BibleProject - What Does Jesus Mean by Ask, Seek, and Knock?

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Sermon on the Mount E32 – In his fourth teaching on relationships and conflict in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encourages his listeners to ask God for what they need. Because the three previous teachings don't directly tell us how to respond in specific situations, Jesus emphasizes that the challenges of relationships require wisdom that comes from a deep dependence on God. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss Jesus’ invitation for his followers to relate to God as a loving and generous Father who delights in giving us good gifts.TimestampsChapter 1: Ask, Seek, Knock (00:00-19:25)Chapter 2: James and the Sermon on the Mount (19:25-34:48)Chapter 3: Connecting My World to the Wisdom of Jesus 9 (34:48-54:24)Referenced ResourcesCheck out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show MusicOriginal Sermon on the Mount music by Richie KohenBibleProject theme song by TENTS“Casette” by Ward Willis“La Verdure” by Makzo, Guillaume MuschalleShow CreditsJon Collins is the creative producer for today's show. Production of today's episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer; Cooper Peltz, managing producer; and Colin Wilson, producer. Stephanie Tam is our consultant and editor. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer. Frank Garza and Aaron Olsen edited today's episode. Aaron Olsen also provided the sound design and mix for today's episode. Nina Simone does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Today’s hosts are Jon Collins and Michelle Jones, and Tim Mackie is our lead scholar.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

This is Bible Project Podcast, and this year we're reading through the Sermon on the Mount. I'm Jon Collins, and with me is co-host Michelle Jones. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Jon. So, we're in the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus has been teaching us how to deal with relational complexity. What do you do when there's relational drama? What if you don't like the way someone's been acting? What if you see a problem in somebody's life? There have been three teachings so far. First one is like a baseline. Don't judge. And practically that can't mean that you never evaluate someone's behavior. That'll happen all the time, consciously and unconsciously. But even when you evaluate, don't judge.

In other words, don't make a final declaration of the motives and value of another person. A great word to use here is don't condemn. The second teaching is a parable about how to evaluate someone's behavior. When you see a speck in someone's eye, you jump in and remove it for them. No, actually take that moment of evaluating others as an opportunity to first evaluate yourself. We are really good at being generous and patient with ourselves,

extend that same posture to others. The third teaching is a riddle. Don't throw your pearls to pigs or give what is holy to dogs. We learned that Torah instruction was sometimes referred to as pearls because they're so valuable. And so we may want to give this value to everyone, but not everyone's willing to see it as valuable.

These teachings are challenging and instructive, but they don't tell us exactly what to do in every tough situation. Here's Tim. Each of those sayings doesn't really arm you with a formula for what to do in every tough situation. Here's Tim. Each of those sayings doesn't really arm you with a formula for what to do in a relationship. It shapes you into a certain kind of person so that you begin to have intuitions of generosity and humility. As I think about living with generosity and humility,

I realize I need help. I mean, I'm really gonna need a lot of guidance from God. Am I done with my own self-reflection yet? Should I point out a problem in someone's life? Can I even trust the way that I'm seeing things is accurate? And what I hear you saying is you need wisdom. Exactly, and that brings us to the fourth teaching where Jesus invites us to ask for good gifts from our Father in the sky.

Jesus says, Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks will receive, and the one who seeks will find, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Wisdom will flow out of a deep interpersonal dependence on the presence and voice of God speaking to you in day-to-day life.

Today we read a teaching that invites us to view God as a good Father who loves to give good gifts. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hello, Tim. Hello, John. A hearty hello. A hearty hello. Yes, we are in the Sermon on the Mount. We are getting towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

Yeah, we are. Yeah, it's been a rich, long journey. So, we are doing, we're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things.

We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing one of the good things. We're doing towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, we are. Yeah, it's been a rich, long journey. So we are doing, we're doing one of the greatest hits in the teachings of Jesus

today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about the famous ask seek knock saying of Jesus in the sermon about prayer. It's about prayer. Is it? Yes. It's about asking your heavenly father for things that you need. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe for big picture context, we are still in the main center body of the Sermon on the Mount, which has three big parts. After the introduction of the blessings or the nine Beatitudes and the city on the hill that Jesus describes his followers as, he goes on in the main body to talk about a greater calling of doing right by God and neighbor, a way of living that fulfills the ethical wisdom of the Torah and prophets. And he says, that's what I'm bringing you about, that's what I'm bringing about here in these communities, Kingdom of God

communities that he's starting. So we went through the six case studies, first of like, you've heard it said but I say to you, then he went through three case studies, the second main part of the body, which is about genuine religious devotion to God and how that's displayed in this greater righteousness, doing your righteousness in secret, not in front of people. And then, now we're in the third main part of the body, which is about money, how you relate to money is a mirror of how you relate to God. And then how you relate to people in

