Matthew 14:1–12

People can know the truth, but still refuse to change their ways

This is a sad story. A man knew that God’s word was true. But he was too weak to receive it.

Here, ‘Herod’ was Herod Antipas. He was a son of Herod the Great. His mother was Malthace. She was wife number 4 for his father. Herod Antipas was ruler of Galilee. He married a daughter of Aretas 4 from Nabatea. But Herod had sex with a married woman. (The word for this kind of sex is ‘adultery’.) She was the wife of his half-brother, Philip. Then Herod married her. (Her name was Herodias.)

John the Baptist continued to tell Herod that his actions were wrong. So Herod put him in prison. (Read Matthew 14:3–4. Read Matthew 3:1–6 too. It will remind you about John.) Herod was not obeying three of God’s commands. First, he had sex with a married woman. (God forbids this in Exodus 20:14.) Then he divorced his first wife. And he did not have a good reason to do that. (Read Deuteronomy 24:1–4.) He also married his brother Philip’s wife. (Compare Leviticus 20:21.)

Of course, Herodias hated John. She had tried to make Herod to kill him. But Herod was afraid to do it. So, she was ready for any chance to kill John. She would even use her daughter. Salome was her daughter from her first marriage. In the ancient world, a princess would never dance in public. Such dances were usually sexual. But this is what Salome did. She was only a young woman at the time of this incident. (She was probably between 13 and 15 years of age.) But she still agreed to her mother’s wicked plan. Later, she married a relative too. She married her great uncle! (He was the brother of one of her grandparents.)

In Matthew 11:1–13:52, Matthew recorded much of Jesus’ teaching. There are two subjects in these chapters. They are faith and unbelief (lack of faith). A new section of the book began in Matthew 13:53. It continued to Matthew 18:35. In these chapters, there is a record of two main things. There was Jesus’ teaching. But also there were his miracles. But first, there were two separate incidents. In both incidents, people’s reactions to Jesus were not good. There was the unbelief of the people in Nazareth. This is in Matthew 13:53–58. Now, in Matthew 14:1–12, there was Herod’s reaction.

The Bible does not prove that God exists. Psalm 14:1 says that only the fool denies it. Herod knew that John had messages from God. (Read Mark 6:20.) He knew that John spoke the truth. We know that Herod had a guilty conscience. Herod thought that Jesus must be John. He thought that John had come back to condemn him (Matthew 14:1–2). He had listened to John. He had protected him. But Herod still hated John. Other things were more important to him than peace with God.

There were at least three reasons for this. First, Herod was afraid of what his friends might think of him (Matthew 14:9). He was also very afraid of his wife. Also, he was afraid about God’s demands. This chapter described his typical way of life.

But these pleasures did not last for Herod. Herodias persuaded Herod to do something that was stupid. He asked Caesar (the chief Roman ruler) if he could have the title ‘king’. But, an enemy of Herod sent a message at the same time. He told Caesar that Herod was planning to fight against Caesar’s rule. So Herod did not get the title. He had to go away to Gaul. (This is modern France.) He lost everything except Herodias. She showed that there was something good about her. She chose to stay with him.

Questions

• Have you met people whose reactions are the same as Herod’s reaction? What sort of people are they? How can you help them?
• Some people are ‘almost believers’. These people can use up much of the church’s resources. How should the members of the church deal with them?
• There can be strong sexual images in art, films or books. Can these images ever be right? Some people say that they can be all right. How can you know which ones are right?