The Gospel of Matthew Volume I Quotes

“works is dead. Martin Luther had a friend who felt about the Christian faith as he did. The friend was also a monk. They came to an agreement. Luther would go down into the dust and heat of the battle for the Reformation in the world; the friend would stay in the monastery and uphold Luther’s hands in prayer. So they began that way. Then, one night, the friend had a dream. He saw a vast field of corn as big as the world; and one solitary man was seeking to reap it – an impossible and a heartbreaking task. Then he caught a glimpse of the reaper’s”
― William Barclay, New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew 1

“face; and the reaper was Martin Luther; and Luther’s friend saw the truth in a flash. ‘I must leave my prayers’, he said, ‘and get to work.’ And so he left his pious solitude and went down to the world to labour in the harvest. It is the dream of Christ that we should all be missionaries and reapers. There are those who cannot do other than pray, because of physical limitations, and their prayers are indeed the strength of the labourers. But that is not the way for most of us, for those of us who have strength of body and health of mind. Not even the giving of our money is enough. If the harvest of men and women is ever to be reaped, then every one of us must be a reaper, for there is someone whom each one of us could – and must – bring to God.”
― William Barclay, New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew 1

“THE WAITING HARVEST Matthew 9:37–8 Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is great, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest.’ HERE is one of the most characteristic things Jesus ever said. When he and the orthodox religious leaders of his day looked on the crowd of ordinary men and women, they saw them in quite different ways. The Pharisees saw the masses as chaff to be destroyed and burned up; Jesus saw them as a harvest to be reaped and to be saved. The Pharisees in their pride looked for the destruction of sinners; Jesus in love died for the salvation of sinners. But here also is one of the great Christian truths and one of the supreme Christian challenges. That harvest will never be reaped unless there are reapers to reap it. It is one of the blazing truths of Christian faith and life that Jesus Christ needs us. When he was upon this earth, his voice could reach so few. He was never outside Palestine, and there was a world which was waiting. He still wants the world to hear the good news of the gospel; but they will never hear unless others tell them. He wants all men and women to hear the good news; but they will never hear it unless there are those who are prepared to cross the seas and the mountains and bring the good news to them. Nor is prayer enough. Some people might say: ‘I will pray for the coming of Christ’s kingdom every day in life.’ But in this, as in so many things, prayer without”
― William Barclay, New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew 1

“Jesus was wise: Jesus knew the human heart; and Jesus knew well that if the man did not follow him at that precise moment, he never would. Again and again, there come to us moments of impulse when we are moved to the higher things; and again and again, we let them pass without acting upon them. The tragedy of life is so often the tragedy of the unseized moment. We are moved to some fine action, we are moved to the abandoning of some weakness or habit, we are moved to say something to someone, some word of sympathy, or warning, or encouragement; but the moment passes, and the thing is never done, the evil thing is never conquered, the word is never spoken. In the best of us, there is a certain lethargy and inertia; there is a certain habit of procrastination, there is a certain fear and indecision; and often the moment of fine impulse is never turned into action and into fact. Jesus was saying to this man: ‘You are feeling at the moment that you must get out of that dead society in which you move; you say you will get out when the years have passed and your father has died; get out now – or you will never get out at all.”
― William Barclay, New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew 1

“This petition very wisely reminds us of how prayer works. If people prayed this prayer, and then sat back and waited for bread to fall into their hands, they would certainly starve. It reminds us that prayer and work go hand in hand and that when we pray we must go on to work to make our prayers come true. It is true that the living seed comes from God, but it is equally true that it is our task to grow and to cultivate that seed. Dick Sheppard, the famous pacifist and preacher, used to love a certain story. There was a man who had an allotment; he had with great toil reclaimed a piece of ground, clearing away the stones, eradicating the rank growth of weeds, enriching and feeding the ground, until it produced the loveliest flowers and vegetables. One evening he was showing a pious friend around his allotment. The pious friend said: ‘It’s wonderful what God can do with a bit of ground like this, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ said the man who had put in such toil, ‘but you should have seen this bit of ground when God had it to himself!’ God’s bounty and human toil must combine. Prayer, like faith, without works is dead. When we pray this petition, we are recognizing two basic truths – that without God we can do nothing, and that without our effort and co-operation God can do nothing for us.”
― William Barclay, New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew 1