difficult relationships where you're struggling to get along with people or issues of conflict arise and you need to figure out how to talk to each other about it. And they feel more like riddles. And actually, this passage we're looking at today, Ask, Seek, Knock, is a wonderful example because in the section that runs from chapter 7 verses 1 through 12, here's the sequence of ideas. It begins with the famous, Don't Judge, so that you're not judged. Then you get the parable about the log or the beam and the speck in the eye. Then you get the short riddle about the holy pearls and dogpigs. And then you get, ask and you shall receive. Seek and you will find. And it's about asking

your Heavenly Father and He'll give you the good things you need. And then you get the golden rule. And you're like, what? Like, how do those hold together? What does prayer have to do with relating to difficult people in situations of conflict? Because I get how Don't Judge actually connects to do to others what you want them to do to you, the golden rule. But what's Ask Sikh Naak doing in there? So that's what we'll talk about. What does it mean to read a paragraph that could technically be somewhere else? Be somewhere else. It could be in the prayer section.

Yeah. Yep. But instead, it's situated right here in this set of teachings about conflict resolution. So, as usual, maybe we'll just start by reading it aloud. I'll let you do the honors of reading Matthew chapter 7, verses 7 through 11. And this is your translation? Mm-hmm. Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks will receive

and the one who seeks will find. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or what person is among you who, when their son asks for bread, will give him a rock? Or when he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? So then if you are all bad, but you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more your father in the skies, he will give good things to those who ask. There you go. Yeah. On one level, it's really not complicated to get the big idea.

God wants to give you what you need, like a father wants to give his child what he needs, and he wants you to ask him for what you need. and he wants you to ask him for what you need. Mm hmm. Yeah. That's exactly what he means. And now there's a lot of actual creativity and subtlety in the three parts to this, and the images and language that's used, but the main idea, it's not hard to get it. So Jesus related to the God of Israel in an interesting way, because there were many times where Jesus said and did things that felt like a claim that He was the God of Israel or that He was an embodiment or invested with the God of Israel's authority.

But then He spoke to and addressed or talked about the God of Israel as my Father, and then our Father when he talked to his disciples. And so, this is one of those where the distinction between the Son of God and God the Father is being emphasized in the teaching. There are sometimes when Jesus walks on the water, and that whole narrative is about Jesus doing something, controlling the waters the way that Yahweh controls the waters in the Old Testament. It's emphasizing the divine identity of Jesus. You're saying He's not here saying, ask of me and I will give to you. Correct. That's right.

And that would be more identifying with the Father as an extension of the Father. That's right. So here, Jesus, His human identity, which is in sync with His divine identity, and the gospel authors don't explore that philosophically. They do it through narrative and hyperlink into the Hebrew Bible. But for this teaching to land, the idea is that Jesus is the presence and person of Yahweh, become human, who invites us into the intimate love connection that He shares with the Father and that He invites us to sit with Him and learn how to relate to His Father as our Father. And so prayer is like the key way. So what this shows us is that this is a teaching where Jesus invites His disciples to take

on the view of the Father that He holds and to relate to the Heavenly Father the way that He does. And I think that, for me, that's at least the most helpful way to get in to the stickiness of the questions that open up here when we say, okay, so, father, I would really love that pay raise next month when my, whatever, my annual review for my job comes up, or I would really love to be healed of this arthritis or for this person I care about this problem to be solved, right?

So that's the question that opens up is like, if I can address the Father like Jesus did, it seems like it worked for Jesus more often than it does for me or you or, and that's the stickiness. We need to explore that. But I just want to name that this is a teaching where Jesus invites us to take up His position and to join Him alongside Him in addressing the Father. So we talked about the design of where this fits in this third block of teachings. And it connects to where there's another long teaching

about Jesus saying, look at the birds, don't worry. God is generous. So this is a matching teaching to that one. And as you talk, it feels like it's the same idea of Jesus has this view of God that's pretty bold and he's inviting other people into that view. Yeah. To think about the world and God in a way that's very counter.

And the first one it's, hey, God will take care of you. He cares about you so much. Don't worry. Yeah. Look at how God's taking care of creation. Like, He loves you so much. Yes, yes. And in that, there's the stickiness of, well then, why do I have arthritis? Yeah. If I matter more than birds, what does that mean for the bird that I saw ran over,

like, on my road today? Right? And if God cares about me more than the flowers, why do the flowers wither and fade and so on? That's right. And why do I still have arthritis? So the same stickiness is here. Jesus is inviting you into this worldview where He's like, God loves you so much. Like just, you're His child and He just wants to give you good gifts.

