Hey I'm Matt, this is the 10-Minute Bible Lever Podcast, and I want to talk about a cop who I keep seeing around Rapid City, South Dakota, who I think might be the only actual cop in Rapid City, South Dakota, because I've never seen any other ones. I can't prove it one way or another. And because summer of 2020 and I'm talking about cops, probably somebody's like, oh, he's gonna make a point about this thing or that thing, or like, nope, I'm not. Nope, nope, I'm just not. You're all gonna be disappointed. Whatever you want me to talk about, it's not going where you think. So here's the deal. I'm gonna call this guy Officer Nice Guy, because I think he's probably the nicest person in the world and also potentially omnipresent. I'm not sure on that. I am a very happily married heterosexual male, but I'm just gonna tell you straight up, this is a very, very handsome young man, this cop here. And he just goes around being handsome and helping people and de-escalating potentially difficult situations. First time I ever encountered this guy, I was with the family and we need directions somewhere. And I was like, there is a cop, and he looks friendly. I'm just gonna ask him. So we pulled up alongside the guy, and sure enough, he was real friendly. We talked about some stuff and we talked about Rapid City and the Black Hills and all the things that are great. And I was like, okay, bye. And his directions were great. We went exactly where we meant to go. Every turn was correct. Nice job, Officer Nice Guy. So we do that, and then later on we're downtown, and Camilla sees kind of an awkward social situation where some people are being a little bit drunk and a little bit belligerent. And uh, well, who shows up to respond to the call? But Officer Nice Guy. And he walks over and he knows the guy's name, and I'm just making stuff up. It's like, hey, Larry, come on, man, how you doing? Everything okay? And Larry's like, I don't know, Officer Nice Guy. It's been really it's really hard. He's like, Come on, man, we'll take care of you. And I don't know where Officer Nice Guy took Larry, but my guess would be that it was like to the local soda parlor to sip a strawberry shake out of two straws in the same container. It was amazing. And then, same exact thing, downtown, kind of a belligerent, difficult situation. Who should show up? Officer nice guy de-escalates everything, everybody's cool, everybody leaves happy. Then I take my family out to eat, and the dude has gotten a little bit liquored up, and he passes out in one of the patio seats out in front. And people are kind of like walking by and shaking the dude on the shoulder, but they don't really want it to get weird. So they tried, but they couldn't wake the guy up. Who shows up? Officer nice guy. He comes over and he wakes the guy up, and the guy just comes up swinging. He's furious. I'm standing right there. So I'm like, whoa, I might need to be helpful here. But nope, Officer Nice Guy gave me the I got this bro hand of I got this broness and calmed the guy down. The dude's like, I'm gonna sue you, punch you. And Officer Nice Guy's like, no, you don't need to do that. Come on, man. I know who you are, Mike. It's all right. Hey, you just can't sleep here right now. Let's go over here. And the guy cooled off and he went over there. Then I'm driving down the street the other day and I see a car stuck in the middle of four lanes of traffic. I'm like, ah, this is the kind of thing that I stop for. But then I see somebody's already there helping this old lady get her car pushed out of the way. And who is it? Officer nice guy. And there are probably a ton of upper level observations I could make about this guy, but the biggest one that I want to make is that he's in this really high-pressure situation where he's always getting hounded by people. And I know not all cops are as good at their job as this guy, but you know, he's got to bear the brunt of the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with the job. But people get after him, these difficult situations come up, and dude is just nice and compassionate when everybody else there seems to be interested in resolving the uncomfortable tension. He's like, all right, let's look at the problem. Let's get this thing sorted out. I'm very, very impressed with this dude. And I hope that if I get injured in a horrible traffic accident or if people are trying to mug me, that Officer Nice guy will be the one who shows up to solve the thing. Because I feel like we're all just gonna go out for burgers afterwards and it's gonna be fine. Likewise, when we get to Matthew chapter nine, Jesus has been having, quote, the news about him spreading throughout all the region. A chapter back in eight, when he heals Peter's mother-in-law, and then the next few sentences are all about just all kinds of people showing up with all kinds of problems. And it gets so intense that Jesus takes a little boat ride for a while to get away from it, I assume, to get away from it. This pressure is mounting on Jesus all the time. And it's coming from people who really don't like him and are yelling at him and