The Point of the Story

Matthew 11:9-11 & 13-15

“What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. . . . For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)

The point of all this is that Jesus is offering a new way of understanding God’s timetable. In a few simple words, he is telling his hearers that Israel’s long history, from Abraham and Moses through the prophets to the present moment, was one long preparation, one long getting-ready time. Now the preparation was over, and the reality had dawned. John was indeed greatest among the preparers, but even the most insignificant person who was accepting God’s kingdom and living by it—in other words, who was hearing Jesus and following him—was “greater,” simply because they were living in the time of fulfillment (129).

The point is this: Jesus isn’t telling the crowds about John. He’s telling them about himself—but doing so obliquely (130).

A. Orendorff

Understanding Jesus means understanding the story. The story, Jesus says, is about Me. The story of Israel—what Jesus here calls “the law and the prophets”—is not a complete story. The story is not self-referential; it is not self-contained; it is not about itself. The purpose the story is to point forward, to “prophesy until John.” It’s “end” is found only in the completion Jesus himself brings as the “messenger of the covenant” who appears in the wake of Elijah’s second coming (Mal. 3-4). “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”