And He wants you to ask for those good gifts. And he's inviting you in to see the world that way with him, but then that leads to the same kind of sticky situation. That's right. So let me just real quick fill in that little detail he just raised. The ask-seek-knock thing that we just read has been designed to link back to a teaching at the end of the God and Money teachings. So there were four teachings about God and money. Now there are four teachings about God and difficult relationships. And both of them end, the fourth teaching in both of those sequences are riddled with identical language.

So at the end of the God and money teachings, that fourth one, he says, you know, if this is how God cares for the birds, or if this is how God clothes the flowers, how much more will He clothe you? And he says here, if this is what a father does for his sons, how much more your heavenly father? Oh, he says, who among you can... Add one hour to his life? Yes, yeah, by worrying. And here it's, who among you would give a rock or a snake to your kid? In both teachings, he talks about your heavenly father knows what you need.

So ask him, your heavenly father knows and he'll provide for you. And then even the word seek. The nations seek after all these things, but you seek first the kingdom of God. And then here it's ask and then seek, knock, and the one who seeks they will find. So these are little details that speak to how Matthew has arranged the teachings so that this fourth item is sort of like the God and money, it's pretty challenging stuff. And this is Dale Allison, a biblical scholar who first pointed this out to me in his commentary, that the God and money teachings are really kind of sticking it to you. Like you got two choices. It ends it with a very generous upbeat, but your father loves you. He'll provide for you. In the next section, he moves on to

difficult relationships. And once again, it's pretty stiff challenges. Like, hey, every time you look down on another person and judge them, you will be held to that same standard yourself. So be careful. The speck in the eye, you're like, oh gosh, I'm scared. And then he ends it with a, but your father cares about you and he wants to give you what you need. It sounds like you're saying Jesus is doing like a good cop, bad cop kind of thing. Or he's, it's more, I think it's skillful, like, oratory. It's like, you kind of bring the hammer, you know? Yeah. It gets kind of tense.

Yeah. And then you soften it with some things that remind you about what is true about the character of God. And that the choice before me between God and money is high stakes, but like- God wants to take care of me. God wants to take care of me. How I treat other people? Super high stakes, but like, God wants to take care of me. God wants to take care of me. How I treat other people, super high stakes. But listen, your father wants to give you what you need. But now we're to the puzzle, which is, what is prayer?

Why is this thing about prayer, ask, seek, knock? Why is this the concluter for his teachings on navigating difficult relationships? Okay, and to turn up the volume of the puzzle, the previous section about God and money, ending with Jesus saying, God will take care of you, don't worry. Yeah. That makes complete sense. It lands really well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Very intuitive.

Where in this section, where it's, hey, don't judge people, take the log out of your own eye, and then, hey, ask God what you need. It actually leaves you kind of puzzling, what's the line between those two? Yeah, so it's a wonderful example of biblical literature as meditation literature. You can take any sentence or paragraph and depending on what you connect it to,

you can walk away with different nuances of meaning from the same paragraph. So if you read just the paragraph by itself on prayer that you just read, you walk away with a really generous, hopeful invitation to prayer. And that is very much worth meditating on, and we will in a few minutes. But when you view it as the concluter to three teachings on how to navigate difficult relationships and conflict resolution, all of a sudden, it becomes a natural kind of concluter of like, hey, it's hard to relate to difficult people. You're probably one of those difficult people yourself who's more judgmental than you want to let on. Okay, so you want to connect this first as a concluding idea to how hard it is to have relationships with people.

Yes, yes. It's so hard to not judge people. It's so hard to figure out how to help someone who has a fault when we ourselves are screwed up. Yep. Yeah. There are some times where if you've searched your heart and you have someone in your life and you can genuinely see like they would so benefit from this thing that I can see in their life. But you know it would only fracture the relationship, it would jeopardize trust, and they're not gonna value or receive anything

you have to say. Don't put your pearls out there. So all of that just stacks up. You're like, it's complicated. Super complicated. Yeah, because this isn't like something you have to deal with once a month. You have time to be like, okay,

here's a time to make that decision. Should I judge this person? Should I withhold? How do I deal? This is like happening actively throughout the day. Probably like if we're really aware of how much we're judging people, it like happens like every moment.

I think I mentioned this. I watched someone walk down the street and I just started judging the person, what they're wearing, the way that their posture, whatever, it's just like, automatic. Yep. So that's people we don't know but that you see. And then there's people you do know and then you're trying to weigh in like, well, when should I say something? If you feel like something needs to be said, should I? Maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should.

Maybe this is an opportunity for me to figure out what's wrong in my life. But now I'm constantly doing that and when should I address someone else? Totally. A A few years ago when one of my sons was having some challenging relationships in his elementary school class. Yeah. It starts early, right? Right. And I don't know where he got this.

