to understand what the author's trying to say to those original readers. Like we do with any other text in the Bible. So when we talk about conceptions and misconceptions, we try to understand like with any text, what the author's saying to the original reader and then we try to see, how does that then communicate to us and to our churches?
Tyler Sanders 1:56
What do you think the first step is for a passage like this to getting a better grip on that? Is it the context?
Dan Gurtner 2:02
Sure, like with any passage, understanding the context and knowing that because they're gospels, they're obviously about Jesus. No matter what's going on, there's something about Jesus, even when the gospel authors are telling us about John the Baptist or Herod the Great, it's always in the context of Jesus. But keeping in mind too, and John, the Gospel of John hints it this when John says, Jesus did many other things as well, I suppose if they were all written down the whole world wouldn't have books to contain them all. It takes maybe three or four hours to read through the Gospel of Matthew. And when you consider that Jesus in His public ministry, lived, did about three years of life in His public ministry, and you get the sense that he's constantly being crowded by people, he's teaching his disciples in private. Sometimes he's on his own. But if you were to just roughly calculate the amount of hours that he was doing public ministry and ministry with his disciples and compare it to what we actually have in the gospels, it's a minuscule amount of what Jesus actually said and did that we actually have in the gospels. So the gospel authors, my point is that the gospel authors are preserving for us just a tiny fraction, maybe a half of 1%, at best of what he said and did. So they're always selecting, adapting and arranging things. It's like if you and I were to go to a major sporting event or go to the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, we can be at the same ceremony and write down an account, a five page account of the exact same thing. And our accounts could have some similar things, but be very, very different. And be completely accurate. But they're going to be very different. So we recognize that the different gospel authors are going to have their different emphases, they might have things in different order, but they can all still be completely reliable. So we keep in mind, as we read the gospels, that the gospel authors are very selective, depending on their interests. So what they present is for their purposes. So we just keep that in mind as we read it. And of course, we look at context. And when we read, sort of the Stilling of the Storm, we look at where Jesus is coming from and where he's going to go. But ultimately, we look at this passage, and then we see sort of what's happened and then what's going to happen next.
Tyler Sanders 4:33
Yeah. Okay. Well, do you want to get into the text?
Dan Gurtner 4:35
Sure. Yeah. Let's get into Matthew chapter eight, verses 23 through 27. And this is a miracle story, obviously, because Jesus performs a miracle. And we're going to notice a couple of things that are common in miracle stories that sort of help us to interpret them, and I'll note those as we go through this. I'm reading from the ESV. "And when he", that is Jesus, "got into the boat, his disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves. But he was asleep. And they went and woke him saying, 'Save us, Lord, we are perishing.' And he said to them, 'Why are you afraid, oh, you of little faith.' Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. And the men marveled, saying, 'What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?'" So among the things that we notice in this, and this is where we see common in miracle stories...we try to note first of all, what occurs in the miracle and how people respond to the miracle. Because we'll see people respond in different ways to Jesus's miracle. We want to say, Jesus can calm the storms in my life. But the way the people in the boat that day responded is what Matthew wants us to know. And look at the way they respond.
Tyler Sanders 6:16
Yeah, they seem like shocked.
Dan Gurtner 6:18
They're shocked. So they go to Jesus and they wake him up. Now how he's sleeping, I don't know. But they say, "Save us, Lord." And whatever that is-we don't know what they're expecting, but whatever it is that they're expecting, what he does is not what they were expecting. So maybe they just wanted him to grab a bucket or do something. We have no idea. But what he does is...they want him to help, but the way he helps is, he rebukes the winds and the sea. And that probably is not what they expected. So he says something, he uses some kind of words. And the same language is used that he uses for demons. When he tells demons to get out of people, he rebukes them.
Dan Gurtner 7:07
And the amazing thing is, I mean, you and I could try this next time the weather gets nasty in Southern California, we can try to rebuke it. Or, you know, go out to the ocean on a bad day and see what happens. It's not going to be terribly effective. But with Jesus, it works immediately. "And there was a great calm." And the people respond to that. And they're not responding in terms of what it means for them. They're responding in terms of the identity of the person who just did this. And that's what Matthew is trying to evoke for us by showing us how these people responded. So this passage is about Jesus. And it's trying to get us to see something. So we see Jesus doing something, he's controlling nature with these words. Which obviously makes us think of who?