belligerent, I'm gonna sue you, you're wrong by everything, I'll knock you out. It's also coming from people who really like him but just want stuff from him there because they're perpetual takers. And the pressure is also coming from people who've just waited their turn in line, but they got a really serious problem. They can't even get into the room to talk to the guy to see if they could work something out. And so they end up getting lowered through a ceiling or bursting into a party and just yelling, My daughter died, come fix it, or sneaking up to touch the hem of his garment. He's under constant duress in an impossible situation that, spoiler alert, is gonna lead to his public grisly execution and impalement with a Roman spear. And what we're seeing right now, you can't divorce from that violent end to the story. It's this kind of pressure from all angles that moves the story in that direction that ends up with Jesus on a cross. In addition to the Christian, would have to say, the sovereign work of God and the willful decision of Jesus to go to the cross because he wanted to complete the redemptive plan and fulfill the law and solve all the problems and fully realize the kingdom and all of that other stuff that we're talking about as well. So in Matthew 9, 27, after having just borne the weight of this entire city and all of their needs in a very draining way for the last who knows how long, Jesus is going on from there and he gets accosted by some people who need his attention right now. More pressure. As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, Have mercy on us, son of David. So he's just getting hounded and he's getting heckled. And it does look like, again, we're getting one of those chronological cues from Matthew that this is happening right on the heels of the big giant party with all the questions and pestering, that then got interrupted by the dude whose daughter had died. And the walk to take care of that dude's daughter gets interrupted by the lady who's bleeding, and then Jesus goes in and he heals the girl, and then all of the mourners and flute players have to clear out and they got to go find somebody else who's dead to make a few bucks off of. And the news is spreading all over the place. And as Jesus goes on from there, maybe from Capernaum, but as we'll see in a minute, the language indicates that he is probably still in town here. But more likely from the incident we just got done hearing about, people are already on him again. And they're doing this weird kind of heckling thing. Okay, now, this is where my little likewise analogy kind of breaks down because this isn't totally heckling, like the person who's belligerent and intoxicated and applying pressure to Officer Nice Guy and everybody else in his vicinity. These people are blind. So I don't really know what the strategy would be because I don't think they had like the beepers in Capernaum that lets you know when you can cross the street or where people are going. These guys are just guessing, and I think they get the vibe or hear the hubbub that Jesus is passing by again. And so they just start indiscriminately yelling out toward the middle of town square, which I think really that's probably the best way to describe it, near Peter's house and where the docks would have been and where the synagogue would have been, somewhere in there. These guys are just hanging out and they're yelling at Jesus. I would get, I think, tired of this. I don't know. I've never been famous. I don't know if I'd be any good at that or not. I suspect I probably wouldn't be particularly good at it, but Jesus is pretty good at it. He bears the burden nicely. But at the same time, verse 28 gives the impression that Jesus was like, yeah, no, whatever, I'm going somewhere right now. I can't fix your thing right at the moment. Because it says, when he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him. That's kind of an odd way to phrase it, actually. Uh, this is an NIV, which is what I usually use, but honestly, I was expecting that verse to read differently. In other translations I've looked at, the language here is more like when he had gone into the house with a definite article. That house, they came in after him. I don't know, maybe the ESV or something has it that way. Actually, you know what? I'm gonna hit pause and I am going to go fumble around with the Greek for a couple of minutes here and come back and tell you what I think it actually says. One sec. Okay, I'm back, and I'm just gonna be honest with you. There is a lot of time that elapsed between a second ago and right now because I'm not very good at Greek and I really do have to fumble through it hard. All right, what I'm seeing is that it seems like a pretty valid translation to suggest that Jesus has gone into like the house, his house, the house where he's been staying, Peter's mother-in-law's house. And the language to me, it looks like, could be validly translated that these guys just busted right in. Like two blind guys just followed Jesus into somebody else's house, which isn't like Chad Kelly at Von Miller's Halloween party dressed up