At some, I don't know. I don't remember where he heard it, but he talked about how he just wanted to go live in the hills and be a mountain man. Yeah. To just be with animals and not have to deal. You don't have to judge them. They're not gonna judge you. Totally. And I realized like, oh, this is one of the places his imagination goes, is if I just wasn't around people, I wouldn't have to deal with this stuff on the playground and in my classroom. And that's a sentiment I think many people resonate with, is I just reduce the number of people in my classroom. And that's a sentiment I think many people resonate with,

is I just reduce the number of people in my life. And that is a way of alleviating the problem. Whether it's probably not the healthiest, but it's one way. So, another way is given all that complexity, this teaching about prayer then takes on a real specific application. In other words, it's been placed here, I think, because it could just be in general about prayer then takes on a real specific application. In other words, it's been placed here I think, because it could just be in general about prayer. It could be praying for the rays, praying for my health. Praying for healing, right? But when I read at the end of these four teachings, my mind is on...

Praying for my relational conflicts and all the stickiness in the relationship. Yeah. And for wisdom for how to navigate, is this a beam in the eye situation or is this a Holy Pearl pig dog situation? Is this a time for restoration? Is this a time for boundaries? Is this a time for forgiveness? Is this a time for self-reflection? What am I supposed to do? What's the next right, wise thing to do? Got it. And that can get really exhausting if you're trying to figure that out, especially on your own wisdom.

That's right. That's right. So, check this out. This is fascinating. The teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are echoed throughout the New Testament. Paul, you know, alludes to them, sometimes quotes from different phrases. But the one book of the New Testament that is saturated with the actual language and imagery of the Surma-Rama is the Letter of James more than any other. It's really fascinating. So James acts like one of the earliest commentaries, so to speak. The Letter of James reflects someone who has all of Jesus' teachings memorized, but puts them on reshuffle, remix. So, in James chapter 1, there's this, I'll just read it, James chapter 1, verses 5 through 7, Let him ask of God who gives to all generously without reproach and it will be given.

Ask, gives, and it will be given. But he must ask without doubting. So here now he's remixing, he's kind of working his own theme. He's adding his little commentary. Yep, because he's got a theme about this in chapter one. For the one who doubts, it's like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect that he'll receive anything from the Lord. And that goes into a long thing. It's awesome. But then he concludes this whole line of thought coming back to the giving and asking, it was verse 17 where he says,

every good thing given, every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights in whom there's no variation or shifting shadow. So he's taking for granted this portrait of the Heavenly Father as the giver of good gifts to his children. You just ask and you'll receive, but he's inserted the idea of wisdom as the main thing you ask and hope to receive. Isn't that interesting? So here's the little nuance. What I'm saying is I think the fact that James takes up the teachings of the ask, seek, knock teaching of Jesus, but then-

Matthew 10 He's like, what's the main thing we're asking for here? Exactly, yes. He says it's wisdom. Wisdom, yeah. Wow, okay. Which, if you think through Matthew chapter seven, don't judge. Well, that requires a lot of wisdom, because sometimes you do need to make a judgment call. How do you know which one?

The beam in the eye, how do you know? The pearls in the pig dogs, how do you know? Ask Seek-Knock if your father wants to give you good gifts. Anyway, it's really cool. It seems like James understood. Now, whether he knew the sermon in the form that we have it, you know, because James is one of the earliest letters in the New Testament. Matthew 10 Oh, he might not have had Matthew's collection. Matthew 11 Yeah, it predates the shape of Matthew as we know it. And so that's an interesting question.

But either way, it's just fascinating this saying about prayer got reframed as a request for wisdom. What's also just so fascinating about that is how it's connected to the theme of wisdom in the Bible. How do you know what the next right thing to do is? How do you know good from bad? How do you get wisdom in that whole theme of asking God for it instead of taking it on your own terms? Yeah. This is Genesis 2 and 3 stuff, Eden story, discerning, how do you discern wisdom?

You take it or do you trust that you'll receive it in the Father's generous timing? Yeah, because you can look at these teachings, okay, don't judge, all right, take the log out of my eye, all right, pearls before swine, okay, got it, now I'm going to make the call. Yeah, totally, yeah. You can use these teachings to give yourself the ability to choose good from bad. Yeah, yeah. Where it seems like where this lands is like, hey, you feel all that tension? Mm-hmm. The reaction isn't now every decision that comes before you take on your own terms.

Yes, yeah. It's now go to God and ask for wisdom. Yeah. OK. This is so rad. The Bible is so rad. So, in other words, you could read the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus giving like a new- A new handbook. A new handbook. So, don't judge or else you will be judged. Okay, got that one. Yeah. I'll do that. So, the parable about the speck in the eye, okay, get the main point there. Okay,

do that. I solved the riddle about pearls and pig dogs. Yeah. Okay, do that. But then the question is not, but each of those sayings doesn't really arm you with a formula for what to do in a relationship. It shapes you into a certain kind of person so that you begin to have intuitions of generosity and humility. But at the end of the day, how do you know when to draw a boundary, when to be generous, when to make a judgment call, when to not, when to say something, when to close your mouth? And at that point, there's no list of rules that could ever tell you what to do. Yeah, there's no handbook large enough to give you...

Yeah, to address every situation every human will ever face in relationship to other humans. I love the thought experiment though of that book existing. And how you would even reference that book. You're like, okay, so... I'm judging this person because I think they're greedy. What, do you turn to greed in that section of the book? Yeah, yeah, okay. When judging greedy people. Okay, greedy people. Was this person greedy in money or in time? Okay, we can move to time.

All right. Have you been greedy in time recently? Yes or no? Okay, now go to this chapter. Yeah. Yeah. And then you find the bullet point, you're like, confront the person. It's like a big flow chart. Yes, huge flow chart. It's like cosmically-sized flow chart. Yes. No, there are some times when I think many of us feel like that's what we wish we had from God. And Jesus here would respond, what you're asking for is wisdom. So that

you just know you have been over practice and discerning good and bad and discerning wisdom over many cases and turning to God in prayer. I guess the reason why prayer is so important here is because wisdom will flow out of a deep interpersonal dependence on the presence and voice of God speaking to you in day-to-day life and situations. And you can be informed by the wisdom of the laws of the Torah or His teachings, but most of life will be made up of moments where I have to discern what the right thing to do is. And Jesus, I think, is saying here then the way that you do that is to keep a live conversation going with your generous Heavenly Father. It's a

very powerful point to be made. And you know one of my favorite passages connected to this theme is about Solomon. Yes. And how God says, hey, ask for anything and I'll give it to you. And Solomon asks for, well, we say he asked for wisdom. He asks for a listening heart. A heart that listens. A heart that listens.

That can discern between good and bad. That can discern between good and bad. Yes, yes. And then God summarizes like, you just asked for wisdom. Good job. Yeah. And that's exactly the right thing to do. And I'm gonna give you so much wisdom.

Yep. You're gonna be the wisest guy. And all the stuff you didn't ask for. And I'm gonna give you all the stuff. Well, just an influence the wisest guy. And all the stuff you didn't ask for. And I'm going to give you all the stuff. Well, just an influence. Yeah, and all these things will be added to you. Yes. Yeah.

Whoa. Yeah, man. That's right. Great observation. Wow. Okay, I need to think about that one. Okay, keep going. You were going down on thought. That's it. I mean, what is the thing when you get to a passage like this, you're like, okay, I get to ask God for good gifts. Our mind goes to the rays. Yeah, totally. The Tesla. Or even long life. Yeah. Or the healing for my hip or for this person I care about.

Yeah. That's right. Things that we really, that would be amazing to have. And there's a whole spectrum of kind of fool-hearted requests, just these are honest, beautiful requests. But the thing that God desires for us to ask for, He's just waiting for us to ask for, is wisdom. Yeah. Yes, it is interesting that Jesus brings in a snake into this little parable, he tells. He brings in the snake. And food. Okay, you're referring to the little parable he does after he gives the asking knock, because

you're going to get it. Yeah. Okay, and quick, just notice about that. Notice the progression of actions. So asking is like we stand right here and, hey, John, can I have whatever? Seeking is kind of the next step in the initiative. Because it's not just verbal. Now it's like, I'm going to go looking for this thing that I want. And then knocking. It's a persistence? Yeah. You could almost say like, I give you a call and ask. And then I'm not sure what you said, so I'm going to go to your house.

And then I'm knocking the door. There's a little progression there. So that's the first part. Then he tells this little parable about... A kid asking his father. A kid asking for... Yeah, interesting, he doesn't specify, he just says what person among you, or what one among you.

So he doesn't specify mother or father. Oh, okay. But it's about a parent and their son. And the son comes and says, I'd like some bread. It's a funny image of you going, oh, you're hungry for some bread? Here's a rock. Here's a rock. Yeah. And obviously the point is no one would do that.

You would have to be a really cruel person. Yeah. Exceptionally cruel. Yeah. It probably has happened, but that's right. Yeah. So it knows it's about a request for food. Need for food. Yeah. And we've addressed that. Yep. And then it's about... Food again.

...a quest for food. And then we get as a snake. Or when he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake? And so what you flagged was, why did he choose snake? Yeah. And what he's going to contrast the words good and bad. In the last thing, if you all are bad, but you know how to give good gifts to your children, even that reflects some meditating on the garden narrative. So if you all are bad and a mix of good and bad, but you know how to give good gifts, how much more?

You have at least that much wisdom. Yes, exactly. You know enough, you can discern good from bad enough that you're not going to treat your kid that way. Yeah. Yeah. How much more you're Heavenly Father. What's also powerful here is that what Jesus is saying is that our moral intuitions are a reliable indicator of the character of God. Interesting? That is interesting. In other words, you just, there's this basic sense that humans have and morality traditions and

taboos can't have blurry outer edges from culture to culture. They can get warped. Yep, and then get distorted. But for the most part, there are some universals to a human intuition about what is the good. And Jesus really doubles down on that when he says, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Well, totally, yeah. Or just later. We'll go there next.

But what he says here is, the average human knows without needing to be told if they have been able to participate in reproducing and having a child, they know how to, they just naturally want to give good, do good to their offspring. How much more your heavenly father? That intuition is to be trusted. He's just saying, come on, you know how you would treat your kids. How much more so? Your heavenly father. And it's that sliver of intuition you have of good and bad. Yeah. Like is in full blossom. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. With your heavenly father. Yeah. You're seeing it in black and white. He's seeing it in full color. That's great. It's great. Yeah.

Yeah. So just so happens, it's about discerning between good and bad about a child's need for food and not a snake. Pete Yeah. Jared And you're like, oh, that's so full of, that's a little Garden of Eden play right there. Pete Yeah. Jared Good job, Jesus. Pete Did you give Jesus a gold star now? Jared That's dangerous. Yeah, I guess I would hope he gives me a gold star. So anyway, yeah, asking for wisdom. Now, it doesn't say the word wisdom anywhere in this teaching. You only would get that,

I think, from the flow of the three teachings that came before and then from the Eden hyperlength. And then you go to James and that's what James saw in this teaching, I think, which is really cool. Yeah. I think, which is really cool. Yeah. So, I think one other thing to emphasize while we meditate on this is to, you know, maybe take an honest look at the bold claims made about prayer and asking God for what you need here, and then how that can be difficult to square with our lived experience sometimes for some people. Yeah. It's just good to acknowledge that.

Because I can ask God for wisdom and then still be confused. Yeah. I remember being in youth ministry at skate church. I've only been a Christian a few years at this point. And I remember I led a junior high Bible study for junior high skateboarders. It was my first like Bible teaching role, junior high skateboarders. And I remember reading James. We went through James because what's so great? It's so practical, not too complicated, although there's some deep wells in there. And I remember an eighth grader, I remember it distinctly, him coming one week,

and he had a tough home situation with his parents, you know, were divorced and didn't get along and he was back between their homes. And I remember we talked, went through James and I remember him coming and saying, I prayed for wisdom and God didn't answer my prayer. Like I want to know what to do in the situation and he experienced it as God didn't give me what I asked for. So what do I do? I thought it was so interesting. But I think that's, as the years have gone on, that's a very common experience. And that's just wisdom, much less other things. There are about half a dozen sayings of Jesus about prayer that raise this

exact same issue. So, it's just good to recognize them. Maybe I'll just sample a couple. So, Matthew chapter 18, again, this is verse 19 of chapter 18, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. Wow. Quite a formula. Totally. Where two or three gather in my name, there I am. So, I guess I should really make sure to pray with a prayer partner. Because if one, I mean... Yeah. And if you're looking for some sort of divine loophole, you know?

Totally. Just get a second... Just get someone else to ask for that Ferrari with you. Yeah, that's right. Get a buddy. Matthew 21, 22, if you trust God, you will receive what you ask for in prayer. This is connected to, maybe James got his not doubting stuff here. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for sure James is riffing off this. Which is interesting, I've been in many scenarios in local church settings where people are praying for something, often something that's really beautiful and good to pray for, and they don't see any results or the fulfillment. And so what they do is begin to doubt the genuineness of their prayer. Oh, okay. It must be that I'm not trusting. Yeah. What's worse is other people making that conclusion about somebody else's prayer.

Oh, that didn't happen for you? I guess you don't have enough faith. So that saying of Jesus can throw you for a loop. There's a whole bunch in John, like John 14 verse 13, whatever you ask in my name, that I will do so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. So there's a few more, but you get the flavor. So these are not actually complicated sayings of Jesus to understand. They're very clear. And where the challenge comes is in many people's experience. And I think the saying of Jesus about ask, seek, knock raises that issue. Because it makes you wonder, well, I guess it doesn't feel like I've received any good gifts recently.

In fact, I've had a bunch of bad things happen. So, maybe God doesn't care about me, maybe I don't have enough faith, maybe I'm making all this up. The sayings of Jesus raise this very natural question for many people's experience, and you can't ignore it. I think it's something you've got to face and work through somewhere along the journey of following Jesus, is his teachings about prayer that actually do match many people's experience. I know lots of people who really live on the edge of prayer and faith and risk, and they experience a lot of answers to their prayers. But many people don't experience following Jesus that way, and I think it can be a challenge.