Tyler Sanders 8:07
Yeah, of God.
Dan Gurtner 8:08
It makes us think of God. And now you're thinking; well, you're kind of making that up. And then the people, the men marveled, and then they raised the question...not who is this, they know who this is. They know this is Jesus, and they know it's a man. But the ESV says, 'what sort of man?' They know he's a man, they've seen a whole bunch of men, but not a man like this. This is a variety of mankind that they've not seen before. So they're raising this identity question. So the text; Jesus performs a miracle, and when you see a miracle story, there's a performance of a miracle and the gospel authors almost always give attention to the method. How does Jesus do it? Like, if it's a leper-you don't touch lepers. They make you unclean and then you can't participate in Temple and all this other stuff. You have to stay away from people. Jesus touches them. When it's a miracle, he uses words. Or just like with the healing of, I think it's the centurian's daughter, 'just say the word and I know she'll be fine'. That sort of thing. That's all you need to do. The means by which he does it is key, and then the response of the people who experience it. Those are really the keys of understanding this. So Jesus does a God thing, and then the people who are there raise the question about, what sort of man is this? And so we as readers have been set up to see Jesus is God. Now, notice where it says that Jesus God in this passage. Absolutely nowhere.
Tyler Sanders 9:52
Yeah, it doesn't explicitly say it.
Dan Gurtner 9:53
It doesn't say that. But that's how gospels work. It doesn't say that. But it screams it out. Jesus is God. But it doesn't actually say that, it's much more subtle. If this were Paul, this would be a 13 sentence run-on participle or something like that, screaming out that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. But these are gospels, these are written after Paul. So readers of Matthew probably know all these things that Paul has taught, and they're reading these narratives and seeing this in the flesh, so to speak.
Tyler Sanders 10:24
Yeah. And do you think that's why, or one of the reasons why the Gospels work this way? That they're not as explicitly just saying at the end of the story 'and Jesus is God', it's because there's kind of a framework already in place?
Dan Gurtner 10:41
There is a framework already in place. Yes, I do think so. And I think some of where we get that is just sort of, a little bit of reflecting on the chronology of early Christianity. And what I mean by that is, we know that the first thing in early Christianity was Jesus was born, of course. He lived a perfect life. He was crucified, he rose again, he ascended. And then there's the events of the book of Acts. In the middle of the events of the book of Acts, then there is the conversion of Paul. Paul is doing his missionary journeys. He's writing his letters. Then sometime after the end of the book of Acts, Paul dies. And then after the end of the book of Acts, Paul dies and then the Gospels are written. So by the time the first gospel is written, it's probably Mark, Paul's letters...so Paul's evangelism, missionary journals are done. And the Gospels have already been spread around the Mediterranean area, into Asia Minor and all these other places. And some of them by Paul, some of them even before Paul even got there. Like we read the book of Titus, and it seems like the gospel got to Crete, even before Paul got there. So we're not really sure. Maybe from the Spirit coming at Pentecost in Acts chapter two, we're not really sure. But anyway, my point is that somehow the gospel is getting spread, people are getting saved, churches are being planted all around, and people are hearing about the gospel. Paul's circulating his letters, and these letters are getting circulated all over the place. People are reading it, churches are growing. And then the first gospel gets written.
Dan Gurtner 12:39
So the Gospels...we get confused sometimes because the Gospels narrate the events that are first, the life of Jesus. But they're written to people who already know the key events. So like 1st Corinthians 15, that talks about all the essentials of the gospel message, you know, 'for I receive what I passed on to you', and so forth. Those are things that are already in the churches and circulating. So we also see a hint of this from the book of Luke. And this is helpful. Matthew doesn't say it this way, but Luke really tips his hand. And I think all the Gospels are doing a similar thing. Luke is just more explicit about it. And he's more pointed. This is Luke chapter 1:1-4. This is how gospels, I think, in general work. Not all are the same. But in general, Luke tips his hand a little bit to help us see what gospels in the first century were doing. So Luke 1:1-4, "In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word had delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time passed, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theopolis, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught." So there are a couple of things we get from this. One is that Luke acknowledges that other people were compiling narratives about Jesus before him. Two is that Luke is telling us that he's writing for a particular person, and that his account, maybe it's chronological maybe it's not chronological, but there is a rhyme or reason for how he put it together. There's an orderly account. The other thing is verse 4, his purpose. "That he may have certainty concerning the things he has been taught." In other words, Theopolis, he's already been taught something. And the purpose of Luke's Gospel at least is to provide some undergirding for what he's already been taught. And most likely the other gospels are doing a similar thing, if not the exact same thing, at least a similar thing. They're written to Christians who already know the gospel message, if not the complete story.
