(Text and Audio)
Title: Encouragement Through Rhetoric
About two months ago Mary and I dusted off our LOTR trilogy DVDs and watched all three movies in about a week. It’s been well over five years since we’ve seen them and I’m always struck with how my reaction to these films changes over the years. Namely, different parts of the movies seem to get to me more than others. And this was the first time I’d seen the movies since my children have been born.
In the second third film, long after Frodo and Sam have been seperated from their friends, a conversation takes place between the Wizard Galdalf and the King to be Aragorn:
Aragorn: We have time. Every day Frodo moves closer to Mordor.
Gandalf: Do we know that?
Aragorn: What does your heart tell you?
Gandalf: That Frodo is alive. Yes. Yes, he’s alive.
Point: Sometimes the best answers come through a perfectly placed question.
I. Jesus uses three rhetorical questions explain the differences between God and Man (v. 9-11)
In these verses Jesus uses two examples to illustrate the difference between man and God. But if we dig a little deeper, we see that these illustrations are about even more than that. They are about what is holy vs. what is evil.
To explain that, let’s look at these two examples Jesus gives.
In the first, Jesus uses rhetoric and asks the rhetorical question:
First Question: “Who among you, if you son asks for bread, would give him a stone?”
What are the differences between “bread” and “stone”?
- One nourishes and gives life, the does not and can not.
- Bread is the thing requested, stone was not.
- Most importantly: Jesus calls himself the bread of life (John 6:35) and Satan challenged Jesus in the wilderness to turn stones to bread and eat. So here, the stones are an obvious reference to giving in to evil temptations.
Next, we see the second rhetorical question, “If he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?”
What are the differences between a fish and serpent? (If you are like me, and struggle to eat any type of seafood, this may be a trickier question to answer)
- Fish are a common source of food and income, this Jewish audience knew that serpents were a cursed creature.
- Once again, the fish was the thing requested, not the serpent.
- Most importantly: “fish” represents life and “serpent” represents evil and temptation.
Finally, Jesus summarizes his point of these examples really being about good vs. evil by using a third rhetorical question: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
Point: We are the evil ones. Yet even we know how to give a good gift to those we love. How much more perfect will the gift be if it comes from a perfect and holy God?
In other words: Have faith in God! He knows, what you want, and he knows what you need (and that’s not always the same thing!) He will grant you these blessings joyfully, according to His plan, in His timing, for His glory!
Close: (v12)
Jesus then ties this all together in verse 12. If we go back last week and remember the teaching on ask, seek, and knock, and combine that with what we’ve seen here through these three rhetorical questions, we come to this conclusion in verse 12 quite nicely.
Therefore (if God is willing to give to you in grace) give to others in grace.
This is the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, this is what it means to be a true Jew, a true follower of your Messiah. A true Jew, a true member of God’s family looks to others’ needs first because they already believe that their needs will be met by a heavenly father who knows how to give good gifts.