Yeah, and if we connect it back again and say very strictly, let's just focus on wisdom. And let's even focus on wisdom with just relational issues. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna happen a lot that you're in a situation, and I've, yeah, I've been here, where it's just complicated relational issues and the stakes seem high,

the complexity is just so nuanced and rich and my own intuitions are torn sometimes and you just feel like, I don't know what to do. And then it's not like you're getting this divine word saying, here's the next thing, do this thing. Actually, sometimes that does happen. Sometimes there's just this clear moment where you're just like, oh, that was God.

Now there's some clarity, but that's not always gonna be the case. And you have to just kind of move forward. And in those situations, especially if you're being really bold and you're just like claiming these promises, I'm supposed to ask. I'm asking in your name.

I believe you're being really bold. It seems like you're gonna get disappointed even more often, or you're gonna be in those moments of tension even more often where you're just like, it's not happening. You were that eighth grader coming and going, didn't work. Yeah, yeah, totally. Maybe, you know, here's an avenue for this whole tangle of questions about prayer and these teachings and asking for wisdom is to remember that this is the first teaching block from Jesus in the Gospel According to Matthew. Actually, I just was working on a few of these in Matthew last week where there's sayings or words here in the Sermon on the Mount that are

going to come up again in the course of the story line. And you're going to actually watch Jesus live or act according to His own teaching. So when He talks about, turn the other cheek, if you're slapped on one cheek, turn the other, that word for slap only occurs elsewhere in the gospel, in the passion narrative when He's getting slapped by the guards. in the Passion narrative when he's getting slapped by the guards. Or if someone forces you to go one mile, go two, and then when Jesus is carrying his cross, that word forced to go is very rare in Greek. And it only occurs elsewhere when Jesus is carrying the cross and he stumbles, and so the soldiers force this guy Simon to carry it on his behalf, who becomes a disciple. So, just saying that there are things in the sermon that get hyperlinked later.

So, think about the times elsewhere in the gospel narrative where Jesus is faced with difficult relationships and relationships of conflict. So, for example, when he calls Matthew the tax collector, and then all these people start judging him for inviting this tax collector, and then he goes and he holds these feasts. He doesn't like yell back, he responds in these kind of clever riddles and parables to invite people in, he's very generous to them. So it's sort of like he doesn't judge them the way they're judging him. But then later in the gospel, when the Pharisees in Jerusalem really like turn up the heat on Jesus, he just lays into them seven times over pronouncing woes of destruction upon them. But he's very clearly making a judgment call and judging them. And so how did Jesus know the difference? When to not judge and when to judge.

And there's these themes throughout the Gospels where Jesus is regularly retreating to pray in the wilderness or by himself overnight. And so there's this portrait merging of Jesus actually models for us what it looks like to work in difficult relational environments, sometimes making one choice, sometimes making the opposite choice. How do you know? It's this habit of praying a lot. And what did he like pray about? I often wonder, and I wonder if it's like, okay, I'm going down to that town tomorrow. I know that that guy's there or whatever, or those people were going to be there and give me wisdom. And now this is my imagination, but I feel like that's Matthew's trying to lead us to imagine that way by showing how Jesus lived out his own teachings.

That's been helpful for me as a way to think about these prayers. So I wonder if there were times when maybe what this eighth grader was experiencing as unanswered prayer was a moment where Jesus was leading him in a moment of greater dependence on the presence of God and trusting that his intuition that God will guide him and that what this kid may have thought was God will just zap my brain and tell me what to do or there's a law, right? Or it will be very clear, whereas in fact much of life is not clear and you are making decisions in a much more dynamic way, which is why prayer becomes so important. Yeah, I kind of hear maybe you saying, if we try to turn this into a simple transactional

like thing, I ask, then I get the wisdom. Then it often gets disappointing. But if we take it out of this idea of the transaction and we bring it into this metaphor of communion and connection, like what was Jesus doing when he was praying? And what does it mean to live by the Spirit? What does it mean to be filled with God's wisdom?

It feels like that's more of a mode of being. And asking isn't necessarily then in this situation, a transaction, asking is a mode, asking is a way. And so when Jesus is saying, ask and you will receive, it's like, be the kind of person who is asking and seeking and knocking. It's like this invitation into a daily, even hourly posture.

And it's through that posture that that communion will begin to happen and the wisdom might begin to happen. Because I guess I just try to imagine, like, what is it so to think about communion with God so that His wisdom gets infused through you? Yeah, yeah, that's right. How remarkable of a thing are we talking about? That's wild.