Tyler Sanders 15:13
Yeah. And so in a passage like this, where we're seeing this narrative of Jesus calming the storm, really, the big point of this is that someone is supposed to understand better who Jesus is.
Dan Gurtner 15:25
Exactly.
Tyler Sanders 15:26
And I think what's interesting, we talked a little about context earlier, but the next narrative in here reflects this in kind of an interesting way. Because we see people respond to Jesus very differently. Following something we would probably think is a miracle too.
Dan Gurtner 15:45
Sure. Yeah, so Jesus heals two demon possessed men. Yeah, let's take a look at that. So at the end of verse 27. Back in Matthew, chapter eight, verse 27, "what sort of man that even the winds and sea obey him?" Notice that, and this is typical of narratives in the gospels, they don't stop to reflect on it, they just move on. "And when he came to the other side," this is the other side of the Sea of Galilee. So they started out in Capernaum. Capernaum is on the northwest shore, they're now on the southeast shore, in the country of the Gadarenes. And the Gadarenes as we'll see, is a Gentile area. Capernaum is a Jewish area, Gadarenes is a Gentile area, and we'll see why in just a minute. They go to the other side, to the country of the Gadareness, two demon possessed men meet him, coming out of the tombs. "So fearce that no one could pass that way." So they're in tombs, tombs are unclean. People visited tombs, Jews visited tombs regularly. That's common. They became unclean, that was a normal part of Jewish life. "And behold, they cried out, 'What have you to do with us, oh, son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?" So these demons know something that the rest of people don't. "Now a herd of pigs was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him saying, 'If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.'" And this is what gives us an indication this is Gentile territory. Because pigs are unclean.
Tyler Sanders 17:47
Yeah. And they're herding them.
Dan Gurtner 17:48
Yeah. "And he said, 'Go'. So they came out and went into the pigs. And behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters." And then here comes to your point, the response. So Jesus just performed a miracle. "The herdsmen fled, and going into the city, told everyone especially what had happened to the demon possessed men. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave the region." So what's interesting, you notice the statement that Matthew throws in there in verse 33, "Especially what had happened to the demons possessed men." Don't miss the fact that, yeah, no more pork chops for dinner. Yes, their whole their livelihood is gone, but these men that have been blocking their way and have been in there, are healed and in their right mind. So they told them. And they still responded and asked Jesus to leave.
Tyler Sanders 19:11
Yeah. A totally different response.
Dan Gurtner 19:14
Totally different response. Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 19:19
And what...? It seems to me like these two passages next to each other, we're supposed to see them in context with one another, right?
Dan Gurtner 19:27
Yep.
Tyler Sanders 19:30
So it's really telling us kind of two things really. I think both of these reflect that Jesus is God and that He has authority. I mean, in one we're seeing authority over nature, and the other we're seeing authority over demons. But past that, we're seeing two different groups of people respond completely differently. Why do you think Matthew put these next to each other? Like, what are we supposed to recognize in these two different responses?
Dan Gurtner 19:54
Well, let's keep looking and let's look even further. Let's look back a little bit. We can see...going back to the beginning of chapter eight. And I have an ESV Bible with some subject headings. It's kind of helps me a little bit. When Jesus cleanses a leper. Jesus stretched out his hand and he touched him. "I am willing", "Be clean". Leprosy's gone. And he commands him to go offer the gift that Moses commanded. Then the faith of the Centurian. The Centurion's servant is suffering terribly. And this is where the Centurion says, in essence, 'I have people under authority, all you need to do is say the word, and you don't need to come to my house, no need'. And so the Centurian understands authority, and he understands that Jesus is the authority.
