Israel's Formal Rejection of the King, Part 2 (Matthew 21:18–22:14)

There are few more offensive concepts to the sensibilities of our contemporary culture than that of submission—the act of knowingly, willingly, intentionally, and repeatedly placing ourselves, our wills, and our preferences under the authority of another. It is considered a distasteful mark of powerlessness, hopelessness, shamefulness, and oppression. Success, according to many, means having others answer to you. True liberty is found in the freedom from ever having to bow to anyone. Truth is something created, not something objective to which we must yield. Ultimately, submission is something to be avoided and condemned. But the Bible teaches that it is actually through submission that God promises prosperity, liberty, joy, truth, and life. It’s actually when we lay ourselves down that we get to pick it all up. This apparent paradox is what many in the 21st-century fail to understand and, as we’ll see, what many in the 1st-century didn’t understand either.