For teachers of Lifeway’s Explore the Bible lesson of Matthew 21 for April 26, 2026. Include a suggested introduction to the lesson, text outline and highlights, illustrations you can share, discussion questions for your group, and spiritual life applications you can make. A video version of this preview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
You could make a small handout sheet with a list of different authorities in our society today, and ask your group members to rate their trust in each of them on a scale from 1-10. Some could include:
— your local police
— your doctor
— The U.S. President
— The U.S. Supreme Court
— your Governor
— national news media
— your local newspaper
— the CDC (Center for Disease Control)
— The IRS
— your local school superintendent
— NBA referees
— your kids’ Little League ump, and so on.
Then ask: “Would anyone share who you rated highest/lowest?” (You might get into some good discussions about this right off!)
(OR substitute a ???DISCUSSION QUESTION: “Can you share an authority figure today that you trust/don’t, and why?”)
Then transition by saying that today we’re going to look at the issue of authority in our study of Matthew 21 this morning.
CONTEXT:
As we continue looking at the Book of Matthew this quarter, last time in Matthew 20 we looked at Jesus’ Parable of the Landowner, and how it taught us about rewards in heaven, and that it demonstrates how “many first will be last, and last first.”
Matthew 20 then continues with Jesus telling His disciples that they’re about to go to Jerusalem, where He will be crucified, and raised up on the third day. (This is now His third specific prediction of this in Matthew: 16:21, 17:22-23, and 20:17-19.) James and John, seeing a strategic moment, ask to sit on Jesus’ right and left in His kingdom, and Jesus tells them that the servant will be the greatest in His kingdom. They then left Jericho, where Jesus healed two blind men — and now they are on their way to Jerusalem.
This brings us to Matthew 21, where Jesus enters the city by fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, “Your King is coming to you humble … mounted on a donkey.” The crowds acclaim Jesus, shouting “Hosanna.”
Then :12 says Jesus went to the Temple, and drove out those who were buying and selling, saying they had made God’s house of prayer into a robbers’ den (:13). Jesus then leaves there and goes to Bethany to stay the night, and He returned to Jerusalem and the Temple the next day. This brings us to our focus passage for this week, Matthew 21:23-32.
OUTLINE:
I. Authority Rejected (:23-27)
II. Repentance Demonstrated (:28-32)
TEXT: Matthew 21:23-32
I. Authority Rejected
:23 “When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” 24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet.” 27 And answering Jesus, they said, “We do not know.” He also said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.’”
This section begins with Jesus in the Temple again (the day after He had cast out the sellers) and He is teaching, :23 says. The chief priests and elders (“elders” is “presbuteroi” — same word as the later N.T. Bible word for “pastor” or “elder” — were members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, which had 70 members plus the high priest.) came to Him, asking “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?”
The first question we need to ask is, what are “these things” they were referring to, when they asked Him “Who gave You the authority to do ‘these things’”? Surely they were referring to Jesus’ recent controversial activities: His “Triumphal Entry” to the city, and especially the cleansing of the Temple. They were asking, why are You doing all this? Who “let” You, who “instructed” you to do this?
This actually isn’t a bad question, in itself: What is the authority behind all this that You’re doing? AUTHORITY MATTERS!
One good APPLICATION is that this is a good question for us to ask people today. In discussing issues with people, we should ask: “What is your authority on this?” Some examples:
— If someone says, “I don’t think God would send someone to hell.” Ask them: “What is your authority on that?”
— Or: “I don’t think the unborn child is really a person yet.”
— Or: “I am a woman trapped inside of a man’s body.”
We can ask these kinds of people: where are they getting that opinion? What is their “authority” for that? And of course often the answer is, they don’t have any legitimate authority for it! It’s just their own opinion “feeling.” And people need to understand that our thought or feeling is not an “authority.”
As Christians we DO have an authority: the word of God, in which Jesus clearly teaches us that there is a real hell; it describes how a baby was moved by the Holy Spirit while in his mother’s womb; it tells us that God designed us in intricate detail. These things are not just our unfounded “opinion,” the Bible has been tested and tried for centuries and found to be the reliable, powerful, source of truth and life for millions. “All Scripture is inspired by God.” (II Tim. 3:16) “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17)
So as we share God’s truth in the world as Christians, we can be confident that what we share is NOT just our own “feelings” or opinions. Rather “we have it by the highest authority” — the word of God — IF we are indeed sharing what God has given us in His word! Let’s make certain that we really are really doing that. Don’t just share your opinions; share truth based on scripture. God’s word is our authority as believers.