Dan Gurtner 21:00
Then Jesus heals many, quotations from Isaiah. And then there's the teaching of...the scribe comes up and says to him, "Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go." And then there's the cost of following Jesus. So all of this is about responding to Jesus and following Jesus. And some are positive, some are negative. We see the stilling of the storm, displaying that Jesus is God. We see the two demon possessed men responding negatively. Let's keep going in chapter nine.
Dan Gurtner 21:47
So we see Jesus is God with the stilling of the storm, we see mixed results with the two demon possessed men. Now let's look at the paralytic in chapter nine. They get into the boat and cross over to the other side. So now they're back over again into the Northwest shore, they're in Capernaum. [People] bring a paralytic, "Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven." Verse three, the scribes say this man is blaspheming. And Mark's account says, and rightly, "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" And Matthew, I think, his readers know that. Mark needed to explain that for his Gentile readers. The charge of blasphemy is you're claiming something only God can do. And well, that's right, [Jesus] is claiming something that only God can do, because he is God. And that's the missing piece, obviously. Jesus knowing their thoughts, "Why do you think these things in your hearts? For which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven' or to say 'rise and walk'? But that you might know that the Son of Man...", and here this Son of Man thing is a hyperlink back to Daniel 7. I don't remember if we've talked about this before, it's a little bit of a side note. "[The Son of Man] has authority on earth to forgive sins."
Dan Gurtner 23:26
So which is easier? To say 'Your sins are forgiven' or to say 'rise and walk'? Well, it's easier to say your sins are forgiven. I can say, 'your sins are forgiven, Tyler' and 'congratulations'. And nobody has a sin meter that they could say, 'oh, wow, he's clean.' But if you can't walk and I say 'rise and walk' and you do it, that's a whole different ballgame. So what Jesus does, is he does both. And in doing so, he demonstrates that he has the authority to forgive sins. "So [the paralytic] rose and went home, and the crowd saw it. They were afraid and glorified God, who had given such authority to men." So we see Jesus performing miracles and demonstrating that He is God. We see this in the stilling of the storm, that He is God. And so what we get as a reader, we get to chapter nine, verse nine. And this is part of the organization of Matthew's genius. "Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, 'Follow me'. And he rose and followed him." And we often think, you know, we speculate, what did Matthew know about Jesus? And well if it's in Capernaum, it's a small town, maybe 1,200 or 1,500 people at the most, some people say half that. He probably knew Jesus, Jesus probably knew him. But Matthew says absolutely nothing about that. And for the readers purpose, that's entirely irrelevant. Because you and I as readers has been set up that here's this guy who calmed the storm and his disciples are falling at his feet saying, what sort of man is this? He just healed this guy and forgave his sins. And he's doing these God things. So you and I as readers are at the edge of our seat, so that by the time [Jesus], as God, goes walking by this tax collectors booth, we as readers are on the edge of our seats and ready to go. As soon as he says, 'Follow me', I'll say. 'Where? I'm coming.' So that's how it fits within the narrative that you and I as readers are being pulled along and compelled to follow Him. So that whenever he says things like, as warning...he gives fair warning at the beginning, 'that foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no nowhere to rest his head and let the dead bury their own dead'. So that's fair warning of what you're in for. 'Let me show you who I am. I'm going to still the storm. I'm going to cast out demons. And I'm going to forgive this man's sin, and I'm going to heal the paralytic. But then I'm going to call you and we'll see how you respond.'
Tyler Sanders 26:16
Yeah, that's really the two key parts, right? There's like a demonstration of authority, which is saying...that demonstration is defining that Jesus is God. But also, there's the call to follow.
Dan Gurtner 26:30
Yes. And it's not just...it certainly is an ontological statement about that Jesus is, in fact, God. But is also that for Matthew, Jesus is Emanuel. He is God with us. That, for the guy who is the paralytic, who is with Jesus that day, who is looking Jesus in the eye, He is God with us. He's not just the deity who's in the temple in Jerusalem that you can't go to because you're paralyzed, you can't even go there. You can sit outside and collect money as a beggar but you can't go in there. Or, you know, women who can only go so far, and once a month can't even go anywhere near. So this is God with us. So we can sometimes, you know, at our desks, in our studies, in our homes, think 'okay, it's nice to think that Jesus is God.' But remembering that these people who are leaving this legacy for us in the Gospel of Matthew, have looked this man in the eye and seen that this is God with us, is a totally different thing.