as Woody, drunkenly staggering into somebody's house, and then being fended off with a vacuum cleaner hose, kind of ugly. But it's still weird. I mean, the household unit was a little more of an open thing at this point in history. So it's not quite as shocking as what you might be picturing, but it's still very, very bold for a couple of dudes who just asked for your attention for whatever reason, you didn't give it to them. I'm gonna give Jesus the benefit of the doubt on this one because of him being like the son of God and stuff. But whatever the case, and however offensive or not offensive this might be, they just bust right in, and this thing apparently is happening right now. And what's interesting is that rather than Jesus being like, no, call officer nice guys, these guys are in here, or getting all belligerent and angry back at them, or calling in some muscle to resolve this threat or this BE problem that's going on. He instead indicates that apparently he knew that these guys were following him, he knew that they were coming, and he was waiting until they were inside. And he says, Do you believe that I'm able to do this? Oh, what an interesting question. It wasn't like, well, tell me more about your problem. What exactly is the deal? I mean, they said, Have mercy on us, son of David. Well, what exactly does that mean? That's interesting as you go through Matthew. I mean, it opens with the idea that Jesus is descended from David. This idea of him being the son of David is all over the place. In Matthew 15, 20 something, there's the passage that I keep hinting at and alluding to that we're going to get to eventually about Jesus on the road trip way up north that later in his ministry when he comes across this Canaanite lady who shouldn't really get who Jesus is at all, but she does and she nags him and badgers him and is like, hey, you know, son of David, have mercy on me. I don't know if that's the exact quote or not. And Jesus responds favorably to that. Or Luke something-something, maybe Mark 10 are the corresponding passages where Jesus goes to Jericho, and I don't think in Matthew it names the guy who he meets, but there's the two blind guys, one of whom we know is Bartimaeus, and they're saying the same thing. You know, the son of David, they have this idea that the messianic descendant of David comes with this mercy, this healing, this making right of things, which is a correct assumption. I mean, that's definitely everything we've seen in Isaiah and all of the prophecies of the Old Testament point toward this messianic character doing exactly stuff like that. So it really is a gesture of faith for them to be calling out to the Son of David and expecting that mercy would come with that. It was a correct biblical understanding of how this ought to work if he actually is the Messiah. So, in a way, this heckling, this badgering, which is a harsh way to describe it, but I think you know what I mean, is almost a dare. It's like if you actually are, this should resonate with you. How is that different from what the devil does in the temptation? Like, well, you know, if you're this, you should be able to do that. I think the difference is in the motivation. I think the difference is in the people are getting Jesus fever here and they realize the uniqueness of the moment and the unique opportunity that comes with that. So Jesus' response is not to say, like, leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone, but clearly he wants this thing to de-escalate a little bit or happen somewhere private. Several of these miracles have happened out of the public eye. So maybe this is the intent. I don't know. We'll get some clues here as we get toward the end of this little passage. But again, his question is, do you believe that I'm able to do this? So he knew exactly what they needed. I mean, come on, it's not that hard. They're blind. I'm sure it was visibly evident that they were blind. And I think a great place for us to pick it up tomorrow is by looking more closely at this little verbal dance that happens on the front end of all of these miracles. You notice, I mean, there's just not much messing around. There's not a lot of red letter here where Jesus says a bunch of stuff and gives a lengthy speech and then somebody else does. I mean, the only time we get anything like that so far is the stuff about, you know, the paralytics, so that you may believe that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. And even that is really not very long at all. So we'll look at those dance steps verbally and consider what it means and how the original audience would have interpreted those dance steps and this healing. And then we're gonna look a little bit more closely at why Jesus, this sounds really dark. Oh well, I'm already committed now, baited them into chasing him into the house. Why did he want this miracle to happen in private? And why do we know that he seemed to have wanted this miracle to have happened in private? So a lot to break down here still. We'll just pick it up where we left off, Man Yana. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.