Now, the problem in this case — as in many of our situations today — is that the Jewish leaders had rejected the authority and revelation of God in this situation. Jesus asked that piercing question in :25, “The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” Well this got to the heart of the issue really quick — and put them in a bind (which Jesus was really good at doing!)
— “If we say ‘from heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe Him?’” Because they did NOT believe John.
— (:26) “But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet.”
So these leaders had TWO BIG PROBLEMS WITH AUTHORITY:
A. They rejected God’s legitimate revelation through John (and then Jesus)
B. They unconsciously accepted the “authority” of the crowd, and they regulated their conduct by their fear of them.
Let’s spend a few moments with each of these:
A. Rejected Revelation Leads to Further Darkness.
These Jewish leaders refused to believe in John. He wasn’t “their kind of guy.” He didn’t have the “tassels” and “phylacteries,” and other religious garb like they did. He wore camel’s hair, and ate locusts. So they rejected him. They refused to be baptized by him, and didn’t encourage others to be. The crowds followed — but not these men. They hardened their hearts against him. And importantly, this hardening had lasting effects: because John was the “forerunner” of Jesus, “preparing the way” for Him.” But since they had hardened their hearts against John, it also kept them from receiving Jesus when He came! Which teaches us that past rejection of God’s revelation can keep us from seeing more revelation from Him.
— How many people are like these leaders: they’ve rejected something God tried to show them, and now like Pharaoh they keep on hardening their hearts against anything God would show them?
— And it’s not only lost people. How many Christians today are “stuck” somewhere in their Christian life — and perhaps have been stuck there for a long time — because they have been unwilling to respond to some revelation, some truth, some conviction, God gave them in the past. And He’s not going to give them any more, until they respond that.
A good ???“Contemplation Question”?? (not necessarily for public discussion) might be: “Has there been anything God showed you, that you would did not respond to — and still to this day you have not obeyed Him in it? Do you realize that can keep you from hearing God TODAY? Just like these Jewish religious leaders you may never be able to really ‘move forward’ with God, until you receive and obey that revelation He gave you!”
Some of our class members this week may need to pray something like: “God, I have not received Your word; I have not obeyed You in some specific area of my life. Please forgive me for that. Help me to obey You in that TODAY. And give me the opportunity to hear from You, and obey You anew, from this day forward.”
The second problem these men evidenced here was the “fear of man.”
B. The Fear of Man Can Become a kind of “Authority” in itself!
They said: “We fear the people …”. “People” here is literally the “oklon,” the “multitude.” In other words, “we fear the crowd.” We fear “public opinion.” Always fearing what people think, is a dangerous place to live!
Proverbs 29:25 says “The fear of man brings a snare” (“trap, stumbling block.”) That was certainly true for these Jewish leaders. They couldn’t say what they really wanted to say here, because they were afraid of public opinion.
ILLUSTRATION
John Newton, the former slave trader who got saved and wrote “Amazing Grace,” developed a great ministry of counseling through letter writing all over England. He wrote one pastor who was afraid of some people’s opinions and said:
“If the fear of man, under the name of prudence, gets within our guard, like a chilling frost, it nips every thing in the bud. … aim to please God and man together, meet with double disappointment, and are neither useful nor respected. If we trust to Him, He will stand by us; if we regard men, He will leave us to make the best we can of them …”. (John Newton to the Rev. Thomas Bowman, Letters of John Newton, Josiah Bull, ed., pp. 122-123)
Fearing the opinions of other people can devastate our walk with God, and our effectiveness for His Kingdom. But many of us fear the authority of “the crowd” today?
— We fear the peer pressure of our friends
— We fear the social pressure of others.
ILLUSTRATION
Carl Trueman in his book Strange New World (a very enlightening book on the social and philosophical causes of the sexual revolution) writes about what Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has called the “social imaginary”: “the way ordinary people imagine their social surroundings” and what is acceptable opinion and morality. This “social imaginary” is keeping many Christians fearful of sharing Christ or Biblical values in public scenarios today, because they know (or “imagine”!) that it will not be acceptable to public opinion.
— We fear the business or financial pressure of not making a sale, or getting promoted.
All these “fears” exert a powerful authority and keep many people from saying or doing what they might otherwise.
ILLUSTRATION:
John G. West, in his book, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, writes about a young Christian biologist, who criticized Darwinism, and promoted how our biology reflects Intelligent Design. But then he says this thoughtful young man was offered a “plum position” with a group with “massive funding.” Ever since, this scholar has quietly “disassociated himself from his intelligent design connections.” What happened? The peer pressure of his Darwinian associates, before whom he did not want to appear as a “backward Christian,” and perhaps the funding involved, “changed his mind.”
???DISCUSSION/APPLICATION QUESTION???
??? Could you share an example when you didn’t say something, because you were afraid of what people might think???
(Maybe we don’t want to say, but most of us could — especially in these days of Trueman’s “social imaginary.” The fear of man has shut our mouths — just like it did the Jews that day.
So these Jewish leaders rejected the authority of God through John and Jesus, and sadly, submitted to the “authority” of the fear of the crowd. We need to make sure we don’t follow in their steps.
The good news is, if we have failed in these areas, our disobedience to God here need not be final, or fatal. He is a “God of second chances,” as we see in this next section:
II. Repentance Demonstrated (“A Tale of Two Sons”) (:28-32)
:28 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ 29 And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They *said, “The first.” Jesus *said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.”
As we have seen Him do previously, Jesus makes His point with a parable/story. This time it’s about a man who has two sons (literally “children” but the story makes it clear they’re both sons). He asks each of them to work in His vineyard, and they have two different responses:
— Initially the first says he will not, but “afterward he regretted it.”
“Regretted” is the Greek Bible word “meta-mello”: “After/to care, be concerned with.” It is similar to “meta-noeo,” the Bible word for “repentance.” There CAN be more of an element of “feeling” in the present word, and not as much of real repentance (for example this is the word used of Judas when he regretted his actions, but he did not truly repent) BUT that is not always the case, and we clearly see that the son in this passage DID repent. He said no at first, but then he “regretted/repented” what he said, and did indeed do his father’s bidding.
— Then Jesus said the father went to the second son, who had a better response (at least at first!). He told him he would — but then He said, he did not, in actuality, go.
Then Jesus asked them in :31, “Which of the two did the will of the father?” Of course the answer was, the first son, who repented and eventually obeyed. Jesus then applied it to these Jewish leaders: telling them that tax collectors and prostitutes would get into the Kingdom before they did. And He explains it in :32, that although they were supposedly “religious” men who’d said they’d obey God, they rejected His messengers when they came (like John, and now Jesus Himself). But the tax collectors and prostitutes — He used them as examples because they were considered to be some of the worst sinners in Israel — even though by their lifestyle they had initially said “no” to God, now because they were receiving the message of repentance through John and Jesus, now they were “changing their mind” and saying “YES!”
(By the way, by saying “tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you,” I do NOT believe Jesus was indicating that these Jewish leaders would get in. I think He was saying they will NOT get in! These “horrible sinners” might at least repent and be saved — but the pride of these “religious” leaders will keep them out. It may be somewhat akin to saying, “Yeah, you’ll get in when hell freezes over.” In other words, they will NOT get in.)
So this was a very specific incident in Jesus’ day, describing two very specific kinds of people. HOWEVER, it still applies to us because these same two types of people exist today as well!
A. There is a kind of person, like the first son, who starts off disobeying God, but then repents.
???DISCUSSION QUESTION???
“How do we know that the first son in this story truly repented?”
(Because he went to work in the vineyard! He didn’t just SAY he repented; in fact the text doesn’t tell us that he SAID anything at all, does it? It just says that “he regretted it and WENT.” The bottom line is, we know he truly repented because WE SEE IT IN HIS ACTIONS.
This applies to us today too, right? How do we know if a person has genuinely repented of their disobedience to God today? The same way, right? — by their ACTIONS!
+x This is what John the Baptist preached about in Matthew 3:8, when some of the Pharisees and Sadducees were coming for baptism. He told them: “Therefore bring forth FRUIT in keeping with repentance.” In other words, don’t just SAY you’re repenting, SHOW it by the change in your life.
???DISCUSSION/APPLICATION QUESTION???
“Can you share about someone famous, or someone you know, who started off NOT following the Lord, but who later repented and followed Him?”
(EXAMPLE/ILLUSTRATION: I think of Franklin Graham:
“Franklin Graham was a self described bad boy who rebelled against his father’s saintly ways. … He smoked, drank, got in fights and admitted trying marijuana. His family sent him to Stony Brook, an elite Christian boarding school on Long Island, New York. He dropped out and was later expelled from another school, LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, for keeping a female classmate out all night past curfew (“The Prodigal Son Comes Home”). … Franklin was not a bad boy rebel for forever, on a trip to Switzerland in 1974 with his dad Billy talked to his son about the direction of his life. Looking him straight in the eye he said “I want you to know that your mother and I sense there is a struggle for the soul of your life, and you’re going to have to make a choice.” These words troubled Graham as he continued to travel Europe with a bottle of scotch in one hand. One night in a hotel room in Jerusalem, Franklin’s life changed. He describes his epiphany in a passage from his 1995 autobiography, “Rebel With a Cause: Finally Comfortable Being Graham.” That night instead of going to the bar for a couple of beers, he found himself alone in his room reading through the gospel of John.”When I came to the third chapter, I read not just that Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be born again, but I also grasped that Franklin Graham had to be born again as well” (“The Prodigal Son Comes Home”) (hopeonfranklingraham.weebly.com)
Franklin Graham is a perfect example of what Jesus describes here: a son who at first very rebelliously said “NO!” — but who later regretted it and obeyed. And he has been serving the Lord ever since!
You/your group can share your own examples. AND you might point out, that to a greater or lesser extent, this is the testimony of ALL of us. Some are more dramatic than others, but the truth is that ALL Christians have admitted that we have rebelled against God, but we heard the gospel and repented and said “yes” to Him when we were saved.
This could be a good place to share an invitation for someone to respond to the Gospel. Share that if you have been like that first son, and you’ve been saying “no” to God, will you also today be like that first son (or like Franklin Graham) now in his REPENTANCE? Like they did, change your mind about your disobedience to God, repent of it, receive Christ’s forgiveness — and then like him, go and show that you really mean it by the way that you obey what God says from this time forward.
B. There is also a kind of person, like the second son, who says they’ll follow Christ — but then they really don’t!
These people today are like the Jewish leaders in Matthew 21, who supposedly, by their “profession” as priests and leaders, had committed themselves to follow God. But their disobedience contradicted their confession!
People are just like that today, too, aren’t they? Especially in the “Bible Belt” areas of the country where many of us live, many individuals “confess” Jesus as their Lord & Savior. They’ve SAID to Him, “Lord I’ll follow You.” But the truth is, their life and their obedience does not back up that confession.
Remember how we talked just a minute ago, about how we knew that first son really repented? By his ACTIONS. What does that tell us about people today, who SAY they are going to follow Jesus, and then don’t? Jesus doesn’t give much hope for their salvation, does He? Remember His words in Luke 6:46, “Why do You call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’” but do not do what I say?” The word “Lord” means “master, boss.” If Jesus is really our Lord & Master, it won’t be something we just “say,” but something we SHOW in our lives by our obedience. If the obedience, the life change, is not there, it doesn’t give much hope that the person who made the “profession” of Jesus as Lord was sincere. In fact they’re just like the second son of Jesus’ parable here — and like the religious leaders that He condemned.
How many of us know someone like this, who has SAID to God just like that second son, “I will follow You” — maybe they make a profession of faith, maybe they get baptized — but then they never really DO obey Him? Their life never changes.
???DISCUSSION/APPLICATION QUESTION???
You might even ask for class members: “Can you share a personal example of someone you personally know who is like this — they ‘professed’ Jesus, but since that time their life hasn’t really followed Him?”
(We all probably know someone like that. Cheryl & I were talking literally two days ago about a relative of ours, who Cheryl said she remembers “making a profession of faith” when he was in the second grade. But now his whole adult life has been spent in disobedience to God, outside of church, addictions, broken relationships. Supposedly he’d said “yes” to the Father — but like the son in this story, he didn’t really obey.)
If they’re honest, many of our members do know someone like that. It may be painful to mention some of them, because they may be our spouses, or children, or siblings, or grandchildren. But we know them.
Sometimes we hopeful Baptists might look at people like this and say something like, “Well, ‘once saved always saved’” — but the truth is, they’re just like the son in Jesus’ story here: who SAID he would do his father’s will, but he DIDN’T. And remember Jesus applied this analogy to these lost Jewish religious leaders. If an “empty profession” like this characterizes our life, or the life of someone we know, we need to admit it is very likely a sign that this person is lost, and we need to be praying for their genuine salvation.
(You might include a time of prayer for the repentance, or salvation, of people that you/your group know like this, either at this point, or the close of class today.)
CONCLUSION:
NOW HERE’S A WORD OF HOPE that you could end with: neither of these two kinds of people or their stories are “final,” until death:
— If a person has said “no” to God originally and even all their life, they still have the chance until the day they die to repent, and say “YES” to God, and be saved!
— And similarly, the person who supposedly said “yes” to God but never showed any signs of really meaning it, still has the opportunity until the day they die, to genuinely repent and follow Him, and show it by their fruit.
BOTH kinds of people can still repent and genuinely be saved — if they will do it. So we should pray for people we know who are like this. But we need to take their condition seriously. Both of these kinds of people must truly repent, to have hope to enter the Kingdom of God!
(Then you might want to consider closing with that time of prayer for lost/straying people on your hearts.)
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