Dan Gurtner 27:50
And the call to come follow him is a compelling thing when we think, let's just say for example, we think of the gospel of Mark. You know, early church tradition says that the gospel of Mark was written by John Mark, who is writing the memoirs of Peter. And that term memoirs is, I think, a compelling one, because it's writing sort of his life book of his remembrances of his interactions with Jesus; the good, the bad, and especially the ugly. But that draws us to Christ. So it's as if, you know, if I were writing my memoirs of my walk with Christ, I don't know that I would have the character or the faith to paint all the ugliness that Mark has. But it shows us just how compelling the person of Christ is. That of everything that these men could have passed down to the generations of Christians, who knows how many generations they thought were going to be reading this stuff, that this is the legacy they decided to leave for us. That's why I think that it's so important that we hang on every single word, every single syllable that is in these texts, because these have been preserved for us from antiquity.
Tyler Sanders 29:17
Yeah. Well, maybe as we get close to wrapping up here, maybe we can kind of take another high view of this passage again. One of the things that we're wanting to hit in this passage and really go over is this idea of conceptions and misconceptions, and I think ultimately, we're wanting to take that back towards the church. So maybe in like a summary kind of format, what do you think the best way for us to approach this text in the context of church is? If we're teaching this in Sunday school or preaching on this or whatever, how do we get this message to the church?
Dan Gurtner 29:52
Well, I think the first thing is to remember that we always want to work towards application. And this is just in terms of method and how we study the Gospels. We always want to lead towards application, but sometimes working towards application requires some patience. And by that, I mean, if we move too quickly to application, we can sometimes miss what the authors are saying. And what I mean by that is, we start thinking of metaphor because we start thinking 'Jesus calms the storms in my life', or you know, the David and Goliath thing. And we jump there because we want to apply. And that's a great thing. But in our eagerness to apply, we can miss things.
Dan Gurtner 30:37
So the message I would say to people who are teaching and preaching on a regular basis, is to be patient and to try to understand what the author is saying to the original reader in the first instance. And just let that simmer on the backburner for a little bit. On low heat, let it simmer, nice and slow, and ruminate on that for a little bit. And the difficulty is everybody's in a hurry, and there's so many pressures. But if you can let that ruminate for just a little bit, and think about...take that extra step of 'what is this author saying to the original readers,' it can open up doors to what you will eventually get to. We're good at application, the finding points of 'how it applies to me' is fine. The hard part is that intermediate step, which is kind of a historical one, but it's difficult.
Dan Gurtner 31:37
We need to start with observation. What does the text say, then we look at what does the text say to the original reader, before we get to application. And if we don't get that right, what the author's saying to the original reader, we will get the application wrong. If we don't get that right...we don't get it right, what the author is saying to the original reader, we will get the application wrong. And so it's worth spending a little bit of extra time, letting that simmer on the backburner for a little while to think, What on earth is Matthew trying to say to his readers? What's John saying to his readers? Why did he say it that way and not this way? Not just what's my favorite word here, or what's my interest, or what do I find most compelling. That's great. But I want my heart to be formed by the Word, not my heart to pull words out of the scripture that are my favorite. I want my heart to be attuned to the Scriptures, and to the priorities of scriptures. What things are emphasized, what things are repeated, what is the author trying to communicate? And so in that respect, a little bit of healthy distance can help us to read it a little bit more clear. Sometimes familiarity...I think of the illustration with my wife. I think I know her really, really well. And sometimes I just don't listen to her quite as well as I should, because I think I know what she's going to say. And so I kind of tune her out a little bit and that's to my shame. And so just being a little bit more attentive, and trying to understand what it's really saying can be helpful.
Tyler Sanders 33:20
Yeah. I think it's a really good word. And I think it's a really encouraging thing for us to wrap up on. Dr. Gurtner, thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to next episode.
Dan Gurtner 33:29
My pleasure.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai