Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Matthew 20:20 - 20:20
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
To sit on the right hand, and on the left, is to have the most eminent places of dignity and honour after Christ. This the mother might be encouraged to ask for James and John, because of their alliance to Christ, and because Christ had admitted them with Peter to be with him at his transfiguration. However, the rest of the disciples hearing of this ambitious request of the two brethren; and being as desirous and in their own opinions as deserving of the same honour, they had indignation against them.
Whence note, That none of the disciples did imagine that Christ had promised the supremacy to Peter, by these words, Tu es Petrus, Thou art Peter; for then neither James nor John had desired it, nor would the rest have contended for it.
Observe here, 1. The persons making this request to Christ, Zebedee's children, that is, James and John, by the mouth of their mother. They spake by her lips, and made use of her tongue to usher in a request which they were ashamed to make themselves.
Observe, 2. The request itself, Grant that these two may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand.
Where note, How these disciples did still dream of Christ's temporal kingdom, (although he had so often told them, That his kingdom was not of this world) and ambitiously seek to have preference and pre-eminence in the kingdom. See here how these poor fishermen had already learnt craftily to fish for preferment. Who can wonder in seeing some sparks of ambition and worldly desires in the highest ministers of Christ, when the apostles themselves were not free from aspiring thoughts, even when they lay in the bosom of their Saviour? Ambition has all along infested churchmen, and troubled the church, even from the very first original and foundation of it.
Observe, 3. Both the unseasonableness and unreasonableness of this request made by his disciples. Christ speaks of his sufferings to them and they sue for dignity and great places from him, in optimis nonnihil est pessimi; the holiest, the wisest, and the best of men, in their imperfect state, are not wholly free from passionate infirmities. Who would have expected that when our Saviour had been preaching the doctrine of the cross to his disciples, telling them that he must be mocked, scourged, spit upon, and crucified for them, that they should be seeking and suing to him for secular dignity and honour, pre-eminence and power? But we plainly see, the best of men are but men, and the none are in a state of perfection on this side of heaven.