Yeah. And to be the kind of person where that happens regularly, like, you're tapping into, you're like- Yeah. Yeah. Connect to the source. You're in deep there. You meet people sometimes who are just working on another level. Yeah. This is the ideal of the wise in the biblical story, like in the Proverbs, the sage, the wise. Or as Jeremiah will say, the God's Torah, in the Proverbs, the sage, the wise, or as Jeremiah will say,

the God's Torah, His instruction is written on the heart of the new covenant. That's it, man. Matthew 4 You're not the kind of person who's got the checklist and you're like, okay, ask for the thing, God, where you at? That doesn't, like, to be in that deep and to be that connected to the source is like, it feels like the checklist mentality is gone. You're like, you're in some other, you're connected in another way. Yeah, maybe the parenting metaphor, and I just, I know I use lots of parenting metaphors, but it's my life right now, but- Jesus used one.

There are, that's true. That's true. But there are multiple times when there's been something, a theme with one of my sons, and we've talked about it a lot. And it's something happened so many times that we get into a situation and I don't need to say the thing. Like they know. They know. Because we've been together for years now and they don't need to ask me. They can ask me, but my response is gonna be, you know, buddy, you know what to do here in this situation. It happens all the time in conflict resolution, especially like between my two boys.

And all I have to do now is to say, okay, wait, hold on guys. And they instantly know. We've been here before. Yeah, and maybe it's like that, where if it's truly a relationship, maybe the fact that I don't get a bolt of lightning answer prayer of like the formula for what to do in this difficult situation, perhaps that's God's way of saying like, you know.

I wonder if it's like that. It's not treating God like this divine query database. Yeah, or an Oracle. Yeah, or Oracle. Or like a chat GPT. You're like actually relationally connected to the wisdom of the universe. That is just a different category

that doesn't flatten out the tension. I guess what this does to me is it helps the tension of like, why is it not working? Not be like, okay, well then I got the formula wrong or Jesus got the formula wrong. I don't have enough faith. Don't have enough faith. Yeah, that's all about the formula. I didn't enter the quarter correctly. I didn't like- It was just me. I didn't invite two or three.

Yeah. Versus, oh, this tension exists because I'm doing something so profound. So complex. So complex. I'm connecting to the divine wisdom of the universe who is a creative, all-powerful being who loves me. Yes, got it. Yeah, that's the profound thing. And I am facing a complex situation, which means there's no formula. I need to be grounded in the wisdom and presence of God.

And that's the way forward. That is surely how Jesus lived. And these sayings reflect the mindset of somebody who existed in that way. Just grounded, trusting, trusting that he wants to give. Yeah, that's worth a lot of meditation and prayer. Okay, so when I think about all of this, this posture of prayer, this asking and seeking and knocking, the thing that comes into my mind is just how relational it all is. It's not this, you do this, then I do this. Like a transaction. Right. It's not this you do this then I do this. Like a transaction? Right. It's not like that. It's I want you to come to me because I love you. I care about you. You ask because you don't have, but I have. You seek

because you don't know, but I know. And you knock because you don't maybe trust the world or trust yourself, so you come to me and I'm here. I'm going to be there for you. You go all the way back to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and you see who he's coming to, to the poor and to the powerless and to the uncertain and to those who don't have. And he's saying, I see you, and I have this love for you. I have this relationship with you. And then he's looking at us, and he's saying, you're in the same place. I see you, and I love you.

Ask and seek and knock, and I got the same things for you. I love that image of the good Father. Thanks, Michelle. Okay, so we're about to turn our attention to the final part of this Sermon on the Mount, the short conclusion of the entire collection of teachings. But before we do, Jesus gives us His most famous teaching, a teaching that summarizes all of these ideas about living in right relationship with God and others, we call it the golden rule. Do to others what you would have them do to you.

We spend much of our waking hours searching for how to maximize the goodness of our lives. That's so innate. What if I were to begin to occupy my attention and concerns and desires, what you desire others to do for you. That as much as I do for myself, it's for others. That's next week. Bible Project is a nonprofit we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you.

Thanks for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Hisho and I'm from Japan. I manage the Japanese Bible Project Localization. This means I coordinate our amazing and talented localization team so that we can make Bible Project resources available in Japanese. My favorite thing about the work I do with Bible Project is the process of diving into the video scripts and wrestling with each word and phrase

so we can translate it well for our Japanese audience. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Bible Project is a crowdfunded non-profit. Everything we make is free because of your generous support. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Tyler, here to read the credits. John Collins is the creative producer for today's show. Production of today's episode is by producer Lindsay Ponder,

managing producer Cooper Peltz, producer Colin Wilson. Stephanie Tam is our consultant and editor, Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, Frank Garza and Aaron Olson edited today's episode. Aaron Olson also provided the sound design and mix for today's episode. Nina Simone does our show notes and Hannah Wu provides the annotations for our app. Original Sermon on the Mount music by Richie Cohen and the Bible Project theme song is by Tense. Tim Mackey is our lead scholar and your hosts John Collins and Michelle Jones.